ironforfun

Binge smokers

2009-11-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

So I was chatting with Greg. He mentioned how many people in Europe smoke, I asked if when they smoked, if they smoked as many as Americans... or if he thought there was more moderation to their habit. He did not know. Nor did I. But thanks to the the interwebs (1,2,) and me putting a little time on Excel, now we do*.

I guess the answer to our question is: It depends on the European country.

* ...or at least we have a decent idea. The numbers used were cigarettes smoked per capita and what percentage of the population smoked. I just divided the per capita number by the percent of daily smokers. The error is only by smokers who smoke less than daily, and I think it's a safe bet that they are a small % of the population, and an even smaller percent of the cigarettes being smoked. This also assumes the distributions of per capita cigs by smokers have similar shapes in all countries.
** also, I'm not sure if South Korea is right I may have mixed the S. Korea% with the N Korea per capita number. In other words, this is not a peer reviewed study ha ha

2009-09-16T17:56:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I signed up for Netflix. My sexy lady-friend was initally happy. Her acceptance of my decision declined with each movie I added to our queue. Apparently Tron, Highlander, and every Kung fu movie ever are not on the top of her "to watch" list. This week however, she's in England on business, and as with any fusion reaction (joining two smaller thing into something larger) ... a little break every now and then prevents explosion, and increases the reaction's yield. In anticipation of this, I rearranged the queue and put Balls of Fury at the top.

I have to say, after much anticipation, I'm not overly impressed. I'd like to say this is the first Christopher Walken movie I've ever seen and not loved, but alas, I've seen Batman Returns. It follows the plot of bloodsport (minus martial arts, plus ping pong), but it doesn't develop the characters like the Bloodsports did.... truly disappointing (and yes, I realize that the characters weren't well developed in bloodsport... but they were sufficiently developed for you to root on JCVD as the great anglo-ninja master). So, the girl-friend picked a good one to miss, but Zardoz (next on the queue) promises to make up for her clairvoyance.

That's all for now.

Home owners insurance

2009-08-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

A tree fell on my house in May. While Allstate has been great, that's not what this post is about. I found out my mortgage payment increased 20%, largely due to a change in my insurance policy. That's not what this post is about, but what I was looking into when I learned something. It is going to save me money, and probably could save you also.

We've all heard about insurance companies raising rates after a claim. You can imagine they want to recoup their losses. Although I don't think this is original, Allstate has done this with some ingenuity. You see they told me up front I'd be receiving a "20% discount" off my rate for being "claim-free." Now that I've had a claim I lose the "discount" having the perception that I've been returned to the "normal" rate. " [Mind you "losing a 20% discount" means an increase of 25%.... If my insurance is $1,000, a 20% discount is $200.. making my claim free insurance $800... but when I lose that twenty percent discount I gain $200 on a current $800 payment. 200 is one quarter of 800, or a 25% increase. Funny how that works, isn't it?]. I have to be claim free for 5 years to regain my "discount."

I also learned today that my homeowner's insurance will be significantly less, if I opt for a higher deductible. I currently have a $1,000 dollar deductible. My annual payments decrease by about 25% if I opt for a $2,500 deductible, and about 40% if I opt for a $5,000 deductible. In a nutshell, the higher deductible is probably going to save me more money. The insurance company charges you for not being able to provide liquid capital.

Having no claims is always cheaper than having claims. You won't have to pay deductibles or "lose discounts." In this case, the choice is easy, you pick the highest deductible available to you. But, what if you have a claim? In most cases, the larger deductible is cheaper. In fact, the higher your homeowner's insurance, the better chance you'll save with a larger deductible. I purchased a very modest home. At my rates, even with a major claim every decade, it is cheaper for me to have a larger deductible. Do the math, you could probably save yourself a few hundred dollars annually (or you already have, good for you).

One more thing. The loss of the discount should come into play when deciding whether or not you should file a claim. Consider these options
Door 1: 1K normal, 1K deductible
Door2: 800 normal, 2,500 deductible
Door3: 600 normal, 5,000 deductible

Although your deductible for Door 1 is 1K. you should not claim anything under 2,000... you'll pay the 1k deductible and you'll lose your discount of 20%... ie your rates will go up 200 for five years... a total of $2,000. Do the same with Doors 2 and 3:

Door 1: shouldn't file claim unless it is 200% of deductible
Door 2: shouldn't file claim unless it is 132% of deductible
Door 3: shouldn't file claim unless it is 112% of deductible

As you provide more liquid capital (shift more risk to yourself)... your insurance policy becomes both cheaper and more usable. If you don't have the liquid capital, you'd be crazy to take the risk... but if you have $5,000 in stock sitting somewhere.. .you should call your insurance agent and get quotes on higher deductibles.

In other news. Claire De Lune is incredible... it's written in Db and in 9/8 time. Technicality aside, it's simple, yet stunning in sound. I've liked it for a long time, but just started poking around at learning it yesterday, and I'm absolutely floored. Here's a link to it with some teen throb pictures (or the deleted scene from Fantasia.

A reason to go to Wal-Mart

2009-07-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.mmh.com/blog/1000000500/post/420047042.html?nid=4283&rid=9657550

Wal-Mart is requiring their suppliers to calculate their carbon footprint. The information will be added to a label.

I'm super excited about this. Because I had a similar idea a while back, and because I'm really curious to see how much product greenery is worth to the average consumer. Will Ronaldo the Riveter be willing to pay more for a product that is greener? Will Soccer Mom Jane read the label? And who will be willing to tell their children they have to buy Nutty Honey Toasty-Os because the much better advertised Honey-Nut Cheerios isn't quite as friendly to the squirrels?

We probably won't see any change to the labels for a couple of years (experts say it could be as soon as 2011), but I'm teeming with anticipation.

This is what it's all about. Give information to the masses, don't force them to change with federal mandate. And, if we choose to ignore that information and the doctor's of future generations can keep us alive as penance for our failure to act. (there's a Dilbert comic I ripped off here, but I'm tired of looking for it... so just trust me that it's funny).

The masse consenting

2009-06-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

I received a forward today containing this cartoon. The line, "Imagine yourself in a land where your countrymen followed the voice of political extremists who didn't like your religion." struck me poignantly. I wrote in my journal:

It was not until just now that I had drawn the connection between many Americans today and many Germans in the 30s. It's true that Amedinejad is crazy, and is potentially a threat... but it wasn't until this email that I realized the error so many Americans make (of grouping all/most Muslims as extremists like Amedinejad) is an equally grave threat to world progress. Before today I'd been frustrated by the spoutings of poorly informed Americans who think all Muslims are a threat. Now, I see that mentality as threatening, not just annoyingly mis-informed.

Imagine yourself in Iran where your countrymen follow the voice of politicians who don't like Christianity.

Imagine yourself in the USA where your countrymen follow the voice of politicians who don't like Islam.

Imagine yourself in Germany where your countrymen follow the voice of politicians who don't like Judaism.

We're all familiar with the last. I think it'd be tough to argue the first two don't exist now. Sure, there's a big step between where we are now, and genocide... but I'm made nervous by the fact that many of our countrymen and politicians are still facing that direction.

Slacking

2009-05-01T10:57:00.001-07:00

I feel resigned to the idea that I'm going to be a once a month blogger. It's kind of sad, but being in an office 40 hours a week dropped blogging from the priority list. Today I don't have anything in particular that I want to blog about, I'm simply blogging because I haven't yet given up on the idea of my blog. Here are some tidbits from the last month.

-Master Cleanse was cool... I stopped at the end of 5 days. Days 3-5 all felt the same, I felt like it had run its course. I was also ready to get back on the bike and I still have apprehensions about doing a 300 mile week on a liquid diet. Perhaps I'll try the "way more than moderate" exercise and fasting some other time.

-The lady and I put together our desired travel plans for the rest of the year. They include: San Fransisco, Saint Louis, Chicago, New Mexico, and a week in either Ireland or Italy. People keep saying, "only a week?" I think to myself, well I only have 5 days vacation this year... and when was the last time you went to Europe?

-I've started going back through my Calculus text book. I've decided to actually learn it this time, making the progress slow and arduous, but giving me a sense of accomplishment. I've also been reminded of Euler's formula, and how sweet it is.

-I bought a couple of bikes. An early 90s Huff Savannah Tandem was the first. Mine is rustier than the one pictured, but it's still rolling hilarity. I also bought a 2008 Kestrel Talon last weekend. I've only had it out once for intervals, but it really cooks, I think I'm going to like it a lot.

-I bought a kit and started my first batch of homebrew, I need to transfer it from one receptacle to another tonight (I'm not cool enough to know all the brewing terms yet... I think I'm transferring it from the fermenter to the carboy).

-Work is working.

-I got on LinkedIn thinking the bandwagon had passed and discovered I'm mistaken. It's just getting started. I'd call it a valuable tool for anyone: looking for a job, looking for an employee, or looking for the communication of ideas and concepts between industries. If you're on there, and feel it beneficial, add me.

-Wine is good

-I discovered the song Country Boy by Albert Lee (I'm in my office at lunch so I can't link to youtube... damn you Surf Patrol!). He was on the Crossroads DVD, and I think he's pretty awesome.

-Experiences close to me have further convinced me euthansia should be legal. Nursing homes can be good, or they can just be a place to die. If you are just waiting to die, especially if you are in pain, there's no reason you should have to pay $5,000/month to wait (avg cost for a shared room, 2004 MetLife Market Survey). Simply put, it's childish for us to make someone live months in pain when they don't want to. We are keeping them alive, but they are not living, they are just dying slowly, waiting for it come, wishing it would come sooner.

That's my blogging for the month. Late.

Master Cleanse Day 1

2009-03-24T15:25:00.001-07:00

I started Master Cleanse today. I'm totally nerding out on it and I'm going to record my weight daily in a google documents spreadsheet.

The goal is 10 days.... I've done a 3 day liquid fast before. My thought is if I can make it 3 I can make it 5. If I can make it 5 I can make it 7, and if I can make it 7, I can make it 10. Using the transitive property, I have deduced it can be done.

Wish me luck, and timely bowel movements.

Femeostasis

2009-03-06T16:19:00.000-08:00

Women want to be viewed as equal.. and I don't blame them. Things are definitely going the right direction, if they're going at the appropriate speed is up for argument.

As most things... I expect feminism and the general view of and laws protecting male female interaction to gain momentum and eventually have to back up a bit. At some point in the general stance of feminism will have to change to, "we are different in many ways, but we should embrace those ways."Of course, this view already exists, but I'd argue it's not yet held by the majority.

In only slightly related thought, is pulling a chair out simply respectful... or does it simply reinforce the idea that we are not equal? Does it depend only on the motivation of the person pulling the chair? Why shouldn't you, in self-defense, hit a woman who is hitting you? Is it because she is inferior? Can you imagine a women saying, "why won't you hit me back" like Rudy to an A squad lineman before the Purdue game?

Could we pass homeostasis in our actions? Could society become matriarchal? Or could we only approach an asymptote of equality? Women would never truly been seen as equal, but the difference would be so tiny no one would actually perceive it.

There are a lot of questions in this post, so I hope it gives a few people something to think about. I also hope before either these questions can be answered we learn, as a society, to recognize and employ our differences toward our common goals.

Rector resentment

2009-02-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

I've been picking up a free daily publication at work daily. Like many small town publications it has a standard column that reprints the news from some fixed time in the past. Luckily, Carthage has a little history so the column reviews the area's top news stories from 100 years ago.

Last week the title was "A School Excitement."
The public schools at Lowell, the Kansas town at the junction of Shoal Creek and Spring river not far from Galena are closed and the town is in much excitement. Chas. Brooks and his wife have charge of the public schools. Mr. Brooks requested each of his pupils to write him a letter, for the purpose of advancing them in composition. The children acted upon his advice with the exception of one girl, and she took his advice, but she insulted the teacher. She told him in her letter that he was a fool and said other things which Mr. Brooks took exception to and expelled the young girl. Her mother, Mrs. Cheatham, got mad. She went up to the school house and pounded and scratched Mr. Brooks. He did not defend himself because a woman was attacking him. In the general confusion a little girl by the name of Ida Vennette was cut about the head and otherwise painfully injured.

The line about him not defending himself cracks me up, but the idea that even one hundred years ago, teachers had issues with parents who thought their children could do no wrong is of more interest to me today. I'm relieved to find out that's not specific to my parent's generation (I think the old timers forget how things really were back then, or they just didn't know, or I've listened to them to much... the more I learn about history, the more I learn the good old days were just the same old days). I'm also frustrated that parents have foolishly defended foolish children for over a century... I'd hope that somewhere in the last four generations we might have progressed the teacher parent realationship just a little bit. My emotions are leveled by the reminder that people will always disagree, parents are teachers will inevitably argue.. simply because they are human. Likewise, there will always be teacher's making errors, and parents without the full story.

It's certainly a parent's right to disagree with the teacher (let's hope they go looking for answers before a fight). But what really over cooks my grits is when they go straight to the administration who sides with the parent before even hearing the teacher's case. When a principal uses acquiescence to prevent conflict, especially at the cost of a teacher's character... they have failed at education. There are a lot of good teachers out there... and they all have a lot of kids. The chances of one kid complaing about a teacher are a lot higher than the chances of that kid being right.

Certainly the kids and parents can't be ignored... but don't forget innocent until proven guilty. And don't forget that sending a parent home happy isn't always the best thing in the long run.

In education, business, and in everyday America we seem to have a shortage of spines. Many disagreements happen because of a lack of knowledge... but quelling that disagreement does in no way suggest education. A parent and student being in the wrong and thinking they're right is exactly what we don't need more of. Surely, the student will grow up to be another parent in the wrong. There's no way to say who's in the wrong... but educators and their administration are the only people in position to fight the fight, and if they don't try, we're never going to win.

I might blog later on a slightly related topic: It appears to me in education, government, and business... the less you trust the people directly under you, the more waste you create. Easier said than done, but words I intend to live by.

Laundry Theory

2009-01-31T07:17:00.001-08:00

I thought I might explain how a normal blogging gets dropped.It's 9:16 in the AM and I have a theory. Let's go research.

My theory is that we all use a lot more laundry detergent than we need. As with any solvent, there's going to be a point of diminishing returns. If I was a detergent company I'd want to make sure my customers were well past that point. I'd want to ensure my product worked to its full potential (and buy it again), and I'd want customers to use more of my product (and buy it sooner).

After 10 minutes, the wikipedia article on laundry, and now on laundry detergent (a good example of wiki's left leaning motif), I'm finding some interesting stuff. Detergent has a pretty big carbon footprint, and Tesco in the UK had the same idea I did about labeling products with environmental impact information. In rank from largest carbon footprint to smallest: Powdered detergent, liquid, concentrated liquid, Fat Tire Amber Ale. So if you love nature... drink Fat Tire, not Tide. Soap nuts, the dried fruit of the sapindus tree, are one of the best natural solutions. They don't look too expensive, I might try them after I run out of my giant box of powdered detergent (hey, it's cheap, and I didn't know).

Well it's now 9:52 and I've found someone else who had a related thought: Just be sure you're not using too much. I'd expect people have already thought about this, but perhaps they haven't. It does bring up the question of why the caps need to be so big...I can't help but say it must be related to consumers doing what they do faster. Aside: Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-business... I'd do the same thing if I was a CEO of Ultra. Then again, if you really want to save, DIY. I still haven't found anything directly related to my theory, but I did find a green game with Tom Green.

It's 10:22 in the AM. Typically by this point, I'd have changed my topic and probably just blog on the carbon footprint of different types of detergent. So now know, that's how I usually drop a blogging.

This Island Earth

2009-01-27T15:40:00.000-08:00

I am almost through the Planet Earth series. If you have not seen these, do so. If no one you know owns them, and you don't have netflix, and your local rental store doesn't carry them, just go buy them. Although the graphics and audio may be outdated in a few decades, there may be some of the last and best shots of several species, and the content is of the type that demands to be passed on (for reasons, historical, biophilic, and academic).

During the episode I watched last night, I had two ideas for Sci-Fi films.

Sci-Fi Number A: As the human population continues to grow, an entire continent abandoned to remain un inhabited and provide the human population with the ecological benefits of a major area of true wilderness (water shed, O2 production, greenhouse gas reduction). Human's development of technology slows natural evolution of the species (has it already?). After a few millenia, scientists discover a species has developed on the wilderness continent that has the potential for global superiorty. The decision must be made whether to let nature run its course, exterminate the species before it becomes too powerful, find a way to co-exist, bringing it into our enivronment, or vice-versa. Of course, a huge and cheesy fight scene could always happen.

Sci-Fi number B: In the not so distant future the elite of the one world gov't declare overpopulation the source of all problems, and without the possibility of a traditional fix. They announce that they will go underground, and will resurface once the world population has declined to a sustainable state... i.e. they tell the general public to have at each other. This could be a story of anarchy and survival, or a bard's tale of banding together for the good of all (even if not for the common good, BAM!)

If anybody has seen these movies, let me know. I've not yet dreamed them, so I'm anxious to see how they turn out. If anybody wants to make these movies, just put my name in the credits in little tiny letters, and give me one penny for every copy produced.

*Ideas for science fiction films is not a recognized side effect of the Planet Earth series. If Sci-Fi visions become more frequent than 12/hour, you should consult a doctor, or priest, or anyone who will talk to you.

Yes, I Cran.

2009-01-19T06:15:00.000-08:00

A couple of summer's ago, I wanted to road trip. I wanted to see some sights. I wanted to get away. I wanted to visit a girl.

I heard one of my friends was looking to split gas with someone so he could get to his summer job in Utah. He worked as a guide/counselor at a camp that takes troubled kids out in the desert for a coming to god experience (not God, in this case, just god). That's probably another post, but basically they take city kids out of civilization for a month or more. No TV, no cars, no running water. Just tents, sand, and the inescapable voice of your own thoughts. He tells me the program is quite successful, but I digress.

We stopped in Dinosaur, Colorado to get Monster Energy drinks (since I don't drink much caffeine, we knew this would get us to Salt Lake City). We had been on the road 15 hours or so and decided to take a stretch break. Once our eyes remembered they could look around instead of focusing on the upcoming road. We noticed an old school bus parked across the street with a gaggle (20 or so :-) people milling about it. In short, they were migrant workers. In slightly longer than short, they were hippies who traveled where work was, making money off the land, and possessing, little but living much. They all happened to be white (although some were well tanned), and many were the children of doctors, lawyers, et al. Others, like the friend we were about to make, had been living in a bus their whole life.

We discovered the bus had a major break-down. The group was short the money to get it fixed. Once my friend discovered I was ok with it, we offered a ride to SLC. We knew we only had room for one person and one pack, or perhaps a woman and a small child (and there were several toddlers or infants). After some debate among the group, our riding mate was chosen. Cranberry Juice (as reads his birth certificate) was the group's "Teacher" or unofficial leader. He decided it was best for him to leave the bus and go onto Montana, where he knew he'd be the most capable of raising the necessary funds by picking mushrooms (legal mushrooms, although hallucinogenic would be pocketed for personal use).

Cranberry Juice was born in the back of a bus following the Grateful Dead. He had no formal education, but was clearly intelligent (probably why the group had trusted him as Teacher). We discussed during the couple hour drive to SLC the culture of his group. Why did young adults leave trust funds to come with them? Did they pay taxes (yes)? Did they vote (yes, but they did not align themselves with a party)? Did he think he would ever settle down? Were they unique?

The answer the last question was a resounding, "NO." These groups number in the tens of thousands in the US. Cranberry Juice estimated over 50,000 Americans follow this life. He knew it was at least that anyway, because once a year most everybody convenes. Usually based between two places of work, everybody stops and spends a week. Some relax, the higher Teachers and elders meet to discuss important matters that might affect everyone (be it new laws, the forecasted cost of gasoline, etc.). After a few days people move on and continue about their migrating business. It's basically a mobile city's annual town hall meeting.

Prior to this, I had no idea groups like this existed in such numbers and was surprised to find they all broke the minority stereotype that is associated with migrant workers. I was glad for the experience. These groups provide cheap labor that travels where the work is this is surely a valuable asset to those communities who they visit. I know there are exceptions that give these groups a bad name... but if you ever meet a guy named Cranberry Juice, you're in good company.

Honk your body

2009-01-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I've mentioned it on here before, but I've been reading a book on language, it's history, and the study of it. I'm about 400 pages in, but it's taken me 7 months. You see the difficulty is that I've only read this text while on the crapper. It has changed quite a few of my views on language, and reinforced others.

I've read all sorts of interesting things in this book: The Lord's prayer in Old, Middle, Early, and Modern English. It's really interesting to see how the laguage evolved. I've read an essay by a Professor from Urbana Champaign who found teaching Hamlet in bush Africa difficult (their language had no word for ghost, et al). I've recently read about Spanglish... and how it's not bad Spanish or bad English, but a combination that allows fluent speakers of both languages to express themselves with more freedom.

