I will get to them....soon? Eventually? Someday?
Ack!
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Well, That Was Fast!
Man. April! If April showers bring May flowers, I'm gonna be up to my ass in flowers pretty soon here.
I'm so far behind on movie reviews it's ridiculous. In April we saw Gasland, The Secret of the Kells, Kick Ass, Cop-Out, The Secret In Their Eyes, City Island and...I think one more....
I've also been meaning to write on two topics for some time: One is that free marketers often accuse (rightly) statists of operating on the basis of how the world (specifically people) should be versus how they actually are, and how I thnk free marketers have a similar blind spot.
Also, I wanted to write about how racism isn't, in fact, the worst thing ever. (Let's see if I can worm my way out of THAT statement! Heh.)
Anyway, I'll get back on the stick here in a bit and thanks for dropping by.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Blog Wars
Hello, everyone!
Sorry for the long absence. I've been hard at work looking for work to be hard at work at. I'm going to be part-time at the current job (which didn't stop them from giving me two new, huge projects to do) which is a mixed bag. On the one hand, if I get another PT job or consulting gig, that's a kind of security and potentially more money. On the other hand, if I get a FT gig, that can mean things like going into an office and wearing clothes and stuff. (Shudder.)
I've got two other projects with potential going, so I'm working on those as well. It's just busy.
Which is my whiny excuse for not posting reviews on An Education and Everybody's Fine yet. I will, though, soon. Promise.
Meanwhile, I've been watching the Goldstein/Patterico wars, which I hate. I actually unfollowed Patterico on Twitter because his attacks strike me as both petty and strident.
To summarize, Patterico said that Stacy McCain had made a racist statement (over ten years ago!) but may or may not be actually racist himself. Goldstein, on a pretty straightforward point of logic says, no, there cannot be racism without intent. You can't say someone made a racist comment but may or may not be racist. Patterico then talks about "unconscious" racism, etc. etc. etc.
I feel for Patterico because he's parroting what we've all learned, isn't he? We've all learned over the years that white people, in particular, are racist (even if only unconsciously so) and their willingness to use words that others deem racist is proof of that. I mean, we've all lived through the kabuki of constantly changing names/titles/designations to prove the purity of our intentions. And we've all lived through (and accepted) the gradual loss of our freedoms to do the same.
Volokh himself talks about this in the terms of the First Amendment here. Like Volokh, I want people to be free to express their prejudices. I don't want them cloaked in PC talk. I don't want a ritual that is used to demonstrate the right thinking; I want what people think to be right out there in their speech and associations. Then I can choose whom I want to associate with. (And you know what? A lot of racism and other faulty -isms actually do yield to logic, but you never learn that when people just know it's taboo to discuss certain things.)
But despite the simple truth of Goldstein's argument—I mean, really, to argue that racism doesn't need to be intended by the racist is to argue that it's an actual substance with physical properties that can be identified byclimate scientistsproperly annointed clergyright thinking people—Patterico has instead doubled-down, defending the most heinous corruption of our ability to communicate.
It's not the first time he's done this, and it's a shame, because he does really good work calling out the L.A. Times on their biases, errors and general buffoonery. But as Goldstein points out (again and again): if you accede the ability to decide what you meant to another agency, you lose if ever you decide to go against that agency. (Said agencies, not remarkably, are always statists, and these days, they're on the left. It wasn't so long ago they were establishment Christians and other social conservatives who wanted the state to interfere on behalf of their causes—the whole problem with the old order, when you think of it.)
Anyway, Goldstein absolutely skewers him with a two part demonstration on exactly how Frey's logic can be used against him. But Patterico seems to have a hard time with being wrong. Either that, or far worse, he doesn't want to let intention get in the way of his own ability to exercise power over others by misconstruing their speech.
Nah, he's probably just being pigheaded.
Meanwhile, I'm going to get back to reviewing stuff.
Sorry for the long absence. I've been hard at work looking for work to be hard at work at. I'm going to be part-time at the current job (which didn't stop them from giving me two new, huge projects to do) which is a mixed bag. On the one hand, if I get another PT job or consulting gig, that's a kind of security and potentially more money. On the other hand, if I get a FT gig, that can mean things like going into an office and wearing clothes and stuff. (Shudder.)
I've got two other projects with potential going, so I'm working on those as well. It's just busy.
Which is my whiny excuse for not posting reviews on An Education and Everybody's Fine yet. I will, though, soon. Promise.
Meanwhile, I've been watching the Goldstein/Patterico wars, which I hate. I actually unfollowed Patterico on Twitter because his attacks strike me as both petty and strident.
To summarize, Patterico said that Stacy McCain had made a racist statement (over ten years ago!) but may or may not be actually racist himself. Goldstein, on a pretty straightforward point of logic says, no, there cannot be racism without intent. You can't say someone made a racist comment but may or may not be racist. Patterico then talks about "unconscious" racism, etc. etc. etc.
I feel for Patterico because he's parroting what we've all learned, isn't he? We've all learned over the years that white people, in particular, are racist (even if only unconsciously so) and their willingness to use words that others deem racist is proof of that. I mean, we've all lived through the kabuki of constantly changing names/titles/designations to prove the purity of our intentions. And we've all lived through (and accepted) the gradual loss of our freedoms to do the same.
