Drifting on the Void looking in...

Astronomers Find Stellar Cradle Where Planets Form - Science Daily

One night I will dream of floating in stellar and planetary nurseries. I will see the gases and colors and I will watch and plasma and rocks meld together into new forms. I will watch this all and wake up with the colors still in my eyes. This is the dream I want.

The Typewriter Robot

Recycled Typewriter As Art - Robot Made from Old Parts - Trendhunter

Damn, they stole my work again! Those bastard DARPA guys always sneaking into my room at night, plugging into my brain and sucking out all of my ideas. Oh, I'll get them, them and their little dog too.

Urban Policing

How Tech Almost Lost the War - And How We Still Might Win - Noah Shachtman, The Danger Room

It's interesting to note the recent spat of articles on the correlation between the number of officers in a city and the decline of crime during the 90s. What was found was an increase of officers typically did not correspond to a decrease in crime. What was found was that the integration of officers into communities had a highly positive effect where neighbors became comfortable being seen with and talking to the police. Once a rapport was established, the people began to help the police find the criminal hot spots and clear them out. The same has happened in areas of Iraq and typically it hasn't taken a new sort of weapon or some high-tech gear but a simple beat-cop approach to things. COIN operations call for this kind of action but it takes time and doesn't always promise results. The primary issue in this approach is that of trust--if the people you live around don't trust you then they won't provide the information needed to root out the criminal elements. Ham-handed and humiliating tactics are the exact opposite of what is required. The successes seen in the past few month are a testament to that. To reach anything approaching a stable environment for political action to take place such tactics need continue. The goal here is to pull out of Iraq as soon as possible and have no need to return five, ten or twenty years later. Hopefully this low-tech approach will allow this to happen.

Looking Over Shoulders

No More Clintons - publius, Obsidian Wings

Now I agree with publius and Andrew Sullivan on the idea that Hilary and Obama represent two sides of the liberal establishment; one that grew up constantly on the defensive against some intellectually strong arguments from conservatives, and another that has come of age after this and are no long afraid of conservative arguments since they no longer make any sense. Publius hits on another point that I had never considered before: that had Bill Clinton not screwed up with his sex life then we might not have had a George W. Bush presidency. And for B. Clinton to inject himself into the debate over who was against the Iraq War first is even more disturbing when you consider what he might do if his wife does win the presidency. Where is the line cut between First Husband and former president asserting his authority as such? I think a Hilary win will not give the left any significant advantage since Hilary will only push the most watered-down, moderate and popular ideas without having the balls to stand up to the Limbaugh-era conservatives. When put next to someone like Obama and the rest of the Republican field, you realize that Obama has the chance to not only take on the mantle of JFK but of Reagan as well. That kind of hopeful crossover vote is what this country needs right now, not a fight between those bitterly opposed to Hilary and whoever the right picks who will need bitter opposition as well. After eight years of polarization in the body politic it would be nice to have a campaign where hope is the leading idea of a Democratic contender while the status quo is all a Republican could run on. So here's to hoping.

Sorbet

And finally, to round out the night, a three song e.p. of a light fare. The first is world music, silly but interesting beats. The second is Vampire Weekend, displaying their knack for unevenness by producing one song (other than "Oxford Comma") that I like. And finally, Zookeeper, who surprisingly keeps no zoo, but an acoustic guitar instead. Enjoy.

Quarta IV

A quick mix of a few tracks by artist Gabriel Ananda. Yes, I know, German minimalist techno isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I find it good to float on occasionally.

Menomena - Wet & Rusting

I know this song already appeared on my audio dive playlist, but it's such a beautiful song and I've finally been able to stop listening to it and come out from under the desk. More please.

Spaceballs?

Damn Dirty Apes! Gorillas Use Weapons Vs. Humans - Sharon Weinberger, Danger Room via Wired


Well, I think that just about does it for humanity. I, for one, welcome our new ape overlords.

External Factors

Horatio Alger's IQ - Matt Yglesias

I'm not quite sure if I completely agree with Yglesias on the proposition that the majority of events in your life are completely out of your control. As much as people like to think of history as a tale of the macro society and civilization, it is also a tale of the personal and individual. Many factors go into each moment and some are in the realm of your control and some are not. You can detail to a great degree which is which but ultimately you don't really know until after it has happened. Hence the reason why even experts are poor predictors of the future. It's the future and it hasn't happened yet. I'll go to my grave remembering Hunt Tooley proclaiming to one of his classes in '89 that the Berlin wall will not fall in their lifetimes. That's just the nature of history and its relation to the individual. Randomness and luck are always options.

Put That Fire Out

DHS to Firefighters: Snoop on Emergency Victims for Evidence of Terrorism - Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the dumbest government-related item I will read all day. Unless Bush starts lobbing grenades at Iran...

Inevitable?

Michelle's Move - Andrew Sullivan

Oh, I think that'll about do it for Hillary's 'I am woman, hear me roar' shtick.

Scouring the Pipes

Below is a skimmed list of the music I scavenged off the intertubes last week. Generally I use a combination of word-of-mouth recommendations, Pitchfork.com Amazon.com and the wonderful wilderness of elbo.ws. Some of it I have already purchased in album form. Some of it isn't really that new either. But until I have absorbed and processed my audile efforts into mixed-tape form we will all have to do with a general alloy of sounds.

The Dissatisfied Inventor

Technology Innovation is Driven by Deep Dissatisfaction - Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. -Florence Nightingale

Karp hits upon a fundamental element of any sort of progress from the old to the new: innovation requires someone thinking that it could be done better and then doing it. It's this rebellious attitude that drove the original developers of the internet to create a network of computers communicating with each other in the 60s and 70s to the first World Wide Web users looking for better ways to connect and use this new technology. Blaming the user will only get you so far. Yes, sometimes the user just needs to figure it out on their own, but that doesn't make up for a bad design or bad system. Firefox itself is a good example of some people saying, "Well yes, Internet Explorer works, but a browser could work better." A confusing or laborious interface will only push users further away, as it has done frequently with the Linux desktop. Once the more densely-minded programmers realize this all sorts of new technological adoptions will take place. It just takes people who are dissatisfied with what they have and believe something better is possible.

Dallas Music Eats Babies and Shoots Lasers from Its Eyes

Something I've wanted to do for a while but never had it in mind when it matter. Still, here it is, some of the better music from the Dallas area by bands (with the exception of Baboon) have all fallen by the wayside. Even so, this shows the greatness of Dallas music with it's own pecularities.

Across the Sea

Thoughts about the Writer's Strike - NaiveLondonGirl

I might disagree with her, but she does have an interesting perspective on what the WGA strike means to those who are trying to break into the industry. I support the writers but still, for someone standing on the outside wanting in, the strike might look like a bunch of punks asking for larger slices of pie. So remember all those friends of yours with scripts and skills of their own who haven't gotten their chance yet before you wholeheartedly support the WGA.

I don't see it...

How Do We Make Sense Of What We See - Science Daily

I do so love articles like this one. The interpretation of our perceptions is critical in how we respond to the physical world. One thing I wish the study had done was examine how color, or rather the interpretation of color, plays a role in assembling a logical picture of what we see.

Lotus and Hot Wheels Create Badass Concept - Gizmodo

It's only a 1:5 scale model but I still want to touch it. I can only imagine how cornering in this car is like. It's far too incredible not to build at least a prototype and let the guys from Top Gear take it out on their test track. I think the Stig could put it through its paces.

Probably Something Amazing...

Vrubel's Enigmatic Art Nouveau - Zoetica, Coilhouse

There's something dreamlike to the art of Mikhail Vrubel, an obscure Russian artist uncovered by Zoetica at Coilhouse. His paintings have a quality of Monet or Van Gogh yet the subject matter is that of mythic tales and fables. The painting of Pan seen here is closer to a ghostly Greek fable than the art of someone like Mucha or Klimt. The figures look weakened by something, as if caught in a moment of exhaustion. It's a strange sort of emotion provoked by Vrubel's work.
Each character has a fateful appearance and is posed in an anticipatory action. The movement occurs around them, but they themselves are caught in that movement. Destiny is a central theme it seems. I hope those like Zoetica are able to post more about artists such as Vrubel; those artists who fell between the great and popular. Their art had an influence on their respective movements, even if our minds remain unaware of it.

