things I don't say out loud

This is why I stayed up late tonight? Dang it.

2011-03-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

These are my reactions to the following opinion piece which I realized, in hindsight, was posted by Fox News to get its more conservative readers all up in arms. And sorry for the red font. It's a bit hard to read. Below here, the white text is the original opinion piece. The flashy, angry-looking red text in italics is me.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/10/watching-uproar-wisconsin-protests-time-remember-unions-make-lives-better/

First of all, I’m not writing this because I’m anti-union - but my comments here do make it seem so. I’m not pro-unions, I’m not anti-union. The fact is that I’m not educated enough to get into a heated debate about unions, Wisconsin, etc. But what I am fully qualified to do is sarcastically pick out points of a hastily-written article that throws around glaring generalities and in general contributes more to the mountain of crap coming out of the media than it does to the balanced debate its author pretends to crave. Give us some facts or some intelligent, well-written, opinion pieces. This stuff is making our brains rot.

If you’re cheering on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s decision to destroy both democracy and working families by ramming through anti-union legislation backed by big business, shame on you! I’m sick of unions being vilified by conservative commentators and voters alike who, in fact, have very directly and tangibly benefited from unionization.

In the 1920s, before the peak of the union movement, income inequality and wealth distribution in America reached dangerous proportions. Incomes for the nation as a whole were barely keeping pace with inflation while incomes for the top 1% of Americans skyrocketed up seventy-five percent. Unions, along with a host of New Deal era accomplishments, helped drastically turn this tide.

In 1955, when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) was formed, Republican President Eisenhower praised the newly combined labor federation and unions in general for achieving economic prosperity for all.

It was widely accepted that following an era in which the robber barons recklessly abused workers in order to extract maximum wealth, unions were the way working class Americans could fight back together for rights, benefits and fair wages.

Tonight’s homework: In what ways did the American economy, and ultimately many of the U.S.’s current citizens, benefit from the robber barons? Author, if your enemies are saying nobody’s ever benefited from unions, indeed they are wrong. But just because something brings benefits doesn’t mean it’s just that simple.

Which is why big business -- and big business-backed politicians like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker -- have worked so hard to destroy unions ever since. Do you really think big business gives a damn about “our economy” or “your jobs”? Come on. They care about their bottom line. That’s what businesses do. Unions care about workers. Only 50% true. “Big” business does care about the economy. So Author you are incorrect there. But you are correct in that “big business” does care about the bottom line over its workers. If you want to throw out 5 sentences and be done with the paragraph, I’ll humor the scope of your paragraph’s argument. And the scope of your paragraph’s argument is the fragments I remember from Introductory Economics in college. Businesses don’t care about workers because workers care about themselves and because businesses aren’t workers. It’s called self-interest. If Business X is so terrible, the workers will go work for Business Y. That’s still self-interest. (I think we’re in macro here, not micro...that is, not every John Doe’s individual situation is that simple, but in aggregate that's basically what happens.) So in summary, yeah, no shit. Businesses care about profits. What’s your next bombshell?

Unions raise the wages of workers by roughly 20% and raise total compensation, including both wage and benefits after union dues are deducted, by twenty-eight percent. The effect is even greater for low- and middle-wage workers and those without a college degree. That sounds fantastic. I would love a 20% wage raise and 28% raise in total compensation. What’s the bad news?

Unionized workers are significantly more likely than non-union workers to get paid leave, employer-provided health insurance and employer-provided pension plans (in fact, up to 54% more likely). And unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more paid leave. This is starting to sound familiar. You mean if I order now through this special TV offer, not only do I get a 28% rise in total comp. but I also am more likely to get paid leave, employer-paid health care, and a pension? AND more vacation and 14% more paid leave? (Didn’t you already say paid leave?)

What’s not to like about that? Not a damn thing! Where do I sign?