Volokh himself talks about this in the terms of the First Amendment here. Like Volokh, I want people to be free to express their prejudices. I don't want them cloaked in PC talk. I don't want a ritual that is used to demonstrate the right thinking; I want what people think to be right out there in their speech and associations. Then I can choose whom I want to associate with. (And you know what? A lot of racism and other faulty -isms actually do yield to logic, but you never learn that when people just know it's taboo to discuss certain things.)
But despite the simple truth of Goldstein's argument—I mean, really, to argue that racism doesn't need to be intended by the racist is to argue that it's an actual substance with physical properties that can be identified by
It's not the first time he's done this, and it's a shame, because he does really good work calling out the L.A. Times on their biases, errors and general buffoonery. But as Goldstein points out (again and again): if you accede the ability to decide what you meant to another agency, you lose if ever you decide to go against that agency. (Said agencies, not remarkably, are always statists, and these days, they're on the left. It wasn't so long ago they were establishment Christians and other social conservatives who wanted the state to interfere on behalf of their causes—the whole problem with the old order, when you think of it.)
Anyway, Goldstein absolutely skewers him with a two part demonstration on exactly how Frey's logic can be used against him. But Patterico seems to have a hard time with being wrong. Either that, or far worse, he doesn't want to let intention get in the way of his own ability to exercise power over others by misconstruing their speech.
Nah, he's probably just being pigheaded.
Meanwhile, I'm going to get back to reviewing stuff.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Rape vs. Cuckoldry
In what seems to me to be a shining example of "us vs. them" syndrome, a debate is going on about which is worse being raped, or being cuckolded (in the biological sense of raising another man's child). Via Instapundit. Arguments are being made based on financial costs, emotional damage, etc.
But the only point in having this debate is to try to score a point against the opposite sex. Just as men and women are different, they have different ways of hurting each other. Even if one is "worse" than the other by some standard, it doesn't really say anything by itself about the conflicts between men and women.
Just as I think collectivism makes for bad government, I think it also makes for a bad way to try to resolve interpersonal issues. One should worry materially less about what "men" do and what "women" do than what the particular men and women in one's life do.
The kids have been on a real "King of the Hill" kick lately. That show, if you've never seen it, features a character, Dale, whose son Joseph is clearly not his. Dale is a comical character, cowardly and stupid, and his cuckolding by his wife played for laughs in both his and others' inability to see the obvious. (Joseph is around 14 through most of the series, and Dale's wife's affair is still going on when the series starts.)
But from the start, Dale's devotion to his son (such as it is) is the bedrock of the family. And as the series progresses and his wife rededicates herself to him, it turns out to be Joseph's real father who ends up lonely and isolated, watching his son grow up to admire and emulate another man.
It's a very funny show, but I don't think I've seen the topic handled more thoroughly and sensitively anywhere else. And I think it's more interesting than trying to figure out who hurts who more, men or women. Because I think we all do a pretty good job of that—and keeping score is probably just going to make us all look bad.
But the only point in having this debate is to try to score a point against the opposite sex. Just as men and women are different, they have different ways of hurting each other. Even if one is "worse" than the other by some standard, it doesn't really say anything by itself about the conflicts between men and women.
Just as I think collectivism makes for bad government, I think it also makes for a bad way to try to resolve interpersonal issues. One should worry materially less about what "men" do and what "women" do than what the particular men and women in one's life do.
The kids have been on a real "King of the Hill" kick lately. That show, if you've never seen it, features a character, Dale, whose son Joseph is clearly not his. Dale is a comical character, cowardly and stupid, and his cuckolding by his wife played for laughs in both his and others' inability to see the obvious. (Joseph is around 14 through most of the series, and Dale's wife's affair is still going on when the series starts.)
But from the start, Dale's devotion to his son (such as it is) is the bedrock of the family. And as the series progresses and his wife rededicates herself to him, it turns out to be Joseph's real father who ends up lonely and isolated, watching his son grow up to admire and emulate another man.
It's a very funny show, but I don't think I've seen the topic handled more thoroughly and sensitively anywhere else. And I think it's more interesting than trying to figure out who hurts who more, men or women. Because I think we all do a pretty good job of that—and keeping score is probably just going to make us all look bad.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Wherein I Compare AI Development To Global Warming
Instapundit highlights this little article on Artificial Intelligence where J. Storrs Hall writes the following:
—perhaps humanoid, though humanoid shape wouldn't be necessarily optimal.
And, no, this isn't human intelligence. Robot janitors will, guaranteed, be stupid. They'll clean while building burns—or if that's prepared for, while the building floods. And if they're programmed for that, while the roof caves in.
To my mind, the key graf is:
And we have the Roomba. And some other very cool domain-specializing tools. But nothing like intelligence.
But the idea that a two-year-old is considered less than a janitor, and a janitor less than an artist suggests to me that the field is still lacking a definition of intelligence. A two-year-old has as powerful an intellect as any of us will ever meet. A janitor's intelligence isn't necessarily going to be taxed by his job very often, but sometimes it will be—knowing how to react in an unexpected circumstances, like a fire, a flood, previously unsuspected structural unsoundness.
One can argue that many janitors who face such circumstances react wrongly or inappropriately, but they react to the best of their ability. Robots will simply fail to react to things outside their parameters.
Again, not to say that there won't be useful 'bots, but this isn't intelligence.
