| Hot mess |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|01:35 am] |
I'm mildly drunk and have the next five days off.
I get Thurs off cuz itsa national holiday. Sat and sunday are normal. Fri... well, instead of taking my birthday off last week, I decided to save it till the day after thanksgiving.
Wednesday issa freebie. That silly little blurb I wrote for the Monthly Labor Review got me a day off with pay. Freaking sweet.
Dragon age origins time (and maybe nother Jack and Coke...)
I'm having thanksgiving with Fulbright scholars... Kim, a guy from Haiti, and a guy from the Czech republic. |
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| I do not think that word means what you think it means... |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|01:28 pm] |
First read this.
Then count the number of times the word swede is used.
Then... try to figure out who the xenos being referred to in this last sentence are...
"They also feel the Swedish media’s coverage of Ghezali has been marked by “xenophobic undertones”."
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| I am, I said |
[Nov. 20th, 2009|11:26 am] |
The UN has just finished the most important investigation in its history. The question was:
"Please say honestly what you think about food shortages in the rest of the world."
The results couldn't have been more disappointing. The survey was a total failure, because:
The europeans didn't understand what "shortage" meant
The africans didn't understand what "food" meant
The Israelis didn't understand what "please" meant
The Americans didn't understand what "rest of the world" meant
The Chinese and Cubans didn't understand what "think" meant
The Parliaments of Argentina, Columbia, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Brasil, and Venezuela are still debating what "honestly" meant. |
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| Bugger... |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|06:09 pm] |
Nother takedown of Andrew Sullivan...
"Palin's vagina, in Andrew Sullivan's telling, is a member of the Bavarian Illuminati. They're all there -- the Bildergsbergers, the Medicis, the Pope and the Jesuits, the Ghost of Richard Milhouse Nixon, and, of course, Sarah Palin's genitalia."
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/294877.php
One damn PISSED Hippo.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/JustOneThing/slideshow?id=8537483
Of course, it was a homophobic path...
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local-beat/Union-Bullies-Boy-Scout-for-Dastardly-Good-Deed-70285552.html
And factoid of the year. Yeah, itsa recession.
"This will come on top of an already tight consumer credit market: banks sent out 2.1 billion direct-mail credit card solicitations in the third quarter of 2006, according to the research firm Mintel; this year in the same quarter, they sent out 391 million." |
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| We need a nice gender war... |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|02:08 pm] |
A Spanish teacher was explaining to her new class that in Spanish, unlike in the English language, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.
“House,” for instance, is feminine: “la casa.” “Pencil,” however, is masculine: “el lapiz.” A student asked, “What gender is 'computer'?” Instead of giving the answer, the teacher set up a challenge and split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether “computer” should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
The men's group decided that “computer” should definitely be of the feminine gender (“la computadora”) because: 1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic; 2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; 3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and 4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your money on accessories for it.
The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (“el computador”) because: 1. In order to do anything with them, you have to plug them in and switch them on; 2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves; 3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and 4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that had you waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.
We never did find out who actually won. |
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| In this silence |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|03:59 pm] |
The world is evil in ways I have problems anticipating sometimes...
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) phaid just HAD to go and mention Dragon Age: Origins. Making the fifth time it get mentioned recently within my admittedly small attention span. The last time this happened, it was The Wire, which IMNSHO, is the finest television show I've ever seen.
However, the fates are conspiring in another way. I'm close to being completely debt free for the first time since grad school... and I'm leaning towards picking up a new tv, sound system, and blu-ray player that can stream netflix. Cuz, you know, I can. A coupla people I've read decribed the set up process as... well...
“What’s it doin’?”
Downloading an update.
“How is it downloading a firmware update; we haven’t configured the BluRay to connect to the router.”
No idea.
“Daniel… we have a 13-character encrypted password to the router. How is BluRay hacking that, connecting to the Internet, and downloading firmware?”
I dunno.
“It really is downloading, isn’t it.”
Yep. Isn’t it a sad commentary on modern life when we’re shocked when something works right out of the box?