But here’s the kicker: Even if you’re not in a union, unions help you. There’s an old bumper sticker that reads, “Like your weekend? Thank a union!” A bigger bumper sticker might read, “Like your weekend, your 40-hour work week, your workers compensation program, your employee benefits, your minimum wage, your safety standards on the job? Thank a union.” The implication seems to be that unions are behind the scenes preserving all this stuff for us with sword and shield in hand, and if tomorrow unions were totally abolished we’d all be back to working 80 hours a week in dimly-lit textile mills. The market is different than it was in Upton Sinclair’s day. I agree some industries still need fair employee representation to prevent mistreatment, but for Heaven’s sake, can we stop with the murky references to working conditions that haven’t been widespread in the USA for many decades?

But that’s not all.

Unions set a standard that even non-unionized workplaces have to follow. For example, a high school graduate who works in a field that is only 25% unionized earns 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries. Wouldn’t you take a 5% raise right now? What does “similar workers” mean? What’s the “a field” the high school grad works in? How much less unionized are the other industries? Author, there are too many unknowns in this paragraph to believe it couldn’t have been built by data hand-picked by you. I could use your same data set and write a paragraph that is equally true and totally opposite. Crack a statistics book. But by the way yes, I would take a 5% raise right now.

And no, workers who get good salaries and benefits aren’t taking money out of your pocket. They’re taking it from CEO salaries and bonuses. The top five big banks on Wall Street set aside $89.54 billion for bonuses last year --- only a 2.8% decline from the previous year, even though profits were down four percent. In other words, even with lower profits, big business across the country can afford to pay executives a small fortune. They can easily afford to pay decent wage and benefits to average workers. And she’s holding the Ace of Spades: Wall Street bonuses. I’m skipping this paragraph.

The same is true for public sector employees. States across the country have been slashing wages and benefits for teachers and other public servants in order to give obscene tax breaks to big business and the super-rich. Note that in Wisconsin, 60% of corporations making more than $1 million per year in revenues pay zero taxes. Zero. The situation is oh-so-not-as-simple as your first two sentences suggest. I don’t even know how to support my last statement there, I just know that it’s true. There is so much wrongly attributed causation in this article I could punch a kitten.

Anti-union oligarchs literally want to take money from working people and put it in the pockets of the super-rich. If you’re against that, find a union and join it. Misused “literally” the same way a middle-schooler would. Skipping this paragraph.

For the record, unions primarily target large industries and employers so the “this hurts small business” argument is nothing but a distraction. Plus, if a small business is paying such abysmal wages that the unionization of the industry pushes the small business to also raise pay, good --- they shouldn’t have been so low in the first place. This paragraph is less littered with the stuff that makes the article a pure opinion (i.e. no more worth listening to than the opinion of the guy who coughed in my face on the subway this morning). Author, if you expanded on this type of writing I would be very interested to read.

And also for the record, many of the talking heads who rail against unions are, in fact, union members. So what? My wife was part of a union and was not what I’d call “a big fan.” Most every television and radio show host, for instance, belongs to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. They may resent having to be in structures to which they’re so ideologically opposed (oh, they do), but the fact is that their good wages and benefits and working conditions were won and are preserved by their union. I’m not sure how this fits into or advances your thesis.

And when these same talking heads suggest that we don’t need unions to level the economic playing field, that plenty of poor people grow up to be rich, most of the examples they cite are union members, too.

Baseball players who rose from the ghetto to the major league? It wasn’t until they unionized that baseball players got rich.

Actors? Unionized, including recent Oscar winner actress Natalie Portman who thanked the Screen Actors Guild union for making sure she got an education and was protected as a child actor. Statistically speaking, nobody (how many significant digits are we talking?) becomes a famous baseball player or famous actress. Nobody. So find different examples or pass the microphone. Also, Author, do we really believe there’s not a legion of once child actors out there who are chewed up and spit out in many ways by the industry? That’s good about Natalie Portman, it really is. But again you take one example and let it imply more than what is likely true.

