Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Monday, May 07, 2007
 
That's a Bold Marketing Tagline
Seen in the current issue of Leatherneck:

V-22 ad
Click for full size


"No other aircraft gets Marines into and out of danger like the V-22."

That's just climbing into the aircraft.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:12 PM   0 comments
 
Celebrate Brutality with the New York Daily News
So apparently Paris Hilton is going to jail, and here's the New York Daily News reveling in the brutality behind bars:
    Hotel heiress Paris Hilton better watch her back in the Century Regional Detention Facility, visitors who were at the jail yesterday warned.

    "If you act like you're all high-class and uppity," Denise Chavis said, "you're done."
The paper goes on to describe the deplorable nature of life in jail. With glee and a slight taunt. Finally, we've brought her down low.

How pathetic. However Paris Hilton emerges from prison, she'll still be Paris Hilton, and the mean-spirited Daily News West Coast Bureau Chief will still be only that.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:30 PM   1 comments
 
Book Report: Another Part of the City by Ed McBain (1986)
With the cover of this novel, it's easy to assume it's one of the 87th Precinct novels. Of course, it doesn't actually say that, but it's easy to make that mistake, which I'm sure the publisher helped along with the cover matching the mid-80s 87th Precinct novels. I didn't realize it until all of a sudden they were actually in New York.

This book deals with Bryan Reardon, a detective in the 5th Precinct, and the rest of the 5th squad as they deal with one of the infrequent murders in their precinct. Reardon also has to deal with a divorce in process that he's not in favor of and a new romance, maybe, with a researcher for Forbes. So a restaurant owner gets whacked while Mob guys watch, but it looks to be a result of some financial shenanigans and perhaps a touch of geopolitics as an Arab got whacked at LaGuardia by the same perps.

The mid-80s novels set in New York are very, very bleak in their outlook on the safety in the city. Definitely progressed toward that Escape from New York future. Then a certain mayor came to lead the city and turn it around in the 1990s. Wow, if that mayor was running for president, he'd definitely be my Plan B. Fortunately, Ed McBain isn't around to see me linking up his books to politics with which he (McBain) would probably disagree.

So it's a one-off as far as series go, but it's classic McBain and worth a read.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:11 AM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Under a Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy (1871, 1983)
Hey, sometimes you're in the mood for a Hardy Boys book, and if that's the case, don't make the same mistake I've obviously done.

Just kidding. I read Tess of the d'Urbervilles in college and saw The Marriage of Bette & Boo that same year, so one has to wonder why I didn't become a total Thomas Hardy head. Except that it's Victorian literature, and I'm a contemporary American, more Hemingway than Faulkner much less Victorian.

Still, when this book was remaindered from the Bridgeton Trails branch of the library, I couldn't pass it up (I also got A Pair of Blue Eyes). It's a fair enough into to Hardy, as it's only a hair over 200 pages. It tells the story of a young man named Dick Dewy and the new school mistress Fancy Day. It comprises a fairly short number of scenes, some of which are less important to the forward progress of the story than their overall length would suggest. However, like with any serious novel and any old novel, you have to read it for the joy of the language and the archaism of the world it depicts.

Is it a good Victorian novel? Heck if I know; I haven't read enough bad Victorian novels to know the difference. But I know a little more about the time period in which organs replaced quires in the Anglican church and a little more about Thomas Hardy's work, so it was worth the quarter. Also, I've read more Hardy than you have now (probably), so feel my arrogance. Go ahead, put your hand right here on the monitor -> X <- Feel it?

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:50 AM   0 comments
 
I Has Time Killerz
I Can Has Cheezeburger. Cat pix with captions in txt.

(Link seen on Trey Givens.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:47 AM   0 comments
Sunday, May 06, 2007
 
Don't Remake the Remake
The blogosphere, built of fanboys of science fiction, politics, or sometimes both, is abuzz about the Entertainment Weekly The Sci-Fi 25 top 25 science fiction things in the last 25 years, has this to say about #16, The Thing:
    Recently, there's been talk in Hollywood of remaking The Thing. Please don't. For the love of God, we're begging you. After all, this streamlined exercise in subzero paranoia cannot be improved upon.
This is amusing to some of us who realize the 1982 film was a remake of a 1951 film entitled The Thing From Another World.