I hate when my consumer instincts kick in like a mule high on meth. BTW, that bit was from Daniel, an old time blogging co-conspirator. Ex-military... hesa fun read. http://www.dphowell.com/2009/11/12/he-got-out-that-same-night/ |
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| Whatever |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|03:51 am] |
Every so often I feel the need to do something pointless. Or rather... to watch or read something pointless. The last time I got into this mood, I watch a few seasons of Star Trek Enterprise. I wanted to see just how bad it was... and oh man, yeah.
There was an episode where the entire problem was whether the captain would ask the vulcans for help. He had crew members that were gonna die otherwise, but the vulcans are just so uppity...
I consider this a learning experience, not a waste of time. Although the episode where they held off a klingon raiding party without anyone getting hurt (klingons... "Hey, they're shooting at us! And missing! Lets leave and never come back!") came pretty freaking close.
So, anyway... I got into this Anime called Moribito. Long story short, the younger prince of a kingdom gets possessed by a water spirit. His father, the son of heaven, decides he has to die, cuz this makes the family look bad. His mother hires a bodyguard, who has sworn off killing people, to defend the boy. And it turns out the spirit is actually an agent of cultural and environmental renewal... something the kingdom's rulers have forgotten, but the original inhabitants of the land remember...
There are like three fight scenes in the entirety of the series. There's one scene when a royal priest shows up at the native village the kid is hiding at, with a collection of lifetakers, and demands the kid. The wise old witch woman tells him to go screw himself, pointing out how much they've already messed up (at this point the royals have figured out killing the possessed kid is a bad idea). The priest agrees with her, and he and the killers leave.
Lolwhut?
So James Cameron has a new movie coming out. About humans (americans) who, having destroyed earth via strip mining, find a new world. And decide to strip mine it. Cuz thats what humans (americans) do. However, the planet has an indigenous sentient species... blue elves. So the humans transform some of their own, and send em to infiltrate. To make it easier to strip mine. Cuz... you know... its a pretty forested planet. And you can't just NOT STRIP MINE IT. Lo and behold... the infiltrators find the culture of the blue elves to be charming, and their policy of living in harmony with nature and NOT STRIP MINING EVERYTHING to be pretty cool.
Cuz, you know... everything we've done after the stone age has been a freaking waste of time.
BTW... I have to say... Civ 4 is a pretty rad little game. You can adopt slavery and sacrifice huge sections of disloyal followers for neat buildings.
So, of course, I hate the new movie. Avatar. I hope it bombs, and the families of all concerned get sold into slavery to pay back the losses. But I hadn't a way to properly express my scorn... till this week's South Park. One scene... Cartman walks out of the movie theater crying... Cameron's Avatar posters everywhere...
"But... Dances with Smurfs was MY idea!" |
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| This is pretty neat... |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|04:02 pm] |
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/11/the_writing_on.html
[A] decree has been issued against all emigration without the permission of the authorities. Socialism is founded upon the principle that it is the duty of all persons alike to labour, just as under the old regime the duty to become a soldier was a universally recognised one. And just as in the old days young men who were ripe for military service were never allowed to emigrate without authority, so can our Government similarly not permit the emigration from our shores of such persons as are of the right age to labour. Old persons who are beyond work, and infants, are at liberty to go away, but the right to emigrate cannot be conceded to robust people who are under obligations to the State for their education and culture, so long as they are of working age.
A warning against socialism written in 1891... |
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| It's one of these weird things... |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|06:01 pm] |
There's this argument known as peak oil. It states that even as world consumption of oil increases, oil reserves fall, therefore, prices are always on an upward tangent.
Its complete nonsense. As years go by, oil recovery technology becomes more advanced, even as energy technology enables us to do more with less.
Why did this come up? Something very similar occurred with gold about 20 years ago. A new gold recovery technique was developed, and worldwide gold production damn near doubled overnight.
http://www.goldsheetlinks.com/production.htm
Two results... first, new players emerged upon the gold scene, much like shale oil has put Alberta on the world oil scene. Second...