Imagined Communities of Music

The Segmented Society - David Brooks, NYT

I didn't mean to do it. It's not as if there aren't hundreds of other articles, posts and op-ed pieces I could write about. But goddamnit Brooks, if I ever catch you on the streets I'm punching you in the nose, hard. You and Steven Van Zandt. Fucking old men and their old opinions of music developed during that brief period when music came in album form. But oh no, we have to bitch and moan about how music isn't as good as it was 'back then', how the bands of today are ignorant of their musical heritage and since they no longer attempt to play for the widest audience possible they are one of the causes for the social dissolution we are witnessing. This is the tack Brooks and Zandt take; arguing that since a band like the Rolling Stones wouldn't have made it as big now as they did then there must be something wrong with the music scene of today.
Of course, this is ignoring the whole series of movements and scenes that took place between 1969 and today. Take a gander at the British Isles alone and you'll see bands that played to more people in less time than the Beatles or the Stones have. Didn't anyone bother to mention the whole Brit-Pop thing and the Oasis versus Blur competition that lead to huge sales and concerts? Or how bands from 60s, 70s and 80s continue to heavily influence the bands of today? Garage rock would not have been possible without the Sonics or the Kingsmen and how long did those bands stick around? And if longevity is the key component then shouldn't Michael Jackson be considered one of the most unifying musicians of all time?
Sub-cultures happen and sub-genres will always exist. Despite our ability to categorize a band into a particular 'sound' each band is always different. And to say that these sub-genres are isolated is more than ridiculous as the sub-genre generally forms because a few musicians, either together or separately, dabble with the sounds of another genre. Hip-hop would not exist without funk or R&B. Metal would not exist without 70s stadium rock. Rock'n'Roll itself was a fusion of blues and electric instruments with Bo Diddley.
What so infuriates me with Brooks and Zandt is their attitude that modern music requires a 'canon'--some sort of grand narrative that music teachers can impose upon students and the public consciousness. Yet, much like in history, the grand narrative is false; it doesn't exist and never did. No single line exists from one musical act/movement to the next that you can point to and act as if ignoring one point along the line is blasphemous. Certain eras have certain tones but that's more due to our need for classification than of some real, concrete effort by that era's bands. Music, particularly the sub-genres, is one of the more raw forms of culture and so it moves in odd and unusual ways. There's only so much you can say about one time period through its music since music is so close to the ground of cultural production. It's just unfortunate that Brooks and Zandt don't get this and attempt to cover up their old-man-syndrome with some argument about the unifying aspect of music when that aspect never really existed in the first place.

Proof of Concept - Updated

The Go! Team - Proof of Youth

Two months after its release I finally picked up the Go! Team's latest album. Quick summation, it's exhausting in its enthusiasm and has secured a place in my current cd rotation. Far more 80s hip-hop influenced than their last effort (Chuck D himself guests on one track), the band does expand its arsenal of genres to pilfer. 60s Go-Go music alongside Blondie-esque 80s jams work together brilliantly. Yet, the segue into 70s AM radio on the third track "My World" almost throws the whole album off beat. Otherwise, the rest of the album blast from one bombastic banger to the next with little down time (hence the exhaustion).
On the production side a better quality ends up cutting both ways. Taylor and Tsuchida's vocals are more pronounced while the cheerleader chants are a rarer commodity. Cleaner production allows the band's performance to shine yet restrains the raw emotion of Thunder, Lightning, Strike. Thus the album is distinctly different from the Go! Team's previous album without sacrificing their artistic integrity.
Proof of Youth is an excellent follow-up to Thunder, Lightning, Strike but for those of you who fell in love with the cheerleader chants the album will come as a bit of a disappointment. Still, the hooks are great, the lyrics hopping and the drums continuing their efforts to crack the firmament and extinguish the stars.

The Go! Team - Grip Like a Vice
The Go! Team - Flashlight Fight

Advertising Torture

Amnesty's Unsubscribe Me video reenacts CIA stress-position torture - Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

For the longest time I've wondered why one of the more leftist organizations with a good deal of money and connections haven't produced advertisements or short films showing the effects of declared 'coercive interrogations'. It a pretty well known thing that most Americans have no idea what coercive interrogation means nor the effects on the body. They hear the words 'sleep deprivation' and think of the times when they had to go into work early for a week. A stress position doesn't sound so bad. And waterboarding has become such a confused concept due to the rightist punditry that most people completely misunderstand the idea. I've had the urge to hire someone to climb into a filing cabinet and stay there until they're screaming to come out (this is in public of course). And I often point to the experiment a radioman did back in the fifties in which he attempted to stay awake as long as possible. By the end of it, he was seeing spiders coming out of his shoes and other such hallucinations.
Naturally, papers like the Weekly Standard, National Review, and the Wall Street Journal will cry foul and declare these aids nothing more than scare tactics by a bunch of leftist radicals bent on destroying America, the rule of law, security and puppies. Of course, that is their right (no matter how wrong they are). I simply hope that those of use who do oppose torture show these aids and make the appropriate arguments. The whole idea of 'coercive interrogation' is bunk as it often leads to false confessions weeks or months after any possible 'good' intelligence has become useless. And as for the 'ticking-timebomb' scenario, you are describing a situation where we have an individual in custody perfectly willing to die as a martyr who, more than likely, will simply lie to his captors long enough for said bomb to explode. Now even if such a scenario took place and did result in the stopping of an attack, no grand jury in this country would even let the case go to trial. It's akin to justifiable homicide. Of course proper procedures would take place but that's simply the way our justice system is supposed to work.
So next time you meet someone who knows little to nothing about 'coercive interrogation' or even supports it, remind them of the consequences and how their supposed killer arguments fall rather flat.

Guns at the Ready

Via Warren Ellis's blog is this uncommented on image from Libby Bulloff. But I have to offer one comment: gorgeous.

Quiet Genes

Is The Inability to Express Emotion Hereditary? - Science Daily

Now this I believe in since from my grandfather to my father to me we each have this amazing ability to internalize everything. Until, of course, it breaches our emotional walls and manifests as some sort of severe quirk (is alcoholism a quirk?).

What About Spam

Email is NOT Dead - Publishing 2.0

I have to agree with Scoot Karp here that email is certainly not dead. Instead, email has simply become like the telephone of old; something that has become so ingrained in our everyday life that we no longer notice is prevalence. But I email every day, along with using other services like Blogger and Twitter and text messaging. These are all form of communication that serve different purposes. But email is a one-to-one or one-to-few communication that allows for less time sensitive reading and response. It allows for a greater amount of information to pass that texting and twittering do not and it's not meant for mass consumption like a blog is.
Email also allows for image and audio communication in ways that YouTube or Flickr do not. Links to those sites are easily added but for a lot of people that kind of embedding doesn't occur to the or, for the business world, not allowed. Email is still the most viable form of communication in most ways since email allows for more verbose messages while not needing an instant response or a modified language for faster communication. So I sincerely doubt we will see the fall of email any time soon. There's no real replacement for it and it is still one of the standard-bearers of what the Internet means.

Thanksgiving Blogging

Today is a day of food, drink and a lot blogging that I'm catching up on. Some of the posts are weeks, if not months old, but I tagged the item because I wanted to write something about it. So, today I will.