I'm not an expert in it, but I think the singularity guys have based their theory on a combination of working AI and Moore's Law. But Moore's Law is a trend, not an actual "law", and AI doesn't seem to be any closer to realization than it ever was—it's only a massive amount of computing power that allows the meagerest appearance of less-than-animal intelligence.
Appearance, I say. It's not even intelligence and the distinction is not something that can be remedied with quantity.
I'll go one step further: If the singularity were to come to pass, it would be a nightmare for humanity. But that's a different topic for a different rant.
Insty quotes this, and it's a misleading. Hall believes we'll have an AI capable of janitorial work, not really an AI that can "do everything a janitor is supposed to". What he means is that we'll have, essentially, a more advanced Roomba
If you’re OK with calling a robot human equivalent if it can, say, do everything a janitor is supposed to, it’s likely by 2025; if it has to be able to create art and literature and do science and wheel and deal in the political and economic world and be a productive entrepreneur, you may have to wait a little bit longer.
—perhaps humanoid, though humanoid shape wouldn't be necessarily optimal.And, no, this isn't human intelligence. Robot janitors will, guaranteed, be stupid. They'll clean while building burns—or if that's prepared for, while the building floods. And if they're programmed for that, while the roof caves in.
To my mind, the key graf is:
First of all: No, it won't. No mystery. See, that would be intelligence, versus pre-programming a set of defined tasks with a certain set of fixed parameters. I'll give him some credit that he's wondering, as opposed to making a prediction that anyone will actually be there in 15 years. 25 years ago, people who used to write and speak about AI predicted wondrous things in 5, 10, 15 years.
What remains to be seen is whether it will be equivalent to the 2-year-old in that essential aspect that it will learn, grow, and gain in wisdom as it ages.
And we have the Roomba. And some other very cool domain-specializing tools. But nothing like intelligence.
But the idea that a two-year-old is considered less than a janitor, and a janitor less than an artist suggests to me that the field is still lacking a definition of intelligence. A two-year-old has as powerful an intellect as any of us will ever meet. A janitor's intelligence isn't necessarily going to be taxed by his job very often, but sometimes it will be—knowing how to react in an unexpected circumstances, like a fire, a flood, previously unsuspected structural unsoundness.
One can argue that many janitors who face such circumstances react wrongly or inappropriately, but they react to the best of their ability. Robots will simply fail to react to things outside their parameters.
Again, not to say that there won't be useful 'bots, but this isn't intelligence.
I'm not an expert in it, but I think the singularity guys have based their theory on a combination of working AI and Moore's Law. But Moore's Law is a trend, not an actual "law", and AI doesn't seem to be any closer to realization than it ever was—it's only a massive amount of computing power that allows the meagerest appearance of less-than-animal intelligence.
Appearance, I say. It's not even intelligence and the distinction is not something that can be remedied with quantity.
I'll go one step further: If the singularity were to come to pass, it would be a nightmare for humanity. But that's a different topic for a different rant.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Freeblogging!
The inimitable Freeman Hunt has had a blog for quite some time, but I never linked to it because she didn't blog much. But since the new baby came around she's stepped it up a bit, so I added her to the roll. She has a couple of posts I wanted to call out, too.
Item the first: He Is Not Coming. This is a rather depressing and scathing indictment on modern society, not entirely undeserved. But I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion. How many people 235 years ago fit the mold that Freeman outlines? A small percentage, to be sure. We have a much smaller percentage today, to be sure, but we also have one-hundred times as many people (in this country). The percentage can afford to be smaller--with the only rub being that there has to be an appreciative audience.
I believe a segment of the audience is getting more receptive with each passing day.
Also, while The Boy and I are looking at learning Latin (on Victor Davis Hanson's advice), I would note that the Founders did not know the language of relativity, of computing, of information science and so on. The game has changed and education needs to reflect that. Today, the primary skill may be knowing how to sip from the firehose.
The past had its festering effete as well, even if today universal education and socialism has allowed them to spread their disease as a philosophy.
Finally, I'm not sure we need a "he". I think we need--and may have--a "we". That's where the "he"s and "she"s will come from. We don't need a revolution: We need a hundred revolutions. The rot came from the top down; the cure will come from the bottom up. Economics may work better supply-side; liberty must needs be demanded.
Item the second: Freem also linked to a blog called "Life is Not a Cereal" with an entry on what to do if your homeschooling kids get "school envy".
Homeschoolers are not immune to "grass is greener"-itis. This is almost entirely resolved by acquainting them with the realities of industrialized schooling? Yes, those kids get to have recess. But, yes, they must take it, whether they want it or not, it is always an exact amount of time, and hell, you never know when you're going to be stripsearched.
As the entry also points out a little bit of consumerism can take the edge off: Let the kids buy "back to school" supplies or lunchboxes, for example.
Finally, it's not unheard of for homeschoolers to let their kids take the senior year of high school. Certainly there's nothing wrong with that, though it's preferable that they have their college degrees first.
Anyway, check out Freem's blog. Oh, especially these pictures from her grandfather from 1952. She claims they're military but they look an awful lot like The Thing From Another World to me....
Item the first: He Is Not Coming. This is a rather depressing and scathing indictment on modern society, not entirely undeserved. But I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion. How many people 235 years ago fit the mold that Freeman outlines? A small percentage, to be sure. We have a much smaller percentage today, to be sure, but we also have one-hundred times as many people (in this country). The percentage can afford to be smaller--with the only rub being that there has to be an appreciative audience.
