Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
 
Privacy Advocates Cringe Silently
The splash screen for the new Netscape 8.1 browser:

Netscape 8.1 Splash Screen


Logging in? I just started the freaking browser. Is this browser communicating with its mother ship every time I open it?

Yes.

The better to serve me, no doubt.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:54 PM   2 comments
Sunday, March 26, 2006
 
Grammar Quiz
Hello, readers, it's time for today's Grammar Stumper. See if you can spot what's wrong with this sentence:
    Honey, I can't wait until you give birth to our child, because it will be your turn to clean the cat litter for nine months.
That's right, it has a hanging independent clause. Unlike a hanging participle, which merits no sanction other than mockery and perhaps correction, the hanging independent clause is a complete sentence appended to another with a conjunction and that is sometimes punishable by hanging.

Gentle reader, to best avoid the hanging dependent clause and the hanging that might ensue, one should simply discard the dangerous part of the compound sentence:
    Honey, I can't wait until you give birth to our child.
See how that simple truncation turns you from grammar goofball to grammar, and sometimes familial, hero.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:14 PM   2 comments
Saturday, March 25, 2006
 
Book Report: Servant of the Shard by R.A. Salvatore (2000)
I cannot even remember where I got this book. Was it part of one of my brother's document dumps, wherein I got large quantities of comic books and fantasy paperbacks so he wouldn't have to schlep them across the Pacific whenever he was reassigned? Did I buy it inexpensively because I thought I needed more fantasy reading in my diet? Gentle reader, yes, sometimes the origins of my books are lost to the swirling mists that are really dust coming from the to read shelves.

I read the first two books of the Icewind Dale trilogy sometime in the 1990s, so perhaps I have the major point of the super bad artifact upon which the book centers. The Crenishibon, the Crystal Shard. Of course, in the intervening years, perhaps the suspension of my disbelief or my tastes have changed; every time the book called the Shard by its formal name, I thought it sounded like some cross between Richard Crenna and Cinnabon. But that's just me.

As I might have mentioned, I didn't finish the Icewind Dale trilogy. Not because I lost interest, but because I received the first two books as part of a cumulative gift from my brother. He gave me sets of books which comprised individual books from trilogies to two books from trilogies, but never complete trilogies. I've not been into the whole trilogy nor series fantasy thing, so the only complete series I've read are the Dancing Gods series by Jack Chalker and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. So I'm not the best target audience for this, which is the second of a trilogy and probably the only I will read in the three.

The plot: An assassin working with a renegade band drow (dark elves who normally live underground, don't you know?) plots to separate the band's leader and his companion from the sentient and manipulative Crystal Shard. For the most part, that's it, although the book plays heavily upon the intrigue within the band and within the drow empire.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't exceed the fantasy genre like John D. MacDonald or Ed McBain books surpass the crime fiction genre. Salvatore is a slave to the preceding books of the series in a way that McBain must have struggled with; the characters are points on a decades-long line and within individual books might become mere shorthand. Salvatore also must have struggled against the constraints of his paymasters, Wizards of the Coast; each character is very directly mapped to a class from Dungeons and Dragons. The main character's a thief/assassin, there are clerics, monks, wizards, and pscionists. When I was the Dungeon Master (or Game Master when I betrayed TSR/Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro and followed E. Gary to Dangerous Journeys), I had the chutzpah to build our campaigns in such a fashion where the story took precedence over the rules. These books, however, always make it easy for the PR (Player Reader) to understand what's happening mechanically. Personally, I'd say it tears one from the fantasy world of the author and drops one into the Second Edition rules (apostasy!). But then again, I'm an occasional fantasy writer without a publication and a former game master without a group.

Despite all this kvetching, I wouldn't dodge a Salvatore novel thrown my way, nor would I shun another book in the series. Eventually, when I caught onto the action in the book and made do with the combination of exposition from previous books' adventures and the shorthand for the subgenre, I enjoyed the book well enough. Which is just as well, since I found another Salvatore book from another trilogy on my to-read shelves.

And no matter what I say, Salvatore stands head and shoulders above hacks in the former TSR stable (Rose Estes's Greyhawk Adventures? Yeah, I read four of them). Unfortunately, the constraints of his bread and butter leave him to standing only a halfling's head and shoulders above the others in the TSR stable.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:55 PM   0 comments
Friday, March 24, 2006
 
Directionless Cynicism
Today, kids don't have a gossamer-shrouded Age of Innocence; all they have an Age of Being Charged as a Juvenile.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:35 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
 
Why Do Senators Charles Schumer, Tom Coburn, and Lindsey Graham Hate Poor People?
These distinguished senators want to raise the cost of low-priced goods by imposing an additional 30% tax on them that people who buy low-priced goods will have to pay (plus, no doubt, an additional sales tax at their local sales tax rates on that 30% tax):
    The U.S. Congress is in no mood to put up with further delays by China on relaxing its currency controls, three U.S. senators visiting Beijing said Tuesday.

    The bipartisan delegation said the Senate is on the cusp of taking up a long-postponed bill that would slap a 27.5 percent tariff on all Chinese products to compensate for China's pegged exchange rate. Debate could begin as soon as the end of next week.
Fortunately for the senators, this tax increase won't affect the cost of high-priced goods that adorn their homes and offices nor the expensive suits they wear. People who improve their domiciles and wardrobes by buying low-priced import goods? Let them eat cake, provided it was baked stateside.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 PM   1 comments
 
Crocodile Insurgency Continues
Crocodile kills humanitarian professor:
    A professor at the University of Washington Medical School who moved to Botswana to help alleviate a shortage of doctors there, was killed when a crocodile dragged him from a dugout canoe, his family and colleagues said.
As long as American imperialists continue invading foreign lands to expand the HIV and AIDS free hegemony, brave freedom crocodiles will continue dragging the "private contractors" from their dugout canoes and eating them.