A Weekend in the City

Lee Harvey's
Darkside Lounge
Lollipop Shoppe
Lizard Lounge

Eventful weekends typically aren't the planned for sort of thing. You might have in mind a few places you'd like to visit during the night, but it's difficult in the Dallas scene to know what precisely to expect, which is a bit of the fun (even if there's the occasional night where everything turns into a bust). First, house party, friend of a friend and that sort of thing. Nicely done but quiet and far too tame. Even so, it was a fine way to work oneself into the evening. Some light chatter and a beer to ease yourself to the next thing, which became a cop-infested set of the Happy Bullets, who were allowed to rock their particular style of poppy Irish-inflected music.
This is where the 'until' comes into play. Apparently some soon to be without a working car or front door asshole decided things were too loud and had the fuzz bring down the Bullets' fuzz. Lameness ensues for a few moments until decisions are made, plans developed and cars started. The Darkside Lounge, not one of my favorite places but worth going into once in a while, had what appeared to be a semi-punk, semi-hardcore show going on. While on my way in I had to quickly duck out of the way of a slew of bouncers with some poor but deserving soul leading the way, hanging from his jacket and fading dignity. Cheap beer was bought, so was a burning shot of Jameson's, and after a few songs and questions I come to find that one other person had already made his bouncer-driven launch from the bar. Things like that only raise the quality of the bar in my opinion.
However, boredom settled in quickly and we made a mad dash for the Lollipop Shoppe to witness the dance stylings of modern mods and freshly-pressed go-go girls. Some pictures were taken (naturally not by my camera since I only received the new repaired item today from a burly UPS fellow). Go take a gander at fotophonic if you'd like to see what images made it through the night.
Despite the burgeoning fun at Sloppyworld, my wild hare of a idea to go to the Fetish Ball at the Lizard Lounge took hold among my companions. Can't say why, but we scurried over and took in the lovely leathery sights for some time. After my friends made a quick exist for the door I meandered a while longer, suffering at the hands of a dominatrix for a few minutes (the flogging way fine, the choking I could have done without). After that, mind, body and soul declared me done for the night and ordered a long walk to the car.
Long night--fun, adventurous, a little dangerous but entirely worth what little cash I had left. The holidays always seem to bring out the better events. Something about the Dallas cold that gets people all frisky and active. Next year, no fetish, unless in private. But more of the Lollipop Shoppe and the Happy Bullets please. They satisfy that space between my stomach and diaphragm.

Holographic Lives

What you see to the left is a four-dimensional sphere--a tesseract. Basically, the idea is that the object is larger from the inside than from the outside. Either way, it a different way of looking at our spatial dimensions. String theorists claim that our universe has another six dimensions or so along with the dimension of time. For the most part those dimensions are too small to see; wrapped up in the strings that form the subatomic particles of the universe. Now that alone is quite interesting but not the point of this particular missive.
I've taken some inspiration from both watching Heroes and reading Warren Ellis' Planetary. My moment-in-the-shower thought was what if one of the dimensions of the universe was a one dimensional informational plane? Ellis toyed with the idea in Planetary with the claim that we are all three-dimensions holograms of a one-dimensional informational plane. Where I got sidetracked was with the character Charlie from season one of Heroes and her ability to pick up on information intuitively.
To make information a fundamental part of the universe is actually quite brilliant because information differentiates one object from another, one particle, person, building and anything else from another. Sure, the means by which we measure information is subjective but the fact that the information exists is made no less real by that. Moreover, it says that there is an underlying structure to the universe holding everything together by giving it different informational properties. Information becomes the new aether, the substrate that the universe rests upon.
Another interesting (and this is where my mind starts going wonky) element to labeling information as a dimension is that it answers Heidegger's old question of why is there something instead of nothing? Nothingness becomes impossible in a way since to use the label of nothingness is to ascribe an informational fact. Nothing becomes something because you can call it something. I still can't quite wrap my head around that idea because I believe that nothingness is possible, the absence of existence, of information, but much like the waveform collapse or Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, nothingness remains only until observed.
The strange thing about turning information into a dimension is the question of how large of a dimension it is. Personally, I believe that the information dimension is one-dimensional and spans the entirety of the universe. Information is constantly holding up the universe by constantly providing informational facts to the rest of the dimensions. The way the character Charlie was able to pick up on information so quickly shows that there are informational channels we can attune ourselves to much like we can see a wavelength of light. Micha, another character, can read technological information in much the same way. The Drummer from Planetary can do much of the same thing.
What I don't believe is that the information-dimension is deterministic, i.e. I don't believe that it locks each of us into a particular set of facts that we can never remove ourselves from. Instead I believe that the information-dimension allows for many different facts to take shape, and like the uncertainty principle, doesn't resolve itself until measured. Time has no internal means of measurement nor does length, width or height. Thus information does not become determine precisely until it is observered.
I think this is an idea that I will kick around in my head for a few days. I warn you that another post may come along, but so be it.

Evolution

So I've been watching Heroes, catching up and all, and I keep catching little bits and pieces of other writers' work throughout the series. Aside from the elements of Warren Ellis' work, I also see a lot of Grant Morrison's work and ethos when he wrote New X-Men. One thing he wrote when he was first handed the assignment was how he wanted to create a series about "beautiful people with incredible powers doing startling, diverting things!" Which is exactly what Heroes is doing. Moreover, Morrison used the idea that the transition from one species to the next is generally quick and violent as the newer, stronger species eliminates the slower, weaker species.
While the characters in Heroes are not like the X-Men, not even the leather-clothed, day-glow neon jacketed versions, they are like the type of characters with special powers who don't know what do with them or how they can use them to help. The elements that Ellis use in series like Planetary or Newuniversal are about those people who are special and how they deal with their abilities. The most interesting aspect is how certain characters develop powers that are essentially new senses. Micha can talk to technology, must like the character The Drummer in Planetary while Syler can intuitively figure out how things work.
Personally I think DNA evolution will take this path to new senses. Reading information like we see, hear and taste things. This is the kind of evolution that makes sense considering the environmental pressures on the human species at the present moment. Of course, this is the sort of thing I love.

The Moment, the Collapse, and the Angel of the Nebula

The image above is of the Bug Nebula in which a dying star blasting superhot gases is shrouded by a cloud of icy 'hailstones'. (Credit: ESA/NASA and Albert Zijlstra)

Consciousness Causes Collapse - Wikipedia
Mediations by Marcus Aurelius - Wikipedia

You know, back in the 18th century there was this philosopher--a Bishop Berkeley--argued that only through direct perception is the world made real. No abstract ideas of matter were possible, i.e. once you stepped out of a room the room ceased to exist in a real, material form. I think that's bunk, as do a lot of other philosophers, but the thought experiment behind Berkeley's thinking makes other ideas all the more interesting. Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Mediations that the only part of time we possess is the moment we have this very instant. Once that moment passes then we lose possession and of course we can't possess the future.
Another idea, not terribly well thought of, called 'consciousness caused collapse', makes the point that conscious observations cause the waveforms in quantum mechanics to collapse into a single observation. Thus all the possible waveforms collapse into a single one upon observation. It's akin to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as the observer changes the outcome of what is observed.
How these three elements tie into the Bug Nebula photograph above is in my idea of how time moves and is perceived by our minds. As Aurelius said, all we possess is the moment we have. The entirety of the past, a mass of possibilities winnowing down to a single moment and then spreading apart again like the cosmic dust being blown away from a dying star. Berkeley would say that this is due to the immediacy of the observation, just as in the waveform collapse. The heart of this star is the nexus of time which we possess, that moment of right now of which we only can have a fleeting grasp of.
This is how I view the flow of time. Whether it is cyclical or not is beside the point. The past moves from a wide range of possibilities to a single point and then widens back out again into the potential of the future. We are constantly at that nexus, all of our pasts collapsing into this one moment and then move outward again. The further you predict into the future the less likely you will get anything right. Which reminds me of a joke I once heard: "You want to know how to make God laugh? Tell him your plans." Live in the now and don't worry too much about things too far in the future.

