Archive for the ‘poli-sci-tech’ Category

I’m home after a mostly wasted day of someone trying to teach me how to do something I’ve been doing for thirteen years; in other words, the meeting I went to yesterday was largely redundant and unnecessary and so we left after the first two hours. Even the instructor appeared embarassed after if became clear that she had been completely misinformed about the purpose of the training session. I really felt badly for her. But it was a day out of the office, out of the city, and unfortunately without much sleep. But that I can make up.

Elsewhere I was pointed to this article talking about the perceived advantages to brick and mortar bookstores versus their internet counterparts. Among those quoted is David Sedaris (note ironic Amazon link) who notes that he’s never purchased a book online. I guess that such social problems don’t matter to the average author, but the fact is that people don’t read. I can rattle off a list of dozens of people I’ve met over the last year who could not be bothered to read any book that did not come from the impulse aisle at Wal Mart. This is bad. We don’t need more obstacles to finding and reading good books. And even though the article doesn’t directly state that there’s something “wrong” with buying books online, it certainly dances around it.

At my job I’m constantly crowing about “removing barriers to access”, which really just means “don’t keep people from getting to your stuff because you have some particular notion about how they should get it”. Authors seem to revel in this antiquarian notion of themselves, writing manuscripts in longhand and having panic attacks at the notion of being made to use computers. This is all well and good, but creating any sort of art means embracing a variety of channels through which you can connect with an audience. I don’t think it cheapens my reading experience to buy a book from an online reseller, certainly not any more than it would to buy it from a big box bookseller with a built-in coffee shop.

In other news there’s a strategy to win the war in Iraq now. That’s good, because we only invaded like three years ago. I’m glad someone’s thought of something.

Can you tell I need sleep dear readers? I promise to be less curmudgeonly in my next post.

From bldgblog:

“Plans are afoot to take advantage of “the Mersey’s vast renewable energy potential by constructing a tidal power fence which, according to initial estimates, could generate up to 2,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 15 per cent of the North-west’s electricity requirements. The Mersey offers more tidal power potential than virtually any other river in Europe, by virtue of its 10-metre tidal range and strong currents which are a by-product of its shape and its position on England’s windy North-west coast.”

An interesting story, but most importantly it’s accompanied by several beautiful architectural drawings like the one above. I’ve always been fascinated by these types of renderings because their lines are so strong and the colors are so skewed. It always gave me secret pleasure that a field that exists on numerical accuracy and precision essentially had impressionists doing its renderings.

“Herculean and abstract concrete structures humming with hydroelectric power. Submerge ten of these things in the Mersey… and England just got a whole lot brighter.”

It’s a big (weird) trend in geek circles right now to go out and plunk down a lot of money for the latest tech goodies, take them home, unpack them and disassemble them. Then put pics of the whole grisly operation up on flickr. And what’s the hottest gadget to come down the pike in the last three days? Why, the Xbox 360 of course. And it’s already been dissected.

Seems like good stuff inside even if it does crash like Lindsay Lohan in her “Saturday” Mercedes.

I was looking at a box of old game systems the other day–Segas, two old NES’s–and thinking how closed that hardware was back then. Sega was much closer than Nintendo and always was (they were the first to build a console with its own real OS), but the 360 has USB ports, a standard ATA hard drive; all in all it’s essentially just a purpose-built, hot-rodded Mac with a boot loader instead of a full kernel.

Still you’ve gotta respect these guys who drop $1000 on something that they turn around and risk blowing out from static just for our amusement.

“I like guys who’ve never been there that criticize us who’ve been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done,” Murtha said.

Preach it, brother.

You may have noticed that I usually link to Amazon when suggesting music or books. Even though I’m a big proponent of iTMS it’s just so much easier to link to Amazon for everything. And Amazon will also pay me a few cents when you, the kindly reader, uses one of my links to buy something. Why should we do this for you, little man with your fancy blog? Well for one it encourages me to continue writing this blog and telling you all about great music and books ^[1]; but for another thing it helps offset the cost of running the show.
Ironically, I don’t use other people’s affiliate links all that often and I scarcely think I’ll make a pile of cash doing this. But why throw all that Google juice at Amazon free of charge?

[1] I would tell you about this stuff anyway.

After a slightly uncomfortable lunch–during which I was informed that an ultra-conservative who sits on our board might be attending our upcoming business trip to Chicago–I was reminded of many of the points Charles Pierce raises in his latest article for Esquire “Welcome To Idiot America.”

Fights over evolution—and its faddish new camouflage, intelligent design, a pseudoscience that posits without proof or method that science is inadequate to explain existence and that supernatural causes must be considered—roil up school districts across the country. The president of the United States announces that he believes ID ought to be taught in the public schools on an equal footing with the theory of evolution. And in Dover, Pennsylvania, during one of these many controversies, a pastor named Ray Mummert delivers the line that both ends our tour and, in every real sense, sums it up:

“We’ve been attacked,” he says, “by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.”

I often wonder how these people avoid shame at using their brains for anything. The article is an affirming read for anyone with half a brain, and might make some others uncomfortable. Good I say. Not what I’d expect from Esquire, and I applaud them for running it. (Found on MeFi)

Deliciously hip portraits of Hello Kitty as storm trooper and more. (Via Boing Boing)

I have an ex who had a bumper sticker that said, “if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention.” Well, I see a lot of people around who aren’t outraged with the current scandals and dirty dealings of the Bush administration. For those folks I offer this article in Der Spiegel; a complete blow by blow of the whole Plamegate mess from day one.
And yes, I do think it’s sad that I have to turn to Germany or the UK to get any good news or analysis about my own country’s politics. But when the right wing owns the media it’s bound to have a chilling effect on the truth.

Author Meghann Marco has written a letter to her publisher asking them why they are not only refusing to allow her book to be included in Google Print but are also suing Google to prevent any other Simon & Schuster titles from winding up there. For the uninitiated there’s an explanation of Google Print straight from the horse’s mouth here.
In addition to her letter to her publisher, she’s written Jason and he’s posted some of her (insightful) comments there.
In short (and I’m not the first or last to feel this way) we need to get content publishers to stop fucking suing people. If an artist or author or musician really perceives some threat from the consuming public let them hire a lawyer and do it themselves; this game of pretending to care makes the book publishers and record labels look even greedier than they actually are, and that’s saying something. It’s perfectly obvious that when the vast majority of your clients beg you to stop suing their audience and you refuse it’s more about money and vindication than protecting their rights.
Based on my terribly small knowledge of these sorts of things (probably due to a lack of reading) this case looks pretty inactionable. Google isn’t stealing anything, and certainly poses no greater threat to publishing as we know it than Amazon did when they decided to provide scans of the first few pages of all new titles. This is just another example of how tightening your grip assures that you’ll lose your hold altogether. It’s very difficult for me to work my head around the notion of paying $26 for a book or $14 for a CD as it is, much less without the added demerit of constant lawsuits emanating from the distributors of such products.