Anyway, today I'd like to approach the subject of prepositions... which may be touchy for those of you that grew up around a MLS Nazi. Do you guys remember the rule, "Never end a sentence in a preposition"? Well guess what... Robert Lowth, in A Short Introduction English Grammar freaking made it up. No science persay, he just found preposition stranding informal, so he wrote it in a book. He may have borrowed from Latin, but why should the Latin spoke at the beginning of time (1 AD ;-) have any bearing on a totally different language that had evolved far from it's roots?

If Lowth can do it, so can I. Here is Brady's perscribed grammar for dealing with prepositions.
-It is ok to end a sentence with them to avoid cumbersome talk, or when it makes sense as part of the infinitive form of the verb. Example: "There are some treausers we're going to look for." Instead of, "There are some bikes fot which we're going to look." The latter is simply cumbersome, and additionally the infintive form of the verb in is arguably "to look for." (procurar in Portuguese, similar to buscar in Spanish, translates directly to, "to look for")
-It is not OK to end a sentence in a preposition if you are wasting breath. Why not, because it's unneccesary. Stop wasting my time with meaningless honks of your body. Examples: Where are you at? or Where are you going to? I know you midwesterners especially just want to use that extra word, but don't. Just shut your mouth before it comes out; Cram it up your cramhole.

If you've made it this far, you're either bored, you have some interest in grammar, or you're just one of those people that can't put a book down half-read... even if they know the rest is going to babble on and on and eventually, after much verbosity get to the point that you could see coming since 100 pages ago (these type people are the only kind who've ever made it through Ayn Rand books). Either way... I bet you'll click on this link to some current Disputes in English Grammar

Taking the fun out of Music

2008-12-30T17:24:00.000-08:00

I'd imagine everybody who reads this blog knows I play music. If you didn't... well there you have it. I play music.

I stumbled upon something that fascinated me about two years ago, and in discussions I found myself unable to clearly articulate or explain it. Therefore, I will write a bloggings on it to get that group of neurons in order.

We all know there is an underlying physics to music: sound/pressure waves, vibrations, acoustics. Most people have a concept of how plucking one guitar string turns into a Bb in the ear. Fewer people understand that the Bb plucked by a guitar is actually made up of several harmonics (vibrations with different frequencies) happening all at once (the loudest just happening to be a Bb)

The next step is making different pitches/notes. Some of us have noticed that one octave on a guitar means you put a finger right in the middle of the string (cut the length in half). Cut it half again to go up another octave. [if a 12 inch string play a C, a 6 inch string will play a C one octave higher, a 3 inch is yet another octave higher...). But what if you tire of C's? In western music, there are 12 notes in a chromatic scale. And for piano (and guitar) today, what is called an equal temperament is used to decide the length of strings (position of frets). This means the ratio of adjacent strings (or frets) is the same no matter which string you choose. Basically what it comes down to is that if an A is 100 inches long, an Ab is 5.9% longer, 105.9 inches long. If you make this step 12 times... you should come back to an A that is one octave lower and find it to be 200 inches long. So, the difference between each step is 2^(1/12), the twelfth root of two (1.05946309...).

Sorry, that last paragraph was a little number heavy, but here's the catch. although pianos are tuned to this fixed interval, the natural order of pitches is based in simple ratios (not 2^(1/12)) from the root. The intervals are:

C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C
1	9/8	5/4	4/3	3/2	5/3	15/8	2

You may note I did not include the full 12 note chromatic... this is because the 12 not chromatic CANNOT be tuned perfectly. an Ab will be tuned from a C by the relative difference of a major third (5/4)... This is going to be really freaking close... but slightly off. A major 3rd is four steps up the chromatic scale, you'll need three of that interval for an octave... therefore (5/4) * (5/4) *(5/4) should equal 2? Right... You can see it's actually 125/64... or just slightly more than 2. So if you start with a C, then tune an Ab from the C, an E from the Ab, then a lower C from the E... the ratio between Cs won't be two, as it should be... it'll be 125/64 = 1.95.

If you look at the chart above with an analytical eye, you'll find that none of the simple roots work perfectly. But with equal temperament, they all come out to 2 when expected. The downside to equal temperament is that the shape of the sounds waves is such that they interfere with each other. Using "just tuning" music will sound great in some keys (because the physical waves do not interfere and create beats)... but this can cause major problems in other keys.

Here's the skinny. Our modern tuning is extremely versatile, but doesn't exactly fit the nature of the sound waves being emitted. Other systems (which exist) can produce a purer sound, at the expense of versatility. I still think this is fascinating, but it's late. If you still care, start here, where you can hear a lot of what I'm talking about.

Hollywood Philosophy

2008-12-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

Whew, long time no blog, here's a quick update on the center of the universe:
-I turned 25
-I had ankle surgery last Tuesday to get rid of some bone spurs and scar tissue. The surgery was far more intensive than anyone expected. Consequently, I've been in a lot of pain, but I am glad I did the surgery. It's clear my ankle would never have returned to any sort of normalcy without it.
-I still work
-My house is starting to look like a house. I have an $8 Christmas tree with one ornament and a star my girlfriend made from pipe cleaners.
-For Thanskgiving, the gf and I went to visit my parents. We had three busy days; Sonoma and Napa, San Francisco, and Yosemite. Good times.

I just finished hooking up a new DVD player that I bought my gf for Christmas. As all geeks are wont to do, I wanted to try it out. I put in my copy of House of Flying Daggers (beautiful cinematography and choreography) and watched the last few minutes.

It seems Eastern films and books portray hereos, not as super natural freaks, but more as humans that are maximizing their every potential. Superman was an alien, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, the X-Men are mutants...Batman and Ironman were both normal, however, both were born filty rich. But the heroes in eastern films like HoFD, Crouching Tiger..., and a lot of old kung fu are just human. They may have trained for years, or edured incredible hardships. For those watching Western movies the theme becomes: I cannot do incredible things without lucky difference. The Eastern heroes suggest: Work hard and anyone can take down the Leader of the evil Jaguar clan.

Asian heroes that do have super powers also seem to have a higher chance of living in a fantasy world. I suppose the western genre that proves me wrong are the Schwarzennegers, the Stallones, rarely possesing super powers, but still saving the day.

Anyway, this is the view from my seat... I'm curious to hear comment, especially from those with more exposure to Asian culture than I.

I'm going on break.

2008-10-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

I'm sure there are libraries of research on the effect of breaks/downtime/recess/chillaxing. If so, these results should be far better understood by the general public. If not, there should be way more research going on.

I believe, most Americans could benefit from more breaks. Most first world countries have mandatory vacation that is far better than the US's. Several of them are pushing towards a 35 or even 30 hour work week. But I'm not just talking about a break from work. We Americans (whatever that means... see previous post) need to practice shutting our minds off. Not distracting ourselves with TV or taking our mind off work by cleaning house, but simply unplugging for a few minutes/days.

Without these necessary breaks, our productivity slows as our stress rises. Our minds get caught in one idea; we get no fresh perspective on our problem. We just burrow through the problem like a mole; creativity dies. With breaks you don't have to think out of the box... with breaks, there is no box.

In the average US factory, and in our own lives, there is too much emphasis put on "productivity." We must realize that if we are to be truly productive there is an optimal amount of rest and breaks (resting certainly has diminishing returns).

It's not just the completion of tasks that suffers from lack of breaks, but also the ability the shift paradigms that is lost. A great example is the aftermath of 9/11. Those Americans that still believe the "War on Terror" can be won... need a break. The effects of not taking a break were very apparent about two years ago, when public approval of Congress was at an all time low. While the hoi polloi were beginning to gain composure from the terrorist attacks of 9/11/02... congress had been working tirelessly on what happened, how did it happen, how to prevent it from happening again, what else could happen, how can that be stopped... ad inifitum. They were digging through the dirt of the problem so hard, and so long, they needed to take a break (and still do)... and realize that terrorism can't be beaten by force. I appreciate their diligent work, but the point is, they need to take a bath.

I blogged on a similar topic here with a more personal bent. The cool kids may remember it.

Being an American

2008-10-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

A girl mentioned to me tonight that television advertising sometimes made her feel embarrassed to be American. I spent part of my drive home tonight thinking about the idea of being embarrassed or prideful of being an American. Regardless of what it means to be "an American," it seems as though it's something we're born into. This leads me to one of two conclusions.

1. Being "American" is something assigned at birth, much like a name. It can be used to predict the average outcome of a group, but has little implication on the individual (the difference between confidence intervals and prediction intervals). In this case being embarrassed or prideful of being an "American" has zero value as it is strictly a matter of nomenclature.

2. Being "American" defines a set of characteristics present in people, and well there are just more of those type people here in the U. S. of A., and we're breeding more. In this case, being "an American" is like has a genetic component, and is unavoidable. Now being being embarrassed or prideful is simply silly. It's like being proud to be white, or embarrassed to have glasses. Also in this case it's still clear that being "an American" doesn't say much about the outcome of the individual. It's simply the way an individual was born and should have hold no value.

Now all that being said. I don't like the average American, but I feel no emotion in calling myself "an American" (and let's not forget that I don't like people in general, so not liking American's only makes sense).

Closing with an aside: I'd be far more concerned about calling myself a follower of a political party, or religiously affiliated. Those are titles that you choose, and willingly align yourself with the tenets of a group. It does seem though, that Catholicism largely shifted to a nomenclative or heritable entity; the rest of Christianity seems on the way.

TJ. The brain supreme.

2008-10-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson was one rad mother f*

Ever since the I visited Washington DC as a senior in high school. I've been somewhat enamored by TJ's quotes, polymathic pursuits, and his dashing good looks (I saw once he was voted one of the three most attractive signers of the Declaration of Independence). He also did something that I dream of doing (key word, dream)

Two things you might not know about TJ:
-He tried to abolish slavery in the Declaration of Independence
-During his presidency he advocated a base 10 system of measure (like the metric system)

I'm not the only one with a man crush on Tommy. Once JFK, was dining with 49 Nobel Prize winners and said, ""I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

The quotations inside the Jefferson Memorial include:
"Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan."

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively."

Oh how we've changed.

Spinning a yarn

2008-08-27T17:10:00.001-07:00

My brother's girlfriend sent me a link today discussing how some non-euclidean shapes can be knitted, and the fact that knitting is helping mathematicians to create tangible examples of higher order geometrical shapes, that otherwise only really exist in theory (and nature).
Shift gears.
I have some concern about theories of effective communication. A training session for work today explained the best way to communicate is to:
-Use the simplest word to convey your idea
-Keep it short, both use the shortest word possible and use the fewest words possible.
-Refrain from the use of advanced words (although they were only called "five-dollar" words... or something with an equally negative connotation)

Essentially, both communicating parties are supposed to come to an understanding that oral communication is extremely fallible and should talk to each other like simpletons to decrease miscommunication.

While my misanthropism begs I bark at others like retards, I disagree on two points:
-Advanced words have a function, and should be used when the shoe fits.
-If everybody communicated as above, our language would devolve to something simpler, and lose some of its capacity for communicating (ie the idea of good communication is an ad-hoc policy that will, over time, decrease our capacity for communication).

Synonyms are not equal... they are similar. Advanced words are best used to convey a more exact meaning. When I say, "many pragmatic arguments exist." I'm not trying to say, that there are "common sense" , or "non-quantifiable," or "practical" , or "realistic" arguments. I'm saying that all of those exist, with a little more emphasis in some areas, and a little less in others. Should I refrain from using that word ever again because it doesn't seem that many people know it? Well it depends on the situation, am I there to make fish dinner or to teach a man to fish?

And that's where my two points overlap. At some points, we must invest in communication with other by teaching them words, by learning words from them. That's how language works, how it evolves. If there was some way we could avoid using words others didn't know, or prevent them from learning when a word is explained, our language's vocabulary would deteriorate (the number of words vs time would decrease exponentially, with an asymptote at the few words "everybody" knows). Let's say everybody is allowed to learn words the first 20 years of their life and after than, no words can be learned, or used if another adult doesn't know them; now fast forward 1000 years. I can tell someone to do a simple task, but I can no longer convey detailed and articulate messages with brevity. Shit, I couldn't explain to them why their grammar is wrong because I wouldn't have the word "preposition."

My point is not that the corporate machine is doing something inherently wrong. It's that language is a beautiful thing, and the better one wields it, the more they can effectively accomplish/communicate.

Yes, there are some advanced or obscure words that are useless, they are advanced and obscure because they are dying; they have been replaced in common vernacular by a more efficient AND equally articulate method. Using advanced words for the purpose of confusion should never be done in the name of honest progress. It just makes you sound like an asshole (<- a word that needs no substitute). Advanced words can be used to express one's self more clearly, and can be a catalyst for respect, progress, and efficacy.

Maybe I've just been reading to much on the crapper... I'm 250 pages into this. While I skimmed about 100 pages, I've found much of it very interesting. It's always fascinating to learn the workings of something you've always taken for granted.

The olympics

2008-08-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

...are awesome, for all the right reasons.

and the NBC Olympics site is sweet. It's about the same as recording all of the games and having them at your fingertips.

Only two more years to Vancouver, who wants to go?
Then London in 2012.

The incredible edible

2008-08-21T17:09:00.001-07:00

Wow, a lot has happened since the last post. I bought my first home and got all moved in (but far from settled). I have 1300sq ft of home and about 600 sq ft of stuff. I imagine if someone broke in, they'd think I'd already been sacked and just leave out the front door. So I was without the interwebs for a few weeks, but now I'm back.

I was noticing my girlfriend had Large eggs and I only had medium eggs. This made me feel like less of a man, so as we speak I am learning more about eggs than I ever wanted to, and I am about to divulge the important stuff to you, the reader.

We all know eggs come in a few forms... Medium, Large, XL, Grade A, Grade AA, et al. Here's lesson #1. Don't ever buy Grade AA eggs again. The letters following the size are a quality rating, and have zero impact on size, weight, or taste. Eggs come in three quality ratings, AA, A, and B. It's all about aesthetics. Grade B eggs simply rate lower in appearance when broken out. The actual grading rubric is listed on the Eggcyclopedia (scroll to "grading"). Again, the only reason to buy AA eggs is for presentation in a fine restaurant (sure, lots of five star restaurants serve breakfast!).So weight is the only real difference, that's all we should be paying for. So what weight of egg will provide us the best bang for our buck? Again, from the AEB:
Sizes are classified according to minimum net weight expressed in ounces per dozen. Jumbo 30 oz.., Extra Large 27 oz., Large 24 oz., Medium 21 oz., Small 18 oz. and Peewee 15 oz.
Not one to disappoint, I took those size and compared the ounces per dollar at a couple of grocery stores...
Yes, that's my 3 minute attempt at an egg graph (a distant cousin of the Venn diagram). This is ounces per dollar, so higher is better. It looks like we should all buy Medium and Extra Large grade A eggs from here on out. If eggs are on sell, just figure out which is discounted by a larger percentage, and buy those. At least, that's eggsactly what I'll be doing (sorry, couldn't help it).

Hokay, time to go have a beer. Maybe I'll post about the house sometime later.

Sources:
The American Egg Board (seriously)

Concentration

2008-08-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

I just found this site. I think I'll try and get through them. I borrowed a television from my grandparents while I was in a cast. My interest in it had a shelf life of about two weeks, it's not been on since. I much prefer typing in a subject that interests me on google videos and learning a bit. Just this evening I listened to a couple of on subjects I dream of comprehending.

I've been doing a lot of menial shit at work lately, so I thought I'd write a post on concentration. When I was a kid I loved to play Zelda on NES. Granted it was Zelda, and it was awesome, but I'd play for 3 days straight until my mother made me stop. These video game binges would usually cause me to ignore anything my body would tell me. I would ignore the pressure in my loins until I was on the verge of peeing myself, pause it, sprint to the bathroom, skip the shake and get back to the triforce as quickly as possible.

My brain is good for solving one big problem. Once my brain gets going down a path, it won't stop until something productive has happened (or I have a massive migraine and go to sleep). Conversely, I am terrible at switching gears, I can't have a conversation while typing an email, I'm as good as dead while watching TV. Some people's brains aren't wired like mine (I hope most people's aren't). I just wish we were advanced enough that we could all get paid the same for doing what we're best at, CEOs paid the same as payroll clerks (assuming equal competence at their respective positions).

I am becoming increasingly good at taking myself to that place of one-mindedness... I shut the door, dim the lights slightly and turn on the silence. I haven't been able to use this much while doing many little tasks over the past weeks. The sad part is, what I have used my uni-directional brain for has been skipped over by my superiors. They're very concerned about making sure my "i"s are dotted and my "t"s crossed... but no so concerned if I properly calculated the thermal coefficient for 200,000 square feet of amalgamated roofing (the former certainly has less true impact than the latter). I have a feeling it's because they don't think they'd understand it. This thought gives me hope and despair all at the same time.

BTW... I wrote the majority of this in Aug. of '07... I guess a year later it just felt like time.

I heart gerunds

2008-08-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

The answer is... the sentence is complete and Bill Gates' logic has failed once more.
Assuming a 5 day work week yields 14k pieces daily.
"Assuming" in this case, is a gerund...

Suddenly, I find myself loving gerunds.

I move into MY house on Thursday. I'll have to start blogging at work until I get an internet connection. I need to buy a mower and a vacuum cleaner, stat.

Also I'm fat, but no longer in a cast... time to get back on the bike.

Holding...

2008-08-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

I just navigated one of those automated phone answering systems where you "say the option you want at any time." I really have to think twice and force myself to say the option over the computer voice. I suppose it's years of being conditioned not to interrupt others (although I'm sure I still do that frequently when I get excited). I'm guilty of several cases of waiting for the robot to finish speaking even though I know exactly what option I want.

I'm sure technologies of this type will abound in the not too distant future. The silly question I have is, will these technolgies affect culture such that people are more inclinded to interrupt others? How will the we respond to being interrrupted?

In other news, there was some dissention between Bill Gates, some friends, and me. It all started because I typed:
Assuming a 5 day work week yields 14k pieces daily.
What do you think, is that a sentence or is it not?

Hokay, I've just been taken off hold.

Bitch and moan

2008-07-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

Since entering corporate America I've learned some things, heard ignorance stated as fact, surely learned some ignorance... life goes on. Although there is no event to cause an acute irritation, I've been thinking about two statements I've heard that just don't jive with me:
-If you're salaried, you're on the clock 24/7
-Working Saturdays and Sundays is part of being salaried

Clearly if the first is correct, I can take no issue with the second. So here's the deal... on the clock? 24/7? I don't buy it. If that's true, I make grossly less than minimum wage (and that's not including overtime or holiday pay). There are only two possible outcomes.... either salaried employees aren't on the clock 24/7, or many companies are breaking the law. (In case you're wondering, you'd have to be paid $81,164.20 yearly to be on the clock 24/7 at minimum wage... that's with time-and-half after 40 hours/week and double time on 9 paid holidays). When I am drinking beer on Saturday night, I am not on company time... I am on my time. Anyone who actually thinks they are on the clock 24/7 is either dumb, or makes a lot of money.

Weekends: I don't have much room to complain, I've worked 3 Saturdays (for physical inventory) and one Sunday afternoon this year. It's not much, and the 3 Saturdays can be blamed on other people. Overtime isn't terrible. If you're not working any over time, your company is likely overstaffed. Any sort of human resources costing model is going to suggest a bit of overtime is healthy. The same goes for salaried employees. Occasional weekend work is acceptable. However, if weekends disappear regularly that is a sign of one or both:
-You are not capable of doing your job (I guess I assume you are actually working during "work hours")
-Your job is too much and your duties should be lessened/diverted.

Anyway...right now I'm on my time... not my employer's time; Saturday I will not be in the office, nor Sunday. I think those statements are good ways to get stupid people to do more than they should. They are not logical, and I refuse to acknowledge them as such until someone can present a valid and coherent rebuttal.

Og eat goat

2008-07-09T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yep, I ate a little baby goat today. Not the whole thing, just the shoulder. Cabrito is a regional delicacy, so I figured I should try it. The 4 goat items on the menu were leg, breast, shoulder, and kidney region (including the kidney). It tasted like dark meat turkey, with a little more oil... kind of like a cross between turkey and duck... not exactly what I expected out of goat, but good nonetheless.

My spanish is doing pretty well down here. I am now confidant I could go to any Spanish speaking country and survive. I'll keep working on it because I am nowhere near proficient, yet Italian seems like such a fun language I'll probably keep studying it occasionally.

Preparing for my 3rd night in a hotel I've remembered that TV sucks.

Anyway, I'm sluggish with goat meat, so I'm going to shut my eyes for a moment. Hopefully we'll go to the old part of the city tonight.

