Reminder: Firefly MicroMiniShindig tonight in Mt. View, California. RSVP if you'll be attending (if you haven't already done that).
March 2004 Archives
When we ask advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Joseph-Louis LaGrange
Re: "Oh my god!"
It's a colloquialism, a phrase, common in English - when I've said it aloud, I've yet to have anyone turn to me and say "Hey, you said you were an atheist!"
I might also say "holy shit" - but I certainly don't give reverence to poop.
Shrug.
No blog maintence and no mailing lists for me for 4 days. I'm back! I've had a wonderful time these last few days. More later: time to go enjoy the beautiful Bay Area weather. I feel good.
The most detestable wickedness, and the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion.
Thomas Paine
Robert Anton Wilson, in the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, had this to say about the French and the English: the French are utterly mad pretending they are sane, and the English are cooly sane pretending they are mad.
Chris Claypoole
I should have done this on the weekend... apologies for not having done so earlier: I'd like to warmly thank Bob Tipton, a reader of this blog and, I've found out, an investor in Project Ceres, the funders of L. Neil Smith's next science fiction novel, for having donated into the "Amazon Honor System" payment account for the upkeep of this blog. This was very generous of him, and I truly appreciate it.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer.
Will Rogers
One down, two to go: just finished my chemistry final exam half an hour ago, now time to relax and prepare myself with rest and food before my discrete mathematics exam tonight. I don't believe in cramming: I prefer to clear my mind before an exam, using the store of knowledge I've built up over the school term... that way, I know what I know when I take the test. Cramming doesn't really work, neurologically, though some people never seem to understand that observation.
It was almost funny the number of classmates who nearly physically jumped me on campus during the last half-hour before the exam, asking me questions they should have been asking the teacher weeks ago, e.g. "What does entropy have to do with Gibbs free energy?" or "What is a 'colligative property'?" or "What's the 'steric factor' in the rate constant?"
The best I could do is assure the questioners that they'd do fine, and to stop worrying: they'd be better prepared by meditating to clear their heads than to try to understand material they should have already mastered. I didn't have the heart to say, "Dude, you're so screwed!"
To hate is sometimes necessary as is to love or to be indifferent.
No, I haven't turned into a psychobabbling Counsellor Troi, I'm simply stating that a psychologically healthy human constantly judges things according to his value system.
From choosing one ice-cream flavour over another to choosing one job or lover or mode of dress from an array of options - we are constantly making choices.
So far, my examples have been of choices where the person strives to choose the item of highest value, the thing that will aid their life the most. These things we say are 'better' or 'excellent' and our reactions are to 'like', to 'prefer' and to 'love' them.
Conversely, there are things that harm us as humans. Things like dictatorial governments, religions with tenets stating that infidels should be killed or laws in democratic governments that encroach on civil liberties. Any intelligent human being with a valid moral system will avoid these as much as possible, will choose not to live in a society with these kinds of negatives or will fight them if they see them springing up in their own society. These things are 'worse', 'harmful' and 'evil' - these are the things that we 'hate'.
So, I do hate Christianity - when it infiltrates government, when it is thrust at me, when I am forced in some way to use its false tenets to interact with reality. When it's simply a false belief system held by certain members of society, I really couldn't care less - although it's rather an enjoyable target for humor.
Monica White
This is reprinted with the permission of Monica White from a thread today in the "Antichrists" community on Orkut:
Or not compromising in general....ie: couple of days ago in Dublin we did the cheesy city tour and visited the Guinness factory.
Paid something of the order of 20 euros each to go on the official Guinness factory tour. Cost didn't matter, though, as I am a bit of a factory addict (love process & systematization etc). So here I was, grinning and ready to see machines go 'whoosh' and produce beer.
Nope, we stepped into what I can only call a first-year marketing student's wet dream. Not in the factory - in some sort of fitted out multimedia shell. It was supposed to be 'self-guided'....pah!....different sizes and styles of arrows haphazardly pasted to the floor, almost no lighting, displays of barley, hops etc in clear glass tubes (that you couldn't see due to lack of lighting) with attached.....speakers. Yep, so that you could LISTEN to someone pouring said grain onto microphone. Yawn.