I believe a segment of the audience is getting more receptive with each passing day.
Also, while The Boy and I are looking at learning Latin (on Victor Davis Hanson's advice), I would note that the Founders did not know the language of relativity, of computing, of information science and so on. The game has changed and education needs to reflect that. Today, the primary skill may be knowing how to sip from the firehose.
The past had its festering effete as well, even if today universal education and socialism has allowed them to spread their disease as a philosophy.
Finally, I'm not sure we need a "he". I think we need--and may have--a "we". That's where the "he"s and "she"s will come from. We don't need a revolution: We need a hundred revolutions. The rot came from the top down; the cure will come from the bottom up. Economics may work better supply-side; liberty must needs be demanded.
Item the second: Freem also linked to a blog called "Life is Not a Cereal" with an entry on what to do if your homeschooling kids get "school envy".
Homeschoolers are not immune to "grass is greener"-itis. This is almost entirely resolved by acquainting them with the realities of industrialized schooling? Yes, those kids get to have recess. But, yes, they must take it, whether they want it or not, it is always an exact amount of time, and hell, you never know when you're going to be stripsearched.
As the entry also points out a little bit of consumerism can take the edge off: Let the kids buy "back to school" supplies or lunchboxes, for example.
Finally, it's not unheard of for homeschoolers to let their kids take the senior year of high school. Certainly there's nothing wrong with that, though it's preferable that they have their college degrees first.
Anyway, check out Freem's blog. Oh, especially these pictures from her grandfather from 1952. She claims they're military but they look an awful lot like The Thing From Another World to me....
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
"I Believe In The Principle of Free Speech But...
...shut up already!" Or so says Althouse in this post. I assume it's the "but" she objects to, so apparently if you believe in anything less than absolute freedom of speech all the time, she doesn't want to hear it.
I feel for her. Her blog's been inundated with trolls at a time when she probably couldn't be much less interested in maintenance issues. But I've never seen an online community with an absolute freedom of speech rule that wasn't ultimately destroyed by that devotion.
The logical paradox I see is that she's not rebuking the trolls, who are acting in bad faith, but she is rebuking people who bitch about the trolls, even though they're acting in good faith. So why is free speech an absolute for trolls--but not for troll haters?
I feel for her. Her blog's been inundated with trolls at a time when she probably couldn't be much less interested in maintenance issues. But I've never seen an online community with an absolute freedom of speech rule that wasn't ultimately destroyed by that devotion.
The logical paradox I see is that she's not rebuking the trolls, who are acting in bad faith, but she is rebuking people who bitch about the trolls, even though they're acting in good faith. So why is free speech an absolute for trolls--but not for troll haters?
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Victoria's Faces
Haven't seen Victoria from Sundries around in too long. She had a run-in with a Dell on March 1st, and never seems to have recovered. Sadly.
In memoriam, here's a linke to one of her old posts, "Faces" which, from what I've read of it, is a nice piece of writing and history. It's a look at faces of the silver screen.
Enjoy!
In memoriam, here's a linke to one of her old posts, "Faces" which, from what I've read of it, is a nice piece of writing and history. It's a look at faces of the silver screen.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Links You May Have Missed, But Probably Would Like To See, If Only You Knew About Them
These are for me as much as you. I'll thank me later. Mostly from Twitter.
Via Freeman Hunt : The blog of Milton Friedman's "Free To Choose" PBS series. Funny that for all the PBS crap I got shown in school, this wasn't among the viewing options.
Via Andy Levy via Allahpundit: Face transplant story with pictures. Amazing.
More on the voucher situation from the WSJ: "If, however, you are a pol who piously tells inner-city families that public schools are the answer -- and you do this while safely ensconcing your own kids in some private haven -- the press corps mostly winks."
Also, today is not the day where I wish I sent my kids to public school.
27% of all marketers suck? Sounds a little low to me.
Funny and short: Why copywriters should be native speakers.
Cringely talks about the future of television on the Internet. It's interesting.
Hot: Bill Whittle schools John Stewart on the history behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The beauty of being a useful idiot is that you never have to research and you never have to say you're sorry. Because, damn the facts, you're right, and Harry Truman was a war criminal.
Lastly, Tabitha Hale aka Pink Elephant Pundit has started doing a radio show/podcast/audio blog/whatever the hell the kids these days are calling it. Episode One is here. I was going to listen to it, but there's, like, the entirety of "Walk This Way" at the front and that used up any time I had, plus confused me.
Via Freeman Hunt : The blog of Milton Friedman's "Free To Choose" PBS series. Funny that for all the PBS crap I got shown in school, this wasn't among the viewing options.
Via Andy Levy via Allahpundit: Face transplant story with pictures. Amazing.
More on the voucher situation from the WSJ: "If, however, you are a pol who piously tells inner-city families that public schools are the answer -- and you do this while safely ensconcing your own kids in some private haven -- the press corps mostly winks."
Also, today is not the day where I wish I sent my kids to public school.
27% of all marketers suck? Sounds a little low to me.
Funny and short: Why copywriters should be native speakers.
Cringely talks about the future of television on the Internet. It's interesting.
Hot: Bill Whittle schools John Stewart on the history behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The beauty of being a useful idiot is that you never have to research and you never have to say you're sorry. Because, damn the facts, you're right, and Harry Truman was a war criminal.