Quote of the Day

Lunch Conversations # 4223: Getting in on the Ground Floor - John Rogers

Sure, the robots rend criminals with horrible tearing jaws. But if you're telling me they eat white and black criminals equally, that is a marked improvement over the situation as is --

The Right to Wait for a Ballot

I was subtly denied my vote today after getting off work. Went to my normal polling station and was immediately told that the stations was out of ballots and more were on the way, but the original call was made more than half an hour ago. Went I live in nearly walking distance of City Hall, I find this sort of cock-up appalling. I live in a precinct that actively votes and votes Democratic. The proposal that was bringing people to the station was one that riled liberal interests and made traditional businessmen (re: conservative) jump with glee. So to find that near the end of the day, after most people left work and (like me) wanted to go vote, that we could not exercise our constitutional right due to a lack of paper in a high voting, liberal precinct, I became more than a little suspicious. I don't like it, particularly after pestering my friends to go vote themselves. There's something to be done here and some of you will have to help me.

The Human Profit Margin

A More Perfect Union - Megan McArdle

The first question that springs to mind in McMegan's wrap-up is "what if the executives don't want to implement new production-enhancing techniques but wants to make the profit margin larger in quick order?" The obvious answer is, of course, to fire some employees. I'm not going to make the executives look like the big bad wolf here, because one part of what unions do that McArdle clearly misses is unions also seek to provide job security, which in turn lead to some absurd practices like auto workers who sit around simply because the company can't fire them. But this is just another instance where the interests of one party taken to an extreme can become an absurd boondoggle, thus making unions look absurd as well.

A Monkey in the Works

...to Catch a Monkey - Matt Yglesias

Now why can't we have this sort of problem in America. Just imagine needing to hold a special mayoral election because your old mayor was ousted by rampaging monkeys? We need to start importing apes to, just so we can have them roust the bums from their corners.

The Nuisance People

Recently my grandfather got a water bill for nearly $900 when the previous bill was about a tenth of that. My mom went to see our general practitioner today for a check-up and to ask some questions about some problems she has faced since her last visit. Last week I made a somewhat desperate call to the same doctor concerning the medication I was on and its ineffectiveness. The thing that connects all three of these events is that a solution to the problem was brought about by become a nuisance to those we needed assistance from. Right now my grandfather is at City Hall demanding that the water billing office fix his bill (of which they have not done for the last month). My mother didn't get the chance to ask the doctor the questions she needed to so we've made a phone call to set up another appointment in the same week. My own medication issues were finally resolved after a few weeks of whacked-out conditions and several phone calls.
The point I'm trying to make here is that sometimes being a nuisance, while frequently rude, is an excellent solution to get those we need assistance from to finally act. Call it the 'squeaky wheel' principle or whatever you choose. But the fact remains that sometimes people, particularly busy people, won't understand the nature of your problem until you repeat it enough times to them. I face this at my own work, where a customer will as for a certain kind of work and my own assumptions of what they are asking interfere with what they are really asking for. And sometimes it's the customer's doing as well, lacking the knowledge and terminology for accurately expressing the problem and desired solution.
Being a nuisance in an economy based on service can lead to employees disliking you, but it can also lead to getting what you really want or need. Don't simply accept what your doctor or bureaucrat or anyone else just hands you if it is not satisfactory. Yes, fighting everyone all the time is exhausting, but often it is the best way to arrive at the needed solution. So don't hesitate to make yourself a nuisance if it seems that you are not getting the needed help going through the normal channels.

I've Got a Bone to Pick...

There are a few phrases that cause me to go into an apocalyptic fit and the phrase "everything happens for a reason" is one that irks me to no end. The entire phrase is a panacea for those who have a difficult time, or an impossible time, understanding why things happen in history, particularly in their own personal lives. The greatest problem I have with the phrase stems from the view of history it imposes, one that would have you believe there is a certain course to history. It's the first step towards a teleological view of history, that history is a series of endless progression toward some unknown utopian future. I don't buy it obviously. It's that utopian type of thinking that has led to the most destructive ideologies of the last two centuries. From Marxism to Fascism to religious endtimes thinking there runs a common thread in the belief that some sort of perfect future awaits humanity. For some, they believe it is their duty to hasten or even bring about the events that would lead to said utopia. Such a view of history does not have to remain at the macro level however. It can run even in the small scale, say in a belief of the domino theory of foreign policy thinking during the Cold War or, for a more modern reference, the belief that a democratized Iraq would topple other local regimes through example leading to an ideal, pro-Western Middle East. While utopian thinking does provide a sense of purpose to ones actions, that purpose general does not lead to a healthy or morally good outcome. For the serious believers, any action, no matter how grotesque, immoral or ugly, is justified if that action brings the utopian society one step closer to reality. Hence the phrase, "everything happens for a reason," with its tinges of teleological and utopian thinking, makes me want to throttle the speaker.
Another part of the phrase that bothers me, one tangentially related to my first point, is the implicit idea that all events hold some sort of meaning. History itself has no meaning and its events, while certainly having causes, lack meaning as well. This applies to the future as well, a future that necessarily will one day become the past. Things happen and that's all you can say about the facts of history. Anything more become interpretation of meaning, but that meaning isn't attached by history itself, but by human minds attempting to understand the whys of history. Often you see a lot of 'what-if' questions in history and historians playing devil's advocate. This is because historians are constantly asking the question of why this event occurred and not some other event. This is due to history lacking any sort of grand system or cosmic plan. History moves of its own accord, tied to human actions but no director of those actions. So to say that everything happens for a reason is to say that each human action has a reason, despite the obvious daily evidence that this is patently untrue. Each event can contain meaning, but that meaning changes from person to person, and most importantly, how that person is looking at the historical fact.
All of this is to say instead of using thinking and phrases like "everything happens for a reason" it would do you well to follow the idea that whatever happens happens. You can say something like "the Berlin Wall will not fall in our lifetimes" and then go back and figure out where and how you were wrong. But to imply that there's some underlying meaning to that action is to read too much into the event. Look for causes, but don't look for meaning within historical facts themselves.

The Meta of Religious Experiences

Neuroscience and God - David Pescovitz, BoingBoing

I know the more we study the brain and how it acts the more we'll understand how we come to have certain types of thoughts and how we perceive certain experiences. Yet I can't quite escape the feeling that we still won't know where consciousness resides. We might even get to the point of moving consciousness from one brain to another or some other type of neural repository. But I think the problem is consciousness isn't an object in the same way we thing of physical objects. This isn't one of those "science can't answer all" reactions, but it is an argument for the continuation of the metaphysical study of the mind. Neuroscience itself doesn't answer the deeper 'why' questions but it does help arrive at those answers. The most important question that neuroscience will continue to have difficulty answering is why we have certain experiences, like religious epiphanies, naturally. What do these experiences add to the human experience? When neuroscientists ask these kinds of questions they're asking the meta question, the philosophical question. Those are the same questions that genres like cyber-punk attempt to answer, or at the very least pose. They're also the questions I love.

Quote of the Day

The Peace Corps with Muscles - Michael Totten

“Woo hoo!” one of the soldiers yelled in the dark. “Another fucked up adventure in the United States Army. I love it!”

Elemental Cities

Cui bono? - Megan McArdle

I don't often agree with McArdle as she seems to take a more hardline capitalist approach to things, but she does make a good point here on the supposed low-carbon aspect of urban areas. While most urbanites tend to expend less carbon than those in the suburbs, that happens for the most part because urbanites export their carbon to other areas. Power stations, particularly coal-fired ones, are not built near cities, yet produce a great amount of carbon emissions.
Still, McArdle does mention how, despite the exporting effect, urban areas do maintain a lower carbon output than suburbs. And, more to the point, a carbon tax would encourage urban living as the power suburban homes draw, along with the attendant travel to and from those homes, would feel the effects of the tax the most. I'm a proponent of a carbon tax, as it would let the market to its thing with the least amount of government interference. If you'd like to make a moral issue out of it, you could say that a carbon tax is a sin tax much like the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol are. I'm not opposed to government interference with the economy, but when a nudge could do more than a shove, I think that is the better route to take.

