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15 years Ago

Things That Should Not Be (Songsmith Edition)

Published by marco on in Technology

As the saying goes, everything can be made better with a liberal application of technology. With Guitar Hero and Rock Band making millions of people feel that they, too, could play music, even though they are, at best, doing an instrumental version of lip-syncing along with a recording, Microsoft Research throws Songsmith on the table in what they clearly feel is the answer to many people’s dreams—the dream of having a keyboard from the 80's back up your atrocious singing.

 A visit to the... [More]

Commonly Misspelled Words

Published by marco on in Miscellaneous

Check out the The 25 Most Commonly Misspelled Words quiz (for English, of course). I went in with an obnoxious braggadocio and walked out with a sobering 22 out of 25. Here are the words that I have newly learned how to spell:

  • consensus (I chose “con[c]ensus”)
  • perseverance (I chose “perse[r]verance”)
  • supersede (I chose “super[c]ede”)

The title of the quiz is a bit misleading, as it’s not clear to what the word “commonly” refers. While the words are not extremely rare, they also don’t come... [More]

Side-By-Side in Gaza

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

The latest series of pictures, Scenes from the Gaza Strip (Big Picture), has some pictures of the conflict that have squeezed out of the area, despite the blockade on reporters in the area. Two that stood out in particular for the contrast were these two:

 Hamas Rocket in the Road Israeli Craters in Gaza

Click the pictures for larger versions.

The Hamas rocket lies in the road in which it barely made a dent on impact. The winter ice in upstate New York does more damage to a road than that rocket. Not to make light of a metal tube falling out of the sky,... [More]

16 years Ago

CNN Reports Actual Fact About Middle East

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

The video below is interesting and starts off strong, though the lengths a CNN anchor feels he has to go to in order to report a fact that runs counter to the standard received wisdom are ridiculous. Once the facts have been presented, however, the co-anchor (you’ll forgive me for not having noted the names of what looked like two guys transported from Monday Night Football to the news desk) ignores them and plows forward with more-or-less the standard line. After one more attempt to get an... [More]

Choosing Sides

Published by marco on in Quotes

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.”
Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam by Martin Luther King, citing Dante Alighieri (YouTube)

Three Films About the Middle East

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

The first film is called Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. It is of interest for one main reason: a DVD containing the film was sent to 28 million households in America in the last month leading up to the 2008 election. The primary sponsor of what is estimated to be a $50 million marketing campaign is completely separate from the pro-Israeli organization that has the same address and three of the same original founders.[1]

The film is almost pure propoganda, shot very nicely, but... [More]

Enemy of Knowledge

Published by marco on in Quotes

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance…it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Stephen Hawking

Anti-war Voices

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

Though many say that the tendency to question authority fades with age, there are several notable exceptions.

One is[1] Harold Pinter, the legendary British playwright, who was outspoken critic of war—the Iraq War in particular—and of the British role in it. His Nobel acceptance speech, called “Art, Truth and Politics” by Harold Pinter (Democracy Now!) (Part 1) and Part 2, is absolutely fantastic and worth listening to all the way through. The links contain video, audio and transcripts.

“The United States supported the... [More]”

Teaching Kids to Write

Published by marco on in Miscellaneous

826 Valencia is “dedicated to supporting students ages 6–18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the literary arts.” They’re in San Francisco and take advantage of the strange work hours and free time of the average freelance writer to provide afternoon tutoring to students who need more one-on-one time. The “store” that they run doesn’t look like a tutoring center; instead, it’s a pirate supply store. There are similar venues in Brooklyn... [More]

Rebooting America

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

It looks like Thomas Friedman really does know where the wind blows, on which side his bread is buttered and so on and so forth. Now that it’s politically safe to do so, he’s going full-bore liberal and no longer arguing how flat the world is or how awesome it is that people around the world can buy a Lexus. Time to Reboot America rips the U.S. government for having gotten into the mess it’s in, one very analogous to that in which General Motors finds itself. His column is kind of short, so he... [More]

Workplace Improvisation

Published by marco on in Fun

Extracted from a PowerPoint show that made the rounds via email a while ago; there were more, but some were clearly photoshopped[1] or just dumb.

Improvisation

Ladders

Trust


[1] Some of these might be as well, but not—at least for me—obviously so.

Surf’s Up

Published by marco on in Sports

This picture from The Year 2008 in Photographs (Big Picture Blog) is absolutely mind-blowing:

“Kerby Brown rides a huge wave in an undisclosed location southwest of Western Australia July 6, 2008, in this picture released November 7, 2008 by the Oakley-Surfing Life Big Wave Awards in Sydney.”

Texting is Cheap

Published by marco on in Technology

The article, What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting by Randall Stross (NY Times) digs into the pricing and cost structures for text messages (SMS’s[1]) sent via cell phone. It cites astounding numbers of messages sent per year and talks about 10-fold growth in messaging across the spectrum and around the world, but the upshot is: transmitting text messages costs next to nothing so long as an infrastructure for transmitting telephone calls is already in place. That is, the graph of cost to number of messages... [More]

Corruption

Published by marco on in Quotes

“It’s like you have a job interview and you discover every shirt in your closet is dirty. What do you do? You wear the least dirty one. That’s Karzai.”
Our Man in Kabul by Anonymous Afghanistani (Harper's)

Israel vs. Palestine, Round XCIV

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

It’s hard to tell which round they’re on, but Israel is winning this one decisively; as of this morning, the score—in human lives, of course—is nearly 400 to 2[1], according to the BBC. Israel would dispute this—of course—because they don’t agree that Palestinians are human. According to Israel, there is no such thing as a Palestinian civilian, since, in the words of one commenter[2], “[t]hey’re all guilty, and paying the price for their recklessly voting into power the murderous zealots of... [More]”

Calvin & Hobbes Economics

Published by marco on in Finance & Economy

Bill Watterson understood how things worked 15 years ago, which is pretty much how things still work today (click to see a larger version).