Lastly, Tabitha Hale aka Pink Elephant Pundit has started doing a radio show/podcast/audio blog/whatever the hell the kids these days are calling it. Episode One is here. I was going to listen to it, but there's, like, the entirety of "Walk This Way" at the front and that used up any time I had, plus confused me.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
We Can't Have Nice Things
A new commenter came by and commented on an old post I had about the weirdness of IMDB movie ratings, which is a topic I've mentioned not too long ago. When I first logged on to IMDB, the top-rated movie was The Godfather, and it had a 7.8.
I had always thought the main distortion on IMDB was simple inflation. "Oh, Godfather is a 7.8, eh? Well, then, Glitter must be at least an 8! And Godfather should be a 1!" And this leads to a vicious cycle, where people aren't ranking movies according to their own preferences, but against others'.
And it made me think of Susan Boyle, who got a record breaking number of views on YouTube, and the article I was reading talked about how "Evolution of Dance" was suspected of being the most viewed video, but that fans of various musical groups set up tricks to increase the view count for their favorite acts.
Then I thought over Wikipedia, which has limited utility from all the bias. Then Althouse comment threads--and Althouse has among the best commenters--which people go in with the sole purpose to create noise. Twitter has a pretty good system for reducing noise, but you can still get lots of spam.
And I think to myself: This is why we can't have nice things.
Seriously, all the social web things are cool. The open-ness of them, the facilitating of mashups and unexpected uses. But the difficult balance to strike is allowing contributions and also disallowing them.
Twitter works because following is easy but not automatic. Unfollowing is only slightly harder, which is to say, not hard at all. But Twitter lacks continuity and intimacy. (That may be an artifact of Twitter versus a necessary result of the following process.) It's also a chaotic stream that is only manageable because you can limit it.
I was struck by that old meme of the mom pulling out hair because the kids knocked over her expensive vase by playing ball in the house where she laments, "We can't have nice things." The social web often reminds me of that. That and the sort of nouveaux "tragedy of the commons", which isn't about consuming resources, but controlling the ones that command attention.
I think something like Twitter could be evolved with multiple streams and nesting, possibly around little nodes, which could be links to blogs, or could be long "tweets". But these would exist in the common space, perhaps with separate streams for different responders, even. Something less monolithic than Twitter.
I don't know. I suspect we're not done with the whole social web thing. But the real trick is trying to figure out how to have nice things.
I had always thought the main distortion on IMDB was simple inflation. "Oh, Godfather is a 7.8, eh? Well, then, Glitter must be at least an 8! And Godfather should be a 1!" And this leads to a vicious cycle, where people aren't ranking movies according to their own preferences, but against others'.
And it made me think of Susan Boyle, who got a record breaking number of views on YouTube, and the article I was reading talked about how "Evolution of Dance" was suspected of being the most viewed video, but that fans of various musical groups set up tricks to increase the view count for their favorite acts.
Then I thought over Wikipedia, which has limited utility from all the bias. Then Althouse comment threads--and Althouse has among the best commenters--which people go in with the sole purpose to create noise. Twitter has a pretty good system for reducing noise, but you can still get lots of spam.
And I think to myself: This is why we can't have nice things.
Seriously, all the social web things are cool. The open-ness of them, the facilitating of mashups and unexpected uses. But the difficult balance to strike is allowing contributions and also disallowing them.
Twitter works because following is easy but not automatic. Unfollowing is only slightly harder, which is to say, not hard at all. But Twitter lacks continuity and intimacy. (That may be an artifact of Twitter versus a necessary result of the following process.) It's also a chaotic stream that is only manageable because you can limit it.
I was struck by that old meme of the mom pulling out hair because the kids knocked over her expensive vase by playing ball in the house where she laments, "We can't have nice things." The social web often reminds me of that. That and the sort of nouveaux "tragedy of the commons", which isn't about consuming resources, but controlling the ones that command attention.
I think something like Twitter could be evolved with multiple streams and nesting, possibly around little nodes, which could be links to blogs, or could be long "tweets". But these would exist in the common space, perhaps with separate streams for different responders, even. Something less monolithic than Twitter.
I don't know. I suspect we're not done with the whole social web thing. But the real trick is trying to figure out how to have nice things.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Dead Men Throw No Switches
So I started doing the nutritional program in earnest, along with The Boy, and got a bit of a scare. It's probably nothing, and may be related to the antibiotics I'm taking (for the ear infection from hell), but I'll be having a thorough medical examination as a result.
It's not really something I look forward to.
But it got me thinking about my mortality and taking care of business. Death isn't something I fear, generally. When younger, I had some brushes with mortality to which my reaction was "Well, I guess if it's my time..."
I know that we get a sense of invulnerability, immortality, that nothing bad can happen to us, but there's also the "who cares?" aspect of it. When you're young you consider yourself sovereign over your life, and if you're going to do something reckless well, what's that to anyone else? You can see young death glamorized in a way that mortality otherwise is not.
And then you have kids.
Well, crap. Now it matters if you live or die. (And if you're thinking, you realize it mattered before--back when you were SuperTeen--to your own parents. A feeling of embarrasment is normal at this point.) I mean, the finances are easy enough to handle. In fact, the traditional male role is easy to fill: I think a widow with children can probably much more easily plug in a new male into her life than a widower is likely to find a woman willing to take care of another woman's home and children. And how much more traumatic is that, that the primary caretaker be replaced by a relative stranger?