Obama's Social Justice

Obama at Howard - Andrew Sullivan

One element of Obama's speech that I like is how he points out the disconnect between the need for nonviolence and the pressure placed on blacks toward violence. It's the disconnect between what's justified and what's right. The assault on a white student by six black students was in no way right morally, it was justified in the same sense that homicide done in self-defense is justified. This assault did not occur in a vacuum and so the treatment of it cannot do likewise. Sen. Obama here is attempting to charge the student body with the sense that social justice is always an appropriate thing to stand up for, damn the personal consequences. It would do Obama well to continue to focus on such events as it points out both his desire for change and his willingness to actually act to bring about change. While the authenticity of any politician is always up for questioning, I think Obama's speech goes a long way to showing that he does have some balls and will take some chances.

How Subtle is Wireless?

Pirate Broadband for Burma? - publius, Obsidian Wings

Considering the potential for pirate broadband transmitting, I think the Burma situation is a perfect opportunity to test it in field. I'm sure some aid agency could pull together a cadre of techheads and hackers to build a working, reproducible rig. Personally, I just like the idea of pirating broadband ala The Invisible Man.

Music to My Cosmic Ears

Mysterious Energy Burst Stuns Astronomers - Science Daily

This is the kind of science stuff that I love. Wonder if the radio burst can be played like music?

My Wires are all Tangled

Area Deep Within the Brain Found to Play Role in Sensory Perception - Science Daily

Synesthesias is a hobby interest of mine. It's all about the crosswiring of our sensory perceptions were certain letters and numbers have a particular color associated with them in the minds of those who have the mutation. It can also manifest where tastes and smells are presented to the brain in the form of visuals and sounds. The whole idea is that our sensory perceptions are affected as much by the originating sensory data as they are by the way the brain processes the information. Philosophically, the condition is tied to how much we can trust what we see and experience. It's utterly fascinating as the study of synesthesia could lead to a better understanding of extra-sensory perception (not in the paranomal junk science sense though).

The Aesthetics of Guerrilla Tagging

Guerrilla Artist Banksy Caught Up In eBay Scandal - Guardian

Now here's my problem with this type of scandal, even though it involves an artist who's MO is to generally remain anonymous while tagging various places in interesting ways. It's not so much that someone is attempting to profit off the artist's work, particularly since you can grab jpegs of the artwork just about anywhere. It's that what was for sale was originally intended for sale by the artist himself. There's a difference between someone who goes out and silk-screens a bunch of t-shirts and someone who takes from a limited print run of the work to sell at inflated prices. I like Banksy and I like the aesthetic he represents but there are legitimate differences between the kind of guerrilla art Banksy and those who copy him do and attempting to profit off of work that was produced by the artist himself, without his permission, without his knowledge and certainly without paying for the work originally. It's akin to stealing a comic from a comic store and attempting to sell it online yourself. It's not simply an issue of legality or morality but one of aesthetics.

The Bleeding Edge of Culture

Plummeting Prestige - Greg Djerejian

I think Djerejian is right to point out that the U.S.'s hegemonic power is not completely gone, but I do have to agree that culturally, the U.S. has become something of a backwater. When I think of the tech world I look to Tokyo or London, likewise with street fashion. Culturally, we have lost out to culturally aligned places like England and Japan since the end of the last century. I don't think it necessarily has to do with our foreign policy actions however. It's possible that our global cultural centers have shifted, splintered and dispersed to reform in places where newness is championed, particularly in the realm of ideas and style. And once others have recognized this shift then it becomes self-generating. They travel to the cultural centers to add to the world of representation these centers exist in. Cultural centers move at a different speed than everywhere else, by their very nature they must. It's not so much about being six months ahead of the curve but being years ahead. But cultural centers also wan, as one can see in New York. Once people see a center slowing down then it becomes an exodus to other, newer places. U.S. culture is going to remain behind for quite some time, and it may even herald the end of U.S. dominance in the world. Still, it will take another decade for this to become apparent.

Tired of Stupidity

State Dept. Won't Say Why UK Music Scholar Is Barred From US - Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing

It's shit like this that make me ashamed to be an American sometimes. When I feel like I have to apologize for the stupid, brutish behavior of our government officials, then yeah, I would call that shame. It also pisses me off that I even have to apologize for such actions. That we have such thuggish people working for us while wearing badges of authority only makes me distrust anyone with a badge even more. Now I'm sleepy.

Nonsense Defense

Fearing for Israel - Ezra Klein

See, this must be one of those moments where my limited brain capacity fails me. If Israel has done everything it can militarily to defend itself and still faces an existential threat then it should act in a way that increases the likelihood of that threat materializing? I'm sorry, but that simply doesn't make much sense to me, or any sense at all in fact. Living in constant fear is not much of a life, in my opinion. So, taking that as a starting point what else can I do, once I've exhausted my self-defense options, to mitigate such fear? Oh, but wait, only weak-willed cowards try to talk to their neighbors while strong, hard men cower in the basement with their guns shouting, "come and get me!" Sorry, I forgot how the world works these days.

Touch Me

iPod Touch - Apple

You know, this is just cruel of Apple. I don't need an iPhone but I would love the WiFi functionality. So the iPod Touch is just evil.

An Archeology of Language

Languages Die, but Not Their Last Words - NYT

I have mixed feelings when I read articles like this one. On the one hand, the loss of a form of communication comes as a blow to my academic sensibilities. The death of a language does not sit well with me. But on the other, any project that attempts to record dying languages seems at best a futile effort and at worst a form of intellectual masturbation. Without active speakers of a language then that language holds no meaning. Recording the sounds, while serving its own purpose as a historical record, does not allow for future generations to understand the language, let alone effectively speak it. If the intent is to preserve the language in a way that allows for future communication then a dictionary of that language is necessary for starters. Even so, I doubt that one could effectively save a language by writing it down, recording it or preserving it in any form other than active usage. Latin was able to maintain itself through its continual usage, if only among a select minority of people. But the meaning was preserved, which is what is important for a language. While I don't begrudge the scientist and academics of their desire to capture these languages before they fade completely, I do have problems with the intent of the project. One cannot bottle up a language as if it was a specimen.

God Lawyered Up

Nebraska Senator Sues God to Stop Terror Threats - Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing

Now that is a beautiful sight. I wonder if I can get a class action suit going against God?

Those Crafty Jews with their Jetfighters

'Israeli Warplanes Raid' Lebanon - BBC

First Syria and the shady Times articles, now this. What the hell is Israeli up to?

A Proper Electrocution

University of Florida Student Tasered at Political Rally - Slashdot

Now I just find it funny that the student was first chased by the cops, then allowed to speak, and then they tasered the fuck out of him. Warms the cockles of my heart, warms the shit out of them.

Writing on the Wrong Side of the Firewall

New York Times Ends Its Paid Subscription Service - Slashdot

Hooray! Now I can not read NYT Op-Ed pieces for free!

It's Not Healthy...

Edwards' Speech - Ezra Klein

I'd like to see a show of hands for who is interested in posts on health care policy? Anyone? That's what I thought. I mean, really, I'm about to drop Klein from my feed for all of the health care stuff. Yes yes, I'm looking at you Adrienne. Why don't you pipe up a little?

Lizard Brains and Cologne

Oh, if only we knew what these ads are trying to say - Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing

Now I'm not sure if I would ever buy a bottle of Tom Ford's cologne but the ads are certain eye-catching. What strikes me more about them though, is not the blatant sexual content, but that the blatant sexual content looks quite silly. Sure, we have an image of a naked woman with strategically placed bottle and nothing else. Yes, my lizard brain is going off on that. Still, it's all a bit absurd in how hard it pushes the sex. Far from shocking, I find it laughable. A good effort though.