Hokay

2008-07-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Alright... excuse time. I've been working a lot. So far, I am still refusing to blog too much about work. There are other things I'd like to blog about, but shouldn't yet. Nonetheless, the blog has fallen too far out of date. I'm going to start small with some simple updates and see what happens.

First, my leg is still broken. I'm in a walking boot. Doc cleared me for 100% weight bearing so I've been on the bike a bit.

I'm supposedly closing on a house at the end of this month, but paperwork is slow to come. I'm excited about the house. I'll probably blog on it soon enough.

I'm currently in Monterrey, Mexico for work. I'll be here a few days. After a couple of hours, Mexico feels like Brazil except a little nicer. I should probably blog on it in the next week.

While still broken, I've taken up a couple of new past times, frolf (disc golf, frisbee golf), and fishing. Okay, so I've only been fishing once, but I liked it, and intend to go again. Perhaps I'll drop some bloggings on those in the near future.

Hokay, tis the end. Buenos noches.

Not as think as you bad it is.

2008-05-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well, after a month-long spring break, I finally found something to chew on that didn't have to do with work, or things that could get me fired from work. It's political again, I know how much you all like that, so I'll try and keep it short. I'm on my lunch break and I only have 35 minutes to be back, so that will help.

At lunch a couple of weeks ago, I found myself in the Bush vs Clinton argument with a senior accountant. To this day, this man has never given me a reason to treat him with something other than my utmost respect. So, when he talks, I listen. One of the things that really sets Clinton apart in my book was his dedication to the national debt (mentioned it here). I concede that 9/11 really messed things up, but I conjectured W. had exacerbated the problem through excessive war spending. Mr. Skagg's rebuttal was to question how much of the budget was already reserved for the military... sure the war was costing a lot, we were spending more on foreign deployment than ever, but how much was money we weren't already planning on spending at home? It's a good point. If that money was already dedicated for the military, being at peace wouldn't make it available for something else, it is a simple repositioning of funds within the same department.

Anyway, today I decided to look for the answer and I think I've found it. This is only one source so take it for what it's worth.
...because of the war, the regular defense budget—
the portion not funded through emergency appropriations—increased by a
total of $104 billion to $139 billion between 2002 and 2006.

I read $35 billion/year budgeted before the war... increase of $104 billion.
Final Iraq war costs are estimated in the document to end up between 1.2 and 1.7 trillion.

It would be a little tougher to estimate, but I'd like to know what percentage of budget increase is due to war costs, and what is due to economic slump per 9/11. The tricky part would be separating the extra debt incurred by not paying interest. I assume it could be split be the ratio of federal dollars lost by slump over increased spending due to the war.

Thanks for reading. Now I have 15 minutes to play along with Avenged Sevenfold before I need to get back to work. Peace.

Dumb and in the suburbs

2008-04-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

In the interest of preserving anonymity, I was at a new house not to long ago. This house was owned by a couple. This couple owned a new car. This couple did not have, and are not pursuing college degrees, although both seem to have the necessary faculties. They have a little one.

Several young adults were hanging out, and the xx mentioned to the xy that he wanted to make a $20 purchase. The xy reminded him they didn't have any money.

Just let that soak in... new house... new car.... no money?

Why? Why? Why? Do people think they need all new things? This couple be less at least $20,000 dollars debt and building equity at a much faster rate if they would just overcome whatever demon drives them to this hyper-consumerism. Idiots.

What's even better is how this has become a partisan issue. How in the fuck did the Christian right ever convince people that spending outside their means is patriotic? Why is conservation so liberal? I'm baffled, and will continue to vote against leaders and legislature that will pick up the pieces of these idiots lives. This begs the question? Am I being liberal... or so conservative that I'm liberal?

Time to start living again

2008-04-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

I don't hate corporations, but I certainly acknowledge some Inc.s have made practice of abusing people or customers. That won't make me hate corporations. I can still disapprove of practices that openly abuse people or customers, but ultimately it is illogical to either love or hate big business. The Fortune 500 certainly does plenty of good for plenty of people (economies of scale, jobs, etc.). A friend, whose name spelled backwards is oyapA, thinks these big businesses should be shut down. She hasn't told me how this is to happen yet, but her plan is to take down big business. She didn't care about any of this until a copper and gold mine decided they wanted to move in near her hometown. I'm not wanting to debate the goodness of corporations, but I do wish to comment on the solution (it would take a real elitist son-of-a-bitch to say corporations don't ever do anything wrong).

Apayo thinks the fist of the government should come down upon the corporations to protect the people. This is one of those areas where I'm going to lean right. I don't believe the government should be intruding on big business. In America today, where the only excuse for ignorance is apathy, the power should be left to the people. The government must force us to take responsibility for our actions. If a corporation is doing something bad, it's the media's job to alert us to the situation and it's our job to pay attention, and do something about it (like boycotts, not bombs).

For this to happen it's necessary for my generation to wean ourselves of this rampant consumerism that is somehow seen as patriotic. Waste and excess is not patriotism, it's just waste and excess. I was trying to convince apayo the better way to change the corporations is to change people. Sure, it'll be much harder, but so much better. If people didn't think they "needed" cocoa crispies, or 18 rims, accessories, new suburban homes, instant gratification, constant stimuli... the corporations would have a lot less power.

Just as mission trips will do what they are designed to, corporations are designed to make money, and will do so the best way possible... we can not fault them for that... all we can do is fault ourselves and our neighbors (ourselves first and foremost) for our own ignorance and laziness. There's nothing inherently wrong with making money, but there is something wrong with giving money to a crooked entity.

Obligatory update on life:
I have my knee back. I'm still in a cast, there were some fuzzies on the x-ray, so healing is happening (albeit slowly). The bone hasn't fused yet, so I still need complete immobilization (no boot cast, no washing the leg yet). It took a couple of days to get my knee loosened up, but now that it has I think I can get back to some semblance of life as I usually know it. This means two things... I can start cooking and riding again. I rode the bike a bit today. I'm still not supposed to put weight on the leg, so I really just let its mass push the pedal down and propel myself with my good leg.

I really want to buy a house, but I need a car also. I'm going to curb my spending for the next few weeks and try and get both. In the perfect world, I'll buy a house and add a little to the mortgage for a vehicle.

My lack of posting in no way indicates my brain is not thinking about random and pointless topics. My brain is actually playing a lot these days, but it's mostly at work, and I really can't imagine that stuff would be of any interest to anyone else. While I realize what I do would bore the crap out of most people, I love it. I am lucky enough to have a boss that let's my mind play a bit. Example: I estimated cost for a product last week. Generally, costing consists of getting quotes for materials, estimating labor based on current processes, and accounting for overhead using factors that come from sorcery (a topic I need to learn more about). I knew my estimate using standard methods was way off, so I created created a motion study of the labor involved and accounted for the theoretical and applied difference using a learning curve that I calculated from one data point and my motion study. I thought it was sweet. Like I say, terribly boring for most, but my brain eats it up.

The effects of terrorism.

2008-04-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

Many economic forecasters feel us to be at the peak of the rising cost of crude oil and gas at the pump. I found it interesting that gas prices are expected to fall (after adjusting for inflation) for the next decade or so before resuming their standard positive trend. Enough words, here is the picture.The y values are gas prices at the pump in 2005 cents. The good news is: the effects of terrorism are not permanent. When we label the trend of fuel costs... the 9/11 induced spike shows us the exact effect of terrorism (Depending on your political bent you could argue the situation was or wasn't aggravated by the government... but I don't think anyone would argue 9/11 started the spike).

Anyway... I found some of that interesting.

Living a little bit

2008-04-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

I don't think anybody in the Joplin area reads this, but if you are out there. Come to Blackthorn Pub (5th and Joplin) this Saturday at 9PM to catch some of By Hook or Crook (w/ guest ME). We're big time so there is a cover ($2 or $3).

My brother is also playing out and about (shows tonight, tomorrow and Saturday). He has been playing folk/indie for a few years and now, by way of roommate, he's found himself in Man the Helm.
My brother and I have both always been into music, both listening and playing. I think we got that gene maternally. Dad likes music, and appreciates musicianship, but I don't think he is moved as Drew, mom, and I are. Interestingly enough, Dad (portrait above, see any resemblance?)got a mandolin a couple of months ago and has apparently been picking it up frequently.

Although Drew and I are both into music, we attack it from completely different angles. I take after my dad who has a background in drafting, Drew takes after mom who was an art teacher, and has recently been picking up her own work (everything posted here).Anyway, Drew and I attack music I you would expect us to. I know my theory very well, I know why my chords work. Drew has a better ear than I, and has always felt music first, then understood it later, if ever. Understanding is not a prerequisite for Drew. If I get into a song too far, I always pick it apart to figure it out. Not to be misleading, the situation is not so bipolar. Drew usually understands the workings of his music, but when trying something new, he feels it. I certainly don't just think about all my music, anyone who's lived with me knows I improv twice as much as I play written music...Apayo saw a lot of that. I mostly just use lead/chord charts when playing written music. Recently I have picked up some sheet music to supplement my improving (Prelude and Fugue in C min, and Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring).

Anyway... that's music.

Spelling bee

2008-04-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

Two things:

1. I'm entered in a spelling bee tonight.

The spelling bee starts in two hours, I'm on a team with my workplace's accountant. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to put an engineer and an accountant together as a spelling bee team. It seems those positions are geared a bit more towards the numerical end... but whatever. In all honesty, we're probably going to do just fine. She is fairly well read and I bring a few things to the table. We are most worried about going out early on an easy word, but we can converse so we should check each other's brain farts.

My known brain farts (tip 'o the iceberg)
-attatched
-aliteration
et al.

Not much to speak of happening here in Carthage. Well, truth be known, there's plenty happening. It's just not the type of stuff that I can talk about on my blog. It will all be talked about in due time.

Something I can talk about... I think I'm going to start playing piano for a local band. We jammed last week, and I really like the songs they are writing, and feel I can add something to the mix. Here's some stuff they recorded in a bedroom. By Hook or Crook ... coming soon to a bar near you.

Lastly, this is not safe for work, unless you can shut the door to your office.

It happened again

2008-03-12T11:00:00.001-07:00

Yep. Broken right tibia. Here's another foor good measure.

I was bouldering, sent a problem, downclimbed one move then jumped to the crash pad. It was a 15-20 foot fall my tibia just didn't feel like taking. I've taken larger falls in the past, even without a crashmat. Something about this one just didn't jive.

The orthopedist gave me the option of surgery or cast, and since I haven't been at my job 90 days and therefore don't have insurance, I opted for a cast.

Doc says 3-6 months of cast. My break is not surrounded by much vasculature and doesn't receive much blood flow, thus stunting the healing process.

I'm getting really good at Grand Theft Auto (the original on PS1), been reading some books (Lamb by Christopher Moore, Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton so far, both excellent), and playing the guitar.

Considering the circumstances, life really is pretty good.

Happy Birthday Mr. President

2008-02-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

Friday is somebody's birthday... Happy Birthday Mr. President.

For those of you who don't care about the grammy's but still like music... try this on for size (sorry for the quality. This made me very happy, and I'm sure some of my friends felt similarly.

Hmm... less than 1000 words. Odd.

Inflex-fuel

2008-02-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

I have fallen into an opportunity to buy a 1995 F-150. It'll be great for hauling bikes and gear. I can slap a camper shell on it and go play in the woods. However it has a V8... boo. I was thinking, to feel better about myself, I'd retrofit it to a flex fuel system. It's a process than can be fairly cheap ($500-$1000). Think again. There isn't an E-85 gas station within an hour of Joplin/Carthage.

Moral: If you're thinking about converting to flex fuel (and you should be) or other alternative fuel. Go here first, and make sure you can actually buy it.

I've been climbing pretty hard lately. Went with some cats I met at the climbing gym to Lake Lincoln in AR. We found a route nobody knew that looked fun and we all cilmbed it. Turns out it was a 5.10d (which is not incredible, but pretty solid). It's certainly the hardest thing I've climbed outside. I've been climbing too much and not getting enough cardio, so last night I hopped on the rollers for a movie, then went for a run.

They tell me today is Valentine's Day. I have plans to make breakfast burritos with a girl, and another guy. Then we're going climbing. Sounds like a good Valentine's Day to me.

Mish-mash

2008-02-13T10:19:00.000-08:00

If you haven't checked out "indexed," do so. I liked this one quite a lot.

Article 7634.12.c in the cases for misanthropism. Short news article about a teacher who was docked 10 days pay for jokingly taping a student to a desk. Both the taper and tapee were laughing throughout the incident, yet the school board fails to see any humor. "It's just not funny for a child to be taped, whether it's in jest or it's a disciplinary measure," said school board chair Betty Burney." Well, thank you Betty, may you burn in hell for being a stupid moron.
-You may email the teacher, Kasey Goodin, here.
-To email Betty Burney - burneyb@educationcentral.org
The level of support we give our educators is shameful.

I was talking this morning with a co-worker who is around 50 years old. He was recounting some family history and lauding the fact that hatred and racism has decrease so much over the course of his lifetime. We all know it's still out there, but it's certainly much better than it was. I made the comment that the problem that faces my generation, isn't hate... but fear of hate. The good people of the milenium generation say everybody is equal, but we are petrified by the thought, that maybe we harbor racist thoughts/feelings. There are plenty of white kids that are just afraid to talk to blacks because they might say something wrong, they might find out they don't like them, they might find out they're racist, or at the least be labeled as racists for an honest mistake.

My generation doesn't want to say African-American, because chances are very good the person has never been to Africa, has no association with Africa... and well, they are just Americans. To call them "African-American" not only sounds phony, but it segregates them verbally. We don't want to say "colored" like our grandparents do. Black seems to be the safe bet, but what if it's not. The potential disgrace from being perceived as racist much outweighs everything else (use gaming theory and you'll see avoidance is the preferred policy)... and the white kids avoid the black kids. Perhaps for similar reasons (perhaps not), the black kids avoid the white kids. Cause and effect, the differences between black and white culture become more defined by the day.

As it just happens, I was looking for Betty Burney's email... and saw her picture. Even though I'd formed an opinion long before seing her picture, a sense of fear came upon me when I discovered she is black. I was afraid that I could be labeled as racist, but more afraid that I'd somehow known she was black and this had fueled my negative thoughts. How illogical is that?

My generation may not struggle with hatred, we will struggle with fear. We will be afraid to speak negatively about any woman, or black person, or minority. We must truly learn that it is perfectly natural to dislike a black person, or a woman, or an Eskimo (not Inuit), or any individual, but disliking the group is right out. We know this in our heads, but some part my generation won't allow us to implement this theory in practice.

The Power of Metal

2008-02-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

Thesis: Nintendo music is the driving force in the resurgent popularity of power metal among males in the millennium generation.

While power metal was, is, and will always be awesome, poor costume and hair choices combined with the were major both cause and effect of the wane that inevitably accompanies any over saturated market.

Thankfully, the spirit of power metal was not yet dead in Japan during the rise of the 8 bit NES gaming system. Japanese programmers/composers found the style of power metal just right for electronic games that would grow more rapid and provide more, excessive stimulation until ADD afflicted 5% of the nation's school age children and university students believed Aderol a necessary part of any finals week.

Article 1: Megaman 2: The link will take you to a mega man 2 time trial with the music played by a modern rock band. Power metal influence? I think so. You only need about 90 seconds to hear a soothing ballad turn into dueling guitar solos with boss riffs.

Article 2: Dragonforce & Sonata Arctica (beware, much shredding): There's no way these guys could be popular given today's culture, yet they are. However, the genre evokes the same adrenaline rush experienced 15-20 years ago in the quest to destroy the Vile Red Falcon (with or w/o the Konami code).

There are many more articles in the the exhaustive brief... consider them abridged.
This style of music helped complete the experience that kept us glued to our TVs, forsaking as much as food, water, or excretion necessary before we saw end screens telling us to, "
Consider yourself a hero."

Some apologetics from an unlikely source

2008-01-31T16:50:00.000-08:00

A fairly liberal friend of mine decided to let me know how stupid she thought Mission trips were. She found fault with the lack of knowledge many missionaries have of the culture they are entering to proselytize. She also does not like the fact that the intent of a mission trip is to change centuries (if not millenia) of tradition, culture, and faith. Here is my counter argument.

Work is cool, paychecks rock my world. I'm mostly sedentary during the week (I've been climbing, but I don't count that because my heart rate is never up for more than a minute). On the weekends I have lost my mind. I ran an un-official half-marathon two weeks ago. Last weekend I biked to Fayetteville on Saturday, went to my little bro's "white trash" party. I biked back on Sunday.

The usual

2008-01-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

I made a lot of peace with Christianity in my generation last night. I've always been annoyed by people who say they are christian, yet practice nothing. With my generation (I think we're now being called the millennium generation), many people agree with christianity but are simply waiting to begin practicing. There needs to be a term to easily identify those that believe the Bible is the true word of God, but don't practice it yet. Apparently my generation is more into risk taking/procrastinating and would prefer to be heathens while the debauchery still feels good. Much of my tension was born in the belief that these people thought they were actually going to heaven... that assumption was wrong for many, they're just waiting to do what they think is right, because doing wrong is too much fun right now.

I'll say I don't think it's a very noble position, but it makes me feel better to know that they realize they're bad christians.

Bill Richardson dropped out of the Presidential race, I shed a tear. Now I really don't know who I will vote for. The race certainly is interesting this time around.

The pipes in my house are frozen, I'm about to brush my teeth at McDonalds.

Dueling Banjos

2007-12-31T11:38:00.000-08:00

Update:
I now reside in Carthage, MO. I have accepted an industrial engineering job with Leggett and Platt.
I'm rooming with my cousin, that seems cool. We have decided against the internet or cable in our house, so I am checking my email in McDonalds right now (did you know McDonalds has free Wi-Fi?). The ambient noise is a flurry of dis-health and excessive intake; I can hear people getting fatter.

My cousin has 5 kids (he's 36). The three youngest (ages 4, 6, 8) spent a few days at our new pad. It was a good time, but I am glad to see them go. They are very well behaved, but their attempts to help make progress arduous (I'm sure all you parents know exactly what I'm talking about). My cousin, acting in the interest of satisfying his children's hunger, picked up a couple of packages of hot dogs and buns. We decided to spice it up a bit, so I taught the kids how to do a dry rub. Lars/Avery (his name is Avery, he goes by Lars) really took a liking to the dry rub and refused to eat hot dogs sans some seasoning. After half a normal hot dog, he decided he was full, but when we started dry rubbing, this 6 year old ate 3 more (with lemon-pepper, greek seasoning, and garlic respectively). There's nothing more classy than dry-rubbing and microwaving extruded meat products.

Carthage is a sleepy little town, but the high school girls are hot... so I think it's going to work out.

Also, there is an avaliable room at 8B Clarkson in Columbia, rent is cheap, location is great for downtown or campus slaves. Pros: The floor plan is to die for. Cons: The carpet will kill you. Anyone interested?

For Guppy

2007-12-20T17:02:00.000-08:00

The blog has fallen into a bit of disrepair, as it does biannualy (I never can remember is biannually twice a year or once every two years? In this case, I mean every finals week). Finals would have been a cakewalk this year except I went to the Grand Canyon with the fam and friends and then had the pagentry of graduation followed by the pain and pro-ness of cyclocross national championships. I took a day off then began packing to move. I spent my 24th birthday waking up early, packing and driving.

Guppy is getting tired of my politics... so I thought I'd acquiece to his request and post about Brazil. It is difficult for me to write about Brazil without commenting the political or social differences, so I'll try and keep that to a minimum.

One of the most important characteristics about Brazil is the cost of labour (stay with me Gup). Because labor is so cheap, most tasks are done by hand. It's cheaper to hire two guys for three weeks to lays a block of mosaiced sidewalk than it is to rent machinery to make the sidewalk in a day or two. This leads to a few things.
-Most everything is built by hand
-Many repairs are made by unqualified generic labor
-There is a general state of brokenness that abounds due to issues with quality.
Don't let the last one sound bad. I suppose it could be, but it's not always. There was a hole in in the street in front of my apartment... it looked like a manhole belonged there, but the unqualified labour just kept paving over it with more asphalt. All would go well for a few days then the asphalt would just fall through the hole... A couple of times I noticed it would break a pipe below and water would come gushing out. In the 6 months I was there I think the hole was covered 15% of the time and probably repaired 4 times. It spent the majority of the time as a bottomless wheel gobbler prompting cones in the middle of the street to warn oncoming traffic. In this case, brokenness is bad.
Most of the sidewalks in my neighborhood were built by hand. Many were crudely mixed and formed concrete or groutless tiles; however, many of the sidewalks were made by hand placing golf ball sized rocks together in whatever arrangement their natural shape would lend them. Sometimes the sidewalks took one color, sometimes the workers created patterns (if they had more than one color of rocks). In any case, many of the sidewalks are nothing less than mosaics that are kilmoeters long. Because of shoddy workmanship, these sidewalks were always in disrepair. It's as if the beginning of the sidewalk was being torn up by normal use just as the end was being finished. Even in my short 6 months, I saw sidewalks evolving. What was a wave pattern when I arrived, may have beeen a sun pattern when I left. Solid colors turned into more exciting stripes, and vice-versa. Now brokenness is good.