We must learn to accept the crocodile's culture, and leave them to their crocodilicity that celebrates brutality and lowest common denominature. Indeed, the "death roll" can be quite liberating, in an asphyxiation/drowning high sort of way.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:13 PM   1 comments
 
Wentzville Does The Right Thing, For The Wrong Reason
After a great outpouring of pageantristic public outcry board of alderman meeting, including the wailing of small business owners, the beating of union breasts, and the normal overreactions and activist theatricism that ensues whenever a certain discount department store tries to serve the public, Wal-Mart can build a super center in Wentzville, Missouri:
    Construction will begin within 30 days to expand a Wal-Mart store to include full-service grocery shopping, a move opposed by union officials and a group critical of the giant retailer.

    After the Board of Aldermen approved the project's site plan Monday night, Phil Fanara, the store's manager, said work will begin as soon as possible.
Fortunately, Wentzville obeyed the letter of the law and allow construction to begin apace, but the mayor captures the real consideration in a nutshell:
    Mayor Paul Lambi said Wal-Mart's site plan conforms to the city's planning and zoning ordinances and that turning it down could have placed the city in legal jeopardy.
This doesn't represent quite the victory for capitalism, growth, private property, or offering consumer/citizens more choices for their retail dollar; no, it's only a recognition by city officials that if they don't follow their own laws, they might get in trouble.

A sad testament that we must see this as one of the few victories against the expanding powers of the State in all its minor fiefdom incarnations.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:01 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
 
Trivial Existentialism
You know the saying that goes, A smile is just a frown turned upside down?

Doesn't that actually imply that a smile is a defective frown, inadvertantly inverted from mankind's normal countenance, that of suffering, stuggle, and pain, by a fleeting and illusory displacement of normalcy by the shiny objects of transient pleasure and is subject to correction by the harsh, uncaring reality who prefers all its frowns to display correctly?


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:39 PM   1 comments
Monday, March 20, 2006
 
A Blogst from the Past
Geoffrey Chaucer's blog.

(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:45 PM   0 comments
 
Mens Rea and Actus Reus Both Optional Now
The first part of this story is disturbing enough:
    Mike Herchenbach was sure he would get a fine. He'd pay a couple hundred dollars, like his roommates, and go on with his life, even though he wasn't at the party that got out of hand at his rental house. After all, his name was on the lease.

    But what he didn't expect, and hardly believed, was what Lancaster County Court Judge Gale Pokorny had in mind as his punishment for maintaining a disorderly house last Oct. 2.

    Herchenbach remembered his attorney from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln reaching for a work-release form, which would get him out of jail so he could work while serving his sentence.

    He didn't need it. It's only a weekend, he remembered saying.

    But Pokorny didn't say three days in jail. He said 30.
Thirty days in jail for a disorderly house. That's an interesting application of a law to make an example out of someone for having a wild party.

However, more frightening is the judge's reasoning for the stiff punishment:
    In a 2½ page sentencing order, Pokorny went through, reason by reason, "why courts need to take a harder look at this type of case and Mr. Herchenbach."

    "Reason #1. People can die at these parties," he wrote.
There you go. Herchenbach didn't mean to kill the victim (that is, he lacks mens rea, the guilty mind or intent to kill), and, come to think of it, no one actually died (no actus reus, guilty act or actual freaking crime).

It used to be that laws and the courts required both intent and action to convict; with the advent of strict liability laws, you didn't even have to intend to break the law to actually go to the slam. Now, thanks to Judge Pokorny, you don't even have to break the law to be punished for it.

No, sir; simply because crimes or tragedies can occur, you can be held accountable. Sleep tight, citizen.

(Link submitted to Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:31 PM   0 comments
 
Wherein Brian Fails To Feign Outrage Over Partisan Board Game
Go directly to Guantanamo! It's Patriot Act board game:
    In this send-up of "Monopoly," players don't pass "Go" and they don't go directly to jail -- they go to Guantanamo Bay.

    Instead of losing cash for landing on certain squares, they lose civil liberties. And the "Mr. Monopoly" character at the center of the board is replaced by a scowling former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

    "Patriot Act: The Home Version" pokes fun at "the historic abuse of governmental powers" by the recently renewed anti-terrorism law.
You know, I would feign some sort of indignation at this misrepresentation of government power, but honestly, how can a capitalist like me not enjoy seeing even a person with an opposing viewpoint indulging in free market profit making without the fear that either of us will be dragged from our beds tonight and summarily executed?

Besides, I still have my deck of the Clinton Impeachment card game.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:15 PM   0 comments
 
Post-Dispatch Embraces Exceedingly Arbitrary Law
Subdivision's 17 mph speed limit marks life in slow lane:
    Road signs in Heritage of Hawk Ridge make some drivers in the subdivision do a double take, and that's just what developers wanted.

    The posted speed limit in the retirement development is 17 mph.
It's so novel that it warrants a story in the paper even though it's not a legally-enforceable limit. It's as much a novelty sign as the Trumpet Parking Only sign my wife hangs in her office--but the Post-Dispatch writes the story anyway, trying to convey that it's a neat idea and an attention-getter, and the Post-Dispatch has by now gotten the attention of innumerable aldermen, councilmen, and perhaps even a selectman or two.