AG Arggghhh

The Mind of Mukasey - Andrew Sullivan

You know, after the last two years of President Bush replacing the most heinous and ridiculous of his cabinet one would think people would hold a greater degree of skepticism. Those like Robert Gates might come with the right credentials but thus far he hasn't accomplished anything, let alone steer this administration back in the proper direction. So the idea that someone like Michael Mukasey would return the Justice department to its former glory and respect is, to say the least, laughable. It's not that I believe Mukasey is a stooge or someone unworthy of the job, but nothing in what has been said about the man makes me think that he will significantly improve things in his department.

Natalie Woods is My Movie Girlfriend

The Great Race

One of my favorite movies of all time. But the thing that gets me is how anyone was surprised that Tony Curtis was gay. I mean, come on, the man wears a white silk shirt in the movie...

A Failed Student

Moving On - Matt Yglesias

This is the thing that bother me about the whole issue of whether the surge has actually worked according to the numbers the administration has provided--any college student in a first year English class gets drilled into their heads to provide sources. I couldn't write a thesis or dissertation without providing evidence and the source of that evidence. Wikipedia pages are constantly tagged if they do not provide adequate sourcing. So why should a general, with a PhD no less, get away without providing sources?

VMA and Bin Laden

Bin Laden the Blogger - Ezra Klein

I suppose I should find it amusing that the blogosphere has gotten so into Bin Laden's latest video. It's like a cadre of teenage girls cooing over Justin Timberlake. Still, Bin Laden lends himself to such mockery as he professed to lower our taxes if we take his path. It's absurd really. But this does make him look good for the Republican presidential ticket if he decided to run. Of course, there's the little matter of needing to be a natural citizen, but I'm sure he could get around that.

tabooboo

I hate taboo questions. Not the questions themselves, just the fact that they are taboo. I mean, the question of whether Jon Benet Ramsey would play bottom in a three-way with Leona Helmsy and Jesus isn't that taboo, is it?

Shaft of Light

Make a "Fleshlight" from a Potato Chip Tube - BoingBoing

I'm more than mildly disturbed by this. No, it's not the invention itself that bothers me so much as it is the thought that went into it.

Respect for Janus

The Overrated Gentleman from Virginia - Publius, Obsidian Wings

I think 'Publius' catches the double-edged sword that is respect in politics. One, it seems, curries respect in the political realm for being moderate and yet decisive and generally being on the right side of things before everyone else. But it also means not going out on a limb or doing anything too drastic. While Senator Warner's talk on the need to investigate the allegations of torture and the possibility of withdrawing from Iraq gave him the appearance of speaking truth to power he never actually acted in that way. And for him, that was the politically smart move. Otherwise, that so-called respect he has garnered would have evaporated. Continuing to carry around the label of 'respected' means that you can do some things but not other things. And in today's political game, that usually means not doing anything that would firmly place you in the 'radical' realm.

Five-Tax Monte

The Big Con - Ezra Klein

I like the characterization of our tax system here. My parents are still complaining about the payroll tax cut off at $90,000. Something like that is easily one of the most glaring inequities in our tax system. I think any attempt to fix Social Security and shore up funds for Medicare will have to deal with the payroll tax cutoff. But I do have one caveat to mention. The so-called 'estate' tax isn't a death tax as the no-taxers would call it. It's an inheritance tax and I do think it is a viable and useful tax.

Mixed Nuts

Off to the Chapel - Andrew Sullivan

While I'm happy that Sullivan has gone to marry his partner, and that Greg Djerejian is one of the guest bloggers, James Kirchick is another guest blogger? The man is a walking, talking Marty Peretz clone. I don't think there's an instance where I have ever agreed with the man and it's not like disagreeing with Sullivan or a George Will type who generally have the brains to back up their arguments. Kirchick is one of those 'more rubble, less trouble' types who have gotten us into this mess in Iraq in the first place. I may just have to stay away from Sullivan's blog for a while.

Contra

I never really bought the argument, "if everyone in the world was the same the world would be a very boring place." Would it really be boring? Would we even know?

Hero of the Day

Lost in Transportation? Bill Murray tested for drunk driving of golf cart - The Guardian

Bill Murray is my hero of the day. That is all.

Cats and Blogs

Kristol Lite - Jon Chait, The Plank

Yeah, blog fight! Get it On!

Sensory Blackout

Magic and the Brain - BoingBoing

I remember watching the first half of "What the 'Bleep' Do We Know" (before I got abysmally bored with it) and being struck by the piece on the natives who first encountered Columbus. The shaman of the tribe, after being told about Columbus's ships out on the water, went to the shore and stared out to sea. For several days he didn't see anything and then suddenly the ships appeared. The explanation is that it simply took the shaman's brain that long to come to grips with objects that were completely outside of his frame of reference. Magic tricks seem to play on this loophole in our minds as we come to expect certain results from certain actions. What bothers me though is the thought of what else out there might we, right now, miss because it is so far outside our frame of reference that our brains simply don't register the information. Is it possible that there are things in this world that we have laid eyes on but simply failed to see because our brains couldn't cope with the information?

Goo Goo Ludwig

Baby Talk is Universal - Science Blog

Of course, Wittgenstein would have said this was obvious. Baby talk can then be thought of as our first experience with the language-game, as babies begin to understand what adults are saying by both mimicking adults and picking up on the non-verbal cues that are apart of the contextual language-game.

Spatial Relations

Visual Clutter Detection - BoingBoing

I like the idea that how we process information from items like maps and computer displays is related to the spatial relations between each element of information. It also goes to the concept of web design as a properly laid out web page contains an appropriate amount of information without overloading, or 'cluttering', the page.

Off the Edge of the Solar Map

In Search of Interstellar Dragon Fire - Science Daily

I just like the idea of giant space dragons flying around our solar system, blasting anything that comes their way. Oh, and new way to think about neutron stars--a fast rotating, collapsed object.

Delusional Ideologies

Not a Winning Strategy - Josh Patashnik, The Plank

I would have to concur with Patashnik with one added element. Inside those nations 'failed' by Islam there would exist a hard-core traditionalist element who would claim that Islam didn't fail but was sabotaged by the West. Thus we end up back where we started. The same thing will happen with the social conservativism of the last few decades wherein social conservativism might have succeeded if it wasn't for those godless liberals getting in the way. An ideology doesn't fail until the majority of its previous adherents perceive it as failed. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are two strong examples of this and even then there were those who believed that their disastrous ideologies were still valid. There are crazy, delusional and sometimes just plain stupid people in the world who will believe in almost anything.

Java and Habermas

No Coffee - Jakob Norberg, Eurozine (via Andrew Sullivan)

I always thought that Habermas missed the historical context of the English coffeehouses of the late 17th century. When coffee was first introduced to England in 1650 the country was just coming out of their own civil war. The Restoration was about ten years out but by the time Cromwell's head hit the floor the nation was looking to avoid the polemical thinking that had brought destruction to their homelands. The places where coffee was first introduced were often places where business was discussed. Soon enough those coffeehouses became centers of information as they were not only places to discuss business but to sell pamphlets and broadsheets containing the latest news on shipping and industry. These two elements--the rise of an anti-polemic attitude and alcohol-free information centers--resulted in the creation of a public discourse. While I think Habermas's placement of the rise of public discourse is correct, I think he misses the historical context that allowed for such a discourse to arise. Moreover, I think Habermas misses the peculiarities of the English coffeehouses and how they differed from the French salons of the following century.

Informational Minds

Study: Primary Role of the Internet Shifting from Communication to Content - Ars Technica

I don't really see a shift here. What I do see is the continuation of our need for information and a culture that constantly seeks new ways of transmitting information. While I am not one to attribute the motive force of history to a single element, I do think that the way and speed at which information travels has a lot to do with how the history of the West has progressed. I think that content and communication are two aspects of the same cultural production. We have created a new way to transmit information and as it did when the novel or the printing press itself was created, culture caught up and began transforming it into something else. I don't see this as anything earth-shattering. Now when we start altering our minds themselves then I'll say that's earth-shattering. This is just more of the same with new packaging.

