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silveradeptMore tasks completed. More information gathered. More yet to do. Oy. Kind of hoping there’s a break in the action somewhere where I can get really ahead on things. If not, oh well. I’ll figure it out... eventually.
Parking by robot garage. Might be the new choice for space-cramped places. If the garages here in the university town operated on the same principle... there still wouldn’t be enough parking, but it’d be closer.
AlterNet has a look at some books with a common theme: they're quite good at building up the appearance of Muslim terrorism as driving the plot, only to turn aside and show that Catholics or Hindus or other religions are behind the planned “big boom” terrorist act. At the last moment, all the evidence that seemed to be so obvious is shown to be planted. And the reader, who has been going along with this premise of Muslim terrorism, is caught with their pants down, as it were. The books remind us that Mr. Kaczynski, Mr. McVeigh, and quite a few others are domestic terrorists, even with university educations. Thus, one should be more inclined to catch terrorists, wherever, whomever they are, rather than pointing a finger at an ethnic or religious group and saying “Them. They’re at fault.” Not to say that there probably aren’t many who claim to follow Islam that would like to see violence wrought on America, just that there are potentially just as many Christians who would do the same if given the chance.
CBS talks about terrorism and oil in the same breath... and actually connects the two! Now that the President appears to have given his blessing for the media to talk about alternative energy in the light of reducing oil dependence, now buying petroleum gas means that you are probably funding terrorists. So develop and buy alternative fuels for democracy! Welcome to the party, guys - you’re a little late, of course. If the terrorism hook works on the American populace, though, maybe we’ll see some progress made on developing good fuel-efficient, alternative, hybrid, and pure electric vehicles. Perhaps helping that end along, Tesla Motors has opened an R&D center in Ann Arbor. That’s exciting for a lot of the engineers at the University, I’m sure. Additionally, a hydrogen fuel cell that can be throttled up and down has been developed. Variable power output is a grand thing - might make it better or easier to build fuel-cell driven motors.
Regarding oil stuff, either Chevron or ExxonMobil will be building a $3 billion U.S. petrochemical facility in Iraq. Even if the war wasn’t about the oil, the oil companies stand to benefit greatly from it.
The Administration, however, may be taking a page out of Matt Groening’s playbook, floating a plan to blot out some of the sun to counteract the effects of global warming. And from there, the comment wars begin, where all it takes is one person to deny that warming is happening and to accuse all the scientific research being done on it as junk.
Suggesting that art critics on occasion stretch the truth one way or another, the Guardian presents a guide to critic-speak. Apparently, all the critics want to do what Simon Cowell does, they just would get sacked if they do.
Much like hamsters (spot the reference!), someone found out that putting a dish towel in a microwave is a very bad idea. Luckily, the house wasn’t destroyed when the towel caught fire. And the other good lesson learned here is not to follow anything said on the television blindly. This applies to politics as well as home sterilization techniques.
It’s an unmarked, undated essay, and as with most of the things here, I don’t actually know the credentials of the person that wrote it, but David P. Barash suggests that monogamy is not the natural impulse of humans and primates. He tempers that observation by saying that monogamy is still a good thing to go for, just that it may not be the natural impulse of people. I don’t know how true it is, but I’m not sure how far such a statement or argument would fly in the courts or in a battle with a spouse.
My last remarks for the night are reminders that computers do not solve all things, and cannot be relied on to solve all things. They do not yet have the judgment as to what may or may not be in accord with company policy. Our case study? Wal-Mart's website sells yaoi. Well, sold yaoi. No, wait, still sells yaoi - and yuri, and other forms of pornography. (Actually, those units have also been pulled from the website, as of this writing.) I don’t know whether more will be found or not, but this is clearly a case of Wal-Mart trusting their filters a little too much. You can’t keep out all the smut unless you know how the smut is described. Plus, I just find it funny that yaoi and yuri would sneak past the filters, because not everyone knows what they are. Anyway, rule is that you should always keep a human on hand to monitor things and try some new keywords. Or you could just let a blog or two mock you in the right way until someone notices and removes the pieces from the website.