Anti-union policies hurt all workers. The average worker in a so-called “Right-to-Work” state that hinders unionization makes $5,538 per year less than workers in free bargaining states. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workplace death rates are 52.9% higher in “Right-to-Work” states than free bargaining states. “Right-to-Work” states have higher rates of poverty, higher infant mortality rates and lower percentages of residents with health insurance. How about taxes? Other items affecting cost of living? Cost of doing business in general? Author, do you want to explore any of that? Oh, that’s right, you only have a few paragraphs. So let’s keep with the emotional appeals. I just have to spit out though, that Right-to-Work states also have more hurricanes and tornadoes. And it’s also a bit hotter on average in Right-to-Work states. So moderation of high temperatures and extreme weather events is another few points for unions.

This is simple. Not as simple as the construction of your arguments. The vast majority of Americans think it’s wrong that 400 obscenely (I really thought you’d have gone with “gloriously” here. But “obscenely” is good too.) rich people hold more wealth and power than the assets of 155 million ordinary Americans combined. Why? Because it is wrong. In many cases it is wrong. In many other cases, it is because those people did something that none of the rest of us did, or they did something and had a little bit of luck that the rest of us didn’t have. They’re not all silver spoon babies up there! Can we get off that please?

Such monstrous inequality and lack of opportunity for ordinary Americans is not a sign that capitalism is broken but a sign that our economy and politics have been rigged to work for the very few at the top. And since the same few rich people and big businesses at the top make most of the political contributions in our country, politicians are woefully skittish to challenge their greed. Lots of buzz words, and not even the obvious (and expected, after this article’s language) mention of exceptions such as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates. Our economy has been rigged to work for Bill Gates in the sense that it devoured the products Microsoft sells because it needed them. Our economy has also been rigged to work for Warren Buffet in the sense that it provided the opportunity for a man to pore over financial reports and make smart buys and sells on market mispricings. He probably did some other stuff too but I never read about that stuff. Surely you don’t believe his opportunities were “rigged” by a bunch of cigar-smoking suits in some mahogany-laden office in Washington?

And that's why the final reason to thank a union, the organized voice -- and yes, political money, too -- large enough to stand up to the otherwise-unchecked disastrous power of big businesses that care nothing about you or our economy and care only about their profit. That’s not what America is about. Another paragraph that Author should have expanded upon.

That's why we let people vote to join unions, to stand up together for working Americans and to fulfill the vision of freedom and equality for which our nation was founded. -- Just like we let people vote anti-democratic, anti-working families politicians out of office. Sounds like she wrote when she was angry….. just like I did! J Dang, I think Fox News accomplished its goal. Argh…polarization sells I guess.

Sally Kohn is a community organizer and political commentator. She is the Founder and Chief Education Officer of the Movement Vision Lab.
Gary Larson is some guy, and his opinion matters ~~as little as~~ less than Sally Kohn's. (edit made after reading Sally Kohn's bio)

Hulu ad fail

2011-01-02T06:14:00.000-08:00

Leslie-Ann and I noticed a particularly poor layout on one of Hulu's ads.

things that are redundant

2010-11-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

ATM machine
RPM per minute (also "RPMs" is weird)
please RSVP

Targeted advertising

2010-11-13T05:42:00.000-08:00

With all the stuff Facebook probably knows about me... you'd think the ads they show me would be related to something I am interested in.

Or at least in English. oh wait OMG shoes!

Today's Internet Screenshot Quiz

2010-10-29T11:25:00.000-07:00

WHICH ONE DO YOU CARE ABOUT MOOOOOORRREEEEE

Priorities

2010-10-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

Just some of my deep thoughts. I think I'll go to bed now.

I feel like you already know how it ends.

2010-10-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

The title says it all. Wall Street's evil. Big bad money-loving suits parading around making fools of normal people while they sail around on their yachts and snort cocaine.

Inside Job.

Barney Frank and Matt Damon? The usual suspects. Another John Doe's opinion article gets turned into a sensational piece of crap. The makers of the movie make a ton of money, Michael Moore gets an erection, and everybody goes on with their lives not really having learned anything.

Too soon?