And why the hell not change the speed limits to some fool off-five number to get attention of motorists, most of whom will continue to drive at speeds on the five s because that's where the line on the speedometer is. Ah, hell, laws and rules of the road are enacted catch as catch can to bolster revenues and to respond to infrequent accidents anyway.

I just wish the Post-Dispatch would be more consistent in lauding creativity in law enforcement that accosts and captures actual felons if they're going to be so happy about things that ensnare normal people.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:01 PM   0 comments
Saturday, March 18, 2006
 
Wherein Brian Realizes Trivial Pursuit Is Going to be Harder in a Decade For Him
The Online Film Critics Society releases its list of the Top Overlooked Films of the 1990s. I guess I scored highly on this test, since I overlooked 97 of the 100. Here they are, with the ones I've seen in bold: I expect anyone reading this blog to have scored lower.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:34 PM   6 comments
Friday, March 17, 2006
 
The Caribou Have Pissed George W. Bush Off For The Last Time
Those damn infidel caribou on the ANWAR preserve are really gonna get it now when the drilling begins: White House Plans Smallpox Drill

That should teach them to stand in the way of American oil exploration.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:57 PM   0 comments
Thursday, March 16, 2006
 
Tall Tales Not Yet a Felony
In Illinois, they're going to make it illegal to embellish your past:
    People who pretend to have earned some of the nation's most prestigious military medals, including the Purple Heart, the Medal of Honor and others, could pay a fine of up to $200 under a bill being considered today by the state Senate.
Jumping merry jesophat, I think it's odious, but criminal?

Sure it starts with pretending about having served with distinction in the military, but there's nothing different, really, about lying about military service, lying about playing sports in high school, or lying about your sexual conquests.

    "For one in our society to falsely represent themselves as having received that very, very important recognition, I think is a serious offense not only in law but to our morality," said Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago, the bill's sponsor.
I tell you what, Representative, let's expand that bill a bit more to extend to embellishments or insincere promises made by politicians because I think that's a series offense not only in law but to our morality.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:45 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
 
If A Child Dies Nearby, It's a Felony
The solution:
    Federal prosecutors say the use and manufacture of methamphetamine by a Jefferson County man contributed to the death of his infant daughter in 2003. If a judge agrees, 28-year-old James G. Hayes could spend 30 years behind bars.
The problem?
    The death of 4-week-old Jersie N. Hayes was reported to authorities on Jan. 21, 2003 by Hayes' girlfriend, Kristy Toczylowski, who is the mother of four children with Hayes. The child was found in bed at the couple's home on Treeview Lane, south of Fenton.

    [redacted by blogger] even though an autopsy on the child proved inconclusive.
The missing ingredient, the magical summation that this blogger withheld to demonstrate the absurdity of the charge?
    Prosecutors believe the dangerous chemicals use to make meth contributed to Jersie's death, even though an autopsy on the child proved inconclusive.
Holy crimoly, I hope that the freaking toxicology and pathology classes that they teach in law school to students with political science undergraduate degrees include actual autopsies so that the ADAs can get diggin' in the morgue to overcome what the actual coroner says.

Because I'd hate to think our legal system relies upon creative higher-office seekers and the various incarnations of television's CSI for this illumination.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:43 PM   0 comments
 
I Wonder How I Voted In 2004 In Milwaukee
City drops 105,000 names from voter registration rolls:
    The City of Milwaukee has dropped about 105,000 names from its voter rolls after completing the first purge since 2001, city officials said Tuesday.

    That represents about 23% of the 450,000 names that had been on the rolls. Officials had said they were unsure if a purge of the rolls had been conducted after the 2000 election.
As Weber and Dolan pointed out today, 450,000 registered voters represents over 80% of Milwaukee's population. Men, women, and children.

So I apologize to my family members in St. Louis who might be disappointed to discover that I voted for Kerry in 2004 even though:
  • I haven't lived in the city of Milwaukee for 12 years.

  • I didn't actually ever register to vote in Milwaukee, since I did all my voting absentee in Missouri during my college years.
Hopefully, with this diligence on the part of the City of Milwaukee, though, I won't vote for Chelsea Clinton in 2020.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:36 PM   0 comments
 
Something to Remember When Next Fundraiser Letter Arrives
Dear Marquette University:

Don't bother sending me letters encouraging me to send $25 when you pay the basketball coach $1,650,000 a year.

Although your fundraising pitches are printed upon recyclable paper, I insist upon shredding anything with my name upon it. Also, the lost printing and postage has probably cost you enough to buy one minute of Tom Crean's time next year.

Thank you, that is all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:30 PM   0 comments
 
Creeping Federal Nanny-Statism Warning, Unheeded (As Usual)
Wisconsin has passed the legislation to make it illegal to convey an urchin in a car without a booster seat unless the child is 8 years old, or 80 pounds, or 4'9" tall. I'm subject to plenty of PSAs when I listen to WISN every day, pointing at this government site promoting it.

Come on, peoples. This is the lesser Federal agency M.O.: Promote educationally, and then withhold Federal funds until your state legislatures make them law.

Now, parents, you will have to buy extra gear to keep your children safe until such time as the Federally-encourage state legislature determines that the law of diminishing returns no longer applies to your child. One assumes that if the Department of Transportation determines your child is safer when packed in Styrofoam peanuts in your back seat until the age of 18, your state legislatures will inconvenience you, under penalty of law, with damn sure packing them in peanuts as long as your state gets its two million dollars in highway funding.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:22 PM   0 comments
 
Ace Savages Roeper
So I don't have to: This Just In: Richard Roeper Is A Blantatly Dishonest Leftist Apologist

Frankly, I read this Roeper Chicago Sun-Times column defending V for Vendetta and didn't think it was much of a threat to our way of life and that it was a fair argument a movie. A movie I didn't want to see because of its subject matter. The column didn't change my mind in any fashion, but I didn't care to comment on it.