I could go on - and I did - to the manager. Needless to say that I demanded my money back and their general no refund policy wasn't going to cut it with someone who had received NO value at all for the admission fee.
I wrote two solid pages of complaint - I gave them a full analysis of the problems with the tour as well as ways to improve it and metrics that could be implemented to ensure quality. In essence, I did something that I usually charge for.
Funnily enough, the manager realised that I was serious after a while and confessed that they were redoing the tour.
I've long ago learnt to argue my case as a consumer, probably because I'm usually the demon on the other side of the fence haranguing people into giving excellent value.
If I were asked to teach anyone one easy to implement lifeskill that would make them happy in the long term it would be to ask for a refund when they're not happy rather than compromise on what they want.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde
For religious friends, I have a basic rule. You don’t mention your religion around me, I leave it alone. You bring God(s) into our friendship, and I will not hesitate to shred a hole in your beliefs. If you try to feed my some hippy bull-shit about “respecting everyone’s beliefs,” you have five minutes to get as far away from me as humanly possible. I will make no promises regarding your safety after those five minutes have passed. I’ll stay friends with the religious, but not with the patronizing religious. Hell, if it’s simply an informative conversation, I’ll often sit and quietly listen for entertainment value.
Diane Duncan
Following on the success of the 1st San Francisco Bay Area / Silicon Valley MicroMiniShindig which was held in January of this year, the 2nd will be held in the same venue:
Day: Wednesday 31 March 2004
Time: From 8pm onward
Place:
Mountain View Tied House Cafe & Brewery
(in the big biergarten out back)
954 Villa Street, Mountain View, California 94041
Ph: (650) 965-2739
The first MicroMiniShindig attracted around 30 people, and was great fun; see pics and a short account in an earlier account on this blog here.
I've reserved a section of the same beergarden for 30 people, but if we have more this time (and I suspect we will), I'll need to plan accordingly. Leave comments on this blog entry with your RSVP if you're planning to attend.
As was the case last time, I have reserved the use of the TV in the beergarden (which I'm assured will function properly), and we'll be airing the 2nd and 3rd episodes of Firefly (we watched the pilot "Serenity" last time). This airing will start at 8:30pm, after some of us are at least a bit liquored up.
Alan Weiss, AKA "WINBEAR2" on the Prospero Firefly Forum, will be in town again, visiting from Austin, Texas.
Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones!
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Hypercoma from Fox Firefly Forum
In order to slay Jesus, I agree you’d need at least a +5 weapon, possibly a messiah-bane weapon. I don’t know if the weapon should be blessed, as it’s kind of hard to guess what Jesus’ alignment is from the bible. Probably chaotic, as on one page he’s telling us that God loves us, and on another he’s telling us that God will cast us into a lake of fire, and he came to earth to break up families. Good or evil? I can’t say, as he does heal the blind, and try to help the cripples, but he does it only for the glory of God (Lawful Evil, if I ever I’ve seen one.) So my verdict is definitely Chaotic, and probably Neutral. Anybody else have a better suggestion for Jesus’ alignment?
My real strategy for surviving the final trump, is to befriend at least one person in good standing of every major religion. That way, when the end comes, no matter who’s right, I’ll have someone to say: “No, really, she’s cool. You can let her in.”
Unless Christianity turns out to be the right one. Then I will take my chances with Satan as he seems to be the most stable and fair deity in the Christian religion. Nope. I’m not bitter. Not me. Not at all. I’ll be right behind Monica with my +5 messiah-bane throwing axes, hoping to get a good shot in.
Diane Duncan
Science is when you think of questions and then look for the answers.
Religion is when you think of answers and then look for the questions.
NightHiker
Show me a man over 40 who is not responsible for his face.
The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.
Daniel Dennett
Consciousness Explained
Isn't it amazing that in this day and age, how many people answer questions from an investigator instead of refusing to make a nexus (noose) with a government agent?
Just as amazing, is the apparent numbers of people who do not realise they are in deep sh*t for making a false statement.