South Africa is screwed. The decline in SA gold production is totally the fault of decaying infrastructure and failure to reinvest. SA mining has become the gold equivalent of Pemex.
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| Another one... |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|05:15 pm] |
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224813/The-state-pays-rent-homes-Britain.html?ITO=1490
And the analysis..
Holy mother of hades, have you seen how much you can get for housing allowance? I think I'm gonna move to London and stop working. Housing benefit is calculated as your "need" less "available" income. For example, if I moved to Havering, London, my "need" as a single adult over 25 is for a one-bedroom flat. That'd be L650/mo. If I had a kid, I could get child benefit, AND L195/mo more for a 2-bedroom. I could have income of L5250/yr and still get the max. Given my level of education, I could probably earn this income in under 16 hrs/wk of work, thus entitling me to jobseekers credit of an additional L5250/yr. The plan: Work for L5250 UI for L5250 Housing Benefit for L7800 Total support for sitting on my butt: L18300. That'd be ~$30,000. Tax free. For doing virtually nothing all day. Bye. I'll send you my address when I reach a London housing authority! |
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| You are about to witness the eighth! |
[Oct. 31st, 2009|05:14 pm] |
Anyway, I told K some time ago I needed to do this post.
Goddamn, I hate the movie Idiocracy.
Now, its funny. Sorta. But its nowhere near as cool as the movie Office Space, done by the same crew. And I've wondered why for a while, and in the process come up with some ideas on this...
Now since all ideas more or less hang from some extended worldview, it took me a while to figure out what my basic problem with Idiocracy. Then it came to me... goddamn, I hate liberals. My revulsion towards this movie is pretty much similar in psychic taste and smell to my revulsion towards liberals. I.E... that instinctive flinch every time someone uses the terms "social justice,' or "economic justice," or "communist" "socialist" "liberal" "progressive."
Let's start with the basic premise of the movie. The claim is that highly intelligent people are having fewer (or no) children, while irresponsible and stupid people (the titular idiots) are breeding left and right. First of all... as K pointed out in a recent post, (without thinking the rest of it through) science has failed to demonstrate that intelligence is hereditary. (related article) This is kinda a big thing for a movie whose central premise is that the children of illiterate, inbred drunken country folk are gonna be morons. In fact, this is something that was pretty definitively disproven about the same time Keynes was thoroughly debunked. Wait, crap, a new biography? ($!@$! I shit you not... my 85 year old grandmother sent me a newspaper article on the "new" keynesianism. God conspires against me!)
The reason it's still around? Because people can't get beyond the stone age idea that blood is destiny. It doesn't matter how many immigrants crawl into this country illiterate and without mastery of basic english, and then watch their children get doctorates. Stupid is forever! Compounding this error is the basic inability of the movie's writers to understand fundamental scientific concepts. Yep... stupidity in the movie is not only hereditary... it's a male dominant gene.
Look at the opening example of the process. A yuppie couple cant seem to find the time to have kids, then the husband dies. K.. first, anytime I see people this silly, I don't think "smart." I think "overeducated." But the message is clear... educated wealthy men have weak sperm and/or sex drives. (Yeah, I know I'm arguing from anecdote, a fundamental error in logic. They're jokes, fuck off!)
Contrasted with this... a stereotypical lower class trailer living sex obsessed male impregnating every female in the neighborhood.
Let me skip a bunch of snark. When looking at demographics, everyone with a clue (which would exclude the people who made this movie) looks just at women. Demographic growth is linked almost exclusively to either immigration or female fertility. In concentrating, almost exclusively through the movie, on how many children are linked to the male characters, the movie misses the fundamental point made wonderfully by a blogger... men are a breeding experiment run by women. Rita, the time traveler with "normal intelligence" has three children. The eight wives of the idiot vice president have a combined thirty two. The numbers we are supposed to compare are three to thirty two.. the patrilinear descent number. The real numbers are three to four, the average children per vp wife. (And note how the problem is expressed... not that the smart aren't having children, but that the stupid are having too many. Eugenics... the wet dream of elitists since well before Hitler.)