Only the rich (read "white")can afford cars, and most delivery boys are not rich. Much is delivered, and most of that is done on bike. I'm not talking about legal documents and such. If you have legal documents to deliver, you probably have a car. If you need water (since the tap is not potable), your 5 gallon jugs will come via bike. Water is distributed to the city of 4 million via a few flat bed trucks that carry jugs to centralized distribution points, then by bikes equipped to carry 4, 5 gallon jugs at a time (water 8lbs/ gallon times 5 gallons times 4 pounds = 160 pounds of cargo... roughly).

My favorite were the guys that brought you new propan tanks. You rarely saw more than two tanks at a time on a bike, but those guys ride real slow and have a little piece of metal attached to a string used to make a chime with the tank. They always ring the "bell" as if it will stop a car from hitting them and turning their wares into a display that puts a Ford Pinto to shame.

Mind you these bikes are on the road during the day... when recreational or sport cyclists say it is too dangerous to ride because you will be hit by a car or bus. These nightime warriors prefer to deal with the problems of criminals that rob cyclists of their bikes in a nightly routine that goes something like this:
1. Rob a guy on a bike (done by knifepoint or gunpoint at a stoplight. On foot or with two guys sharing a bike staying with a victim on his own bike... a fellow cyclist one said to me, "be careful of two men on one bike after dark... that quickly becomes two men on two bikes, and you walking home")
2. Use the bike to steal a motorcycle (also at stoplights or by cutting them off on little used roads or bridges)
3. Use the motorcycle to steal a car (using similar methods)
4. Clean car out of anything valuable and dump it somewhere in the city.

Thanks again to Dr. John Bowders for sending me to Brazil. Hats off.

An aside. We all know O Fortuna from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. Sam has been learning Latin so we checked out the lyrics. I was afraid they'd ruin the power of the song. They only intensified it. There is also a certain power that comes from the Ecclesiastic proununciation in Latin (what you hear in church, not Latin America... or Rome). It reminds me of angry Italian. I wonder what Mussolini's speeches sound like.

My national health care plan.

2007-12-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

The health care debate has been bothering me, but I have a solution that I like.

The government should provide a federal health care for minors and students, using a system similar to what the democrats are proposing now (it's mandatory to purchase health care, the purchase is tax deductible, and the fee is waived for the poor). However, when you become a legal adult, the government stops babying you.

The government should not be taking care of us from cradle to grave. We are in a position that the government could provide health care for those that had the bad luck to be born into poverty. If they don't do something with their adult life, that's not something that should affect the federal budget or the tax payers.

School is crazy, I expect blogging to resume in more force around Christmas.

Barry Bonds, voting, and playing hooky

2007-11-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen the paper today... Barry Bonds is being indicted on four counts of perjury (for denying the knowing use of steroids and HGH) and obstruction of justice. Good. Cheaters suck.

The Freakonomics guys blogged on voting last week. Basically, they said you don't find many economists who vote, because the chance of your one vote determining the outcome of the election is slim to none. I had the a similar thought regarding class attendance while in lecture today. It's painfully apparent in high school, but it's even true in college. In many cases due to lowering standards and our current grading system, missing one day of class almost never has a significant effect.

If you approach each class as independent of the other classes (depending on the material, this can sometimes be a valid assumption), gaming theory* would tell me not to any classes (except tests and quizzes). Extra credit or pop-quiz potentials are a start towards giving every class an increased payback; attendance grades clearly do the trick (and students come to class for the wrong reasons). Yes, the good classes are the classes you go to because, "if you miss one, you're screwed."

Rationally, voting is a waste of time, as is going to many lectures... but superrationally, I should go to all my classes and hit the polls every time.

*The problem and implications of playing hooky from lecture or the polls bears a striking resemblance to the traveler's dilemma (similar to the prisoner's dilemma).

Great minds (warning... math terms folllow)

2007-11-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

The question was posed to me on Saturday... should the frequency of great minds in history being getting higher, or slowing down?

Assumption #1: As society progresses, the scope of the problems faced by great minds become exponentially more complex.

Assumption #2: At the same time, previous advances increase both the probability of great minds being afforded a chance to dwell on these problems (rather than say, hunting for food)... previous advances provide resources to help great minds solve the increasingly complex problems (say, learning from a teacher, rather than teaching themselves algebra and physics).

What is the shape of the line marking efficacy of resources in aiding to find new solutions? Assumption#3: I'm inclined to believe the benefit of new technologies will be best described by an exponentially decreasing trend (i.e. the wheel helped more than the internet - or oral communication more than written com., more than radio, more than TV, and so on.). Enter Calc 2... if the trend is convergent, it's sum (or integral to time=now) has a horizontal asymptote, and there's a limit to human progress (but not necessarily a limit to knowledge... just a point we can't pass); if the trend is divergent... there is no limit to what society can do.

*clearly, the points are opinions... but you get the idea

Assumption #4: Humans are evolving at a negligible rate... the distribution of cognitive capacity today is basically equal to that of humans one thousand years ago, there are just a lot more of us. (I'm talking natural ability... clearly we have more teaching and resources, see assumption 2)

So the question is... Which is currently more powerful, the benefits of our previous advances, or the increasing complexity of our current problems?

Sorry for all the maths... I just can't help myself. I expect zero comments on this post :-)

2007-11-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

I have run across a couple of sites in the last few days that I really like. Indexed and Class War Panda (advisory: extreme left bias). What I like about them is that they use pictures instead of the thousands of words I rely on. Indexed is a bit more light hearted, and it reminds me of my favorite youtube video... but I like both of them.

I've also been visiting the Future of Humanity Institute blog (of the Oxford Philosophy department) for quite awhile, but just now have decided to add them to my links.

Last but not least, an acquaintance of mine has taken the plunge and has started a small business. He sells knock-off sunglasses for $9. If you need some cheap shades that look good, check him out. http://9apair.com/

There is a cyclocross race in Columbia this Saturday. Shannon Miller is putting it together and I think it's going to be pretty fun. Flier here.

While I'm advertising... Columbia Couriers is still up and running, and always looking for new business. Give us a try, pass the word on, or let me know if you have an idea that might work well for us.

John Edwards and sexism

2007-11-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

The Times today had a short quoting Geraldine Ferraro saying, "John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours they way they attacked her... It's O.K. in this country to be sexist..."
Give me a break. Edwards did not direct any negative comments to Hillary's gender. He attacked her political stances. All the candidates are attacking Hillary because she is comfortably leading in the polls and shows no signs of weakening (all this despite her vague, stock answers in national forums... which won't likely change until she's won the primaries or falls in the polls). John Edwards may or may not be sexist... but his criticism doesn't imply it.

Increasingly today, it's labeled as sexist to criticize a woman. I've run into this problem twice in the past 6 months. Once I was labeled as sexist for saying that women get out of speeding tickets more than men (they do...). Just last week I was called sexist for saying that although there are thousands of attractive women on Mizzou's campus, many of them will just end up being overweight and sedentary adults. Of course, given the current statistics and trends... it's not a bad guess. The accuser was a bit more accepting when I said the same was true for men, but we weren't talking about men, so I didn't feel it necessary to mention them.

The point is... there's nothing wrong with criticizing anyone or anything if you have a logical and objective motivation and argument.

I hope Obama raises to first in the polls so Al Sharpton can call Edwards racist. Ridiculous.

Checking out early

2007-10-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

I've always been a bit fascinated by suicide, and a bit too relaxed with my humor. This explains the situation of when I was in 3rd grade the gifted program had us do an independent study. Basically it was a 5-20 page paper on something complete with citations a visual aid. Basic English 101 stuff, but when you're 9 it's a big deal. We all had to pick topics, and most people picked animals or historical figures, etc. I picked "suicide." My two teachers confronted me privately about this topic; I clearly underestimated the severity of their concern. They said, "we just want to know why you picked suicide as your topic." "Because I've thought about a lot," was my immediate response. Apparently, sarcasm is a lost art when 9 year olds are joking about suicide in the public school system. When I noticed they didn't find my humor appealing, I explained that I had an academic interest in what might cause somebody to take their own life. I was just curious. Granted they recommended I choose another topic. I ended up settling for the amoeba...

Should suicide be illegal? I've had some arguments about this. There seems to be a big rift between, "yes because [insert cognitive dissonance that usually points to Christian upbringing]," and, "no, it's a stupid law because you can't punish the person who is dead."

Here's my thought. Suicide needs to be illegal, but not for the sake of religious reasons, only for the purpose of helping with the legal aspects of someone punching their own card. If this person has debts... what do you do about those debts? This question (among others) should be answered in suicide legislation. What should the answer be? How should those imbalances be balanced to ease this person's self-departure? Now that's a tough question...

One weak theory might suggest always having all negative effects of suicide pushed to the family or closest people to the suicider (one who suicides)... with the idea this would deter some people from committing suicide, because it would harm those closest to them. Clearly this is flawed if for the mentally ill.

Another weak theory is that all debts should be erased... which means the entities owed the money have to pay for the act. This clearly isn't good either. Bottom line, random and uncontrolled suicide rarely happens without lots of negative consequence (both emotional and financial)

So while I think random suicide should be illegal (once again, only for the purpose of establishing legal ramifications), I do think assisted suicide should be legal (especially in the case of terminal illness). If someone doesn't want to live and they can demonstrate that their departure is either already imminent and/or would have minimal negative impact on the world, why should we keep them here? This is especially true for the terminally ill, but I'd extend the right to all legal adults. So to seemingly contradict my earlier statements, I believe people have the right to commit suicide; I just wish they would be polite about it.

What about the eastern cultures? What about suicide as atonement?
I apologize for the bit of coincidental morbidity that comes with posting a suicide blog on Halloween.

Eloquence...

2007-10-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

...belongs to the conquer. This post started out with me thinking about how much history is affected by winner. I'd like to do some research and read some conflicting literature on something like slavery, women's rights (as I'm sure there were plenty of outspoken and prominent figures on both sides...but we don't hear much about them). Today the same issues are manifested in the gay rights movement. Anyway, this post is no longer about that. It's about Regan, and Cuomo, and government, and a tale of two cities.

I've always thought Regan was picture perfect president, worthy of a spot on Rushmore. Well maybe he is worthy, maybe he istn't. Just as those on Rushmore, Regan was not without opposition, and didn't do everything right. Mario Cuomo's 1984 Democratic Convention speech woke me up to this fact (found via farleft). Great speech. I should say though, I only agree with Cuomo's ideas if he planned to help the poor only by empowering them, not by giving free stuff away. I think I'm slinking toward libertarianism.

Every now and then...

2007-10-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

...I actually post about bikes.

Yesterday is the last day I eat a dairy product until my birthday. This is how you know I'm getting serious about something athletic. As the weather has turned to what most people would call "shitty," I have become increasingly excited about cyclocross.

Nationals is in Kansas City this year. The day after graduation, I'll be racing in the collegiate national championships. My parents will be there to see me race, which is cool. Mizzou is hosting a race in Columbia on Nov. 10th on campus... and Mike Weiss of Big Shark has been ind enough to allow us to piggy back on his race in STL on Nov 11th. Both events are open to the public as well as collegiate racers.

It's cold and raining, and I just put my ksyriums on my cross bike, and lookout... my rear cassette goes to 11. This is going to be sweet.

No frills living

2007-10-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

This has been bugging me for awhile: How can we prevent the upward creep prices due to the addition of bells and whistles? This isn't a prevalent characteristic in all economies... but you can see it in the US very well.

Think of these:
-cars (5-spd, crank windows, rubber floormats?)
-Cell phones (sans camera, multimedia messaging, bluetooth, etc.)
-pillow cases (why can't we get really cheap material cases with super low thread counts for $.99?)
-bikes (why can't I buy an adult, single speed, rigid at Wal-Mart?)
-bike components (you can't buy new 9-speed through shimano any more... only 10-speed)
-iPods (if I could buy a new normal 2GB iPod for $20.... I'd do it... rather than spending $300 on an 80GB video ipod)

Yes, I know the market doesn't dictate a sufficient necessity for these low-end products. Manufacturers know they can increase profits by adding neato-gadets to their existing products, and getting rid of the previous product. My beef is that this trend decreases the ability for many lower-income people to buy these things....some of which are borderline between luxury and need (a car for example... while I live without one, I realize it's not a need, but it is a tool that can empower someone, i.e. no longer have to work only when and where public transportation goes).
I'm also thankful that this trend exists... it's indicative of our ever rising per capita income (even after adjusting for inflation). Bells and whistles are being added, because the majority of the market can afford the new tricked cell phones.

I don't know how the government could help this situation. I'm a believer that the government shouldn't hand out mandates to businesses. The market should be the only thing dictating economic equilibrium. That doesn't mean culture can't be shifted to a healthier market (clearly it's not the easy way...). I need an idea for this problem like the idea of carbon labeling... an idea that educates the people to make market affecting decisions if it is right for them.

This isn't very articulate, but I'm hungry, so deal. I apologize for the excessive use of ellipses.

Civil War

2007-10-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with people who like to fight progress that isn't perfect.
I have a message for people: "Cold fusion doesn't exist yet, and it's not close enough to wait around for it."

Things that annoy me:
-People who don't support building new nuclear reactors because of the waste (but let's keep burning a lot more coal?!?!)
-People who don't support moving to bio-diesel because corporate farming isn't sustainable
-People who don't buy compact fluorescent bulbs because they have trace amounts of mercury (far less than coal burning power plants expel into the atmosphere.... and they can be disposed of properly)
-People who shut down wind turbines because birds were flying into them (birds have been around a long time... they will learn very quickly, in the meantime wind turbines are shut down so we can burn more fossil fuels. yay!)

... also wasn't there a scenario in CA a few years back where the EPA wouldn't allow a field to be cleared because it would disturb the field mice's natural habitat... as a wild fire was spreading towards the field and the neighborhood that bordered it. I can't get behind that!

Listen... I realize their points. None of these options are perfect. Bio-diesel crops aren't sustainable at the level we need them. Guess what, civilization isn't sustainable with it's current trends, and I don't think many people are going to be too keen on returning to hunting and gathering. Therefore, we need to do the best we can right now.

Sustainability does not have a solution yet... we must satisfice while we continue to look for the answer.

sorry about that... I'm a bit annoyed today.

Facebook and China

2007-10-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

My friend Erika is in China... and she must have some spare time, because she got tired of me being too cool for facebook, and signed me up. So I guess I'm on facebook now.

More importantly, Erika's blog can be found on the right under the link "until the local government oppresses"... As it turns out, she's long since been oppressed. The Chinese government reads all her email and is careful to shut down any blogs Erika or others may have. Youtube is also highly restricted and many pages are just blocked. Erika can't send email home about her Christian faith, unless she writes them in metaphorical code... generally a thinly veiled allegory will do (dad=pops, Dad=God; et al.).

Until Erika went to China, I didn't realize just how restrictive they are. While I think it's pretty stupid, I also find it incredibly impressive. How do you police the internet? That's just incredible. Especially when you consider the government doesn't just police what digitally leaves China, they police what comes in also.

Here's a wiki on internet censorship in China. It estimates their internet police force at 30,000 people. That still seems like a pretty small number to be as effective as they are at deleting message board posts as quickly as they do. They must have a lot of automation, and be really good at it. Simply impressive.

For school

2007-10-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

This is what tomorrow's great minds are doing.Please don't click on that link. Don't hate me for the midi file embedded in the background, the use of tables and lack of CSS or xhtml... I'm just doing what the grading rubric calls for.

I get serious bonus points if the page gets ranked on google... the spiders seem to visit my blog pretty regularly... so there you have it. More ranting to come soon.

MoveOn? Move on.

2007-09-27T05:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, MoveOn.org put a lot of money into an add that is maligning General Petraeus (commander of ground forces in Iraq... a good man who's had this unfortunate responsibility given to him).
Yes, there is a lot of validity to their statements.
No, those statements don't reflect on Petraeus. They reflect on his bosses and the political machine (one of those we have to live with... the other we don't).

Yes, Patraeus presented some very misleading material...the material that was approved by the White House. MoveOn.org points this out... but where they go wrong is targeting Petraeus for doing what his boss asked of him. He does not lie... he is just forced to use odd metrics. I remember reading that the general's original report was rejected by the White House. They sent if back saying it needed to be "more positive." General Petraeus has not been given the liberty to prepare and provide his own report to us. The White House sucks.

MoveOn.org is just getting people riled up at the wrong person, aiding in the disillusionment experienced by so many these days.

So what does congress do... they pass a formal resolution saying that they don't like Moveon.org.... give me a break doesn't Congress have better things to do. I beginning to imagine Congressional sessions as one long meeting that is always talking about something unimportant and never gets down to real business... it's as if, in the real world, they would spend an hour discussing the logistics of the company bbq... and run out of time to talk about the fire in the plant... and how it could be stopped or prevented.

Group think sucks. I'm frequently fascinated by how much like jellyfish people become in groups of more than one.

Went Fishing

2007-09-24T13:45:00.001-07:00

I took a nice vacation, but should be getting back in the swing of the blogoshpere.

Here is an update.

-Graduation is imminent, my father sent me an email, he is counting the weeks until the financial umbilical cord is severed
-Job searching is going wonderfully
-A friend died in a car wreck last Thursday, I felt a deep sense of loss
-Trying to get back on the bike after Brazil. So far, my legs aren`t having it.
-I saw Sonata Arctica in concert in Chicago on Friday, spent the night with Tyler Wellington (a top shelf individual)

And, since I have been getting a lot of questions about it lately: Yes, Columbia Couriers is still running, you can see an article about us\me in the VOX that is out now.

So here`s a thought that hit me during my ride yesterday. If you do not believe in any sort of a spiritual realm... than death is just a failure of a system... therefore it follows the removal of a spiritual component of life suggests the ability for life to be sustained eternally with scientific means. Clearly it`s not within our grasp right now... but I`m going to ask some atheists what they think about this (I`m concurrently curious to find out how many atheists believe in a spiritual something... just not a God).

That is all for today... I am going to pace my re-entry to blogging.

Spam shower

2007-08-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

Does anybody else ever check their junk mail folder? Like many others I keep other email addresses that are hungry for junk mail (fe_man02@hotmail.com), and use these for registering for free porn passwords and what not (or anything else that might cause a bunch of junk mail... like registering to post on other blog servers... jeez... the internet isn't just great for porn). My actual email address is fast, and its spam blocker is effective, so it's easy for me to open my spam folder and check for real messages before I delete them all (gmail is hands down the best email server I've ever dealt with).

Those of you who check your junk mail folder, or are active on public message boards, will know that there has been a throbbingly large number of viagra and cialis adds poking their heads into to our private [digital] spaces. These guys pop up everywhere... and they aren't going away anytime soon. There's also the constant cultivation of Miracle-Penis-Gro type products. All promising inches and one of the following:
-a satisfied wife-ish character,
-or a trick ho', who clearly picked the Washington Monument as her favorite Washington landmark.
They claim, "Your loaf will be like Jesus's, big enough to feed 5,000!" .... If you never check your junk mail folder, you get the idea.

Lately the winds have changed. I noticed the first last week, and since have noticed more and more spam for products that increase the amount and power of ejaculations. Now, I can see this being a reasonable product for people having troubles conceiving, especially if the male spent half his life underwater. However, it's not billed as such. It's billed as something you can brag about in the locker room... something that will make airbrushed breezies come running at you like cows to the slaughterhouse. I'm wondering if this is just a phase, or if we will see an explosion of these type emails.

Personally this isn't something I've ever thought to worry about it. So the question remains... is a larger volume of ejaculate something women desire and/or something that some men are self-conscious about?

I also wonder if these products could be considered doping in any traditional austrailian sports.

And no. Penis humor isn't dead (it is tired).

A bit of this, a bit of that

2007-08-15T15:56:00.001-07:00

Jason, this video is dedicated in part, to you. The video is from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie, which I plan on seeing upon re-entry to the US.

So I had another talk with my Spanish roommates. I just can't seem to convince the sisters that we should treat things based on the actual threat, rather than the perceived threat. Mostly we're talking about terrorism, but of course this goes the other way for treating many of the health issues in the US today (and spreading to the world). We'd had these discussions before, in regards to the West VA school shootings (my roommate said she would be scared to go to school, even after I proved to her my chances of being shot at a college were statistically equal with being struck by lightning). Lately the topic has been reklindled by the Freakonomics guys. I'd highly recommend you check these out. Part 1, Part 2.