"I politely decline to converse" is the answer that works, especially if a Jury is involved later, tactically far better than "Piss off."
Then walk away, or close the door. Refuse to allow yourself to be drawn in further. Never revisit.
Julias No
Here's an update from Alcor re: yesterday's legislative alert:
MARCH 11, 11:40 AM MST UPDATEAlcor sincerely thanks its members for doing a great job contacting the Representatives of Arizona in opposition to HB2637. Apparently, as a result of our collective deluge, we have overwhelmed the system. Our numbers maybe small, but we have clearly made a statement to the Representatives of Arizona. At this point, we ask you to discontinue making phone calls or sending email and faxes, unless you hear otherwise from Alcor.
Thank you for your support,
Can't wait to see the outcome of the vote...
Big-game hunting could indeed be dangerous, but generally for the professional, not the client. It was the white hunter who went into the long grass and finished the job. Losing a client was unheard of, even injuries were rare. It was the code of the Alpine guide: if only one man comes down the mountain, it must be the client. The best client did not just pay his bills, however. He was the one who hunted cleanly, understood the ethic, respected the Africans, was courageous but not foolish, and slept with the right woman.
Bartle Bull
Safari, 1988
I got voicemail from Alcor alerting me to this a few minutes ago:
In spite of our conciliatory actions and assumption of good intentions on the part of Representative Stump, he has decided to move forward with a House vote on his bill TOMORROW (Thursday) without allowing the affected parties to complete negotiations. Apparently, it doesn’t matter to him that the primary parties impacted by this legislation agree that passing new law is unnecessary when an administrative solution can easily be achieved. Nor does it seem to matter to him that his bill is also strongly opposed by other organ donation groups, including the local Science Care, the Organ Donation Network, Life Legacy, and others. Furthermore, the University of Arizona, Midwestern University, and other academic organizations will be negatively impacted by this hasty legislation.
I first got wind of this about 3 weeks ago. I'll be writing a protest letter tonight, ASAP. I urge you to do the same.
I took this shot two hours ago. These are the digital and tape audio recorders of a number of students in our chemistry lecture section:
Look familiar? Anyone else remember that running sight gag from the 1985 Val Kilmer flick "Real Genius"? As one writer describes the scene (yay Google, saved a bit of typing on my part):
Do you remember the scene in the movie "Real Genius" that showed students at the beginning of a university semester sitting in a large lecture room listening to the professor? As the semester wore on, one-by-one each student left a tape recorder on their seat. The scene ended with the professor's recorder pontificating to a room full of other recorders.
I found a screenshot of that scene, which looks amazingly like our chem lecture hall, down to the same phenolic resin desktop:
Whoa. Life converges on art. Fortunately, ours is a very dynamic professor... most of the students are simply trying to capture his superb lectures for replay later. As a matter of fact, on most days the professor records his own lectures with studio-quality equipment for posting on his personal website. If only more of the good ones did that, we'd have more "Feynman Lectures on Physics" preserved for posterity.
A week ago, I referenced a famous, widely disseminated Heinlein quote, since I think it deserves even wider dissemination. My friend James sent me this note yesterday, which I reprint here with permission:
Hi Russell,How are you doing? So I read this oft-quoted quote from Heinlein on your website (yes, I do drop in semi-regularly):
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
I was thinking about it while sitting in traffic on the way to work and I had a vaguely entertaining idea:
It sounds like the basis for something kind of like a "Heinlein Olympics". Imagine a three-day event, a polymath decathalon of sorts, where one competes in a series of wildly divergent pursuits (like the quote suggests). The person with the highest aggregate score across all the challenges wins.
If done right, I would be willing to bet it could be a both popular and highly entertaining event, and because it would nominally cover such a broad range of tasks would have something for just about anyone who cared to try.
Just a thought, feel free to use or abuse as you see fit.
j. andrew rogers
Interesting idea. I ran this by the members of the smith2004-discuss list, one of who made the observation that this would make for a vastly superior "Survivor" style television series. I concur with a couple of list members that the above list would be a good start... with the exception of the last list item.