Of course, it happened a lot in the Old West (for example), with mortality in child birth being so common. And certainly it's happened that a step-father has a callous and indifferent (or worse) attitude toward another man's children.
Anyway, having a kid changes the game, if you were indifferent to your survival before. If you're cancerous and would rather just let it take you than endure the medieval treatments we have for handling it, you really don't have much of a choice. You have to fight. Congratulations: You've become more important than yourself.
It should also mean that you're not exposing yourself to a lot of unnecessary risk, like extreme sports, daredevil ballon rides, base jumping, etc. But that doesn't always happen.
Given the rather severe separation of my online life versus my real one, I've often thought about setting up a "dead man's switch" that would notify people should I not throw it. I figured the most likely result of that, though, would be a false "Blake's dead!" message. Heh. That might be funny once or twice, but sort of defeats the purpose should it happen a lot.
There's now at least one service that will do this for you, I think. It's been in the news a lot lately. But I suspect a lot of us don't give enough thought on how online folks would be affected by our sudden disappearance. (I've had it happen numerous times, and I don't know to this day whether the person just dropped out or something had happened to them.)
So, it's something worth thinking about.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tea For Two Million
We're feeling inadequate down here at the 'strom because we didn't attend a tea party today. (The ear infection is still kicking my ass--through my ear canal, which tells you something.) I'm of course wild-ass guessing on the above number, 500 protests with 4,000 average people per. The number of protests is probably higher, but the average is probably a lot lower. But that messes with the whole tea-for-two riff.
So, we'll enjoy vicariously through everyone else, and figure there are about 100 people like us who couldn't make it for every person who actually did make it. 200 million, then, objecting to the current amazing expansion of government and debt. Which, even with the exaggerated numbers is still 100 million short of what I'd want to see.
Anyway, here's Freeman Hunt with a video from Reason. Freem puts me to shame, since she's got a newborn and she's making the trek, and what do I have? A lousy ear infection.
Ann Althouse expounds a bit on why she hasn't talked about the tea parties. I pretty much feel the same way as AA, in that I don't really like politics, and I'm really not a joiner. I'm begining to feel like I don't have a choice, though. As John Adams famously said:
That said, the reaction from the statists is tragic. I thought about fisking a guy who I saw tweeting "rebuttals" last night. Basically, anyone who goes to one of these tea parties is a tool of rich, greedy Republicans (Democrats who are rich of course have their hearts in the right place) and they're all phony anyway and besides, FOX NEWS! LIMBAUGH! HANNITY! BECK! O'REILLY! (Are these guys even that close politically?)
(UPDATE: Patterico responds to one of the essays I thought about fisking.)
Ultimately, I decided life was too short to try to engage people who have no intention of actually communicating. Back when Alpha Liberal first showed up at Althouse I followed all of his links, trying to talk to him. But the links seldom related to what he was saying, or they were assertions being made by other statists, or if there was some real data, it didn't really describe what he said it did.
But he never really addressed anything I wrote. You've seen this, I'm sure. They say, "A!" and you say, "Well, not quite A, more like A1." Then rather than try to figure out where between "A" and "A1" the truth is, they say, "Well, B!" And they have an inexhaustible source of these assertions because, quite frankly, they're made up.
It isn't just the left that does this, of course, but it seems to be primarily the left that considers it legitimate. If you have two points, "A" and "B", and "A" is completely, obviously not comparable to "B" in terms of scope or relevance, and may even be made up, while "B" is true, this crowd seems to consider the very availability of "A" to be sufficient rebuttal to "B". In fact, if you see them on TV, the game seems to be getting as many of these in as possible.
The relevance of this to the tea parties is that the media is largely pretending these protests didn't happen. The reality is "A", they're saying "B". It will be interesting to see if they have to upgrade that to "Well, they happened, but they weren't very big." Or "Well, they happened, but they're just haters and not important."
Like NBC featuring Chuck Todd, who has dismissed these gatherings. (Though in fairness to Todd, it's not really a Republican thing, so he's probably right that it hasn't "galvanized the party".) Ace of Spades didn't care for the CNN reporter who actually aggressively takes the opposing viewpoint. Another helpful CNN article uses Nazis to illustrate right-wing agitation.
Anyway, I saw pix of the various gatherings on Twitter. Tabitha Hale had some nice ones. InfidelsAreCool had pics from Santa Ana, complete with one of Andrew Breitbart. (God love 'em, but every time he comes on "Red Eye" it seems like he's getting less and less coherent. Preoccupied?) StillStacy linked a nice pic from Denver.
Michelle Malkin has a ton of pics up, and a huge post at her blog. On the other blogs, Ace has a protest babe up. Previous massive pic thread here. Lots of heh over at Instapundit. (UPDATE: Protein Wisdom has a link roundup.)
Here's a graphic that illustrates my main beef with taxes. It isn't just that the gov't takes half of your money directly, it's that they also double the cost of everything we buy. But those costs are usually hidden. So how are they not, in fact, taking most of the money there is? This is why I'm for a per capita tax as the only tax allowed.
I mean, think about it: If your income was doubled, and everything cost half as much? Tell me you wouldn't be willing to give up everything the government "gives you"! You could find some money in that for defense. Probably a few social programs, too.
And that's now. Wait till the bill comes due on the latest spending spree.
