I survived my talking - 21 May 2008

I learned something very important these past two days: Book titles that titillate will get the most reaction out of the target audience. And the talks reinforced something I already knew: Trying to get the interest of middle school students is very difficult, if you gauge “interest” by whether they respond to questions, or even simply look interested in what you have to say. So, I’m hoping that I don’t do any worse with the rest of my visits.

From thence, to the news. Al-Maliki troops enter al-Sadr's city. This latest attempt to unify the country could go well, could end in firefights. We’ll see what happens.

To whet the appetite for lies, damned lies, and statistics, people believe their chosen candidate will achieve their great Iraq goal. If that goal is “Victory”, whatever that moving fencepost means, then there is confidence in Senator McCain. If it is “getting troops home safely”, there is confidence in Senator Obama. Seems pretty pedestrian, until you jazz it up in language like “49% of people think Victory in Iraq is possible, but only if we elect Senator McCain”. Then it’s a perfect partisan partisan. When coupled with an article about a Taliban commander escaping from German forces, playing up the fact that the Germans were not allowed to fire except in self-defense, a CNS news bit that says "Iran will be sorry for thumbing their nose at the U.S.", Joe Lieberman trying to score quick points by painting Youtube as a place where terrorist content runs unfettered, and boy howdy, electing someone who’s going to be “tough” looks better and better, doesn’t it?

Drawing criticism from Washington, D.C., the French government admitted to informal contact with Hamas, while alluding that several other governments also have these kinds of contacts. I guess I’m not following why this is a big deal. The government isn’t providing support to Hamas, is it?

Governments worldwide are trying to find new ways to spy on their constituents, often in the guise of preventing a concept that many are afraid of. The United Kingdom is considering implementing a database containing details of all phone calls and e-mails made in the UK, which would go handily with all the additional CCTV. (That said, at least one band puts the CCTV to their advantage, creating a music video out of that footage.) Here in the United States, our Attorney General is attempting to recruit moles to spy and inform on protesters around the Republican National Convention.

Getting into the opinion columns, Weasel Zippers shows off a serious problem unintentionally in showing that those incarcerated in Iraq and other places want to stay incarcerated so they can finish schooling. If the alternatives are so poor that the prison system holds the best education available, that’s a pretty good accusation that things are not working well in Iraq at all. Where are the instructors and schools out on the other side of the cell, to do all this necessary education work and leave jail as a place of punishment and rehabilitation? All of that aside, it’s still a poor argument - “Hey! Our jail system is so good that people want to stay in it, hur hur! Take that, ACLU!”

A couple cartoons about the great corporate item that Wal-Mart is.. first, Wal-Mart's commitment to cutting costs, and then the consequences of that commitment.

In science (SCIENCE!), some insight as to why junk food works as a stress reliever, packets that contain how to reconstruct their data rather than a complete copy of the data, which apparently uses less bandwidth and makes it easier to avoid bottlenecks, and possible health hazards of carbon nanotubes.

Our Weird Stuff department has a man claiming to have had sexual intercourse with more than one thousand cars. Yes, cars. So long as he observes proper precautions and doesn’t make love to any cars that don’t consent, then I suppose there’s no reason to be too squicked by his claim.

Last for tonight, take some looks at Japanese highway interchanges. Concrete and steel and other things all in intricate combinations that look beautiful, as well as crowded engineering feats. And then take a look at 11 tips for sticking to a schedule of regular exercise for those times when you’re not on the interchanges. So it’s time for snoozing, most definitely.

Lots done, lots more to go - 22 May 2008

There were some upgrades going on while I was at work early, so I couldn’t do as much work as I wanted to today, but I did clear off a lot of other things that didn’t require the software being upgraded. Tomorrow I should be able to dent the bigger project sufficiently to be proud of it. Then there’s a quick gig for the Fremont Phil tomorrow, and it’s time to enjoy a three-day weekend.

Starting off with something that’s funny, possibly in a schadenfreude sort of way: alerted to the presence of pepper spray in a passaenger's bag, TSA agents received a faceful of the material when the canister accidentally discharged.

And then something that may sear the eyeballs as effectively as the pepper spray: The gallery of glamorous GEM sweaters. Aie!

The international segment is wondering what is up with all these suicides in Japan that involve toxic chemicals. The latest, a farmer that ingested poison and then threw it up, contaminating and exposing the medical team, continues the trend of affecting more people than just the person poisoning themselves. Is there some desire to take others down with you right now?

Regarding Iraq, General Petraeus says September might have a troop review and reduction. I don’t expect any troop reduction at all, considering that it’s tied to security improvements.

In Austria, the European Court will hear arguments from an attempt to have a chimpanzee declared a person such that a human can be appointed as the chimp's guardian. The move came after the sanctuary that the chimp is in filed for bankruptcy, prompting others to be concerned for his welfare. I wonder what kind of ruling will be made on the matter. The first court ruling said that the chimp was not mentally impaired or in danger, the qualifications to have a guardian appointed.

Following on a story from yesterday, Google tells Senator Lieberman that there's no way they're going to start indiscriminately shutting down YouTube videos. Or, rather, that they’re not going to do anything other than what they already are - trusting users to flag objectionable content and then reviewing that for deletion. Google might be sitting on good law standing - according to Paul Ohm, a University of Colorado law professor, eavesdropping or using surveillance on users might be a violation of the Wiretap Act. That would be nice to be found to be good law - then the government would have to do all their spying themselves, and also possibly be at risk for charges.