Ace does, though, and he delivers a savaging that sways my opinion against Roeper plenty good.

(By the way, congratulations to Richard Roeper for getting the negative blogosphere attention he's probably craved for some time now. Unfortunately, the big dogs of the blogosphere don't normally find source material in the Milwaukee, Chicago, or St. Louis papers. Way to go, Richard!)

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:13 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
 
Vice President Cheney's Office Continues Pattern of Stonewalling
Revelation:
    A minor league hockey team plans to spoof Vice President Dick Cheney's recent hunting mishap by handing out orange hunting vests with the words, "Don't Shoot, I'm Human."
However, note again how the Cheney responded by not responding:
    Cheney's office in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment.
WE DEMAND THAT DICK CHENEY STOP HIS PATTERN OF DECEPTION AND IMMEDIATELY RESPOND TO ANY AND ALL SATIRE DIRECTED AT HIM! Anything less shows contempt for the American people and the media.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:21 PM   2 comments
 
It's a Trap
Two researchers at MIT have created a man-control mechanism given the chickly name "loving cups" designed to control males:
    Researchers have come up with a novel way to keep long-distance lovers in touch -- high-tech wine glasses that glow warmly however far apart the pining couple are.

    When either person picks up a glass, red light-emitting diodes glow on their partner's glass. When one puts a glass to their lips, the other glass glows brightly.
Guys, they have couched this into some touchy-feely chick experience of shared love, communal libation, or what have you, but that's just the hook. The real purpose of the contraption is to provide her with an alarm that alerts her to how much you drink. Sure, it's a wineglass now, but soon it will no doubt be embedded in your favorite fraternity mug.

All I got to say is that these things should have an epilepsy warning associated with them, particularly if they're going to blink every time I take a drink.

(Link seen on Electric Venom.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:01 PM   0 comments
Monday, March 13, 2006
 
Breaking News, ca 1985
Is it that time again to discover that the game of Assassination is being played upon city streets?

I guess so:
    A large-scale combination of "Hide and Seek" and murder is being played on the streets of major U.S. cities with water pistols.

    "StreetWars: Killer" allows grownups to play out fantasies of being assassins, the Los Angeles Times says. The game began in New York, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that one of the founders, Franz Aliquo, "could use some psychiatric help."
Party like it's 1985!

UPDATE: UPI has also learned that some young people play games with paper and dice around kitchen tables while drinking copious amounts of Mountain Dew. Unconfirmed reports indicate that these people worship the devil!


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:49 PM   2 comments
 
New York Times Blames eBay
In an article entitled "Some Finding Perils in Online Real Estate, the New York Times finds innumerable ways to blame eBay for unscrupulous sellers who will unload crap properties on "investors" who will buy properties unseen and then will pay contractors recommended by the sellers thousands of dollars for repairs. For example, the New York Times offers this bit:
    Sam Hoyt, a Democratic state assemblyman and co-chairman of the Buffalo mayor's task force on real estate flipping, whose aim is to educate consumers on the destructive effects of the practice, blames eBay, saying it enables dishonest flippers to lure buyers.

    Mr. Hoyt said he had repeatedly appealed to eBay officials, asking the company to make specific changes, like informing sellers that they must comply with New York State disclosure laws and requiring a copy of written sales contracts. But Mr. Hoyt said he had received little cooperation from the company.

    "What eBay is doing, in my opinion, is immoral," he said. "They have a responsibility to not facilitate activity like this."
I mean, Buffalo has a task force on the problem of capitalists trying to turn a profit with property, and this publicly-funded entity has determined that eBay is immoral for posting real estate listings.

No doubt the New York Times has issued a retraction for all of the overly-optimistic classified ads it has run in its history.

But hey, the NYT is "even-handed," as we can see from the "opposing viewpoint"
    Representatives of eBay say the company has few legal obligations to buyers of real estate on the site. "The people responsible for house flipping," an eBay spokesman, Hani Durzy, said, "are the people selling these houses and the people buying them sight unseen. How these sellers and buyers are connecting is not as important as the fact that the buyers are not doing the proper due diligence when buying a property."
eBay pretty much understands the physics of the situation: fools share the same negative electrical charge as their money, and the fools will inevitably cast off their excess dollars.

The paper, on the other hand, only understands that somehow, somewhere, something is not regulated or legislated, and its heroes, the legislatures and regulatory agencies of government, should do something.

We at MfBJN, on the other hand, turn to the sublime koans of Master Kuni, who meditated: "You took the box? Let's see what's in the box! Nothing! Absolutely nothing! STUPID! You're so STU-PIIIIIIIIIIID!"

Because instead of trying to outlawing stupidity, we prefer that it remain a personal choice, punishable by mockery.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:23 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Where is Janice Gantry? by John D. MacDonald (1961)
I bought this book for $2.00 at Hooked on Books in Springfield late last month; it represents the second John D. MacDonald fiction book I've read in the last two weeks, and I need to pace myself. If I read too many of them close together, I find myself nitpicking them by comparing them to one another; if I read them interspersed with other fiction, their quality stands in stark contrast to most books.