Which brings me to another reason I've been somewhat reticent about going to a protest. OK, let's say that there were two million people out there. And they're fed up. What does that translate into? When you're there, what are you doing? What do you hope to accomplish?
I mean, when the left does it, it's for PR. This way the papers can run stories about how people hate the war du jour or Israel or whatever it is they're hating. And I suppose there's that value, because even if the newspapers insist on saying "B!", there is the reality of "A" just sitting out there.
Ideally, these protests would translate into a repeal of all the legislation passed to date, from the Bear-Stearns bailout, insofar as that's possible. And a confirmation that such legislation was never to be passed again, or at least not quickly. At least, that's what I think. But what do the other two million think?
And wouldn't it have been better if the government just hadn't gotten itself involved in all this stuff 100 years ago?
So, we'll enjoy vicariously through everyone else, and figure there are about 100 people like us who couldn't make it for every person who actually did make it. 200 million, then, objecting to the current amazing expansion of government and debt. Which, even with the exaggerated numbers is still 100 million short of what I'd want to see.
Anyway, here's Freeman Hunt with a video from Reason. Freem puts me to shame, since she's got a newborn and she's making the trek, and what do I have? A lousy ear infection.
Ann Althouse expounds a bit on why she hasn't talked about the tea parties. I pretty much feel the same way as AA, in that I don't really like politics, and I'm really not a joiner. I'm begining to feel like I don't have a choice, though. As John Adams famously said:
I hope the "war" part is just metaphorical.
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
That said, the reaction from the statists is tragic. I thought about fisking a guy who I saw tweeting "rebuttals" last night. Basically, anyone who goes to one of these tea parties is a tool of rich, greedy Republicans (Democrats who are rich of course have their hearts in the right place) and they're all phony anyway and besides, FOX NEWS! LIMBAUGH! HANNITY! BECK! O'REILLY! (Are these guys even that close politically?)
(UPDATE: Patterico responds to one of the essays I thought about fisking.)
Ultimately, I decided life was too short to try to engage people who have no intention of actually communicating. Back when Alpha Liberal first showed up at Althouse I followed all of his links, trying to talk to him. But the links seldom related to what he was saying, or they were assertions being made by other statists, or if there was some real data, it didn't really describe what he said it did.
But he never really addressed anything I wrote. You've seen this, I'm sure. They say, "A!" and you say, "Well, not quite A, more like A1." Then rather than try to figure out where between "A" and "A1" the truth is, they say, "Well, B!" And they have an inexhaustible source of these assertions because, quite frankly, they're made up.
It isn't just the left that does this, of course, but it seems to be primarily the left that considers it legitimate. If you have two points, "A" and "B", and "A" is completely, obviously not comparable to "B" in terms of scope or relevance, and may even be made up, while "B" is true, this crowd seems to consider the very availability of "A" to be sufficient rebuttal to "B". In fact, if you see them on TV, the game seems to be getting as many of these in as possible.
The relevance of this to the tea parties is that the media is largely pretending these protests didn't happen. The reality is "A", they're saying "B". It will be interesting to see if they have to upgrade that to "Well, they happened, but they weren't very big." Or "Well, they happened, but they're just haters and not important."
Like NBC featuring Chuck Todd, who has dismissed these gatherings. (Though in fairness to Todd, it's not really a Republican thing, so he's probably right that it hasn't "galvanized the party".) Ace of Spades didn't care for the CNN reporter who actually aggressively takes the opposing viewpoint. Another helpful CNN article uses Nazis to illustrate right-wing agitation.
Anyway, I saw pix of the various gatherings on Twitter. Tabitha Hale had some nice ones. InfidelsAreCool had pics from Santa Ana, complete with one of Andrew Breitbart. (God love 'em, but every time he comes on "Red Eye" it seems like he's getting less and less coherent. Preoccupied?) StillStacy linked a nice pic from Denver.
Michelle Malkin has a ton of pics up, and a huge post at her blog. On the other blogs, Ace has a protest babe up. Previous massive pic thread here. Lots of heh over at Instapundit. (UPDATE: Protein Wisdom has a link roundup.)
Here's a graphic that illustrates my main beef with taxes. It isn't just that the gov't takes half of your money directly, it's that they also double the cost of everything we buy. But those costs are usually hidden. So how are they not, in fact, taking most of the money there is? This is why I'm for a per capita tax as the only tax allowed.
I mean, think about it: If your income was doubled, and everything cost half as much? Tell me you wouldn't be willing to give up everything the government "gives you"! You could find some money in that for defense. Probably a few social programs, too.
And that's now. Wait till the bill comes due on the latest spending spree.
Which brings me to another reason I've been somewhat reticent about going to a protest. OK, let's say that there were two million people out there. And they're fed up. What does that translate into? When you're there, what are you doing? What do you hope to accomplish?
I mean, when the left does it, it's for PR. This way the papers can run stories about how people hate the war du jour or Israel or whatever it is they're hating. And I suppose there's that value, because even if the newspapers insist on saying "B!", there is the reality of "A" just sitting out there.
Ideally, these protests would translate into a repeal of all the legislation passed to date, from the Bear-Stearns bailout, insofar as that's possible. And a confirmation that such legislation was never to be passed again, or at least not quickly. At least, that's what I think. But what do the other two million think?
And wouldn't it have been better if the government just hadn't gotten itself involved in all this stuff 100 years ago?
Monday, April 13, 2009
20,000 Visitors Under The Sea!