Don't remake the remake because its subzero paranoia could not be improved? Hollywood 2007 surely differs; why, it's a parable about modern politics, somehow, making George W. Bush and the American military responsible would speak more truth to power.

In the pool, I'm taking the spot where alien is replaced with military experiment on Iraqi/general Arabic prisoner gone wrong.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:31 AM   0 comments
 
Cop Killer, 25 Years Later, Full of Wrong Adjectives
Convicted killer fears his last moments:
    Workman said he doesn't feel much like a person anymore. He has become a pile of legal briefs, appeals, depositions.

    And he is angry, sorry, scared and depressed.

    Of the officer who was killed, Workman says: "Any loss of life is a tragedy."
No, sir; the loss of the officer was tragic, but the result of another man's actions. When that life is lost, it will be justice, not tragedy.

The dead cop didn't get 25 years to build up a good set of anger, fear, or depression. He doesn't feel like a person any more, either, because Workman killed him in a Wendy's parking lot. Poor bastard is nothing but a footnote in a CNN cause célèbre.

Meanwhile, pliable proletariat reader, feel sympathy for some poor soul who's had 25 years to reflect on what he's done, and the best he can do is a sideways sorry amid his own turmoil for his punishment.

I'd say shame on CNN and shame on Workman, but there's no shame any more. Some people have moved beyond it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:22 AM   0 comments
 
Why Does Jim Doyle Hate Real Estate Investors?
Maybe he doesn't hate them; maybe they're just dogs whose blood he wants to suck:
    Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's plan to double the fee paid by sellers of homes and other property - a fee increase that would cost sellers of property $142 million over the next two years - survived the first attempt by Republicans to kill it Thursday.
No doubt, Jim Doyle's blue-ribbon BOHICA commission assume that this will not impede real estate investment and rehabbing, particularly in blighted areas in the throes of gentrification. No doubt the crony capitalists in charge of Wisconsin government will redistribute some wealth to favored developers to offset the new fee increases they're saddling the honest men with.

But cause and effect aren't tied together when effects are bad and the cause is "more taxes" or "more government."


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:11 AM   0 comments
 
A Tale Of Two Commencement Speakers
One routinely says things that don't make sense, and the other is Yogi Berra.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 AM   0 comments
Friday, May 04, 2007
 
New Democrat Voter Outreach
Not really, but come on, we all know who this object will vote for, don't we?
    In some ways, Hiasl is like any other Viennese: He indulges a weakness for pastry, likes to paint and enjoys chilling out watching TV. But he doesn't care for coffee, and he isn't actually a person—at least not yet. In a case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26- year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a "person."
Remarkable. Even better, look at this splitting of hairs:
    "Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights," said Eberhart Theuer, a lawyer leading the challenge on behalf of the Association Against Animal Factories, a Vienna animal rights group.

    "We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions," Theuer said.

    "We're not talking about the right to vote here."
Where have I seen that before? Oh, yes: All animals are equal. But some are more equal than others.

(Another link seen on Boots and Sabers.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:46 PM   0 comments
 
That Holds Me Back, Too
Want to know why I never went to Hollywood? Because my stone-cold attractivosity would melt the cameras. Jessica Biel understands:
    Last summer's The Illusionist may have given her résumé a prestige boost, but Jessica Biel says "it's still a struggle" to get the parts she wants – partly because she's too sexy.
We should form a support group, but I think my wife would disapprove.

(Link seen on Boots and Sabers; in lieu of actually finding something on my own, I am merely republishing their content.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:32 PM   1 comments
Thursday, May 03, 2007
 
Why Should IE 8 Differ?
Microsoft sez:
    Microsoft's solution would be to make developers shoulder the responsibility if their sites break when rendered by IE 8.
Sounds a lot like their "solution" to a lot of broken things.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:19 AM   0 comments
 
Trust the Administrators
Whenever some developer or project manager tells me that a software application does not have to provide bulletproof validation for administrators because they're not as dumb as normal users, I pause a moment to reflect upon administrator genius:
    trumwill: Over the weekend the company changed everything on the network. They sent out an email with our new network passwords.

    morequen: Wait, they sent out *an* email?

    morequen: with everyone’s password?

    trumwill: Everyone’s password being the same, yes. They advised us to create a new one.

    morequen: wow

    trumwill: Which would be possible if we could, you know, log in to see the email. Which of course we couldn’t because our passwords didn’t work.
Administrators are just users put in charge of other users. Smarter? Maybe sometimes. But software shouldn't be written as though its users are Steven Hawking, because sometimes those presumed genius-level administrators are nothing but users tasked with administrative responsibilities.