What's the difference between the IRS and the KGB? The KGB doesn't expect you to provide the evidence against yourself.
Charles Curley
Today in lab, a couple of people broke the "no food or drinks in lab" rule. My prof - whose lab desk is next to my lab bench - and I reacted not by stating the obvious, but by saying, "Hey! Let's measure the pH of those drinks!" Why not? We all had $600 Accumet pH meters in front of us. So, we measured the pH of the following solutions:
- Gatorade X-Factor: pH 3.089
- Arizona Iced Tea brand Green Tea w/ Ginseng & Honey: pH 3.424
That's pretty interesting, since at first approximation, I'd expected any Gatorade solution to be isotonic, at a physiologic pH of ~7.42 or so. Not so, but given that the ingredients label lists citric acid and its conjugate base sodium citrate (a buffer solution), no big surprise: it's almost exactly the pH of a 0.100 M solution of acetic acid (a weak acid, with a Ka of 1.737 x 10^-5). The Arizona Iced Tea also has citric acid in its ingredient list, but no conjugate base listed (though it undoubtedly exists in solution).
We ought never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our own reason.
Rene Descartes
Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country men, change their climate, but not their customs... they see new meridians, but the same men: and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with travelled bodies, but untravelled minds.
Charles Caleb Colton
1780?-1832
My friend Glenn Cripe today informed me that he and his Russian business partner Dmitri Kostygin have good news to share: "The next printing of Atlas and Fountainhead in Russian is due out next week!" In his mail he also send copies of the cover proofs for the 3 volumes of Atlas; here's a copy of the cover for volume 1:
Glenn notes:
We are also looking for sponsors. For $500, you get your name in all future editions of the books, a few free copies for your own use, a tax deduction, our undying gratitude, plus the chance to participate in changing the course of history! Inquiries should be sent to randinrussia@yahoo.com
It's worth noting that copies of Rand's works have found themselves into some interesting places in Russian society, such as the lending library of Vladimir Putin's chief economic adviser, a strong advocate of Rand's economic philosophy.
Another excellent flick to add to your Netflix rental queue: Millenium Actress AKA "Sennen joyu" (2001). If you enjoy epic Japanese animation such as Spirited Away (Studio Ghibli's "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi"), and film in the style of Kurosawa-style chanbara, you'll really enjoy this labor of love from Satoshi Kon, the director of the 1997 psychological thriller Perfect Blue.
Of course, I do have a lot of Japanese cinema and history under my belt, which I think might be a requisite to truly enjoying this piece, which does very heavily rely for its humor and grandeur on that cultural grounding. Still, I think even the uninitiated can thoroughly enjoy this film for its spectacular sweep and touchingly benevolent sense of life. As a reviewer on one fan site puts it:
Millennium Actress has the stylistic sophistication of Perfect Blue with the empathy, warmth and truth of a Ghibli movie!I thoroughly agree with that assessment. I also concur with Richard J. Arndt, an Amazon.com customer reviewer of the DVD, who enthuses:
If this film had been done with live actors & live action you'd be seeing it awarded on Oscar night. It's that good. The editing is superb. Likewise the animation. As for the "confusing" flashbacks, my daughters (8 & 9) watched this and after explaining that the old actress is telling her life story by using the films she starred in as parts of her actual life, they had no problem following the story. I didn't find the story to be depressing although it is bittersweet. The characters are so strongly drawn that halfway through I found myself forgetting they weren't real people! Strong, gentle story, superb visuals, pacing & editing make up one of the best anime movies ever! In fact, forget anime, this belongs in the top 100 films period.
Jim Lesczynski mentions this unbelievable little bit of dreck from the New York State Assembly, A03054:
This bill requires the installation of ignition interlock devices, similar to breathalyzers, in all cars sold or registered in New York State.
In engineering, we say it like this: any idiot can find a problem. It takes a real engineer to fix them. It takes a leader to fix the process that causes the problem in the first place.