Well, once again I missed a blogging milestone: The Bit Maelstrom passed 20,000 visitors over a week ago. As I suspected last fall, I wasn't able to clear 15,000 by the end of the year, but then, in the last three months--with a big boost from the, um, romantically agitated Ann Althouse (and Meade knows exactly what I'm talkin' 'bout, hush yo' mouth)--I jumped into the 20K mark.
Cooler to me is that more folks are coming by more often, about double what came by a year ago. Yeah, plenty are still linking in to the pointy breasts, but a few people come by daily for movie reviews, or something else a little more substantial. (Janet Leigh's been good to me. I'm not knocking the--naw, I can't say it.)
Special thanks to Ann Althouse, of course, and Freeman Hunt, who has linked me on Twitter generously. And thanks again to all y'all commenting.
Cooler to me is that more folks are coming by more often, about double what came by a year ago. Yeah, plenty are still linking in to the pointy breasts, but a few people come by daily for movie reviews, or something else a little more substantial. (Janet Leigh's been good to me. I'm not knocking the--naw, I can't say it.)
Special thanks to Ann Althouse, of course, and Freeman Hunt, who has linked me on Twitter generously. And thanks again to all y'all commenting.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Timely Material
The delightful Anna David tweeted this bit of Men's Health fluff on inter-office dating. Wait, intra-office dating? Well, whatever. Doin' it witcher co-worker.
Couldn't help but wonder how it applies to blogs and commenters. Though I guess that's more of a royalty/commoner thing.
Couldn't help but wonder how it applies to blogs and commenters. Though I guess that's more of a royalty/commoner thing.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Awesome Explained
Via Hector at Rain In The Doorway, the periodical table of awesomeness!
Be sure to check Hector out; he's been blogging up a storm lately.
Be sure to check Hector out; he's been blogging up a storm lately.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I have nothing to say.
But I am wearing pajamas. That's a rare thing for me, so I thought I'd take a moment to live the stereotype.
I know, so 2003, isn't it?
I know, so 2003, isn't it?
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Free Baby!
No, I'm not giving away babies, Freeman Hunt had herself a Freebaby yesterday evening while you were watching "Supernanny"! I mean, really, if you watched less TV and concentrated your efforst, you could probably come up with something pretty cool, too.
Probably not as cool as a Freebaby, but still.
I'm hoping the pix turn up on her blog.
Probably not as cool as a Freebaby, but still.
I'm hoping the pix turn up on her blog.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Random Thought
As I (and the rest of the world) eagerly await the arrival of its newest champion of Freedom, I noticed this list tweeted by Mary Katherine Ham.
And I wondered, is Man the only mammal that enjoys bathing?
But then I remembered the elephants. They always seem to have a good time with it. Hippos, too.
It's the hairy mammals that don't like to bathe (you know, like Trooper York).
Keep watching the skies for Freeman Hunt's announcement!
And I wondered, is Man the only mammal that enjoys bathing?
But then I remembered the elephants. They always seem to have a good time with it. Hippos, too.
It's the hairy mammals that don't like to bathe (you know, like Trooper York).
Keep watching the skies for Freeman Hunt's announcement!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Filling The Notebook
I've got to stop writing long posts that I don't actually put up.
Well, I've got to stop writing them faster than I clean them out of the drafts folder, anyway.
Sheesh.
Well, I've got to stop writing them faster than I clean them out of the drafts folder, anyway.
Sheesh.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I Don't Want The President To Fail
I just want all of his policies to fail. Don't you see the difference?
I want the President to succeed, you know, as long as that success doesn't include any of those policies I disagree with. (Which actually isn't all of them. It would probably be a good idea to get rid of the homeowner deduction, as much as it would hurt.)
The battle rages. Fred Thompson wants the President's policies to fail. Patterico approves of the wording while ignoring that, in context, that's exactly what Rush said. Goldstein schools him. (The early comments are really funny, too.)
What I don't get is how Patterico--who I have mentioned before does a great job calling out the Los Angeles Times for its many duplicities--can't grasp this. I mean, I swear that in recent years, he's found the Times just making crap up to support their narrative: How on earth does he think careful word choices and non-inflammatory phrasings are going to help?
If you let someone else control your meaning, you've lost the game. It's that simple.
UPDATE: I wanted to point out here that I wanted George W. Bush to fail, too, in almost every case. In fact, it's generally a good thing for the people if the Presidents do fail, unless they're making government smaller--which they almost never are.
I want the President to succeed, you know, as long as that success doesn't include any of those policies I disagree with. (Which actually isn't all of them. It would probably be a good idea to get rid of the homeowner deduction, as much as it would hurt.)
The battle rages. Fred Thompson wants the President's policies to fail. Patterico approves of the wording while ignoring that, in context, that's exactly what Rush said. Goldstein schools him. (The early comments are really funny, too.)
What I don't get is how Patterico--who I have mentioned before does a great job calling out the Los Angeles Times for its many duplicities--can't grasp this. I mean, I swear that in recent years, he's found the Times just making crap up to support their narrative: How on earth does he think careful word choices and non-inflammatory phrasings are going to help?
If you let someone else control your meaning, you've lost the game. It's that simple.
UPDATE: I wanted to point out here that I wanted George W. Bush to fail, too, in almost every case. In fact, it's generally a good thing for the people if the Presidents do fail, unless they're making government smaller--which they almost never are.
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