There's an interesting paradox in their belief that, "it's a war... it's us against 'them.'" When I said "war on terror" they looked at me like, "oh, no. we don't agree with that." They are against us being in Iraq, but also think the US should have removed their dictator about 60 years ago.

I am disappointed in my inability to convince them we should spend our money elsewhere, and that fighting terrorism is a waste of effort. Until I can convince my peers of these ideas, I seriously doubt my potential abilities in politics or as a teacher.

In Brazil, speed limits are enforced by automated machines that read your speed and take a picture of your plates. A ticket is mailed to your house. I made the comment that I like this system better because it was completely objective and didn't allow for girls to get off the hook all the time by fake crying for policemen. This made a woman in the car call me "sexist" (not a Brazilian mind you). That pissed me off. Luckily science is on my side. A study of 64,000 stops shows that women have a much lower chance of getting a ticket than men. I hate chauvinists, but I hate feminazis more.

On the same note... I'm getting really tired of people that argue against all the potential improvement by saying the change "isn't sustainable." Well, guess what... humanity isn't sustainable right now, but does that mean we should keep burning oil until it's gone while waiting for cold fusion? So we can't use any of these non-sustainable improvements, even if only for a hundred years or so...maybe we should we just start the eugenics program right now to keep the population in check. Along those lines I have posed the question to people, "Seeing as I believe I have above average genes, should I procreate? Even though it goes against my belief that we are reproducing too much and too quickly, should I try to "raise the average" and leave progeny who can help others better the race?" No one's really had a good answer... which probably means there's something very fundamental missing from both sides arguments. This site has a very strict stance on the issue.

My good friend Erika will be in China soon... I may have to blog more because I won't be able to talk to her about the problems of the world. She will be there for two years, and I will be unable to write to her about religion or government, due to the controls the Chinese people live under. Good luck Erika. Also, Greg is moving to Mexico within the month also. I hope to visit both of them, and as they will both be there for two years, I just might be able to pull it off.

GOP Debate from Iowa

2007-08-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

Was held on Aug 5th.
I'm going to let some thoughts flow while I watch this.
Here's a link to the first section.
Brownback = douchebag
Romney, and Guliani - giving good answers
Huckabee is a straight shooter, but not rock star enough to be our president.
Second section
Ron Paul says good things, and receives applause. When the camera pans the audience, you notice the applause is not from the majority. It's unfortunate that he has no chance.
McCain has lost.
Third
Tommy Thompson looks like a fish... my eyes are glazing, he should do us a favor and withdraw
Ron Paul still wants out of Iraq. Mitt Romney says "is he forgetting about 9/11..." WTF?!?! We already know Iraq was not involved with 9/11... us going into Iraq errantly was, but the truth is Iraq was not... what rock has Romney been hiding under?
Health Care: Some of the Republicans actually talk about a preventative culture for medicine. Why don't the Democrats talk about this at all? Maybe they have, but I don't remember it, and I've seen all the debates so far.
Fourth
Republicans make a pretty good stance against socialized health care.
George Stephanopolous is the best moderator so far. He doesn't take much shit.
Guliani is a strong 2nd... but that's all he's going to be. Yeah Romney is going to stay in the front, barring Fred Thompson ascending to neo-con sainthood.
Fifth
Yeah, truthfully, republicans don't like Ron Paul... they must be stupid. 9/11 messed their brains up.
McCain has lost.... also at 3:37 he refers to us as, "a shining city on a hill" a reference to a Regan speech during the 1984 elections. Post coming on that soon. Cuomo's response was fantastic, I was less than one year old.
This election is a classroom for future politicians. The book is called "what not to do" it has at least 15 chapters.
Sixth
This is why Guliani is in 2nd place... he has good answers every now and then.
Mitt Romney's wife is good looking. Go Mormon!
McCain only has two answers. "Must win Iraq" & "Pork barrel, Pork barrel" He's sooo 2004.
Seventh
Skip this section. I'll sum it up. Republicans think Cheney has too much power, but they're afraid to say it because still has 30% approval ratings... which means atleast 60% of their constituency still supports Bush. Yeah, skip that whole section.
Eighth
Fair tax... interesting idea - just a 23% sales tax... that's it, no other taxes.
Romney doesn't like the flat tax because among other things, "buying a new house would be taxed, buying an old house would not. What would that do to the construction industry?" I'll tell you exactly what it would do, it would hurt it a lot, and help ween a lot of American's of their "need" to buy a cookie-cutter home in the suburbs.
Governor Thompson lost his mother-in law to breast cancer, his wife and daughter also have it. He vows to "end breast cancer by 2015 for all the women in America." A beautiful gesture, but completely and absolutely worthless. It's like demanding a cure for pancakes.
Ninth
Brownback will work for Jame's Dobson after he loses the nomination.
Summary: Well done Stephanopolous... or however you spell it.
GOP Race- Pretty sure it's Guliani or Romney... of course Fred Thompson still could be a wild card, he's bordering on arrogant by staying out much longer.
I think Ron Paul is too smart to be out president. It's great for Americans, and unfortunate for him, that he sought a life of public service.

Sorry that was boring, but hey, it was faster and less painful than watching the actual debate, wasn't it?

BTW Tomorrow three Americans will show up to chill with me in Brazil... I'm stoked about sharing this experience with someone.
In other news: I just ordered 3 of my favorite childhood books that are now out of print... I'll read them when I get back, and I'm curios see what I think.

Minimum Idealism

2007-08-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

Firstly and unrelated, interesting answers on street gangs via Freakonomics.

Minimum wage has bothered me for a long time. I've had a good amount of cognitive dissonance on the topic. Dissonance be gone! I have my answer, until somebody forces me to reconsider with errors in my logic, or better logic.

I've felt for many years that increases in the minimum wage were generally a good thing... not increasing minimum wage to $20/hr or anything like that, but at least keeping minimum wage in proper adjustment with inflation. I would like people in general to have better standard of living, and I feel sensible minimum wage increases can provide that. There's always been the republican friend counter argument that "if you are working for min. wage, you're time or abilities are only worth that (or less)." This clash is just fighting insanity with insanity.

More recently I discovered the economic arguments against raising or even having a minimum wage; as with most market issues, when the government gets involved it's just not a good thing for the market. Yet, I believed then, that people living on minimum wage didn't have good lives especially when compared to their top level employers. Next, I had an internship in a factory and saw that incentive programs are fantastic... people who wouldn't be making much can make good money if they work hard. Then I started a business, and had to consider how quickly my small business would be broke if I had to pay people minimum wage. Later, I came to Brazil, where the minimum wage is less than $150 a MONTH (less than $1 an hour)! That's after the giant raises.

Here's the answer: We should not have a minimum wage. This can only happen with good standard of living if the market determines that the vast majority's time is worth more than minimum wage. Once again, it goes back to the government ensuring that everybody can do great things. The government must ensure that opportunities are available; handouts are never good for the majority in the long run (increases in minimum wage, reparations for slavery, welfare.... .what about social security?). In regards to education, the opportunity must be provided for all, and for those that choose not to take that opportunity, the government should feel no need to support those people beyond their value to society. How does free education differ from a handout... in the same way that giving somebody an apple seed is different from giving them an apple. One require initiative and work for betterment, the other requires only that the recipient use and deplete the resources given.

There are arguments that handouts can be invested, but if you are actually using that argument you haven't looked at trends in disparity of wealth, or read anything on the topic... it can happen, but the government's money would be better spent distributing lottery tickets to the lower class; we've all heard the adage that "the lottery is a tax for people who are bad at math." Well the government giving handouts only proves they are bad at math (or trying to win the votes of the lower class).

In a perfect world, a minimum wage wouldn't be necessary, those willing to work harder would enjoy the best quality of life. In a perfect world, the market will be flooded with graduate degrees and we'll find a shortage of cooks, and trash men (in which case their wages go up). Their wages won't be equal... but they would be proportionate to the blood sweat and tears one invests in their own life.

Ron Paul has said in the GOP debates that we have to rid ourselves of the idea that the government should take care of us from cradle to grave. He's couldn't be more correct.

What am I saying? If shit was done correctly, we would not need and should not have a minimum wage. In the real world, I'll strongly support ideas that empower people opportunity;, and I'll continue considering approving moderate increases to the minimum wage. That is, until I can be sure the raise would help more lazy people than unfortunate people (a question that might be answerable today, but not before lunch).

EDIT: And I notice headlines today of Hilary calling for 1 billion to help people pay their mortgages... I'm all about cutting off abusive practices, but I'll let you decided if that 1 billion is a handout or something else.

I've got the urchins in me!

2007-08-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

I kicked one of these guys yesterday. I was walking around on some coral reefs that were full of these urchins. Eventually probability got the best of me, I lost my balance on the irregular surface and my big toe went on mission to restore balance. Well, it did restore balance, after stopping at the same place as a whole bunch of little black spikes.

So I had 6 pieces of sea urchin in my big toe; I was lucky enough that they broke off underneath the skin so they are very hard to get to. I sat down on the coral and broke a spine off a big urchin and used it as a needle to remove the biggest piece that hadn't penetrated very far. I have 5 more nestled comfortably in the callus of my big toe. I dug in for one of them with a pair of cuticle scissors last night. Went far enough to draw blood and couldn't get to the spur. Any ideas?

I also read some astrological material on the Sagittarius man last night (sent to me via first class snail mail courtesy of Cassy). I figured if it came from Arkansas to Brazil it must be important. As usually happens with astrology, a few things in there hit me right on the nose, and a few things hit me right on somebody else's nose.

Let's assume for the moment astrology is nothing more than the art of bull shitting. Firstly I have several friends that would be great astrologers. More importantly, astrology is great for studying how a person reacts to various stimuli (this particular text subscribes frequently to the Scott Adams school of thought on public speaking or writing). It's a great introspective study if nothing else, it might be a bit to complex to really warrant any great clinical studies, but psychology will get there eventually.

Switching gears, assume for a second that there might be some truth to astrology. Just as most rumors, legends, myths, religions are born from a seed of truth. Consider the same possibility for astrology. Why couldn't there be noticeable effects from the environment present while in the womb or when new-born? Just thinking about seasons, and how the environment of the mother could change tiny characteristics as a very very important time in development... why not? Given my knowledge of the human body and the science of child-bearing, it's not an illogical hypothesis.

On a closing note... the urchins and reading all happened at a friend's beach house. His fam had a churrasco (choo-Hass-ku)...the Brazilian equivalent of a BBQ. All the cousins and aunts and uncles were there, and of course the kids were too. The kids found interest in me and came over to see what I was reading. This particular text contains many sections akin to the following:

"Sag's overall athleticism suggests a tireless roll in the hay. Any such suppositions would be right: With unparalleled stamina and staying power, this bucking bronco can kick it all night long, hardly ever needing to slow down or beg off."

Good thing the text was in English. Finally, Robert Goulet was a Sagittarius.

Goulet

2007-08-05T07:32:00.001-07:00

Brazil, my wife

2007-08-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

My stay in Brazil is coming to an end. I'm ready to come back. Ready to graduate. I have a friend who is coming to visit me for 18 days, and is bringing two fine ladies with him (one of whom is his girlfriend, how cool is that for them?).

We've probably all heard the legend about Archimedes and the king's crown... but we've probably all forgotten. One version is that the king had been given a crown of gold... but rumors caused him to question it's purity. He posed the question to Archimedes, "how do I know this is gold?" Archimedes troubled himself with the problem for sometime, skipping meals, not shaving... just engrossing himself in the search for a solution. Eventually Archimedes' wife convinced him to take a rest. She convinced him to go to the bath house and take a bath. As he lowered his body into the water he realized the amount of water spilling over the edge was the same as the size of his body, and was independent of his weight. Mass over volume, the formula for density was born. Archimedes ran into the streets naked and dripping screaming "Eureka! Eureka!" ("I've found it!").

Two things.
1. It appears that all truly great minds have an ability to focus their brain for long periods of time. It's said about Percy Bysshe Shelly, Einstein, Telsa, Archimedes, and so on. Einstein said "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." Tesla was said to construct entire machines piece by piece in his head, and start them running, weeks later he'd take them apart and inspect the for wear... in his mind. Sweet. (People like to talk about serendipity, but Archimedes would never have had the serendipitous moment without his utter mental commitment to the problem)

2. Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to take a step back. Sometimes it takes a rest to get out of your rut, and use your existing knowledge to start down a new path that may or may not lead to the Pot O' Gold.

Well, Brazil has been my wife. I've had a lot of downtime here; I have noticed my problem solving ability has improved (in the sense of real world problems that don't have concrete answers). Interestingly enough, I discovered via the my email to grandma that my dad has a great ability to remove himself from situation and analyze things very objectively (forwarded it to mom... dad saw it and was not pleased...) I wonder how this affects his faith (dad is a pretty devout Christian), and how he learned the quality? He's the president of a facility in Tracy, CA and I have to know this ability comes in handy. Did he move up the ladder because he had the ability? Or because someone correctly saw the potential for ability? More importantly, why didn't he teach me this stuff... clearly I wouldn't have listened.. but I think he could have taught me just be asking good questions.

Anyway, I've been able to step back from a lot... and take a somewhat fresh look (I think if America and Congress could do this, Bush would be impeached, for example). For math nerds only: The problem is the solution space is not convex and we move towards solutions as if it should be... sometimes we get lucky.

Driving at Night

2007-07-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

Driving at night is something I haven't done in awhile, but I just finished up a half hour mix of music that should be great for driving country roads at night. There's one really awful transition, but guess what, this is just for fun, so I don't really care. Anyway, you'll find some new stuff, some old stuff, and stuff that you'll find strangely addictive for reasons unbeknown.

Click here:

Portishead - Nobody Loves Me
Clint Mansell - Aeternal (from Requiem for a Dream, which is a fantastic film)
Operatica - Ave Maria (new take on an old song)
Radiohead - Idioteque
Zia - Resolution (written in a 19 note scale instead of the normal 12... just don't try to play the solos on the guitar or piano... unless you have a very special piano)
Wir Sind Helden - Guten Tag (this with Zia is the part of the night where you get your 2nd kick)
Steven Jesse Bernstein - No No Man (he "committed suicide by stabbing himself in the throat three times with a knife")

My response

2007-07-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been here in a few days, you'll need to start at the beginning. Scroll down a few posts.

_____________________________

Senator McCaskill,

Firstly, thank you for your response.

While I also hope that impeachment is the rarest of cases, the decision to impeach or not should only be made Constitutionally. In this case, the integrity of the Constitution depends on measures being taken. I'm sure you'll agree with me that popularity should not be taken into consideration when the Bill of Rights is at stake. I only mention the polls to bring up the fact that supporting impeachment is not only Constitutional, but also shouldn't have negative effects politically (I'd like others to follow my lead and vote for you again). I compel you to support impeachment solely on the Constitutional basis, with no personal malice for the individuals under scrutiny (and if upholding the Constitution doesn't lose votes, that's just bonus).

I believe President Bush and his appointed officials are doing what they truly believe is best. I do not fault the current administration for their beliefs or for mistakes made; they are human. I do fault them for repeatedly putting their own beliefs ahead of the Constitution to the point of illegally overstepping their bounds.

I take heart in your statement about providing stronger oversight. Retroactive oversight is needed also; while it cannot change the past, it can prevent unconstitutional precedent from remaining unchecked. It will change the future.

I appreciate your desire to use resources for other productive means... I love progress, and don't think it can happen fast enough. Although, until a party can secure a 2/3 majority. I have to ask if much progress can really happen under this administration? I'd like to be optimistic, but history doesn't always allow for that. However, the way I understand the Constitution, it is not in your role as a senator to call for articles of impeachment. Until you are asked to weigh the case please just don't, "take the idea off the table."*

Good luck with your fight for balance, and the betterment of our still great nation.

Sincerely,
Your constituent. -Brady Beckham

________________________

These are the words used twice by Speaker Pelosi referring to the probability of impeaching Bush. At least once was within the last 6 months.

In all this context it should be mentioned: The house of Representatives must call for impeachment... write the articles, and pass it. The Senate then tries the case.
Also, Dennis Kucinich (a democratic presidential candidate) has already presented House Resolution 333, 3 articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney.

OK. I'm done with impeachment until "certain things have come to light."

The first letter

2007-07-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

Senator McCaskill actually responded. Kit Bond and KennyHulsof, have not yet responded (but I wouldn't necessarily expect a response from a Republican when I'm asking them to support the Republican administration's impeachment). Anyway, Senator Claire McCaskill's response.

______________________________

Dear Mr. Beckham:

Thank you for sharing your views regarding the impeachment of the President and Vice President. I appreciate hearing from you.

Like many Americans, I am disappointed with the direction that the Bush Administration has taken our country. The Administration has repeatedly misled Congress and the American public on issues critical to the safety and prosperity of our nation, such as using false intelligence to lead us into war in Iraq. At the same time, Congress over the last 6 years has failed to uphold its Constitutional duty to provide proper oversight of the Executive Branch.

Yes, this administration has made some serious mistakes and has lost credibility with the American people, but impeachment should be used in only the rarest of cases. Only twice in the history of our nation has Congress carried out impeachment proceedings in attempts to move a President from office, and in both cases the President was acquitted. This country was founded on the principle that the democratic process is the best means of choosing leadership - and that is done through the American people and their right to vote. American voters recently expressed their desire for a change in leadership by voting a Democratic majority into Congress. We now have much important work that must be done for America and impeachment proceedings would consume most of the time, resources, and energy of Congress with little likelihood of success.

As your Senator, I will continue to work with my colleagues to provide stronger oversight of this Administration. Since the 110^th Congress began in January under Democratic leadership, already dozens of oversight hearings have been held on everything from the war in Iraq to the botched Federal response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

I will keep your thoughts in mind as Congress continues its important oversight role. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further assistance.

All best,
Senator Claire McCaskill

____________________________

Pretty stock dialog, but not too bad. I'll admit I hadn't thought about the resources that would be tied up by impeaching. Of course, I do remember Clinton's process, and it sure didn't seem like he got much of anything done during that time, but that's OK with me. Doing nothing is better than being detrimental (once again, just a pragmatic reason.... if the Constitution calls for impeachment... that should be the end of the discussion).

Letters to senators

2007-07-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

When I say I'm going to do things on my blog, like write my representative (last post) or my grandmother, I mean it. I sent this letter to the office of Senator Claire McCaskill.

____________________________

Senator McCaskill,
I'd like to express my support and move you openly support the impeachment of those in the administration who have committed actions that constitutionally allow for impeachment. Without using names it's plain and simple. The executive branch has repeatedly placed itself above the law. I'm sure you're well aware that recent polls show a near majority calling for impeachment of President Bush and over 50% calling for the impeachment of VP Cheney. Now consider the number of people who say "no" to impeachment just because of apathy and the answer is clear, the people are calling for it (trends suggest I soon won't need the pragmatic help of the apathetic).

The administration has committed actions that constitutionally demand impeachment.
Other pragmatic reasons: (that really don't matter in lieu of the first)
-Restore much international faith in the US
-Prevent the next president(s) from entering office with powers over stepping constitutional bounds
-Retain democracy and civil liberties in the United States of America

If the course of impeachment is not taken before the next election, precedent will have been set and left unchecked; this cannot stand.

Thank you for your time.

____________________

Once again... for those of you who are pissed at something, and have never written a letter to your representative, it's this easy... they might even write you back.
Resources:
Find out who your representatives are with links to their page... based on your voting addy
Easily review the voting record of your representative (by addy or name) or any other representatives they have special coverage of the presidential candidates.

Im-peach-ment

2007-07-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

Say it with me... im-peach-ment. It's got to happen.
I've been researching this on an off for about two weeks. I've been hesitant to believe any pro-impeaching sites because most of them have sneering pictures of Cheney; Sneering pictures usually mean that person didn't like the guy from the beginning and therefore is biased, or they have to use sneering pictures to drum up support, if the argument was that good, sneering pictures wouldn't be necessary. Anyway, after reading plenty of reasons to impeach Bush and hearing the arguments against, I have come to the conclusion...Bush must be impeached. Why? He has committed actions that constitutionally demand impeachment.
Other pragmatic reasons: (that really don't matter in lieu of the first)
-Restore much international faith in the US
-Prevent the next president(s) from entering office with powers over stepping constitutional bounds
-Retain democracy and civil liberties in the United States of America
-Most likely protect us from terrorism.

This seems pretty black and white to me. Other Americans are jumping on board now also. Why has it taken us so long as a country to come around to this? Bush has been overstepping his bounds for at least 5 years. Plain and simple 9/11. This video perfectly sums up Bush's presidency and the people's support thereof.