G’night, people. Hoping for some rest.
Parking by robot garage. Might be the new choice for space-cramped places. If the garages here in the university town operated on the same principle... there still wouldn’t be enough parking, but it’d be closer.
AlterNet has a look at some books with a common theme: they're quite good at building up the appearance of Muslim terrorism as driving the plot, only to turn aside and show that Catholics or Hindus or other religions are behind the planned “big boom” terrorist act. At the last moment, all the evidence that seemed to be so obvious is shown to be planted. And the reader, who has been going along with this premise of Muslim terrorism, is caught with their pants down, as it were. The books remind us that Mr. Kaczynski, Mr. McVeigh, and quite a few others are domestic terrorists, even with university educations. Thus, one should be more inclined to catch terrorists, wherever, whomever they are, rather than pointing a finger at an ethnic or religious group and saying “Them. They’re at fault.” Not to say that there probably aren’t many who claim to follow Islam that would like to see violence wrought on America, just that there are potentially just as many Christians who would do the same if given the chance.
CBS talks about terrorism and oil in the same breath... and actually connects the two! Now that the President appears to have given his blessing for the media to talk about alternative energy in the light of reducing oil dependence, now buying petroleum gas means that you are probably funding terrorists. So develop and buy alternative fuels for democracy! Welcome to the party, guys - you’re a little late, of course. If the terrorism hook works on the American populace, though, maybe we’ll see some progress made on developing good fuel-efficient, alternative, hybrid, and pure electric vehicles. Perhaps helping that end along, Tesla Motors has opened an R&D center in Ann Arbor. That’s exciting for a lot of the engineers at the University, I’m sure. Additionally, a hydrogen fuel cell that can be throttled up and down has been developed. Variable power output is a grand thing - might make it better or easier to build fuel-cell driven motors.
Regarding oil stuff, either Chevron or ExxonMobil will be building a $3 billion U.S. petrochemical facility in Iraq. Even if the war wasn’t about the oil, the oil companies stand to benefit greatly from it.
The Administration, however, may be taking a page out of Matt Groening’s playbook, floating a plan to blot out some of the sun to counteract the effects of global warming. And from there, the comment wars begin, where all it takes is one person to deny that warming is happening and to accuse all the scientific research being done on it as junk.
Suggesting that art critics on occasion stretch the truth one way or another, the Guardian presents a guide to critic-speak. Apparently, all the critics want to do what Simon Cowell does, they just would get sacked if they do.
Much like hamsters (spot the reference!), someone found out that putting a dish towel in a microwave is a very bad idea. Luckily, the house wasn’t destroyed when the towel caught fire. And the other good lesson learned here is not to follow anything said on the television blindly. This applies to politics as well as home sterilization techniques.
It’s an unmarked, undated essay, and as with most of the things here, I don’t actually know the credentials of the person that wrote it, but David P. Barash suggests that monogamy is not the natural impulse of humans and primates. He tempers that observation by saying that monogamy is still a good thing to go for, just that it may not be the natural impulse of people. I don’t know how true it is, but I’m not sure how far such a statement or argument would fly in the courts or in a battle with a spouse.
My last remarks for the night are reminders that computers do not solve all things, and cannot be relied on to solve all things. They do not yet have the judgment as to what may or may not be in accord with company policy. Our case study? Wal-Mart's website sells yaoi. Well, sold yaoi. No, wait, still sells yaoi - and yuri, and other forms of pornography. (Actually, those units have also been pulled from the website, as of this writing.) I don’t know whether more will be found or not, but this is clearly a case of Wal-Mart trusting their filters a little too much. You can’t keep out all the smut unless you know how the smut is described. Plus, I just find it funny that yaoi and yuri would sneak past the filters, because not everyone knows what they are. Anyway, rule is that you should always keep a human on hand to monitor things and try some new keywords. Or you could just let a blog or two mock you in the right way until someone notices and removes the pieces from the website.
G’night, people. Hoping for some rest.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 03:38 pm (UTC)