This book details the story of Sam Brice, an insurance adjustor with a dark past who shelters for a night an escaped convict he knows. When the escaped convict calls upon Brice's ex-flame for help in some plot, Brice wants to follow along, but a local deputy with a love of his own blackjack knocks Brice out just long enough for the plot to progress. Brice's lover, Janice Gantry, disappears. And Brice wants to find her and to find out what made his associate into a convict and what that strange, brutal, reclusive couple in the large beachfront house have to hide.

The boko contains the trademark MacDonald hero, the pulpesque-but-evolving heroine, brutal and disbelieving police, and the like. Unfortunately, it slides slightly into purple prose, kinda making it into the masculine equivalent of the romance novel, but it's still worth a read. Looks like you can get this book more cheaply than I did if you click the link below. If so, more the power to you and more the loot to me. Mmmm, loot.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:22 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 12, 2006
 
Director of Real Estate for Dierbergs Says Lie Back and Enjoy It
In Missouri, some retail developers have mechanisms for levying surcharges on purchases within their developments. They can then use this money for things such as keeping up their developments, leaving the rent they charge the retailers available for more important things, such as their salaries and profit.

But the state is starting to look at this practice since, you know, these transportation development districts allow for the levying of taxes without accountability. The schizophrenic St. Louis Post-Dispatch cluck clucks the practice, which is odd since the paper lauds unelected boards pushing for taxes and conferring tax breaks for airports, sports teams, and myriad other things--so long as it's not businesses who wield this ripe-for-abuse power, it's okay with the Post-Dispatch.

But we here at MfBJN applaud Jerry Ebest, director of real estate for Dierbergs grocery stores, who tells the public it should just lie back and enjoy it:
    "If you're a consumer and you live very close to anybody's store that is in your municipality, would you take time out of your schedule to drive to another city with a lower tax rate?" he asked. "My suspicion is you would not."
Thank you, Mr. Ebest, for explaining how rising tax rates lift all boats.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:03 AM   0 comments
Saturday, March 11, 2006
 
Insanity
Dr. Michael Williams, upon completing his PhD, contemplates a career in technical writing.

Sure, it sounds like a good idea. If you have a freaking English degree and are tired of bouncing around retail jobs.

But a PhD? That would seem like getting a law degree and passing the bar so you can edit phone directory ads for attorneys.

Please, Dr. Williams, think of the starving English majors you'll displace!


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:12 AM   1 comments
 
Icelandic Exit Strategy Under Way
After several years of quagmire, the United States thinks Iceland security forces are ready to defend themselves:
    Iceland appears ready to take over some of the costs of its defense from the United States, which has long provided the nation's only military forces.
Me, I predict civil war, because that seems to be the happenin' thing to do.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:55 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 10, 2006
 
Book Report: The Hanged Man's Song by John Sandford (2003)
My beautiful wife gave me this book for my birthday, and as such, it adds nothing to my annual total of book expenditures. Woo hoo! Additionally, it's one of John Sandford's Kidd novels. I've read only one more (The Devil's Code), but they're pretty good hacker thrillers.

This one details how Kidd and LuEllen deal with the death of a fellow haker and the disappearance of the hacker's laptop. The laptop contains enough secrets to blackmail half of Washington and maybe all of the hacker community. Kidd and krew have to avoid the Feds and the murderous thief to retrieve the laptop and get what justice they can for their friend.

So why do I like the books? They're quickly-paced and are less dated than more realistic hacker novels whose close mapping to current technologies actually apply a date and timestamp expiration date to them. Kidd's hacktions are described plausibly, but broadly, so we can fill in the blanks with whatever current technologies might solve his problem. I wrote an essay about this once, and I like to see it in practice. They're paced well, too, allowing you to move through the action and the chapters quickly--and when you've got hundreds of books to read, you need every advantage.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:29 PM   0 comments
 
Shidoshi of Paranoia Proven Correct
Remember, friends, I said that eating your private papers is the only way to dispose of things, especially since recycling facility workers pay a lot of attention to what you recycle.

Well, someone braver than I am has illustrated that credit card companies will honor taped-together credit card applications. That have the "change of address" box marked. And that require a cellular phone to activate the credit line.

If you'll excuse me, your Shidoshi will now assume the meditative position of the fetus and will chant a healing mantra which only sounds like whimpering.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:12 PM   0 comments
 
Bloggers Get Results
Owen at Boots and Sabers asks:
    We obviously need more background checks and bans to prevent these tragic deaths.
Massachussetts delivers:
    Any individual who requires a machete for the purposes of cutting vegetation shall register the machete with the local police department on an annual basis and, upon payment of an appropriate annual registration fee as determined by the local granting authority, shall be issued a permit authorizing him to possess the machete solely for the purposes of cutting vegetation.
Behold the power of the blogosphere! Or, more importantly, the power of full time governments to enact satire as actual law.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:02 PM   1 comments
 
Book Report: Blood Relatives by Ed McBain (1975)
I bought this book used from Half Price Books in Springfield. I got it for $2.00 from the small discount section, but when I bought five books, I got the sixth one free. This, however, was not the free book.

This book represents a quick hit from the 87th Precinct series. Unlike many of the books, it focuses on a single crime: the stabbing of a teenager on a rainy night in the city. Carella and Kling, for the most part, focus on the atypical family structure of the victim and the illicit love that percipitated the murder. McBain deftly offers the reader multiple suspects to think of as whodunit and keeps you guessing. Or maybe I am just easily led.

With so many Ed McBain books spaced throughout my reading career, I'm never sure if I've read a book before, but with the McBain books, it's never dull to reread the books. However, I had read this before, and I knew it from the one thing I took away from this book when I read it twenty years ago: The commissioner's memo about unsigned memos. If you've read the book, you'll remember.