Start loading this now: Video from PBS: Kind of long, but worth it. Hold on until the end, because there's a lot of good stuff in the last 5 minutes. One of the two guests comes from a conservative think tank, and wrote the first article of impeachment against Clinton (he's calling for impeachment). The host actually does a good job of playing the devil's advocate. Found via this blog.

They don't say it exactly, but in the interviews above evidence abounds for the idea that 9/11 is what has changed everything. Meaning, it's why the president has been allowed to create unprecedented power. It's why congress hasn't impeached yet, and it's why the people elected him twice (I don't think I need to argue this anymore, but if you need more just remember the graph that I posted a few posts back).

Everybody knows about frogs and boiling water right? If you don't it's real simple. Well this is the similar. Sept. 11th was a slap in the face, and Bush has just been reminding us of how much our face stings to make us forget that he's drawing blood elsewhere.

OK people... here's the lesson. Don't forget 9/11 out of respect, but move on. It's time reassess the situation and realize that we are waist deep in quicksand and if the next election comes before we impeach, the rope to pull ourselves out of the quicksand will be gone forever.

Especially if you don't agree with me. Please watch that PBS video, in it's entirety. Bring all the skepticism you like, but listen to what they're saying. It's really a well done piece of journalism. It puts the current scene in good perspective, without Bush bashing.

OK I don't know about you, but I'm done with the blog because I'm going to send an email to my representative. If you don't know your representatives email addys... Here's a map of the US... click on where you live, I think you'll figure it out. If you have time to read my blog, you have time to write an email.

What it is?

2007-07-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

Jive turkey.
I'll apologize for the ADDness of the post ahead of time. I'm just not pissed, so I can't focus.

So for those of you who don't care... the 2007 Tour de France is underway.

So a little update on Brazil... I had been chilling out to prove to myself that I could. You see, my mother once confronted me in high school, asking me if I had a mental problem because I socialized so much. Well now I know for certain that I don't, it is possible for me to chill out. I chilled out for a few months here. Two weeks ago I made the observation that my learning curve was leveling... so back to the social it is.

I've been out and about, going to soccer games, been doing some undergraduate research, went to a big art exposition and bought some stuff... the coolest in my opinion is that I've incorporated a break in the middle of my evening runs, a break to play pickup games of chess with some old dudes that hang around this art market (I have not won yet, their experience is killer, but they do not walk all over me).

I am starting to miss some things. I haven't ridden a bike or played a piano since I left, and I miss those. I was really missing sports in general until the football and fresco ball (beach squash.. kind of) today. Running give me the burn, and chess gives me the strategery, but I need the combination.

Has anybody else picked up with the Presidential debates yet? I think the best thing is, there are candidates on both sides that I would really like to see as our president. Ron Paul is pretty amazing, I don't know if the public can handle it. They're just so overcome with fear of terrorism they can't think logically. Then again, I don't think they could think logically before Bush started using scare tactics to drum up support for decreasing our civil liberties and growing the government two sizes larger than my ego. A couple of weeks ago I watched a conspiracy theory movie on 9/11... it's really well done, and I couldn't go to sleep that night. I hope it's not right, and I feel powerless if it is. I've had to remove the thought of it from my mind to function normally.

Anyway, Ron Paul knows the constitution like the back of his hand (I read it again yesterday... not the amendments, but the boring stuff about powers allocated to congress and what not). He wants to abolish the IRS... and then central bank. Ron Paul wants to slash our federal budget like Jack the Ripper would a prostitute. If anarchists are going to vote, they should vote for Ron Paul (I say that in a good way, and yes, I realize the contradiction). After the first rounds of debates he got a lot more cash than he had previously. Good luck to him.

Here's my problem with Dr. Paul.... he's pro-life. With all his knowledge of the powers of congress I don't know how he can really want to repeal Roe vs Wade and take away the right of women to choose. Do the babies have rights? I don't know, but repealing Roe vs Wade will only grant rights to unwanted unborn babies while removing rights from women.

There are only three ways to end the Roe v Wade conflict.
1. Global, thermo-nuclear war
2. Create an infrastructure to support raising these unwanted babies (after we eradicate, poverty and become progressive enough to find ourselves with a surplus of resources)
3. Somehow vastly reduce the number of abortions that are happening... any new age alchemists are welcome to take their shot at that one.

Speaking of the end of the world. Global warming excites me. What if the Greenland ice shelf goes soon? It will be such an exciting time of change.

Wow, two super ADD posts in a row... sorry, I need to get angry about something, then I'll focus.

mmmmmm... sex

2007-07-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

This post in summary:
-at least 66% of americans suck
-you can't make a broken theory work (abstinence education)
-142857
-rabbits have sex like people

Here's what got me started. Here's the actual survey.
Among others, interesting tidbits:
96% of US adults have had sex.
11% of never-married adults remained chaste
20% of adults have tried cocaine, or other street drugs (mj not included)

I always wanted to know in church how many people were actually devoting themselves to the religion, and how many just came for God knows what reason... Let's give Christians the long straws here, assume only Christians abstain until marriage... which might not be a long stretch from the truth. Given that 77% of Americans call themselves Christian...

At best... 66/77 Christians are either liars, hypocrites, bad christians, or born again virgins ( I bet this term comes as a surprise to some people who have never been deep in the Christian sphere... but yes... this is what you call yourself if you a converted or reformed christian who isn't a virgin, but will now abstain until marriage)... There's definitely some overlap in those terms, but I'm going to guess the majority are just bad Christians.

66/77 = 6/7 and if you don't remember your fraction to decimal equivalents... that's .85714285714285714 (or 86% of "christians" had pre-martial sex)... Which brings us to an interesting bit of mathematical trickery. Remember this number: 142857

The great thing about this number is when multiplied by an integer you have an 86% chance of the digits just kind of shifting around....What... yeah, I know that doesn't make much sense without a picture

142857 = 142857 x 1
285714 = 142857 x 2
428571 = 142857 x 3
571428 = 142857 x 4

See the pattern... all the numbers on the left are just the digits 142857, just in different orders, BUT, 142857 x 7 = 999999.... An implication of the fact that 1/7 = 0.142857 repeating. There are tricks to make the trick continue working for much larger multiples... but you can figure those out on your own... does this have application? Definitely not, but will it help you to remember the decimal equivalents of 7? Absolutely.

Back to sex... Bush is an idiot... so is anyone else who thinks abstinence programs are the best solution. In the words of Scott Adams:
Apparently the following message is not effective: “Everyone LOVES sex. I love, it. All the other teachers love it. Your older friends love it. We all do it whenever we can because it’s frickin’ GREAT. But you should ignore the burning in your loins.”

I don't know if this is still going on today... but I heard a lot of old people slamming on my generation, and generation Y as I was growing up.... I'm guessing nothing has changed (except for the legalization of abortion which cut way back on my generation's criminals).

Anyway, rabbits have been having sex like people for a long time now. Although it's not proven... the popular school of thought believe Columbus and his crewmen contracted syphilis from the indiginous people they encountered... Then syphilis spread pandemic style from western Europe to east china in a very short amount of time, considering the fact that it can only be sexually transmitted and given the amount of people that would jump on the weekly jet to Tahiti... you know that we've been doing the wild thing... and doing it a lot for at least 500 years.

I've been pretty busy lately.... college is kind of time consuming when you don't speak the language, and I've been playing a lot of chess, I bought a peruvian chess set at an art show last week that has the Incas vs the Spaniards... it's pretty cool. The Spainish have knights and the Incas have llamas.

Van Gogh, Kramer, Brady

2007-07-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

What do those three people have in common? At one point in their lives they've all tried to replace the one big sleep with shorter but more frequent cat naps.

Here's the short version. Saturday I went to the beach for a few hours, and I guess the sitting around doing nothing took it out of me, because I went to sleep when we got home at 4Pm. I slept for 4 hours, then surprise surprise, I couldn't go to sleep later that night. I laid in bed from 1:15 to 2:00 AM ... and that just didn't work, so I got up. The sun rises early here, and the beach during sunrise is fantastic, so at 5:30 I set out for a little walk. Little meangin, I walked for 3 hours. Upon returning I found I was tired, so I went to bed (this is 9AM on Sunday). I woke up around 1:30 feeling refreshed... and went out with some French cats and got to bed about 2 AM... then I slept for another 5 hours, waking up at 7.

Since I was up early, I decided to make the best of my day, meaning I decided to skip all my classes and not go to work so I could play on the computer all day long. The result being, I learned the basics of mixing music. You see Charlie has been making some mixes lately, and I just couldn't let him have all the fun. Charlie's mix/mixes are much better than my only mix, but whatever. Anyway, I got into it, I sat at the computer for around 15 hours, I only ate once, and never used the bathroom until the last possible instant. If you read this blog you know , sometimes I focus a bit too much. This mix is a pretty good depiction of me: it's completely ADD, a bit sloppy, first it rubs you the wrong way, then leaves you feeling almost satisfied.

Clicky here
Main Tracks:
Navras - Juno Reactor
Pistoleros - Juno Reactor
O Vos Omnes - De Victoria (as sung by Mizzou's choir)
Soldier Side, BYOB - System of a Down
Resurrection - PPK
Cantaloop - Us3
Brooklyn is Burning - Head Automatica
Renagades of Funk - Rage Against the Machine

Just remember, this is what happens when I don't sleep.

Politics of rejection

2007-06-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

The world hates our president. If you didn't know this yet, please don't vote, ever. The American people are disliking him more and more (One poll actually showed him at a 29% approval, here's all of them in the last 6 years). I think if the democrats were going to impeach him they would have done it by now. What if the Republicans called for the impeachment of our illustrious preznit?

Now stay with me for a second, I think this would be a pretty damn good move politically. The democrats have everything to lose, they have control of the congress, so they can rest assured Bush will accomplish nothing in the next two years, and the longer Bush is president the better chance they have of the next president being Democrat. The GOP on the other hand, is losing popularity by the day.

Here's a Mensa level political plan:
1. Republicans call for impeachment, surely Dems will acquiesce
2. Repubs are officially clear of their viral president.
-Conservative voters who have left, return... the main source of their dissatisfaction being eradicated
-Conservative voters that haven't yet left aren't leaving
3. Reps. know Cheney won't be able to do shit, not with his past, and our current congress, the GOP is in the clear.
4. Several pissed democratic voters will go find solace in the courage of the GOP
5. Repubs (and Dems also) herald the process as a victory for the people, a victory for personal rights, et al.
6. The process in turn renews the world's faith in the US, allows foreign relation healing to begin, and the political machine can spin the event as the proof that democracy works, the people still have the power (spread democracy to the world... isn't that something the GOP stands for?) and so on.

Damn. This would be too good, why hasn't it happened yet?

I've had this as a draft for two weeks, but Scott Adams blog about the best way to overthrow Iran got me thinking again. Then I read this also, not impeachment, but Congress may hold the White House in contempt... the democrats have set a deadline (also, I thought CBS was conservative, this article has a very leftist tone).

Silly monks

2007-06-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

I think this is incredible.

The great white Oprah

2007-06-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

So I think the underlying issue is that people too often associate colorblindness with cultural ignorance. Sure this is easy to do, but not necessary. I'd like to reference my feminist thought train and ask a simple question:

Do more physiological differences exist between a white man and black man, or between a man and a woman?

Blacks, whites, yellows, and reds have a much better chance at equality, than women and men ever do. It is understood that the vast majority of black people have relatives that were oppressed in many ways. It is also understood that racism still happens. There are just too many correlations between racism and sexism, and just as I don't like a femi-nazi telling me about all the evil doing y-chromosomers, I don't like it when a black person talks about all the white oppression. My stance is the same... I know it exists, I also know it's getting better and I'd like you to acknowledge that fact rather that just assuming I'm here to hold you back. History has shown that slowly but surely, the bad people die and are replaced by better people, despite a history full of atrocities, humans have progressed, and will continue to do so.

There will come a point (I think we are there already) when glorifying somebody based on race is detrimental to the cause of race equality. Black history month, famous black ______, the first black man/ woman to ______. The label of color only acts as reinforcement to strengthen hue based differences. Sure, everybody should know about these exemplary individuals, but emphasizing the fact that they are black in no way adds or detracts from their accomplishments. Who cares if Harriet Tubman or George Washington Carver were black. We'd still learn about them in history books. I don't want to have white history month, and Asian history month, and indigenous tribe history month... I just want "history month."

So the question: At what point do your cross the line between having pride in people of your color and contributing to racism?
I can't answer the question, except with another question. What's the real point of having pride in your color? Recently Oprah was given an honorary doctorate to Howard University and delivered a speech at graduation. Given the fact that Howard has a predominately black student body and given the context of the speech (4:35-5:30), it made sense for Oprah talk about how she wished her grandmother were still alive so she could boast that she had, "a bunch of white people working for her." Is this helping or contributing to the problem?

Here's the short answer in the way I see it. Black history month is good for many black people for the same reason that Joy Nash's fat rant video is good for fat people. People need to believe they have the power to fix their own problems before they can. Oprah's grandmother didn't didn't believe there was more to life than working for some good white folk. Many fat (and living unhealthy lives) people feel there is no help for them. Oprah's grandmother and many morbidly obese aren't even looking for a solution... it's these people that need to hear... being black is ok, and "Say it Loud, I'm Fat and I'm proud."

I realize as a skinny (and living healthily) white dude, the scope of my view is inherently limited. So, given the circumstance, I don't know if Oprah's comment was hurting anything (I doubt it was), but it'd take a poll of black college graduates to find out if it's helping at all. I have no malice towards black people that are trying to win the game, I just don't see them as any different than the rest of us.

I think racism and feminism in my generation is more about the historically oppressed realizing as a group that they are empowered (as opposed to the 50's and 60's of getting the white male to realize he's not the way the truth and the light).

Recipe for beans and cornbread

2007-06-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

At this point it becomes necessary for me to clarify a bit. When I say I am not racist, I mean that I don't pre-judge people based on color (nothing more). Is it OK to deny a black man a job because he's black? No, of course not. Is it OK not to hire somebody who is looking for a job based on other aspects of their appearance, absolutely. Many problems arise when racism amalgamates with multiculturalism.
Confuzzled Logic: You didn't hire me because I was wearing a Tupac shirt and used slang, that's racist.
Correct logic: I did not hire you because of your Tupac shirt and your slang; your demeanor was not professional, the same reason I didn't hire Larry the Cable guy.

Erika was telling me about Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell. Mentioning some really interesting stuff about the redneck culture migrating to the cities, and how a large black population assimilated some of the white-trash culture. Sounded crazy at first, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Combine that with the sense that successful black people are often labeled as "too white." I wonder if you see this problem in other countries where there is more acceptance of culture? I'd American's as a whole have yet to realize you can adopt a new culture without losing your roots. That's what a melting pot does.

The US likes to think we are a melting pot. What's more the case, is that years of racism and individualistic cultural chauvinism have created a heterogeneous mixture. This is why black kids sit with black kids, and white kids sit with white kids. This heterogeneity is not racist, it's just that American's have a fear of cultures overlapping. We are a pot, but we are not melting. This does create a lot more breeding ground for racism. In case you were interested, Brazil truly is a cultural melting pot (financially Brazil remains beans and cornbread).

That's all for today... I still haven't addressed the question, but I'm getting there... baby steps.

MA-18+

2007-06-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

Question:
1. At what point do your cross the line between having pride in people of your color and contributing to racism?

Despite my sincerest efforts to ensure I am unbiased, I have always been concerned that I harbor racist feelings. Many times, it is this concern that also assures me I am not racist. I don't know what it's like for others, but if I'm afraid of something I know I won't do it. This motivation can work two ways: I haven't tried cocaine yet, because I'm afraid of it. I am not afraid of buying a motorcycle; my fear of wrecking the motorcycle tells me that I will drive safely (yeah, I know other people will run me over). I feel that I am as un-racist as I can be given my life experiences to date. Don't get me wrong, there are cultures that I don't like at all, and some of those cultures are overwhelmingly black, but I don't dislike those cultures because they are black. I hate on the gangster culture (many of whom are white) for many of the same reasons I don't like rednecks (rowdy, arrogant and ignorant, disrespectful of others, particularly disrespectful of women). Mom, and kids under 18 close your eyes, a sexual digression follows:

Most men, but particularly both of these groups like to brag about eating pussy, and put this platter on a pedestal. Firstly, a note too all other guys... do NOT show my pictures of your wife, your bitch, or your girl's axe wound. I don't find pleasure or know how to respond when some other dude boastfully shows me a picture of a vagina. I don't care if her pubes are groomed to spell my name... OK, curiosity would get the better of me in that case, but seriously, what do you say to that? "Damn dude... that's a good lookin' taco stand! I hate it when a bitch's va-ching looks like a big box of cow tongues... right? right?" and so on. Really, how am I supposed to respond when some guy show me a picture of vaginal lips spread wide enough for Moses to walk the Isrealites between them? I'm always at a loss for words. Does this only happen other guys or is it just me? Guys that like looking at the muff, toss me a bone here... what's the correct response; or ladies, what would you like to hear guys saying about your labia?

So I did have intentions of addressing the question posed, but it's late, and I'm tired. I'll come back to that one.

Naturally racist?

2007-06-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Here's the point of the last post. Racism is implicit in the human code.

It's possible that's not true, but written statements seem to have a stronger effect than written possibilities. In the name of survival, humans and pre-judge things based on previous experience or learning.
I'd say it's safe to assume it's a very natural human function to react to your internal majority of conflicting opinions. We see or learn of achievements or failures that are tagged with a race... and that information is forever imprinted in our brains and affecting our objectivity on a sub-conscience/reactionary level (and further if we aren't cognizant of our own bias).

I don't think I even need to back this up. It just makes sense, unless you think we are so different from so many other animals that learn and judge for survival. I wonder how many generations people would have to live in the wild before they became feral?

*in case you didn't pick up on it, that picture is Will Ferrell gone feral about 10 minutes after the teleprompter malfunctioned on the local morning show "Wake up and Smile." In his right hand, he holds the head of the weatherman. He will eat the brain stem shortly, proclaiming, "the weatherman is dead... his strength be in me!"

Of course, this does not make racism ok. Racisms is still bad mmmkay. For me, this provides a different insight: on how to combat racism, and why it is so hard to. Clearly mass media can be a monumental help or hindrance, but I think the media should report exactly what's going on... so for me that's kind of moot.

You filthy animal

2007-06-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

have believed for as long as I can remember that we are animals. I also remember being rebuked by a high school English teacher for expressing that (the same one later called me an "uncouth little barbarian"). Saying, "oh, no we are something different" is extremely arrogant in my opinion. Yes, humans are probably the dominant species on the planet (cockroaches possibly being incognizant of their superiority in survival). Yes, the good book says God created us in His image, let's take this fork in the road:
A, number 1: physical image - this has no implication on our actions or behaviors
B, number 2: spiritual image - so we have a non-physical extra part that separates us? but physically we are still animals, and can be understood as such for many purposes.
C, number 3: behavioral/moral image - we men were to exist in dominion over the beasts, well I guess we kind of messed that up with the Tree of Knowledge didn't we? if the image is not physical, we prove by sinning that we are imperfect... Do animals have souls? If yes, do animals sin? interesting question. Animals don't invent cures for cancer, but they also don't commit human rights atrocities.Some animals do masturbate, engage in homosexual activity, kill their babies, have multiple sex partners, and kill for reasons other than defense or sustenance. So let's hope animals don't have souls, cause otherwise Hell would be one great BBQ.
You can believe that we were created by in God's image, but that doesn't refute the fact that we have a whole lot in common with animals....Sharing 98% of our genetic code with the great apes doesn't help. Understanding that we are animals is necessary for understanding ourselves and the world around us.

We might be a god's favorite animal; it is possible that the tiny difference buys humans eternal real-estate; even given that, the fact is not refuted: Humans, according to proven facts and definitions are animals. This is true regardless of whether we came from them or not.
You are inexorably at least 99.9% filthy animal.

Health Failure

2007-06-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

On and off for two weeks I've been contemplating the problem of creating a more universal metric for physical health. The idea is that the most popular measurements cleary are lacking: weight, BMI, body fat percentage. I'm looking for something that's easy to measure, enabling normal people to track their health. I have decided an efficacious unit does not exists given current technology/cost constraints. The basic failure is a result of what Einstein called the most powerful force in the universe, kind of; he said it was compound interest. It's the fact that the definition of healty varies too greatly within any large population to combine variables. Essentially, you lose all statisical integrity (because the percentages of variance compound).