Alan Weiss
...another example of how the language has been corrupted by the anointed. "Compassion" used to mean that one shared the difficulties of the unfortuante. In the 19th century, people went down to the immigrant ghetto and helped the family learn things like parenting skills, work skills, money management, staying off the booze, and/or whatever was needed. Only after government decided they could do this better than individuals from churches and fraternal organizations did "compassion" come to mean sending your money to some bureaucrat to pass a fraction of it on to the officially poor.
Chris Claypoole
Precision, like justice, flows from the mind. The precise mind does not imagine a vast, shadowy collectivity like "the Jews" as the architect of its sorrows. The precise mind does not contemplate the destruction of hundreds or thousands of innocents in the attempt to make justice, however conceived. Those are the paths traveled by the savage mind, the mind consumed by formless fear and undirected hatred. The precise mind uses courts, and laws, and clear, specific, carefully negotiated agreements, and only when those have been exhausted, rifles.
Francis W. Porretto
Brian Micklethwait today on Samizdata comments on the myth of the "Wild West" that some of us have for years known as a myth:
One of the most potent anti-liberty memes has been that simple phrase, the "Wild West". Wild as in lawless, violent, murderous. And one of the most potent pro-liberty memes is therefore, if only because it negates the first meme, the fact that the Wild West was, in the words of a famous Journal of Libertarian Studies article by Terry Anderson, the Not So Wild Wild West.
This anti-"Wild West" meme deserves wider propagation.
I'm not making this up. I heard this on Fox News a couple of days ago, the day on which the affluent ski resort town of Killington, Vermont voted to leave Vermont and join New Hampshire, 25 miles east, under which it was originally chartered in 1761. They're doing this in protest of outrageous Vermont property taxes... $20 goes out, $1 returns.
The Fox News online article summarizing the event contains mention of a significant factor that was missing from the broadcast version: the active participation of members of the Free State Project at the historic vote! Read and see. Also check out the TV ads the FSP used to help incite the vote.
Good luck to them: they've got a hard fight to undertake in the Vermont legislature, which will not want to lose one of their primary cash cows.
One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
Sir William Osler
Yes, we managed to conquer the whole of Mesopotamia with relative ease. But successfully occupying it and getting the populace to be our bitch when a sigificant percentage views us as unwelcome interlopers is a whole different ballgame.
We are not fighting a monolithic enemy in the form of another state's military. We are being drawn into a war of attrition against a myriad of Fourth Generation Forces (read: nonstate) with different motives and objectives and most likely operating wholly independent of one another.
These forces realize that they do not have either the mass or the firepower to openly engage us in anything resembling a pitched battle so they will utilize superior intelligence, concealment, and deception to deliver strikes from seemingly out of the unknown.
Yes, our casualties have been light. So far (of course, if we stick around long enough and the insurgents might just find an opening or get lucky and give us a replay of Beirut). But they need not inflict heavy casualties to win. They only have to CONTINUE inflicting casualties - and survive - in order to win.
We, on the other hand, cannot even dream of declaring victory with any kind of credibility until the entire nation of Iraq is pacified and all the Sunnis and Shiites and Arabs and Kurds and Turkmens are holding hands in the spirit of tolerance and diversity - enforced at the point of our bayonets - while being ruled over by the junta of our choosing.
Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
Mark Quon
Charlie Acker recommends DBAN ("Darik's Boot and Nuke") as a way to render a computer's hard drive tabula rasa.
Today's swimsuit girl on my daily desktop Sports Illustrated calendar is Audrey Quock... yeah!
Thousands of fans have been agitating for the return of the Firefly television science fiction series, and it is returning... to the silver screen, as Joss Whedon's "Serenity"! All the original ensemble cast have signed contracts to star, and shooting starts in June. Woo hoo!
Strange as it may sound, the power of mathematics rests on its evasion of all unnecessary thought and on its wonderful saving of mental operations.
Ernst Mach
I just got back from the gym. I just don't get people who think it matters what they wear when they're grunting and sweating under a set of weights... especially women who put on makeup before a workout! Yuck... weird.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert A. Heinlein
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
The more you love, the more you can love -- and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.
Robert A. Heinlein
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long