Weighing in at 175 pages, it's a quick read or re-read, and you can't do much better than McBain.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:25 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Substance of Style by Virginia Postrel (2003)
I admit, I bought this book shortly after it came out in 2003 and am the last cool kid on the block to have finished it (As a matter of fact, Heather read my copy of this book in 2004 either soon before or soon after we met Virginia Postrel). As you all know, Ms. Postrel is the former editor of Reason magazine, the Libertarian bible, and blogs at The Dynamist in between donating portions of her very body to people.

That said, remember, gentle reader, I am studied in the mystical and uninspiring arts of philosophy. Ergo, I understand the differences between aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, and all those sorts of branches of philosophy. I'll admit, too, that I've skipped over the branch of aesthetics except for The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand. As a hard-bitten, realistic philosopher, I, too, have given aesthetics short shrift in my contemplations. However, as a hard-bitten, realistic software tester, I know that a difficult interface can render otherwise functional software as unusable. So I appreciate the importance of styling, but I also rankle at the elevation of aesthetics to a comparable value to actual function.

So forgive me my inherent bias here.

Postrel makes a good argument that people like pretty things and that visual and tactile pleasure offer a value comparable to other values, and that when consumers make choices, sometimes they'll trade off other values to get visual and tactile pleasure. Also, given the march of progress, consumers get to pick sets of values (low price, functionality, AND beauty) or get to combine sets of values (low price AND beauty, functionality AND beauty) in ways they didn't before, where they can trade something for beauty. So the world is becoming more custom and more pleasurable not strictly at the expense of other, more concrete values (but sometimes at that expense).

So I'll call the book thought-provoking. Postrel makes her points and has done her research. I rankle when she puts beauty on par with functionality, and feel that she too easily discounts that beauty can still be artifice that hides low quality or poor functionality. She, of course, espouses a free market where rational customers buy from reasonable companies, but I'm a bit cynical and think that a lot of unscrupulous companies will try to deceive inattentive customers. In the aggregate, I suppose it will work out, but I'm not ready to elevate look and feel to the level of other things in the products I buy.

But I'm not letting the people I work with off the hook in products we build.

I'd like to take a moment to comment on the style of The Substance of Style. I didn't actually care much for the prose of the book. The chapter titles were non-specific and the actual topics meandered. I found some of the references repetitve. The book seems more like a long essay stretched than a full book. But fortunately, you don't read this book for the sound of its language but for the argument it makes.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:49 AM   0 comments
 
Things That Make Me Feel Old: The Thing
Not John Carpenter's The Thing, not Benjamin Grimm, not the Addam's Family hand.

The Volkswagen Thing.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:11 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
 
Real Estate Secret
How can you tell if a seller is "motivated"?

He or she has a For Sale sign in the front yard of the property for sale!


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:43 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
 
Reading Too Much Into a Headline
We're living longer -- is that a good thing?
The benefits of increased lifespans could come at the cost of greater societal burdens

Damn egoists putting their lives above society!


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 PM   0 comments
 
Conspiracy Theory 2 for 1 Sale
Come on, use your head. Mad Cow disease disrupting the supply of beef, and avian flu causing people to fear the chicken? Of course this is the work of the National Pork Board, who wants to make use of its slogans "Pork: The Only Safe Meat" and "Eat Pork and Live."

Or are they the work of Hamiburton in an insidious plot to starve Muslims?

(That would be much funnier if I didn't have this fear that actual riots and deaths might occur on account of my satire.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments
Monday, March 06, 2006
 
George Bush Hates Wine People
What else can we infer, since he blows up their levees:
    A levee break in the southeastern corner of Sonoma County has flooded part of state Highway 121 and may be threatening a half-dozen homes and a winery on surrounding farmland, according to the California Highway Patrol.

    The levee, built on private property near the Sonoma Creek, broke just before 8 a.m. Monday, flooding the property owner's vineyard and possibly threatening six homes and another vineyard about a half-mile south of the site, according to CHP Officer Gerald Rico.
If the affected residents are not flown immediately to Houston for long, government-paid hotel stays, I demand a Congressional panel!


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:29 PM   0 comments
 
Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel
Apparently, the Air Force has had its Crossbow Project orbital popcorn maker for 15 years.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:57 AM   0 comments
Sunday, March 05, 2006
 
Lessons from the Diner
No, not that Diner.

Every Sunday, I take my sainted mother out to breakfast. Well, perhaps "take" is the wrong word, since she usually drives us there in that new little roller skate of hers (I, of course, encouraged her to invest in a car I'd want to inherit, years hence, with low mileage) and she mostly pays for breakfast. So every Sunday, I go with (or perhaps sponge off) my sainted mother to a small diner in historic (if you count the outlot of a new strip mall as "historic," but someday, it will be, when we're all living in underground catacombs or in orbit, how we'll long for strip malls) Oakville, Missouri, for breakfast.

But I digress. Over the course of my many hundreds of dozens of trips to that diner, I've learned valuable life lessons that have made me a better man, husband, and father. To whit:
  • Spread your jelly thin, for there's only one little tub of it and four halves of cold buttered toast across which you'll want to stretch your limited supply.

  • Don't drink all the coffee in the cup, you greedy bastard. Because you probably don't want to know the real reason why that water is brown--it has something to hide.

  • Damn the masculinity, order the strawberries and whip cream on your waffle; for in thirty minutes, these strangers will have forgotten how nancy you looked, and you'll have the satisfaction of the sweetness in your belly. Assuming, of course, you don't finish the coffee and see what's at the bottom of your coffee cup.