Interesting tidbit I came across in my reasearch:
Siberian huskies on the iditarod have VO2 maxes as high as 240

So, music has been rocking my world lately. It always is, but lately more than normal. Listen to some of your favorite songs tonight, and/or listen to some of the songs that have been rocking me lately:
Paris Combo - Attraction
5th Element Soundtrack - Diva Dance - First part is from "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Donizetti... the second part is not.
Muse - Knights of Cydonia - music video - muse playing
Alan Silvestri - Journey to Transylvania (sorry about the video, it was the least cheesy of the videos that popped up) From the Van Helsing soundtrack (haven't seen it), also Silverstri wrote the Back to Future themes, that you probably remember, or would recongize if you heard them.
Paul Potts -Nessum Dorma - Time to Say goodbye - Also, Sarah Brightman, and Bocelli's versions are great, The links are for break.com, a site known for pain and toilet humor, he's good enough at opera to break that boundary... pretty impressive says I.
Blind Melon - No Rain you know this song.

I'm hanging a bit today... but I assume political rants will resume shortly. Ron Paul and Biden have made some amazing leaps in my opinion. Gulliani has fallen quite a bit.

Cheap shampoo (stupid smart guy part II)

2007-06-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

Last summer, I ran out of shampoo. Walgreens is on my ride home from work and open 24/7. I went in at 2AM one night and went shampoo shopping. The decision was easy... straight to the Suave. Garnier Fructis can lick my sack. I don't need to pay $8 for a bottle of shampoo, $0.97 sounds more like my range. Eureka! Suave had piña coloda flavor "20% More, Free" promotion. The decision was easy; I bought two bottles. (logo at left)

After a little while I began to wonder if that extra 20% was water. This suave piña colada smelled wonderful, but wasn't lathering very well. Oh well, so I didn't get a bargain... I can use 20% more each time and it'll work out just fine. This all went well for a few weeks, and I noticed my hair was slowly but surely getting kind of greasy... now I'm not Greek, or a car salesman, so this was perplexing. I kept washing up, using larger doses of rico suave. Eventually, my hair smelled like a pineapple and coconut bonanaza, but was increasingly oily. My 6th grade science teacher Mrs. Palmer always used to say "when in doubt, check it out..." so I did. Upon closer inspection of the bottle I discovered I had been using only conditioner on my hair for over a month. So I quickly rushed to Walgreens to buy some actual shampoo? Oh, no. I didn't rush to Walgreens..., I kept it up for a few days more, expirementing with hand soap, with the best intentions of cleaning my hair for the first time in a month... but the best intentions left undone still leave hair greasy enough that it doesn't get wet.

A couple of days later, I got a call from my friend Shelly asking if I wanted to go to Wal-Mart. I declined because I had something to do, but I naturally I asked her if she could buy some shampoo for me, and told her the story. I said, "buy something cheap. it's just going to sit under a bike helmet." She showed up with another bottle of Suave piña colada conditioner. So that made me feel better... but my hair lived a lie for a few more days.

Penal... izing the tax payers

2007-06-13T01:06:00.000-07:00

The United States has a crap ton of people in prison. The maps on the left are 1950, '70, '90, and 2005. The big dots represent over 2,000 prisoners each. Per capita we have a lot more prisoners that anybody else that I could find (700ish/100k... at least 1.5 mill in prison). So what do I think that means?

-We have a problem with crime
-We have a system that catches people

Sure it'd be nice to reduce crime, but if we haven't figured that trick out yet, I'm ok with those people being in jail. Regardless, cause, cause, effect... prison bills between $40-60 billion depending on your source, and that's just direct cost (for me a worthy pragmatic argument is the inherent opportunity cost).

I'd like to refer to a book that many people have read, but probably few adhere to, "Rich dad, poor dad." One of the first lessons Rich dad teaches the budding protagonists is they should not find ways to create money.

It's always good business to concentrate on reduction of costs, while maintaining an acceptable level of service... that's poor dad thinking, and that's OK as long as we don't stop there. While the cable TV, 250 thread count prisons, aren't the majority, there's really no reason they should exists at all. Extended stay solitary confinement likely does more harm than good... but this doesn't mean prisoners need to know what's on Nick-at-Nite (interesting question... how does inmate cable preferences differ from the common public?). The fact that 67% of prisoners return to prison within 3 years of release doesn't speak to well.

Rich dad would find ways to turn the prisons into money maker's... or at least to guzzle less. More prisoners performing labor (some do)... Let me ask you how many factory workers you see at the gym after a 8-10 hour shift? It should not be hard to provide structured, healthy, and profitable jobs for the incarcerated. Nevada Senator John Ensign had an interesting idea in 2003... his proposal included the prisoners be paid... they pay for their own incarceration, and get a little booty right when they get out. I think we should make the prisoners work for the federal government, and eliminate some of our federal debt. I want to see more chain gangs on local community projects. Something I have learned in Brazil is to not take for granted the overwhelming ability of cheap labor... and prisoners are just that.

I have some other questions about alternative punishments...whatever happened to public humiliation, or intense physical pain (remember the American dude who got caned in the Phillippines for graffiti? Consider clicking that link regardless)... is this a spare the rod issue? When did we start caring more about hurting a criminal's feelings than preventing them from committing a crime again? Use methods that work, not methods that talk nice. I'm not advocating torture... but sometimes punishment has to be degrading for some people to reap the benefits. This is simple psychology, if the stimulus is not intense enough, some beings will not respond, and will not learn. Not only should we consider alternative methods of punishment as part of rehabilitation, we should take a cue from any actress who's gotten away from the killer and "hit them where it counts." Don't send a millionaire to jail for 2 years, he'll make money on interest while he's there... Send him to jail for 40 days for the stigma, and bind him legally to pay a hefty sum to charities, or to community projects.

In the end, I think our penal system has problems of operation, problems of rehabilitation/lack of punishment. There has been some small movements to privatize prisons, and that's an interesting thought... I'm not taking a side, yet.

Wiki: United States prisons
Bureau of Justice Statistics: Report 2005
Per- capita Prisoners: World countries
Proposal by Nevada Senator John Ensign in 2003
United Nations Convention Against Torture: Article 16 is used as an argument against any sort of physical punishment. The UNCAT's wording does not include situation's like Guantanamo... while torture is still wrong, it's interesting that due to the wording the US isn't violating UNCAT.

Capital is the operative word

2007-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

This Freakonomics article suggests the death penalty has negligible effect on crime. This is a direct rebuttal to an this AP article. I've read both and have to take the side of the Freakonomics guys... you can make up your own mind.
I have to ask: How is killing someone any different than keeping them alive but incarcerated for the rest of their life? I don't think it matters if the death penalty has an effect on crime... for me, not being able to exist in society for the rest of my life is the same thing as death. Based on some famous quotes from the forefathers... I think they'd agree ("Give me liberty or give me death" et al).

Capital punishment in it's current state should be justified or otherwise based on cost to the innocent taxpayer. For me it's simple, if it's cheaper to euthanize (that word sounds too nice)... if it's cheaper to the taxpayers to exterminate these criminals, that's what should be done.

Based on expected life span and aging-associated health care costs, there should be a point where a person is just too old to get the death penalty...simple because it's costs to much to kill them...but what if they want it (I don't know what the suicide rates are like in prison)?

Texas just legalized death penalty for repeat child rapists. Should the death penalty be broadened? Since I don't believe it's a deterrent, I look at economic factors first.

All of this is assuming the male is guilty (women comprise 1.7% of death row inmates) Of course, that depends on the debatable abilities of out judicial system. So take this post with a grain of salt... because Orenthal Simpson knows the system is flawed (you guys heard about the Juice's "here's how I would have done it" book, right?).

The end of the world

2007-06-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

In first news... Paris Hilton is went to jail, served 3 days, got out on excuse of a rash, was given house arrest, judge said "whoa, hold on" and... justice does exist, HE SENT HER BACK to jail. Fuck yeah, nameless judge dude. That's totally rad, I couldn't give 2 shits about Paris Hilton; I'm glad that somebody isn't putting up with her shit.

In other news (seemingly less important because it's second), did anybody else watch the GOP debate (video links on right)? Yes, I realize that's not the type of line that would prompt my 7 blog readers to continue... but if you didn't watch the 2 hour debate you missed 3 minutes of television that couldn't be more suprising if it was planned.

If you watched the debate, or of you know a bit about all the candidates (if you watched the first debate perhaps).... a la gauche posted a very leftist but pretty hilarious take on the 10 ring circus.

The end of the first section right around the 20th minute (which sucks because you can't just jump foward on CNN's player... it's like a cassette tape)

Wolf Blitzer: "If it came down to a pre-empitive US strike aginast Iran's nuclear facility, if necesary, would you authorize, as president, the use of tactical nuclear weapons?" (to me this sounded like a fluff question)

Hunter - "I would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons if there was now other way to pre-empt those particular centrifuges.... I don't think it's going to take tactical nukes." (WTF?, did he just say he would?)

Guliani same question - "...you can't rule out anything, and you shouldn't take anything off the table..." (oh my golden elephant just turned into a calf)

Gilmore repeat- "all options are on the table" (well nobody knows you anyway)

Mitt Romney you too- "you don't take options of the table" (I thought you were mormon, not extremist... oh wait)

What the FUCK?!?! Listen, I don't want Iran to have nukes... I can understand that it could be the end of the world, but why does that mean we should make the end come sooner. I thought only Brownback wanted to get to heaven that quickly. Do what you want, but are you seriously going to use a thermo-nuclear warhead? When did a pre-emptive strike become the lst resort?!?! We just spent 20 minutes debating how fucked we are in Iraq, and distancing the party from GW... and now you guys want a pre-emptive nulcear strike? That is just plain insanity.

In case there's any doubt on the outcome of this idea, albinoblacksheep made a movie about 6 years ago just for a case such as this... it's called The End of the World. If you haven't see this yet you drive a mini-van or have not been laid in at least a month. Of the 10, Ron Paul was the only candidate who spoke out against this nuke idea. Interestingly enough, when I cast my votes on the cnn.com poll tonight the results of the people showed this. I wonder how much of this is due to people not wanting to be microwaved?

Ron Paul is the one candidate on the Republican side who is markedly different from the rest. Remember that name? He ran on the Libertarian ticket a few years back.

I don't think the Democrats are perfect, but Jesus Mother of Freddie Krueger there are about 9 Republicans that I'm scared of.

Guns.. and political agnosticism

2007-06-06T18:23:00.000-07:00

Summed up in one line, my take on gun control: The problem is far too complex and multifaceted to have an easy (and applicable) answer. If you are purely anti- or pro-gun, you are clearly ignoring something.

*one of the guns that many Swiss men are required (by law) to keep at home

To quickly address some common arguments: The 2nd ammendment does not give an unequivocal right to own a gun (this was a surprise to me). Persons that obtain guns illegally do not necessarily expose faults in the law (VA Tech shooter... the problem was not with US gun policy, it was with a gun-owner not properly securing his guns). Remember, that homicide rates include non-gun murders, of which there are plenty. There is an argument that guns cause murder because when somebody wants to kill someone they go buy a gun... well guess what, if you're going to kill someone, a gun is a pretty easy way to do it, I'd probably buy one too. This does not make any statement that the murder would not have happened without the gun. Dinner table and pragmatic arguments aside, consider the following countries:

United States: Fairly liberal gun policy, Low homicide rate/violent crime rate, HDI (.948)
Spain/Japan: Vehemently anti-weapon, Low homicide rate/violent crime rate, HDIs (Sp .938; Ja .949)
Switzerland: Nearly one gun per person, Low homicide rate/violent crime rate, HDI (.947)
Brazil: Gun ownership illegal, high homicide/violet crime rate, HDI (.792)
Colombia: Ownership legal, with checks; highest homicide rate, HDI (.790)

Right off, HDI seems to be a lot more correlated to violence than gun policy (if I get bored this weekend, I'll plot a few). The National Academy of Science kind of agrees, they, "found no evidence that shows right-to-carry laws have an impact, either way, on rates of violent crime." Now, I haven't talked to many murderers but... people who want to kill someone probably don't care much if they get a gun legally. You'd think that making it harder to get guns would help, but let's remember prohibition. The government made alcohol illegal and the US abounded with illegal alcohol. Anti-gun policies will probably not be effective unless your country is already uin the midst of a gun famine (that there is pontification).

It's simple, the problem is too complex to have a simple answer, but here it is... Remove guns from the hands of criminals. After you do that, educate and feed the masses, then take lunch. In the afternoon you can fix global warming... You think that sounds like a lot?...Yeah, about that? It looks I'm going to need you to come in on Saturday, and don't forget your cover paper on those TPS reports.

Links:
-Homicide rate/100o - 2000 United Nations Survey Fun page on International Homecide - Sources cited, but not well
-National Academy of Science, Committee on Law and Justice - online publication
-Recent article about new gun laws in Columbia

Hear me Roar

2007-06-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

Cara posted recently on a policeman in Kansas City who is getting a sex change and is creating a buzz in the KC bloggings and news. The question Cara poses summarized is: Why should a man be considered a "woman"? I think the best answer is with another question: Why do we care?

Jessica, formerly David, will never be female according to genotype (unless science comes up with something radical in the near future*). I really have to ask, why do we care at all? If a person wants to take on the biases and gender roles that come with the opposite sex, how does that affect us? How does that hurt us? The only possible damage that might be done is emotional damage to the transsexual and his/her relations. That damage is strictly possible, not guaranteed... Just as everything else in life has potential for damaging effects... it's life. As far as my research took me, I was unable to find any longitudinal studies on the emotion effects for children of transsexuals (in my opinion, we don't need to worry much about Jessica's uncle or past wives... they're big kids, they can take care of themselves).

This all comes down to the definitions of man and woman, and I just don't see why it matters... especially in a fight for equality, these definitions should exhibit less and less legal difference.

Also while I'm at it: Actress, waitress, etc... I've encountered several militant feminists that get pissed about these words. These terms are not sexist. Many of these are traces of other languages that simply assign gender with nouns. In Spanish and Portuguese El/O professor - Ela/A professora, in German Der Lehrer/ Die Lehrerin... Next time I call you an actress know that it means you act, and that you are female... nothing more, nothing less.

*That's an interesting thought experiment, what if gene therapy could change your sex mid-life? WouLd be great for transsexuals, no more hormones, probably a minimization of surgeries... but it raises many interesting questions on ethics. Clearly there are huge scientific problems, since changing genes is much more than the cosmetic changes that are most common today. Fun to think about until you get bored with the theoretical.

Who wants chimichangas?

2007-06-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

I was on CNN! Well ok, just my name. I was on Bill Richardson’s official chat during the debate. It just so happens during the 3 minute break in the debate, cnn.com went straight to a screen shot and quote from the chat… and well, the quote wasn’t mine… but one of my entries was next, so my name was on CNN... and yours wasn’t.

I guess that takes the cat out of the bag. I’m crossing my fingers for Bill Richardson, first in February, and then hopefully again in November. If you like Hillary, or Obama, you’ll probably like Richardson also; I am hoping for Richardson because I feel he can actually get things done. He’s been the governor of New Mexico for awhile, and they like him a lot, yet if I can give you one fact about Bill Richardson that I think validates checking into his history it is:

Bill Richardson has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize FOUR times.

If Richardson doesn’t get the nomination, but is drawn as a running mate, that will carry a lot of weight in determining my vote. He has proven he can get things done, even as a democratic governor in a republican state. Ideas sans realization do not equate to progress, and as you know, I want progress.

Bill Richardson: Presidential site, Wiki

Number 44

2007-06-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

First the selector. Then the comparison.
The tentative primary schedules (Dem., Rep.) Although, the primaries aren't set in stone, it looks like Feb 5th will be the day for most people.

There's a catholic show on TV right now spewing a bunch of half-truths about abortion. How these people live with themselves (those that expel misinformation... not catholics)?

Next debates: both on CNN, and avaliable online, with certainty will be avaliable on youtube by the next day.
-Dem. Sunday June 3, 7PM
-Rep. Tuesday, June 5, 7PM

Check out the candidates... Watch the debates... not necessarily in that order.

Whether you love him or hate him: here's how much time we have left.

Carbon labeling

2007-05-31T16:26:00.000-07:00

What if, companies were required to display carbon emissions due to production on their products? It'd be much like nutritional info... perhaps in the same box. A federal mandate could require this sort of labeling, which would empower the conscience customer to make a more educated decision.

The basic idea for the number:

-A figure representative of carbon emissions required for the product specifically. The sum of all products would equal the amount of carbon emissions because of the plant. Because I don't want to type carbon emissions 50 times, I'll call it the CER (carbon emission rating).

I am talking about emissions created by the creation of the product, not just extra carbon emitted during production. The CER would have to include emissions of the coal-burning power plant whose energy you used to create your product. I don't think this figure would be that hard to obtain:

*Yes, I'm a nerd and typed that in Microsoft Equation editor.

For this idea to truly bring about change, you'd also need companies to include the emissions due to their administrative usages (ie. carbon emissions due to office lighting, etc.). It's of utmost importance that the sum of the products adds up to the total for the company.

Two questions that pop out at me:
-What if you just buy the products from a warehouse, in better terms, how far down the supply chain do you take this figure? The carbon emissions rating (CER) should be inclusive of everything from the beginning up. Theoretically, if the CER were international, the sum of all the CERs would equal the global carbon emission due to non-natural sources.
-How do you include transportation of products? Tough question, in a utopia, that information would be avaliable to the customer at each possible purchasing location (or based on delivery for remote purchasing). In reality, that's a very difficult task, and I'd never vote to require business to do that. Transportation does need to be included.

If it was shown that a CER would actually affect any significant consumers, businesses everywhere would be scrambling to install motion sensors that turn of their newly installed compact fluorescents. They'd be pressuring those down their supply chain to do the same. If consumers actually cared, even just a little bit, the corporate fighting of global warming would be much more profitable (For the record, I work as an auditor for the Industrial Assessment Center, and I can tell you for a fact that a lot of energy saving policies are extremely financially justified, it's just a matter of management realizing it).

Businesses that sell products without packaging would be required to have the information avaliable (like the little fliers in fast-food restaurants). You can bet if there was any response in consumer trials you'd see great "who can be the greenest" corporate competition, combined with smear campaigns agaisnt the heavy carbon hitters (fast food would have to change a lot, except for In-and-Out burger, who buys materials locally).

Would it actually work? You speculation is as good as mine, but I think a big part of the answer is how the information is displayed (is it on the front in red, or tucked in between Thiamine and riboflavin?
Why stop with carbon? That would give an unfair advantage to companies who happen to get their power from a nuclear energy plant right now. Perhaps, it'd be better to have a nutritional informationesque rating for the most popular non-sustainable sources... Wind solar, and hydro power would bear no penalty; would burning trash (even though highly inefficient and rarely used) be counted as a plus or a negative?
Would you pay twenty cents more for a tube of toothpaste that was twice as green as it's competitor?

Should the CER be based on a quantity? That way a 4 lb jar of peanut butter's CER wouldn't look menacing compared to much less environmentally friendly single serving packages?

And NO, companies would not be allowed to buy carbon credits from goat farmers in west Niger. That's a really stupid idea, and I can't believe any governments are acutally supporting it.

I think this idea has about 0.00001% chance of being realized. When I started this post I didn't think it was a great idea, but I'm started to convince myself.

Owwwie!

2007-05-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

You know what makes your brain hurt? An English speaker going to a German class in Portuguese. Wow. So in German class today, I understood everything the professor was saying, perfectly. I could not responsd, except in english or "not english." In this case, "not english" means a combination of Portuguese and German. It was pretty funny for the German teacher because he really understood what was going on. Most of the Brazilians just thought my German wasn't stellar, when it's really the best in the class. Only the professor, who speaks both languages, was able to understand (after some explanation) what was going on inside my mind. Effectively, I was improvising a pidgin, and was doing so with great ease. This was not as cool as it might sound, it might have been had there been some one there to converse with me and understand me, but hey, if I want to talk in tongues with an interpreter, I'll just go to a Penecostal rally.

Imagine, somebody who looks Chinese walked up to you and said in Spanglish: "De onde is el baño? Me excuse, yo nesseceited ir before vamos." That's what I was doing; looking American while mixing and switching German and Portuguese words and grammar. Let's look at my answer to the question: "Why don't you want to live in Jamaica" (yes, my professor asked me this, in German... my task was to respond in German).

Porque, as Volke fummen zu viel... the desired response was "Weil rauchen die Volke zu viel" I don't want to live in Jamaica, because "the people smoke too much." This is the highest level of humor I command in my pidgin tongue. I used Portuguese grammar, and the first two words are portuguese. Words 3,5,6 are german... but the real beauty is ol' number 4. Let me break down fummen for you:

To smoke = fumar (port) = rauchen (ger)

fumar X rauchen = fummen

I know how to say headache in 3 languages.