2010-10-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, 2 months or so, I take part in a favorite activity of mine:

1) go to trailers.apple.com
2) watch everything

I am in the middle of that activity tonight and have been EXTREMELY disappointed.

So a few years ago I drove from Charlotte to Greensboro to do what I normally did every other week: spend a weekend with my family and girlfriend (now "wife"....still weird to say it).

Me:  What do you want to do tonight?
LA:  Let's see a movie.
Me:  Grand. What film or theatre wish you we patronize?
LA:  All Hallow's Eve is nigh. Let's see a scary movie.

By this point in my relationship I have learned a couple things:

1) Leslie-Ann loves scary movies
2) When LA wants to see a scary movie, my night ends up being crappy BECAUSE...
3) ...scary movies don't exist anymore.

So we pick a movie. Some Swedish movie in Swedish with subtitles. "Lat den ratte komma in" or "Let the Right One In". It's a vampire movie. We go. Kids chatter and giggle in the back before the movie starts. I'm annoyed. The movie starts. The kids immediately get interested and don't speak the rest of the movie.

A couple hours later it is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. Definitely one of the best guesses I've ever been part of. It was released in a limited-sort-of-way in the U.S., being from Sweden and mostly not cared about here. But easily better than 99% of movies I've seen in theaters. A vampire movie with nobody jumping out and scaring you, but true tension throughout. Something I have been hoping for every time LA suggested "a scary movie": something actually scary.

It covered all the best vampire myths, and "realistically" too. It even covered some I hadn't really known about -- a vampire can't enter someone else's place (or any room? i dunno) unless he is invited to come in. Hence "Let the Right One In".

I'll stop here and just say... if any of you ever check www.rottentomatoes.com (movie reviews) to check out whether you should see a movie, you'll know there are Critics reviews and Audience reviews. If you don't know that website, just Google "Rotten Tomatoes" + your favorite movie. Ratings are submitted by two groups: professional (by some definition) critics, and audience members (Joes the Plumber). Chances are, when you check your favorite movie on rottentomatoes.com, 1 of 2 things will happen. One, either the yuppie Critic assholes will think terrible and rate it 37% while normal Audience folks will all agree it's amazing and rate it 85%, thus confirming that you are a down-to-Earth person who loves to be entertained by great movies that artsy douchebags don't understand. (85% is a VERY good rating on rottentomatoes.com from either group by the way....just check whatever famous movies you can think of.) OR....... Two, the cultured, educated film Critics will think your favorite movie is amazing, the quintessence of fine cinema and rate it 87%, while the Audience commoner morons will rate it 20% and claim they wish I'd played The Hangover drinking game again instead of watching this gay shit."

So the point is, often the Critics and Audience reviews oppose each other (classic high-brow vs. low-brow actually) .... and each moviegoer has his or her own method of checking whether to see a movie. "I trust the critics and not the audience reviews" or vice versa.

Take a look at this. It's the highest I've ever seen on Rotten Tomatoes without looking for something higher.  I've looked up "greatest vampire movies" lists and this movie is constantly seen in the top 2 or at least 5....usually behind Nosferatu, which is some very old movie about vampires which can't really be discussed right now. I've never seen it and I'm sure it's a classic. Probably the classic vampire movie.

Anyway, finally I can leave you to digest all that text I just spent so much time typing above.... and finally get to the point of this post. The movie (don't read the whole Wikipedia unless you've seen the movie...otherwise it's totally boring) was released in 2008. And GUESS WHAT. There's a remake coming out!!!!! In English!!!! THANK GODDDDDDDDDD  I hate reading subtitles!!!!!!

Now, to be fair.. I showed this movie (the Swedish one) to my parents and they were a bit underwhelmed to say the least. Whereas Leslie-Ann and I thought this movie was amazing, scary, beautiful, thought-provoking, mysterious.....my mom's first reaction was "weird." And my dad didn't say much of anything. So I'm not sure what he thought actually. But my point here is the movie obviously is not something everybody will love. Just like I think that somebody's favorite band is a piece of crap, somebody thinks this movie is a piece of crap. And that's fine. But my issue is, do we really need a remake (1) of a great movie (by 95% of viewers' standards) (2) three years after it was originally released?