  • You'll never be Norm-al. By the time the regular waitresses remember what you want even though you order the same freakin' thing every freakin' Sunday, the regular waitresses will have real jobs, and you'll have to start breaking in a new set of regular waitresses. So don't expect them to just bring the coffee when you sit down, much less learn your name.
Well, I just have the ill luck to have been born in relatively stable years with great opulence. Some generations get real-life lessons from wars and depressions and real adversity, I get red pepper nuggets in my coffee.

And, sonny, when I was young, we liked it that way.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:27 PM   1 comments
 
Things That Make Me Feel Old: Metal Ice Trays
This book mentioned one, and when I spoke to Heather about them, she didn't know what I was talking about. So let me explain it to you damn kids the way it was in the days before plastic could survive the sub-32 degree temperatures of Frigidaires.

The ice cube trays were metal, with a louvre fixture atop of them. Essentially, the tray itself did not have separate compartments for the individual cubes, but the louvre blades made boundaries. You poured your water in and let it freeze. Once it was frozen, you operated this lever atop the louvre which caused the blades to shift back and forth, breaking the ice cubes apart and out of their tray.

None of this little plastic twists to pop individual cubes out. In the old days, when we wanted to drop ice in our scotch, we had to freakin' operate machinery. Which is why we drank it straight, you damn malternative-suckers.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:07 PM   3 comments
 
Book Report: The Brass Cupcake by John D. MacDonald (1950)
I bought this book for $2.00 from Hooked on Books in Springfield last weekend, and believe you me, they have the best selection of JDMcD's paperback originals than any other store I've visited in the Midwest. They might have the best selection in the veritable United States (excluding Florida), but I would get ahead of myself with that pronouncement.

The Brass Cupcake represents the missing link between the Travis McGee novels and the pulps, although I'm not sure that such a link was ever missing. The writing style is grittier and punchier (not always a good thing) than I'm used to. Let's face it, the Travis McGee books wax downright elegaic for Florida, but this book could have been set in Jersey for all the true local flavor it has.

The book details the story of an insurance company investigator named Cliff Bartells, a former police lieutenant who left the force because he wasn't crooked enough to fit in and who now recovers stolen gems for a cut of their value (that sounds vaguely familiar...). When an old dowager with gems is bashed to death during a robbery, the dirty cops want to hang it on someone. Bartells, or someone to whom Bartells leads them, or some kid off the street. It won't matter. Bartells finds himself between the syndicate and the corrupt cops and between the heiress and the possible accomplice. He's got to set up a buy to get the gems back, without any additional lead accent pieces for himself.

Ultimately, the book disappointed me a little; as I mentioned, I found the two-fisted stylings a little choppy to read, and some characters blurred together when give only names and brief strokes. Also, the end didn't hang right, like an ill-cut suitcoat draped over shoulders too thin to fill it. But it's good to see the earliest works of MacDonald to watch him evolve.

Hey, since I've joined the Amazon Associates program, every time you order one of these books through my Web site, I get like a penny (for $3 shipping and handling). So if you're intrigued, why not click through and get your own copy, since my copy is locked up until my estate sale:

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:35 PM   0 comments
 
Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Review, 00:07:18
Gregory Peck is the 1950s Orlando Bloom. Gary Cooper could have beaten him half to death with his left hand, and Cary Grant could have given him a wedgie of a quip that would have sent him back home to momma and his sisters.

UPDATE 00:11:07 If he doesn't manage that shrew of a wife of his, I'm going to invent a time machine that travels into fictional time, set it back to 1956 Connecticut, and I'm going to introduce Gregory Peck to a little thing called "Taser." For the simple thrill of it.

UPDATE 00:12:10 Never mind, send back the divorce lawyers instead.

UPDATE 00:17:06 Funny how off-handedly Hollywood whacked America's enemies (or recent enemies) in the 1950s. Now, of course, heroes cannot even look askew at potential enemies of the Republic.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:30 AM   0 comments
Saturday, March 04, 2006
 
British Librarians Disprove Value of American English Degree
Apparently, some British librarians have identified fifty books one should read before dying. I've listed the books below and have identified those I have read in bold and those I have on my to-read shelves in italics:
    To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
    The Bible
    The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
    1984 by George Orwell
    A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
    Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
    Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
    All Quite [sic] on the Western Front by E M Remarque
    His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
    Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
    The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
    The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
    Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
    Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
    Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
    The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
    Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
    Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
    The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
    The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
    The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
    David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
    The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
    The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
    Life of Pi by Yann Martel
    Middlemarch by George Eliot
    The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
    A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
    A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn
Hey, it's a meme! Everyone play!

Also, please note that should I get to a total of 49 of these books, I will not read the last, because that would indicate I am ready to die. Thank you, that is all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:28 PM   1 comments
 
Free Non-Profit Idea
Get in on the ground floor with your very own non-profit idea in a new agitation industry! You, too, can have jets, spacious hotel accommodations, audiences with kings, reporters, and senators, as well as a good salary paid by your donors while you can simply "educate," raise funds, and not produce anything but enough money to cover your expenses and fundraising efforts.

To get into this lucrative industry, be the first on your block to be a:

CosmicEnviro Activist!

I got the idea from this post wherein Michael Williams talks about mining asteroids in space for big dollars. I mean, let's face it, the idea has dangerous sides that can really make excellent bullet points in fundraising letters, such as:
  • Could destroy the cobalt industry in Zambia, driving that country into poverty.