(Link seen on Dustbury.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
 
Book Report: Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (1981)
In March, I read Ringworld's Children, but that book did not mar my longstanding default view of Larry Niven's work enough that I didn't pick Oath of Fealty right away. The book centers on a collision between the city of Los Angeles and an "arcology"--a large, mostly self-contained living structure housing hundreds of thousands of people with its own government, economy, and security. A humanist terrorist group wants to destroy "The Hive," so they send some young people on a dry run with only mock weapons. The security force of Todos Santos responds with deadly force, leading a showdown with the political and law enforcement forces of the city that surrounds it.

The book presents a lot of thought-provoking themes, such as a contrast of the way of life for regular city dwellers who live freely and the residents of Todos Santos, who accept certain security measures--the omnipresence of cameras, for example--to make living together in a confined area possible. Todos Santos, aside from the cameras, offers many amenities and philosophies--police are again peace officers, the government does not regulate business and in fact offers loans on good terms, and the citizens are not citizens, they're also shareholders in the corporation that runs Todos Santos.

It's got a bit of the political going on and a large cast of characters, but because it's not built on a number of books preceding it (as Ringworld's Children was), these flaws are forgiveable and aren't so dramatic; one only has to pause to sort out who the character is, not try futilely to remember who the character was from a book one read a decade ago).

Written with Jerry Pournelle and published in 1981, this book precedes the Reagan era and comes out of the 1970s milieu, but it doesn't seem dated. One of the characters carries a communicator/calendar/portable computer that, unfortunately, he has to plug in. Sounds familiar enough 26 years later. Unfortunately, the characters do describe a large set of computer files (27,000,000 bytes) that will take a long time to download at 300 baud. True, but I was downloading faster than that a mere five years after the book was written.

So it's a good book, and I'd recommend it. Especially if you can snag a cheap copy like I did.

For those of you keeping track at home, this is my 38th book of the year, so I am on a good pace to reach my annual goal of 75.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:28 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
 
May The Biggest Kickback Win
City officials in Milwaukee have a dilemma: Developers want free money:
    More than three years after the Park East Freeway spur was torn down, 16 acres of prime downtown land remain barren - and developers say it's time for city officials to help make something happen there.

    "There's gridlock right now, and I'm concerned this thing is going to blow up," said Gary Grunau, who is building the new Manpower Inc. headquarters, just north of the Park East area. "Somebody's got to show some leadership."
"Leadership," of course, is a euphemism for "government giveaways to private business" in forms of tax abatement, zoning variations, and loan co-signing. Of course, this would be a no-brainer, as government officials tend to want to hump the legs of all developers they can.

But:
    Concerns about city financing for hotel projects have been raised by Greg Marcus, executive vice president of Marcus Corp., which operates three downtown hotels: InterContinental Milwaukee Hotel, Hilton Milwaukee City Center and the Pfister Hotel.

    Marcus, in a March 6 letter to Mayor Tom Barrett, said efforts to "subsidize construction of hotel rooms without first stimulating demand for those rooms" will "simply siphon off demand from existing (privately financed) hotel rooms."
It sounds like there's trouble in paradise, right? Heavy hitters in the local industry making noises like this, sounding almost laissez-faire.

Aw, if I believed that, I wouldn't be a good cynic. The government has enough favors for all fat cats. I expect the city of Milwaukee will cosign the loans for the speculative development and will throw sops to existing businesses, maybe even before they're failing on account of the city's meddling in a market economy. After all, there can never be too many cronies in crony capitalism.

Ah, Milwaukee. Briefly, you were more than St. Louis, but you're in a hurry to sink to its post-industrial, post-unsupported business level.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:00 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."