Damn people.

I wouldn't be surprised if more people in the U.S. go to see the new version "Let Me In" than saw the Swedish version "Let the Right One." (...aside from the possibility it will be more widely released than the Swedish version) Some will even go home thinking the movie was awesome and never know about the Swedish gem that lies a few mouse clicks away (from purchase or download or Netflix, whatever you're into).

The new movie might be great. It could even be better (not likely, but possible) than the Swedish version. And more important for some, it could be more faithful to the book than the Swedish version. But let my personal preferences step in for a sec and let me say: who cares?

It's...sort of.... like somebody stepping in front of Van Gogh's self-portrait (you know...that one) at a museum and showing how he drew a charcoal of himself with slit wrists. Nobody cares, somebody already did it, and not only did somebody already do it better, but everyone already recognizes the first one as a masterpiece. Call it what you want..... copying, reinterpreting, reinventing the wheel, being a douche. There's just really no good way to come out with a remake of a movie from 2008 that had legions of critics and normal folks raving about it.... with the appearance of "doing an English version." How 'bout you just wait 40 years and then give it a try.

I'll probably see the new movie if I have a chance. But only because the first version was so amazing, and really just to see whether I should come back and delete this post.

Rainforests

2010-10-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

I remember in 5th grade they told us Amazon rainforest was being cut down at the rate of a football field* every 30 seconds. I remember thinking at the time that if that was true, surely the whole world would be gone by snacktime. I remember wondering if I would ever know if that figure was true, and how anybody could know.

Fast forward 15 years or so, to the other day. I decided I probably could do some guesswork and see if I came up with anything reasonable, and forever quench my 5th grade thirst for knowledge. The question is, assuming a football field is cleared every 30 seconds, how long before the Amazon is gone completely? Could I expose the great lie to the world? Or forever verify its veracity and vindicate its vendors?

I then approached this like any other problem in my life. I made a spreadsheet.

* or maybe it was half a football field. But using a whole one only makes this analysis more conservative / convincing

Hate Crime

2010-05-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

I think that by some people's definition of "hate crime," I was the victim of a hate crime last night.

A couple friends and I went to throw a frisbee in a park, and it was after dark. My roommate left my friend and me in the park for a few minutes, and he left his bookbag sitting by a tree. My friend and I were sitting in the grass about 100 feet away from the tree.

From ALL the way across the park (where the playground was), a group of what was probably teenagers came walking toward us. They were simply leaving the park. They walked past us and toward the tree where my roommate had left his bookbag. Before they got to the tree they started running, yelled and laughed some stuff to each other, and then a bottle of our water landed right next to me (after being thrown at me, pretty hard, from 100 feet away). They continued running and disappeared. I didn't think anything of it. But when my roommate got back to the park, his bookbag was missing. I thought he had it with him, but no, the "kids" ran off with it.

How could this be a hate crime? Well, if I really wanted to be a jerk about it, I could claim it's a hate crime, because immediately after they ran past the tree (where they committed the crime of stealing what they thought was my bookbag), one of them shouted back "fucking crackers!" to my friend and me.

All the kids in the group (about 5 or 6) were black. And what they said to my friend and me is a racial slur. (Never mind that my friend's ethnically Chinese, not white, so really there was only one cracker. But perceived race is in the hate crime laws too. Anyway...) I read an article a while ago about a fight that got stirred up between two strangers. The fight was over some non-racial thing. But, as the white American guy started to really beat the piss out of the Mexican guy, he started yelling racial slurs at him. The article mentioned that many people wanted to charge this guy with a hate crime because of it -- regardless of how the fight started. Give me a break.