The current administration has objected to NBC's portrayal of Mr. Bush during an interview, complaining that the news organization engaged in "deceitful editing". NBC made the complete interview available on the MSNBC website, as well as a complete transcript, but this is not enough for the administration, which wants corrections on-air and an airing of the complete interview. As Mr. Olbermann noted, when he aired the entire interview, Mr. Bush did not actually answer the question put to him, and even though the administration claims they were challenging the premise of the question in the response, there’s still nothing there that indicates any sort of answer to the question asked.

The proprietor of the LifeLock identity protection service is being sued, with plaintiffs claiming that he does not accurately represent the limits of his service, nor does he show all the fine print. Perhaps that Social Security number will turn out to be even more well-known.

With regard to the candidates for the general election, Times Watch suggests that the pressure on Senator Clinton to drop from the race stems from racial attitudes, with Senator Clinton’s clear victories among the white folk being seen as divisive and harmful for Senator Obama. As the frontrunner, Senator Obama will have to work at unifying the Democratic base if he is nominated. That said, for as long as Senator Clinton believes she has a legitimate chance of winning, she should stay in the race.

Taking the other easy way out, Marie Cocco believes Americans don't want to elect women into power, and so won’t choose Senator Clinton. For the most part, I haven’t heard a whole lot about “Senator Obama’s black, so people won’t vote for him” so far, so why is there a lot about “Senator Clinton’s a woman, so no man would vote for her”, despite obviously having quite a few supporters?

Senator Lieberman returns in this section, lamenting the fact that the Democratic Party has actually attempted to become liberal over the last few decades, and wishing for a return to the harder-line, Cold War type Democrats of years past. In his endorsement of Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman harps on the “appeasement” idea that is being spun out of Senator Obama’s willingness to hold talks with countries hostile to the United States, without requiring preconditions be met.

Murmurs and rumors of a possible Barack Obama assassination attempt, as according to sott.net. You know, as an excuse to drive the country into martial law, I can see it. But if that were the case, it will have to happen after Barack takes the election, but before he is sworn in. The further point about Senator Obama being less of a wind of change and more another fart from the corporate butthole doesn’t mesh well, except as an attempt to get people not to pin their hopes on the Senator.

And finally, as with all arguments on the Intarwebs, the invocation of Hitler has resulted in a declaration of FAIL against John Hagee from John McCain. Perhaps Senator McCain was a little too unnerved sitting in the Jesus Chair.

Getting to the opinion columns, Bjorn Lomborg suggests that the world start spending in a more utilitarian way, touting the results of his own Commission and suggesting that things like vitamins and water reservoirs be foremost in people’s minds for aid and relief, rather than unpopular wars or biofuels.

A little history, courtesy of my institution of higher learning - Uppity Women have been around in academia for quite a while. All those things that girls and women supposedly can’t do? Well, there won’t be much left, soon, that they won’t be able to do. Plus, lest anyone still think that women are supposed to be meek and mild, new research indicates estrogen may be for women what testosterone may be for men. Of course, we already knew that women also like to have power and dominance and independence in their own situations, right? Oh, and even if you have lots, trading something for sex (or sex for something) appears to be hard-wired into our brains. Which would explain the oldest profession in the world pretty well.

Gama Sutra notes how a pandemic spread in WoW, comparing it to how they spread in the real world, and concludes that simulating plagues in MMOs might help study how to be more effective fighting the real ones. From the looks of things, people behaved like they would have in an actual plague situation. So finding effective ways of spreading words, enforcing quarantines, and dealing with people who would deliberately infect others could come from the computer.

The key to these pictures is not to watch the foreground, but the background, for there are people lurking in the background that make things much more funny than they were. Of course, then there’s quite a bit of humor in the comments as they take the original poster to task about stealing images and not really hiding it all that well. For pictures where the foreground is actually important, photos of TV. Some of the captions on the people are rather interesting.

Also potentially interesting, moving from art to science, is the use and re-use of one particular picture of Gaia as seen from space. Stock imagery, made through government equipment, means free for use, I believe. Which might help with some of the reasons why its popular. In further science news, researchers are trying to work out how little resolution is needed to identify a part of an image. By doing so, the data size goes down, and objects can be identified by scanning the whole picture, rather than segments or chunks. Plus, small data makes for the ability to make lots of comparisons to known things quickly. Closing out the science department, new knowledge on what parts of the brain are involved in trust, as well as figuring out ways to keep people trusting, even when one’s partner betrays that trust regularly.

Last for tonight, Rebel Yell hits a very important point: Your religious affiliation does not automatically make you good or evil. It is what you do with your life that makes you a good or evil person. Your religion or lack thereof can be used to justify all the good and the evil that you do. So why not be a good example of the good people of your religion?

Oh, and please make sure that everyone around you is well-versed in grammar, spelling, and sentence construction. Having to read too much of poorly constructed prose makes a lot of people’s heads hurt. Seriously.

Going to bed, now, hoping that I don’t try to crush myself under my own expectations of what I will get done tomorrow.