A note to those curious on the lack of stories about Brazil: I am having a great time in Brazil, but I've never liked posting about normal everyday things on my blog, and well that's a lot of what's happening. These normal everyday things are mostly educational for me, but they don't really make great blog droppings. I could bore you to death talking about the tiny differences I notice, but in reality I rarely know how cultural a difference is (the difference could just be the individual or the event, not necessarily representativ of Brazilian culture). To exacerbate the lack of exciting brasilian blog deopsits, I have really been chilling out down here. Not partying much, just studying, running, and researching (usually reading, but with minor forays into the world of numbers). Today is a good example, I went to the University from 10AM -8PM, I had 6 hours of class, worked on a group project, and in my downtime read the first two chapters of a text book on cartography that I found in the biblioteca. When I got home, I ran 4K did some sit-ups, push-ups, and core strength, then settled down to create this digital gem. I'm loving life down here, but in general, I feel In God We Trust demands more articulation for my personal growth.

Holy crap

2007-05-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

Sony made a paper thin TV that is all bendy-like.

The technology is so far out there they aren't sure what exactly they're going to do with it. Simply fantastic. They said to make it marketable they have to get costs way down... I wonder how much it costs now? I bet this will change.

How awesome would it be to have a palm pilot that fits in a credit card slot of your wallet?
Maybe our generation's kids will turn in assignments on paper TVs.

Now, if they can just get some good programing or objective news on TV we will be leaps closer to a utopia. Assuming, we can also eradicate the world of disease and war.

Science Rules.

Fatties part 3

2007-05-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

Just kidding. I'm done with that rant for at least 12 hours.

In my post about the presidential debates, I compared Mike Gravel to some of the infamaous "worsts" on America Idol, while doing this I'd heard William Hung, but decided to check out Sanjaya to see how bad he really was. Here's the bad part...I kept clicking afterwards. My Idol time eventually landed me on a Melissa Doolittle video (one of this season's competitors).

So I'll blow it for you, she's been eliminated, but essentially took 3rd place. Continuing on past her are a 17 year old girl that has weak pipes and a dubious ruffian looking to bring down the biz (Gou-let!). I'm not a music prodigy, but I've seen a lot of concerts in many genres (during 4 years working), I play a few instruments, and back in the day was even in the district honor choir. For whatever it's worth, this Melinda Doolittle woman is top-notch. My ear isn't that great, but I can hear the top two contenders making errors of pitch (finale was tonight). All 3 judges have only praised Melinda's vocal abilities. She has the pipes that made Aretha Franklin, and KoKo Taylor what they were/are (I've seen KoKo live, amazing). She is humble and appreciates (rather than expects) compliments. To top it off, Idol has been bringing in celebrity guests to work with the finalists, their (Tony Bennet, Diana Ross, Gwen Stefani, Mr. Bon Jovi) comments speak loud and clear about her abilities. It doesn't hurt that she sang one of my favorite jazz standards and nailed it.

Now I also hate it when people tell me what's good in music, so check her out yourself I'm not going to beg or demand that you do such... that would be projecting my anger from similar incidents involving me and so many pimple faced Radiohead and Flaming Lips fans (both of which I like, but I had to get over their evangelical fans before I could even give the music a chance).

So if you care, or are bored:
-Melinda: audtion, Funny Valentine, I've Got Rythym
And the top two who beat her:
-Blake Lewis: His crown jewel (Bon Jovi), original, hip, showman...
-_____ Sparks: Stormy Weather, Heartbreaker, good for her age, I guess the fans of the show identify with her or something.

Melinda Doolittle is good enough I may have actually called into the show to vote had I seen it sooner. Simon said it all in the audtion, most of the people on the show have tons of attitude and only a little talent, she has no confindence but an amazing voice. I think she needs to hit the road or the studio with Michael Buble, that would be hot. If she puts out a CD, I may have to give it a try.

Sorry, I posted about American Idol. I'll stick to fat people from now on (there could be a joke in there).

Fatties part deux

2007-05-22T18:22:00.000-07:00

This video has been creating a bit of a ruckus in the digital world. It's worth a watch if you have 8 extra minutes.

What I learned in the video is that average individual has a different connotation classification “fat”. When the average woman says fat she might be talking about a woman who by my standards is "a little overweight", or "not skinny." When I randomly hate a "fat" person I see on the street, they are probably, technically "morbidly obese." Both connotations fit correctly within the denotation. The discrepancy is a shortcoming of popular usage of the English language. I still hate fat people.

My motivation for hating the morbidly obese has nothing to do with appearance. I hate the morbidly obese because they are unhealthy (they can be identified by appearance, but that does not affect my underlying motivation: the egg came first, not the fat chicken). I don't care how much you like fat people... there is no way a person with 50% body fat or more can be healthy. I hate all unhealthy people. When it comes to being unhealthy, I'm an equal opportunity hater...I hate chronic smokers; drug addicts; alcoholics; and skinny, sedentary people with horrible diets. What's that? You say these people need mental help? Well fuck yeah they need mental help, and in many cases people are just too chicken shit to confront that person, and the individual is too spineless to go looking for help. It's a vicious cycle of worthlessness. As many readers of this blog know, if I have a problem with my friend's behavior, they will know about it; this doesn't mean I am right and they are wrong, or that they have to change, but I sure don't beat around the bush. I expect the same treatment, and am disappointed when I find that a good friend has avoided a conflict with me strictly on the basis of not wanting to offend me.

Bringing it back to fat people.... Weight is not important, but health is... and weight is a part of health. [insert freshman logic bullshit about paradox and revealing a higher truth] We need to develop a better metric for health. I don't have one to propose, but it's definitely not weight, BMI, body fat percentage, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, resting pulse, metabolic rate, personal income, or car/penis size.

One nation, under Dog... damn dyslexia.

2007-05-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

One nation, under God... in the Pledge of allegiance: upheld by Supreme Court decision in Elk Grove New Unified School District vs Newdow - Decision was that the "under God" was simply acknowledging historical beginnings, and therefore the Pledge is a secular act.

The pledge was originally written in the late 1800s and before WW2 was recited with hands outstretched towards the flag kind of like in the picture at left. I wonder why they changed it? The pledge was originally sans deity. One site, that looks pretty bonafide, says the original pledge read as follows:
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The author thought about putting the word "equality" in the pledge, but knew his fellow education committee men were opposed to equality for women and blacks. I don't even need to make a joke about that. "My flag" was changed to "the flag of the United States of America" in the 1920s...

In '54 Congress and Ike federally mandated "under God" be squeezed in to the ass end of the pledge. If I had to represent that graphically I would do so like this:

I have troubles buying this addition to the PoA simply as historical, the major lobbying force for the change was the Knights of Columbus (unless wiki is wrong, they aren't a club of history buffs). More importantly, when Dwightron signed the pledge and recitation into law he said, "From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty." That doesn't sound too historical.

In context, the '54 legislation violated Lemon vs Kurtzman.
Lemon vs Kurtzman summarized:
-The government's action must have a legitimate secular purpose.
-The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion.
-The government's action must not result in an "excessive entanglement" with religion.

Let's talk about a secular purpose.... take God back out, because all the faith in the world can't prove he exists, and put equality in. 120 years late is better than never. The pledge would then return to a completely secular event. Much like the event pictured below.

*Reciting PoA in 1892

Also, in case you were wondering: For the PoA and IGWT: the establishment clause is not violated; anyone who says otherwise is simple taking the establishment clause out of context. The Supreme Court and history agree.

The pros of me checking into this IGWT and PoA stuff is that I now feel I can make an educated opinion... and also feel knowledgable enough on the subject not to eat up some evangelist's or hippie's bullshit. The downside is, it's really lowering my opinion of Eisenhower and the supreme court (I guess they are people after all). Perhaps this is my mid-west upbringing, but I'd always kind of held Eisenhower on a little bit of a pedestal... now I'm curious to know if old people like Ike just because he was big on God, or if it was because of the other things he did, or both. This is really neither here nor there.

Stay classy San Diego, and thanks for stopping by.

Holy national currency Batman!

2007-05-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

Here’s one possible scenario: In God We Trust will be removed at the federal level when the Christian majority decides that America is too wayward to deserve being associated with “God.” Once the Christian right comes to the opinion that retaining the deity’s name on our coinage is comparable to a prostitute wearing a Jesus Saves shirt, they’ll decide the coinage and motto is blasphemous. Just think about it, when they decide that officials who have extra-marital affairs, support abortion, etc… are only giving God a bad name by association, we’ll see IGWT stripped faster than a bisexual at a bondage party. This is making the assupmtion that the politicians will change their values faster than the church, a gap in beliefs is necessary. Definitely not synonymous, but not a far cry from what Teddy Roosevelt's belief, that IGWT on currency “cheapens” the motto (quote at bottom).

Switch gears...
IGWT usage is upheld by Supreme Court decision Aronow vs United States - "It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency 'In God We Trust' has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise."

It seems the supreme court evaluated the case in today’s setting rather than evaluating the validity of the legislation. Historically IGWT was added to coinage and as our motto for less than secular reasons. Effectively, they have supported the tenet that if you do something wrong long enough, it becomes ok. Luckily, history is on my side; most of these things eventually are overturned (and then heralded as conquests of progress by the same people that prevented the change). There’s a lesson about how to change people’s minds packaged in there somewhere.

A popular argument is, “it’s history.” One problem with IGWT being truly historical is that it's printed, therefore implying validity, in present tense... those who say it's strictly historical are effectively making a stance that In God We Trust = In God We Trusted, this is simply errant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting we change IGWT to IGWTed… that would just be silly. However, IGWT as our national motto is always going to be in the present, it's our national motto now, not our national motto for some times other than now. Ike really brought God to the Nation during the Red Scare... I guess that's why we ended up winning the Cold War (Ike added God to Pledge of Allegiance in ’54 and IGWT as motto in ’56).

IGWT on coinage, I think it’s wrong. I feel more strongly about IGWT as a motto that needs to be changed. Let’s get back to the “out of many comes one” days. IGWT on coins is something I can easily ignore for exactly the reasons Teddy foresaw, the national motto is something that encompasses me as a proud America, and I don’t trust.

Coming soon... Ike's Pledge of Allegiance

References:
Lemon vs Kurtzman and the Lemon test
IGWT wiki
Well referenced history of United States mottos
-TR's 1907 quote "My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does no good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege...It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in building such as those at West Point and Annapolis -- in short, wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements."

Beat to the punch

2007-05-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

Not talking about the Heaven's Gate punch here, talking about my post on sunday.

there was a post on the Freakonomics blog today about Global Warming. Two jokers at some local periodical called BusinessWeek used Pascal's Wager for the global warming predicament.

This was in Feb. so I guess I have two choices:
A: Not ever buy BusinessWeek and remain 3 months behind.
B: Read BusinessWeek so I know what I'll be blogging about in 3 months

Those who cannot remember the past...

2007-05-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

... are condemned to hear about it from somebody they don't know. History is cool, it teaches me neato shit. Usually, my complaint with history is that "eloquence belongs to the conqueror." I also often also ask, "Really, how do they know that?" I.E. This tiny shard of clay came from a messenger bag used by the village shaman once every year, in between the 2nd and 3rd moons of summer, on his trek to harvest eagle dung from the top of Mount Buhari so he could return and smear it on the leader dude's face (dramatization below). For some of these times I like to picture Steve Irwin giving the same line... add a funny accent (I think German/Austrian), and some non-colloquial catch phrases (Crikey!, Revelation!, Son of a Vondruke!, Head of the Penis!) , and I think we could make history popular for teenagers.

So there's this one theory... and it challenges most of modern history... and I think it is pretty interesting. The current world history didn't begin compilation until the 16th century and was completed much later. The idea is that the generally accepted chronology is way wrong. In fact, as the accepted chronology was being established there was plenty of big name opposition (most notable is Isaac Newton, a former WWF wrestler). The methods for the new chronology rely heavily on mathematical techniques developed after the Renaissance. The proposed implication is that several points in our world history are actually repeats of the same events. Below is the picture that did it for me, On the left you have the Emperor's of the Roman Empire contrasted to the Jewish Kings on the right. The point's distance from the center line is indicative of time served.

Hmmm... they're nearly identical, too identical. I can tell you as an industrial engineer, if I pulled two samples , that were this identical, I would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that something was stinking in the back of the cupboard; stated again, statiscally the chances of these similarites are comparable to winning the lottery. Am I sold? No... but definitely intrigued.

Right or wrong? Do I think this changes anything? No, in my opinion the largest point of history is to learn from it, referring back to today's title. Do I think it really affects me if the pyramids were built in 3000 BC or in 300AD, nope, not at all, but it's a neat idea to think that maybe all the pre-Renaissance history books need to be re-written.

In other news:

-Cut the Mohawk... it was getting long again, and I don't want to spend money on haircuts

-Shaved the beard.... new man

-Michael Moore still doesn't understand that the end doesn't always justify the means.

-I like Fred Thompson's attitude, but not his beliefs.

Linkses:

Full size picture: http://www.new-tradition.org/images/fig-3.jpg

Wiki on New Chronology (labeled as controversial)

New Chronology - Site with a lot of borderline conspiracies theories (they all have scientific backing), perhaps many great subjects for Dan Brown's next book. The site credits a group whose credentials I cannot find online... hmmm.

Oopsy...

2007-05-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

I didn't check my sources, but in doing some more reading tonight I found an error in my blog (public rites post). So to prevent the spread of misinformation which I dislike so very much: IGWT was not added to our coinage in 1956.

IGWT first started to appear on coinage in 1864 on the two-cent coin. Over time it spread. IGWT has been partially removed from currency over the years, but has always returned. The "one nation under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance was signed into effect in 1954.

More on all this later, I'm tired. The FAT post seemed to spark some interest perhaps more on that later too, maybe without pictures... I've had some complaints about the visuals.

Acqueciemento global

2007-05-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

Blaise Pascal.... smart guy, drove around in a van and solved mysteries:
Pascal's Wager ( a little refresher on Christian apologetics):
You believe in God.
-If God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
-If God does not exist, your loss is nothing.
You do not believe in God.
-If God exists, you go to hell: your loss is infinite.
-If God does not exist, you gain nothing & lose nothing

There are plenty of holes if you use Pascal's wager as a reason to be Christian; Pascal intended his wager as an argument promoting exploration of Christianity. This quote of his sums it up:

I find it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which touches them so nearly.

Although, I believe global warming is real, I believe we are causing it, and I believe we need to do something to stop it; it is important for me to ask the question, "What if I'm wrong?"

Simply answered, enter Pascal's slightly modified wager.

We combat GW.

-If GW exists, everybody lives happily ever after.

-If GW does not exist, we create a more sustainable earth before is necessary.

We do not combat GW.

-If GW exists, earth becomes a bad kevin costner movie, your loss is infinite.

-If GW does not exist, you gain nothing & lose nothing immediately, you simply delay answers to the inevitable question of what happens when we run out of fossil fuels.

Sure, that's not the whole picture, combating GW now will likely hurt many businesses... but do you think those businesses won't be hurt even more when we get to the point that fossil fuels are actually running out? I'd say the economic losses will happen eventually whether GW exists or not. In nearly all manufacturing settings, it's better to attack the problem preventatively (notice, "manufacturing" is not spelled "Iraq"). My limited knowledge of economics suggests it is better to attack problems preventatively as well.

While all scientific evidence points towards GW and towards it's negative effects, I think it's important to remember that historically science is only bested in arrogant blunders by the catholic church (end pontification). I think it's pretty clear that science can tell us humans are the major cause of rising CO2 levels... I do question the ability to know exactly that will affect the globe; that's a big step that is reaching, if not extending, the bounds of modern science. The large range of predictions backs up my doubt. Either way, I don't think it matters. We should combat global warming as if it exists, because right or wrong the world will be a better place afterwards.

Not surprisingly... I want to dig in the archives a bit. I had forgotten until now... don't you all remember the early 90s when global warming wasn't really mainstream, but people frequently talked about how quickly we were going to suck the earth dry out of oil? What happened to that argument, if it was right... it should surely be used in a pro-change climatologist's arsenal.

Public rites

2007-05-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

This stems from the emails I get from my grandmother. In grandma's defense, she's very loving and realizes that she's "old school," but she uses that exactly phrase as a way to hide in her comfort zone. I did actually send her an email and disagree. I received no verbal response... but rather a wonderfully passive aggressive digital onslaught. I thought grandma forwarded all the chain letters she gets... well I was wrong, and now she's turned the filter off. One night last week I found 6 forwards from grandma in a 4 hour period. "Passive-aggressive grandma," sounds like a bad Adam Sandler song.

The latest had a scarry picture of Jesus... how scary? Exactly this scary...

Now, I think we can find a better picture of Jesus than that, can't we? To answer this question, I called on the infinite power of GoogleFight. Yep, definitely better pictures out there (Results). Anyway, this email was wonderfully misleading and I think it came from a Michael Moore of the Christian Right. Here's the synopsis:

-Subject: FW: Surprise to NBC

-American flag background with "GO USA"

-Big Scarrrrry picture of Jesus

-Statement of NBC poll results that suggests 86% of American's believe in In God We Trust in the Pledge of Allegiance... 14% against

-Later it says 86% of American's believe in GOD, but doesn't reference a source... is this a convolution of the original poll or a coincidence that needs a source?

-"Why is the world catering to this 14%?AMEN!"

I did actually laugh aloud when I read this. It's just so misleading and so wrong in so many ways... when looking for the actual poll, the first google hit is a site that addresses this specific email; it's caused enough misinformation to be garner space on an urban legends page. Too funny, just another example of the ignorant sect of the Christian Right. I will be happy to foward the email to anybody who'd like it.

It comes at a time when I've been thinking a lot about related issues... rather than spout off in my prolix style... I'll just give you guys a run down, and welcome your opinions.

-Public posting of 10 Commandments: Great for business owners/homeowners... not great for government property unless there is historical merit. In public elementary schools no, in public high schools, questionable except in classrooms where religion is taught. Sunday school is for Sundays... religion is not one of the 3Rs.

-In God We Trust on currency: No

-IGWT as our national motto: No. This was changed in '56 when IGWT was added to currency... the founding fathers used E Pluribus Unum... and that is much better.

EDIT: WRONG! The motto is '56, IGWT first appeared on coinage in 1864. details here

-God removed from pledge of allegiance: No, but do we have to say it every day? Also no. If we are going to say it every day, then yes remove it.

-Confederate flag at SC capitol: No, I agree with Obama here, "it belongs in a museum."

Any thoughts? Anyone? Bueller?

Sunscreens... serious business

2007-05-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

Since I'm in Brazil, since summer is just getting into gear for most of you, sunscreen seemed like a good topic. It seems that many people don't really understand the SPF system. The Sun Protection Factor is mathematically derived. In layman's terms, SPF is the factor by which your bathing time is reduced... i.e. bathing for one hour with SPF 15 protection, is the equivalent of being in the sun for 4 minutes = 60 minutes divided by 15. Get it? Here's 1000 words. Notice, the decreasing returns as SPF increases exponentially. Also notice, my SPF 20 glistening body; my white skin attracting much attention on the Brazilian coast... I know. With that background, how can you possibly concentrate on diminishing returns? Here's a picture to help: I think we can see anything over SPF 30 is a rip-off, unless you are Powder, and that there really isn't too much difference after #8. We can also see the brilliant gleam of coolness that irradiates from my mohawk, leaving only a pert backside in it's wake, complementing a pelvic region that protrudes ever so slightly outward. No really, don't look at that. Instead look at the prices*.

Did you know you could buy sunscreen on amazon.com? Yeah, apparently you can get a lot more than books there; I'm pretty sure you can actually schedule regular purchases too. Just think, every week you could have a fresh bottle of Jack and a jar of crazy pills delivered to your doorstep! Who says money can't buy happiness? Can money buy increased sun protection? Well, yes of, course... but once you go past SPF 8 you get diminishing returns. I would like to take a minute to comment on the units, "percent of sun's rays blocked per dollar"... my life has reached a new low. Nonetheless, if you can use SPF 15 without any problem, next time you buy sunscreen, save yourself a buck and try out the #8. Sunscreens, serious business.

*In case you were wondering.... all the sunscreen data was for NO-AD sunscreen, because that's what grandma always used at Beaver Lake. They used to have SPF 2, but apparently that was discontinued (at least I couldn't find any online).

Things I learned that no human should ever know:
-The actual formula for SPF is:

where E(λ) is the solar irradiance spectrum, A(λ) the erythemal action spectrum, and MPF(λ) the monochromatic protection factor.

-In a report from the University of California at Riverside, I learned that leaving some sunscreens on for more than one hour without reapplying can worsen the burn from then on... due to the free radicals that are left on your skin after the sunscreen does its job.

-Sunscreen was kind of invented as a necessity for the soldiers during WW2