  • Profit-oriented corporations will use asteroids as weapons to pulverize the competition (Did you notice that the bad guys in Niven and Pournelle's Footfall were elephants? Do the math!)

  • Disruption of celestial bodies will ruin star charts and astrologies for everyone!
Hurry and establish your charity now while there's no glut in the market! You'll be able to use Since 2006 in your promotional material henceforth. And by the time the other usual suspects arise to protest, you'll have the cachet--and the wealthy database of previous contributors!

It would be much funnier if I didn't fear it's satire today, semipowerful actual lobbying group tomorrow, and taking credit for the UN ban on space commerce two weeks from now.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:19 PM   3 comments
 
Education Story of the Day
Overland Students Walk Out In Support Of Teacher.

You know it's about that geography teacher who helped his students find Germany or the United States on a world map by comparing Bush to Hitler (both liked dogs! They are just the same!).

I don't care about the story about its grassrootsification of students walking out of class--hell's belles, today's students know they won't get punished for "political expression," so they go on these little short-term field trips when the cafeteria is out of chocolate milk. No, I like a story that includes multiple implications for what's wrong with our public education system (the teachers, the students, the administration, to name a few) that offers insight like this:
    "I think he inspires so many students and he's a great teacher," one student said during the rally. "I mean he makes people do there work and he makes people care about things."
If you don't know what's so pleasantly wrong with that, I'm not going to explain it to you. Ask your fellow alumni from Overland High School.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:08 PM   0 comments
 
Jim Talent Outsources American Manufacturing
Sort of. I mean, action:
    The Senate gave final approval Thursday to broad anti-methamphetamine provisions that will impose tight curbs on the sale of popular cold remedies used to make the highly addictive drug.

    The long-stalled crackdown on cold medicine sales - initially opposed by retail and drug lobbyists - passed after months of intense negotiations with those industries over the scope of the new restrictions.

    The measure, part of legislation reauthorizing the Patriot Act, has already passed in the House. The president is expected to sign it.
Reaction:
    Missouri drug investigators say there are fewer makeshift labs churning out methamphetamine, but they also warn the state's menacing meth problem might be taking a new direction - changing from small-time illegal operations to a fertile market for imported drugs.

    Police say imported meth is starting to sneak into Missouri as area drug labs shut down. Just last month, seven Mexican citizens pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of conspiring to distributes large quantities of meth in southwestern Missouri. Police in the St. Louis area say they expect to see similar cases in the area as organized crime, particularly Mexican drug-trafficking groups, take over the local meth trade.
As a result of the Talent-Feinstein meddlings and the happy Federal determination that some states could not use common sense in their retailing of certain cold remedies and that all must abide by an asinine standard since Talent and Feinstein know better than individual legislatures, crank heads will still get their meth, but my wife will not be able to stock up on Claritin when it's on sale.

Thank you, Senator Talent. Hopefully, this year we can send you on the next step of your career: lobbyist.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:41 PM   0 comments
 
Subtleties
The difference between décor and decor is about 68% in retail price.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:05 PM   0 comments
Thursday, March 02, 2006
 
The New Battlestar: Galactica Miniseries Review, 5 Seconds Into the DVD
How modern; the premise of the original, where the Cylons where the mechanical spawn of an ancient race inimical to man (or, if one goes extra-textually to the actual broadcast of the original series, merely an ancient race inimical to man), has been replaced with the premise that man created the Cylons to serve man.

Kinda like America funded Saddam Hussein in the 1980s or any other variation on the Biblical theme that all the evils you face today are retribution for the sins of your fathers and so on.

Your honor, note that this person is a hostile witness (and a rabid partisan of the original series).

Man, I hope this improves after the expository stills.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:39 PM   1 comments
 
Astronomer Agitates for Space Exploration
Telescopes 'worthless' by 2050:
    Ground-based astronomy could be impossible in 40 years because of pollution from aircraft exhaust trails and climate change, an expert says.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:52 PM   0 comments
 
Unless Its Demands Are Met, UN Threatens to Unleash Weather Havoc
Hurricane season could match '05: UN:
    This year's hurricane season could match the record breaking destruction caused by storms in 2005, the United Nations warned.
Don't make it unleash the havoc again.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:43 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
 
Belated Happy Anniversary
Oh, yeah, congratulations to the pups at Another Rovian Conspiracy for their one year anniversary.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:17 PM   1 comments
 
Twenty-First Century Nuclear Family
All blowed up:
    Some women have their book clubs, and others belong to professional groups. Some connect in therapy and others through sororities. But here is a relatively new connection: a group of 11 sharp, educated and independent women brought together on the Internet by one man's sperm.

    Not one of them has met the donor -- his identity is kept secret by Fairfax Cryobank in Virginia. Known only as donor 401, he has fathered all of their children -- 11 so far, and Leann Mischel, 41, a Pennsylvania college professor, has a second child by way of his sperm on the way.

    "It's an emotional connection. We have a common base," explained Carla Schouten of San Jose, who adds that the women have less interest in knowing the donor than they do one another. "Most of us are single. We all desired children, and we were all attracted to the same donor."
Perhaps these women hope for a future that looks a lot like Utah, but where men are only kept in barns to be milked when needed. However, more traditional people will outbreed these cretins and hopefully their fatherless children will grow up well-adjusted enough to be Republicans or Libertarians.

Were I this 401 guy, though, the thing I'd dread most is the possibility of getting on the hook for child support. It hasn't happened, gentle reader, but that just means it hasn't happened yet. One creatively-reasoned (i.e., made up) legal argument and one progressive judge is the narrow distance between the increasingly tenuous reality and settled law.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:08 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."