Part of the reason I'm writing this is to get some anger out over what happened. It never feels good having something stolen. (Even though the stolen thing was not mine, they thought it was mine...so it feels similar.) I wish those kids had something better going for them, though. If they are running around doing crap like this and calling people "fucking crackers" for no reason, their future is probably not very bright. So they can continue to have fun being criminals and screwing up their lives. I have no patience or sympathy for people who complain about having tough lives and then go and make conscious decisions like those kids made last night. They are no less worthless as members of a community than the losers who ran around my parents' neighborhood stealing chainsaws, hedge trimmers, etc. etc. "Free stuff - it will be mine if I just take it!" I view stealing someone's hard-earned property as an EXTREMELY disgusting crime. And I probably know people and maybe even have friends that have stolen something in the past or would in the future. If you are one of those people and are reading this, don't ever tell me about it. Because I will think a lot less of you.

So besides venting my anger and all that, the other point of this post would be to bring up the hate crime thing. I would never consider seriously thinking of this as a hate crime, because it wasn't one. But I'm afraid that laws exist that would allow this basic situation to be prosecuted as a hate crime (e.g. a situation like that fight I mentioned earlier). And that is really terrible. Just because a black person does something to a white person, or vice versa, does not make it a hate crime.

Now I'm starting to think about all the arguments about the constitutionality (or lack thereof) of hate crime laws, but that is a whole other interesting issue. Time for another cup of coffee...mmmmmm

News Not Newsworthy 1 of ?

2010-03-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

I am thinking about starting a series that exposes a fundamental flaw in widely-distributed "news." The flaw is that the crap they put out is not newsworthy. I am pretty sure that newsworthiness is one of the big requirements, or something, of proper journalism. So, let the series begin. And the funny thing is, I'm really just exacerbating the problem. But whatever

News Not Newsworthy, Vol. 1:
Stop hitting people. We the public are tired of having this be our only exposure to you.

Mac shortcuts suck / are nonexistent

2010-03-01T18:35:00.001-08:00

I like my Mac a lot. But seriously, do I have to mash 4 buttons just to paste text and match the destination's formatting? wtf

I know why I don't like Dave Matthews anymore

2010-03-01T17:26:00.000-08:00

I've been wondering for a couple years why I haven't latched on to Dave Matthews Band's newest (i.e. since "Everyday") albums the same way I used to. The last couple of years, it just sounds to me like some computer programmer input all his pre-Everyday sometimes-kooky lyrics (including 1/2 of Everyday, I guess), guitar structures (think Satellite, #34, Halloween-type licks), and vocal stylings into some giant supercomputer and programmed it to write new, awesome songs based on what already happened. That's how we get songs now that are titled " ---- wait, I didn't start writing my first blog post in a year (GET PUMPED, WORLD) in order to trash what is probably my favorite band of all time in terms of total listening time. I did it to express my surprise at realizing what has happened to Dave Matthews song-writing. Now I've probably digressed too much for the intended humor of this post to even come through anyway. But here it goes.

I have discovered that Dave Matthews has in fact NOT been Dave Matthews for some time. The super programmer I mentioned above did his deed, and Dave Matthews was whisked off to Russia for some reason to become the successor to Vladimir Putin. Coincidence about their initials? I think my explanation is far more likely true.

Dmitry Medvedev
Dave Matthews

I see it, anyway.

"Obama moves to separate politics and science"

2009-03-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

I found that headline on CNN today.

Dear CNN,

Are you serious? lol

Love,
Gary

While Obama is trying to undo prior damage done by politicians who think they understand science, he's not separating politics and science. There hasn't been any actual science in politics for a long, long time. And that is one thing I don't expect to change.

dead pixel on screen

2009-02-15T20:52:00.001-08:00

Uh oh! Not a super big deal but it kinda stinks :-(

We live in a Facebook world

2008-11-23T19:57:00.001-08:00

I've been looking aimlessly around on Facebook for about 10 minutes and just had a thought (which is allowing me to skirt looking around aimlessly on Facebook for 30 more minutes by inspiring me to write this blog). My thought is that I am kind of sick of how the internet has put everyone's lives on display. Without even talking to anyone, I could go right now and find out the favorite movies of any of hundreds of people. Or what they are doing. Or what kind of mood they are in, or who they voted for, or why they think this or that is important. Who cares? I feel like the days of "if someone cares, he or she will ask you" are over. Is it just me who feels sometimes like social networking sites just harbor this big, collective orgy of self-importance?