The title is "idiocracy." Which is to say, rule by the stupid. And the movie repeatedly tries to show the ruling powers in the future to be "idiots." Monster truck driving wrestlers who get elected by people who can't tell the difference between television and reality. So.. Frito, the idiot lawyer who becomes vice president, (personal motto.. "I like sex!".. cuz you know, only stupid people like sex...) goes from a loser alone in his apartment to being powerful, and having eight wives...
All of which means, while the men may be idiots, the women are still cleverly playing the power seeking sex games. Stupid women get impregnated by homeless guys. Smart women get impregnated by men of financial means. The example of an idiot from the start of the movie? His son ended up a football star bragging about how many cheerleaders he was going to have sex with. Um.. that's a male success story. At least in high school. I would've loved to have been that... "stupid."
Lets take the most nagging question. How the hell does this society function with so many stupid people in charge? Easy... the world is all but automated, and even professions like lawyers and doctors are nothing but glorified cashiers or walmart greeters. One dig... Frito got his law degree from Costco. ("Costco?" "Yeah I can't believe it either, but dad had some contacts and got me in!")
What the hell? An early story about the P.T. Barnum circus... they were doing a tour of europe, hit Germany, and freaked out the German High Command, who watched this small army pack and unpack from trains in the matter of a few hours instead of the days it took the military of the day... they immediately copied the techniques they saw, thus creating the german legend of efficiency and speed... outta the monster trucks/wrestling of the day.
Walmart is a technological wonder. I swear to god, you people need to understand how awesome things like McDonalds and Walmart are. Anything that knocks 10-30% off a grocery bill is a freaking miracle of science and organization. Walmart is currently doing more to help with affordable health care than all those idiots in congress. Walmart pioneered the same systems that make Whole Foods possible. And although I much prefer Whole Foods... props where props are concerned. Walmart is not run by idiots. The guy at the front that waves to you? HE'S NOT IN CHARGE.
Then there's the mcguffin, the stupid crop failure that is driving the political side of the second half of the movie. The problem? Due to add campaign and political corruption, crops are irrigated by a power drink rather than water. Power drinks contain electrolytes, a fancy word for salt. So.. the idiots have been salting their fields, and the fields no longer produce. The "smart guy" makes them use water, the day is saved. Except it isn't. Salt doesn't go away overnight. Watering a salted field wouldn't fix that problem. Its like shooting a guy with a gun instead of a hypo with medicine. After three bullets, if you switch to the penicillin... it aint gonna help at that point.
Um... modern agriculture is as complicated as modern supermarkets. The field is fertilized with chemicals from a mad scientist's lab (which require fairly intensive education to apply... there's a reason fertilizer is used in impromptu bombs), then planted with seeds developed by Dr. Frankenstein (tweaked continuously as new threats to crops develop). As a result... if we ever had a harvest of "biblical proportions," which is to say, if our harvest was ever equal to the most hyperbolic claims of milk and honey from the bible... it would be considered a disaster. If we had the same success in extending life expectancy, people would be living 4-5 thousand years. (Methuselah would be a piker.)
So the movie making fun of people not understanding agriculture... don't understand agriculture.
So whats going on here? They look at today's society.. see poor people, see walmart, see entertainment forms they don't understand, and say the world is going to hell. What's worse, these common people insist on having children, which everyone knows is a bad idea. This isn't a new argument. It happens every time the political elite loses touch with the people, and in the process, reality. Movie title implies that the problem isn't that world is filled with the stupid... its that the world is filled with the stupid, and the stupid don't realize how much they need a natural elite... determined by testing, the right connections, and an aversion to popular entertainment. That is until things go wrong and the elite are summoned back to fix things.
Sound familiar?
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| Shit you dont wanna hear... |
[Oct. 24th, 2009|06:37 am] |
"Damn, thats all the way in your scrotum. Deep, too."
My response...
"If it helps, I'm perfectly prepared to sign a form saying I only had one testicle when I came in."
Having to go to a hospital sucks. |
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