 Calvin's Premium Lemonade Stand


The date for the cartoon was obtained from this comment, Re: $8.4 BILLION Profit for Oil Giant (This Quarter Only!) and the image originally found on the Truth About Cars blog. Another full transcript of the cartoon is available at Recurring themes in Calvin and Hobbes; Wikipedia, the original source has since been edited and longer contains it. Such... [More]

The Long Road to Change: Part of the Machine

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

“He will continue to make stirring, platitudinous speeches, but the tears will dry as people understand that President Obama is the latest manager of an ideological machine that transcends electoral power.”

When Last We Were Out of Ideas

Published by marco on in Quotes

“A host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

“Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts….Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rules of the exchange... [More]”

Going to America

Published by marco on in Miscellaneous

The years since 9–11 have seen U.S. border policy become increasingly hostile, with an entire new department of the U.S. government having been conjured out of thin air, complete with its own $50 billion budget. Various measures and overtly hostile attitudes as well as an egregiously cavalier attitude toward civil rights—for American and non-American alike—have prevented many people from even venturing into the veritable no-man’s land that is the modern American international airport.
... [More]

Opinion-Based Reality

Published by marco on in Science & Nature

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke

Though the phrase above was originally intended to apply to technological gadgets, it applies equally well to any concept of sufficient complexity. The trick is often used to get people to believe things that are wrong or that they would not believe in were they mentally equipped to follow the reasoning. Instead of simply reserving judgment because they don’t know enough, most people will elect to bluff and simply agree with... [More]

The U.S. in the U.N.

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

The U.N. is mostly powerless; they have the power to create recommendations and suggestions, but their ability to force countries to conform to international standards is quite limited. They have relatively limited funds and enacted measures must be approved by an overwhelming majority. At this point, the average American is beaming ear-to-ear because their view of the U.N. has been corroborated. But there is a logical fallacy to the inevitably-drawn conclusion that all international... [More]

Awesome Weaponry

Published by marco on in Video Games

“[This gun] shoots shurikans and lightning; it could only be more awesome if it had tits and was on fire.”

Bush’s Unalloyed Success

Published by marco on in Fun

As reported in the article For Bush’s staff, upbeat talking points on his tenure (LA Times):

“A two-page memo that has been sent to Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials offers a guide for discussing Bush’s eight-year tenure during their public speeches. […] The document presents the Bush record as an unalloyed success.”

A lovely take on this bit of (unsurprising) news is in Recent Giggle-Me-GYWOs by David Rees in December 2008 (MNFTIU), linked below:

 Memo About Bush's Unalloyed Success

“Where are all the other pages?”

Indeed.

Like Clockwork

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

Accusations fly fast and furious about the mismanagement of car companies and investment banks. Demands are made for reparations, for punishment, for some semblance of shame or accountability on the part of those responsible. Take a $1 salary for a year; forget the exhorbitant bonus for once; tighten your own belt first. Show some humility or basic human decency instead of claiming the market rules above all else like a broken record, as if those of us with principles and ethics care about how... [More]

Cheap Glasses for Everyone

Published by marco on in Science & Nature

Compared to the problems caused in the first world, third world problems can generally be solved relatively cheaply. It costs well north of a trillion to even make it look like you’re doing something about saving the U.S. economy, but it takes a few paltry tens of billions to feed everyone in Africa. How much is that? A couple of months in Iraq? We can spend our money on blowing things up, but not on feeding people or controlling disease. While building a military machine to grind the world... [More]

Role Reversal

Published by marco on in Quotes

“I don’t think it’s America’s role to go into other countries and say ‘this is how we do things…so should you.’”
George W. Bush in September 2000

Faith in That Which You Don’t Understand

Published by marco on in Quotes

“Anyone who is critical of organized religion and, at the same time, invests in the stockmarket, is a hypocrite.”
Naseem Taleb

Justifying Your Bigoted Position

Published by marco on in Quotes

“Dude, don’t try to cover your hate with numbers.”
Chuck Mertz on December 19th, 2008 (This is Hell Radio Show)


The factoid on the table was that 0.7% of the world population at any given time is drunk. Krys Bigosinski (who is Polish), immediately blurted that “most of them were in Russia” and, when called on it, started using pseudo-math to justify his position.

The practice of “covering hate with numbers” is an extremely common one and not nearly often enough called out for what it is.

The Long Road to Change: Inauguration

Published by marco on in Public Policy & Politics

It’s going to take some advanced mental yoga to justify Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation speech at his inauguration. Without further ado, let’s let John Sherffius put it in perspective:

 John Sherffius: Obama's Inaugural Program

As if a ridiculous level of homophobia wasn’t enough—he’s compared “gay marriage to incest, polygamy, and pedophilia”—he’s also strongly anti-abortion and supports the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. Can you feel the progressive change? Can ya? Granted, he’s not as singularly bad as other... [More]

Coming to Terms with Google Hive-Mind

Published by marco on in Quotes

“Of course you’re instantly a unit in Great Google’s Adword databank of commercial trickery and avarice – but if you’re cool with that, as I lazily am, the advantages are legion. I use Gmail as a hub for all my email accounts and I am hopelessly devoted to Google Calendars. The G1 had all my Google data installed and syncing within moments of connection.”