Determinism v. Reality, pt 6498

The Story of the Week - Andrew Sullivan

I'm not as deflated as say, Ezra Klein, is about this Science Times article but I certainly don't share Sullivan's enthusiasm for it. I'm not a big believer in ecological or biological determinism. In part I view such efforts in the same light as the positivist efforts to distill everything about the human experience into a scientific theory. Books like Guns, Germs, and Steel and this new text, A Farewell to Arms, only serve to further the claim that you can place the subject of history in the same realm as Newton's laws. Simply put, you can't. I do agree that ecology and biology do place an important role in how human history has moved but, as any decent historian knows, there is no singular cause to the events of history and no singular motive force in history. Braudel proved this rather handily nearly fifty years ago with his idea of the 'long duration'. Historians cast a series of causes, with each higher one generally more pivotal for the moment than the one below it. But historians know that a) history is not simply the sum of its parts; and b) a historical text reveals as much about the time it was written in as it does about the time it was written about. Dr. Clark seems to think that the meaning of historical facts do not change when they clearly do. More to the point, a decent scholar would know this because they would have taken a historiography class that beats this idea into your head. Historical facts are not like science facts such as the sky is blue. They always require interpretation, contextualization and the constant movement to and fro from objective to subjective and short periods of time to the millennial view.
If you can't tell yet, books like Dr. Clark's piss me off to no end. It's not so much that I think the conclusions drawn from the evidence used are wrong but that the conclusions are puffed up to appear grandiose when a real historian would sooner laugh at them than take them seriously. This kind of history went out of style with Spengler and Tonybee.

Roll over Rover

Karl Rove, Adviser to President Bush, to Resign - WaPo

Well that's a kick in the head. I've only had a few sips of coffee and a couple of drags off my cigarette when the Washington Posts screams this across my computer screen. For once I am genuinely surprised. I would not have expected this, and certainly not at this time. Obviously I have missed something. Of course Rove is giving the 'for the family' line but that begs the question of what is his real reason for leaving?

A Week of Uber-Conservativism

Sign Off - Bruce, The Daily Dish

I must say that while I disagreed with most of what Bruce Bartlett had to say, he at least has a working mind. His views on taxation are something the rest of the GOP should take another look at, if for nothing else than to actually put forth a well thought policy. And even his views on gay marriage were surprisingly moderate in the sense that Bartlett only wants the federal government to stop sticking their noses into other people's business. I'm going to have to work on coming up with some effective arguments against his ideas on taxation and for that I thank him.

Quote of the Day

Interview: Matt Damon - The Guardian

Favorite Quote of the Day: "If you end up on the cover of Us magazine, you're fucked."

Building a Better Metric

Net Energy -- A Useless, Misleading And Dangerous Metric, Says Expert - Science Daily

I hadn't realized the false assumption that the linguist concoction of 'fossil fuels' creates when compared to alternative fuels. What Professor Dale argues is, in essence, that we cannot lump all fossil fuels under a category of 'fossil fuels' since each different type of fuels provides a different level of energy. Petroleum provides a different amount of energy than coal or natural gas. So what Professor Dale proffers is a metric that measures how much an alternative fuel provides in service compared to a distinct type of fossil fuel.
The use of such a metric might make it easier to impose a national carbon tax as it would more accurately measure the amount of carbon produced by a particular type of fuel and tax it accordingly. The rhetoric employed against a carbon tax by the business industry would naturally argue that such alternative fuels like ethanol would, using the old metric, create more carbon in its production than normal fossil fuels. The goal then is to use a metric that is both true and useful to expose the linguistic lie of the old rhetoric.

The Fact of the Matter is...

The Trouble with Facts - Matt Yglesias

Yglesias does have a point here. The facts on the ground in Iraq can often support just about any conclusion you want to draw and such conclusions are decided long before such facts arise. Hence the trouble with facts. In and of themselves, facts have no actual value. It's the individual who gives facts their weight and value. Thus it's the individual's personal goals and biases that will determine how certain facts are considered in the larger picture. This is why you can still have some very smart people still support the war and have the facts to back them up. Once you pull back a little from the minutia of the war do you begin to see where everything is going.

Reflections on Violence

Rand v. Utilitarianism - Ezra Klein

I think what Klein misses here is the serious anti-positivist strain in Rand's philosophy. Moreover, I think Rand was attempting to construct a socio-economic policy around Nietzsche's philosophy, of which I think is misguided at best. Nietzsche argued against life-denying morals but he did not deny the need for selflessness. He only stated that when the whole aim of a morality was to deny the self then you miss out on the point of selflessness. Rand, however, seems to think that only by being entirely selfish can one attain a true morality. Fucking utopian thinkers.

Oculus Sinister

The Eyes Have It: What Do We See When We Look At Ads? - Science Daily

What I take from this is not highly concerned with the realm of advertising but with the realm of cultural production and epistemology. This kind of study tells us that the mindset of the reader plays as much into the creation of meaning and recognition as the mind of the author or artist. An ad man might not get what he wants out of an ad campaign simply because he misjudged his audience's goals when viewing his ads. On result might be the rise of more contextual ads, particularly for websites.

Hello Officer Kitty

To Punish Thai Police, a Hello Kitty Arm Band - NYT

I find this idea highly amusing yet very practical. Shaming police officers into behaving better isn't a bad thing. Indeed, I think it is important to remind police officers that they are there to serve the public and do not deserve special dispensation for minor infractions that most other people have to remain aware of. Yes, police officers have a difficult job and I applaud them for it. At the same time, I don't think just because you wear a badge that means you get to run lights and illegally park.

Machine Language and the Brain

How Dynamic Brain Networks Enable Object Recognition - Science Daily

I find it interesting that the brain throws together a temporary dynamic network in order to categorize both the familiar and unfamiliar. What I'd like to know is how temporary this network is and how any lasting effects might affect future object-recognition, particularly of the unfamiliar type.

The Idealism of a Stubbed Toe

Happy Birthday, Charles Fort! - David Pescovitz, BoingBoing.com

Glad to know that there were people still getting themselves involved in the Locke/Berkley debates a couple of centuries after the fact.

Death and Taxes

Re: Republican Alienation - Eric, The Daily Dish

There's an interesting debate going on between the guest bloggers (a liberal and a supply-side conservative) over the issue of taxation in the current political climate. While Eric (the liberal) is making a point concerning the Republican Party's illogical approach to taxation and deficit spending, Bruce Bartlett is arguing that most of the Republican Party no longer understands what low taxation looks like. It may seems as if the two agree but they differ seriously over the solution to the problem. Eric is concerned that whoever is in charge when the coming budget crisis hits will raise tax rates far beyond necessary and naturally wipe out any federal gains made through tax cuts. Bartlett fears the rise of the 'fair tax' people within the Republican Party as he views a national sales tax as seriously misguided and damaging. Instead, Bartlett offers the idea of a value-added tax (or VAT) in addition to a national income tax. Naturally, he argues that both taxes would need to remain low but he does make a persuasive (although I'm not entirely convinced) argument for the VAT. I would like to see lower income taxes for the middle class and I think simplifying corporate taxes and tax breaks would settle the revenue short fall. My biggest concern is that the shape of a VAT bill would not emerge as beneficial to the majority of Americans while still not solving the budget crisis. As Bartlett says, most of such talk right now is purely theoretical but I worry that such an ivory-tower attitude will not result in a feasible tax system when the budget crisis does hit. Still, the whole argument is quite fascinating.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Venezuela's four-legged mobile libraries

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Venezuela's four-legged mobile libraries

"A university in Venezuela is using a novel method to take books into remote communities and encourage people to read. As James Ingham reports, the scheme is proving a great success."

Sobriety Test at 150 Miles Up

Lit Up for Liftoff? - Charles Krauthammer, WaPo

For once, I actually agree with Krauthammer. This is a rare day indeed.

Free Arms!

M.I.A.: 190,000 Guns Given to Iraqi Forces - The Danger Room

Oh yeah, I'm just brimming with confidence over the whole 'freedom in the Middle East' thing. I think I'll go hit a cat now.

What's My Intent?

Defending Intentionalism - Neil the Ethical Werewolf, Ezra Klein

I think our dear ethical werewolf has missed something in his study of literary theory and the philosophy of language. I don't buy into the idea that authorial intent is the be-all, end-all of meaning. Neil takes the attitude that by examining the intent of the author one will find the correct meaning of a word, sentence, or even a whole text. The problem with such an attitude however, is that you don't always have the option of examining authorial intent, and indeed, the author's intent exists primarily within the mind of the author. No one will know what the meaning is until someone asks and then we begin the process of sorting it out from the author's remarks. Intentionalism strikes me as far too limiting as it has difficulty taking in the whole range of reality. Yes, authorial intent is important if one is attempting to deduce the real meaning of a text but that is not the only meaning available. Take one look at the competing interpretations of Nietzsche and you'll see how authorial intent tends to go by the wayside almost instantly. Meaning is contextual and language is a public act. In other words, meaning doesn't exist solely within the author. It takes a reader or a participant in a conversation for meaning to attach. The author uses a language who's meaning has already been generally decided on and fixed to a particular time and place. The language existed before the author so the only thing the author can do is provide new and different meanings for certain words or strings of words. But that meaning won't exist for anyone else until the author tells them, makes it explicit. Otherwise the reader is left to figure out the meaning for themselves. And what the reader relies upon is the contextual evidence, both within the text itself, within the reader's understanding of the author and within the wider culture at the time. Now most of the time the reader gets the meaning right but with more complex texts or intentionally obscure texts, the reader must begin the process of deciding what possible and probable meanings exist. Literature, and particularly poetry, is all about expanding the mind and creating events that would not exist in the everyday world and the everyday language. But the author cannot be there with every reader at the time the reader is reading. So, for the most part, the reader is on their own. So while the real and true meaning might exist only with the author, the meaning as understood by the wider world exists with the readers. Intentionalism misses that point rather blatantly.

Speed Metal and Euopean Politics

EU Talks To Thrash Out New Treaty - BBC

You know, sometimes the headline is better than the story. I can just imagine a bunch of stiff European diplomats gearing up with their amps, torn jean vests and pedal boards to wail on some AC/DC.

Indebtedness

Why I Don't Like Bill Richardson - Ezra Klein

I do have to agree with Klein here and say that a balanced-budget amendment is absolute horseshit. That said, I do think a bill or amendment along the lines of limiting deficits is a great idea. Deficits are a necessary evil of government spending. Even so, the skyrocketing deficits we have seen in the last decade are a mark of unreasonable spending with few of the benefits of such spending actually affecting the economy and improving the lot of the majority of Americans. Responsible people are able to figure out how to run their households every day. Why can't we take some of this knowhow and apply it to the federal budget? At the same time, deficit spending can have positive affects on the economy and the wellbeing of the people. What this calls for is a sense of balance between a tight budget and a deficit budget.

At the Speed of Thought

I've been watching the Ghost in the Shell series as of late and it has me wondering how some of the technology on display in the series would actually work in real life. What interests me the most is the idea of thought-driven net use. While the idea of using the interior of one's eyes or even hacking into the visual cortex of the brain itself is interesting enough, it's the idea of one's thoughts controlling everything from conversations to searches to what is displayed that fascinates me. For a mind like mine that, if one were to describe it, would look like a rabid squirrel in the park periodically falling into an epileptic seizure, a thought-driven net would have a hard time keeping up or even knowing what to do in the first place. This is what interests me about a thought-driven net. How does this kind of interface know when you are talking, when you are searching, when you are reading and when you are doing all three at once? Would every errant thought turn into a search or even cause one to call that person? Would every daydream become a rabbithole of information? And what of the servers and routers that hold all of this information once it does become a search or a conversation? When your thoughts themselves create an electronic paper trail is there the possibility of privacy? What happens to our sense of self?
A corollary question to this is how does a thought-driven net change the way we think? Given that we would necessarily have to change how we think in order to use a thought-driven net, what changes would we have to make? What commands would we need to access the net and how would those commands affect our conscious thoughts? How would we shape what we think about when we are both on the net and off?
It's a lot of questions with few answers at the moment. I don't know, I like the idea of a thought-driven net but I wonder about its effects on consciousness and identity.

Plastic Gods

Douglas Adams Lecture - BoingBoing

Below is my response to a question posed by a friend about this lecture by Douglas Adams in 1998. She recommended that I post it as is so I blame any murkiness or grammatical errors on her.

You have to remember that science in the old days conflated the questions of how and why into one. So while our scientists today focus only on the question of how things happen, the science of the old days attempted to answer why things were a certain way. So the old myths were the science of the day, god is in the rocks and the thunder and whatnot. The philosophers of old, like Aristotle, were also theologians and scientists. That's why most of Western science started with philosophy. But we've separated the questions which is why someone like Heidegger can ask why there is something instead of nothing without worrying too much about the science (physics) behind it. It's looking at information in a different way, not so much how does information move but why the information exists in the first place. If the fundamental element in the universe is information one does have to ask why this kind of information, or any kind of information at all. Moreover, what does nothingness entail, a complete lack of information? Because when we ascribe the quality of nothingness to something we are imparting some form of information. So true nothingness must necessarily have no information whatsoever. We use the term god to refer to something that exists outside of our logical realm, which is why the science of today cannot grapple with the question of whether god exists or not. It's a way of explaining the world in a full and meaningful way, even if it isn't true.

Novelty Items

I'd like to make a ring of metallic hydrogen.

Till the End of Time

White House Blocking Tillman Investigation - The Danger Room

I'd like to express the same sentiments as the fellows at the Danger Room about this news but honestly, nothing really surprises me about it.

All My Friends

The Melancholy Greatness of "All My Friends" - Hua Hsu, Slate.com

"All My Friends" is probably one of the best Cure songs I've ever heard. That might sound like a slam against the song but it isn't. The lyrics are what makes it. It's all tension and release, like a great night should be. But really it is a reflection on the attitude of the self-aware but not self-deprecating hipster. Love it.

Going Cable

Libby-Palooza - Andrew Sullivan

Sullivan's hopping mad about the Libby pardon. I don't think I've ever seen such a generally calm and reasonable man like Sullivan pull out the knives before. Loving it.

Urban Running

Parkour and Freerunning in the United States - NY Times

I first heard about this from a Warren Ellis comics naturally. The idea behind parkour is to move from one point in a urban area to another in the shortest time possible. That means using rooftops, stairwells, the tops of cars and just about anything that previously looked like an obstacle as a new means of getting across town. The urban runner's style is similar to that of a Brazilian form of fighting that looks more like a dance than a martial art. The whole system is fluid, rolling the body to match the terrain while maintaining forward momentum. If you look at Bruce Lee's style of fighting (which is what the Cowboy Bebop character Spike Spiegel's fighting style is based around) you'll see striking similarities. The whole concept is perfectly supermodern.

Terrorist Special Olympics

London Bombers = Beavis? - Danger Room

I do so love it when security experts ridicule would-be bombers for their ineptitude. There's something comforting in reminding oneself of the incredible stupidity of your average criminal.

Rules or Guidelines?

What Rule of Law? - Andrew Sullivan

Wow, Sullivan is pissed and I like it. I think part of his anger stems from his conservative roots while someone like me isn't all that surprised by the president's actions. So we have a president who doesn't respect the rule of law. And this is new and different how? Actions like the president's pardon of Scooter Libby are exactly the reason why impeachment exists. Problem is though, you have to go for a twofer in impeaching both the president and the vice-president, preferably the vice-president first. The likelihood of this happening isn't all that great however.