Maybe it's just some people's profiles that throw me off like this. I mean, I do also appreciate Facebook. By aimlessly browsing, I discovered that an old friend from one time in my life - to whom I had just spoken about 6 months ago regarding his upcoming job interview - now has cancer. I would never have known this otherwise. Because of Facebook, and only because of Facebook, I found out and talked to him briefly about it (via Facebook messages..hehehe).

The point of that digression is that I recognize that Facebook and other similar sites have good qualities, and they're kind of fun in a lot of ways. I guess I'm just lamenting (a possibly imaginary) loss of some kind of human contact...as if I will never again need to sit outside on a wrought-iron bench with a friend on a 25-degree night and talk for an hour or two about what each of us likes/hates/gets annoyed by/wants to do when we grow up/etc.

I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts because I just started typing this post without a ton of thinking. Here's the main idea I am trying to get across: When I look at some people's profiles I think: nobody asked you to wear your heart on your sleeve. Most of us don't care what a Facebook friend does on every single day of his life. And few people really should know about it, because it only affects a few people.

Ok, in case anybody reading this is suffering from my inevitable lack to really get across what I'm trying to get across, here's an example. Let's say I have a friend who I could fairly label as "liberal." And that friend could fairly label me as "conservative." Let's also pretend that both of us believe that personal political beliefs are personal. Let's also assume neither of us knows for whom the other person is voting in the 2008 election. We just like each other's company, so we are friends. Now here we go with the example! In a non-Facebook world, we might actually stumble upon a political conversation and begin talking about it. I'm sure each of us would quickly learn the other's voting plans and other products of his/her beliefs. The conversation would take its course, whatever that may be, and we'd go on with our lives having been through the possibly awkward moments of trying to defend/explain our thoughts on politics without being disrespectful to each other. However, in a Facebook world, I already know who my friend is voting for, and vice versa, because there's a thumbnail of the guy on each of our profiles. I just think this makes it more likely that the only time I'd ever actually talk with another person about something that's different from my own beliefs is when one of us wished to confront the other person. There's no discovery in the conversation, because we were staring at each other's Facebook profiles for 30 minutes before we met up. Totally stupid.

Yes, Facebook offers talking points as well. I'm just saying Facebook gives us too much information. Why can't we just get the info, good or bad, from the other person directly!?

I also recognize the irony here: that I'm writing all this stuff about self-importance, and about how reading other people's thoughts is dumb because you could just talk to them, on a BLOG. But if nobody ever read it, I wouldn't care. Of course that would never happen. Because this shit is getting imported straight into my FACEBOOK PROFILE!!!!!!

Amazon fails to note one simple fact

2008-10-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

Amazon as we all know is a very successful company. Certainly a part of this is the way it arranges its website based on your Amazon browsing history (I think it does this, anyway...) or purchase history. For example if you buy a wok and a book on vegetable gardening, maybe you'll get an email from them suggesting a certain cookbook. Good idea, right? I'm sure it usually is. There is still room for improvement though.

I recently bought a pair of (amazing) speakers from Amazon. They are M-Audio Studiophile AV-40 speakers if you are interested in $140 speakers that are probably worth twice that in their quality. Anyway, just today I got the following email suggesting a related product.

Oh, well thanks Amazon. I mean, I appreciate it, but.... how do you really expect this to turn out? This is kind of like me buying a ticket for a basketball game, walking in the gate and having my ticket scanned, and then having a scalper come up and say "I just noticed you purchased a ticket to this basketball game. Obviously you would like to attend this basketball game, and it just so happens I have a ticket for sale! May I suggest you buy it??

But seriously these M-Audio speakers are awesome!

cleaned my room

2008-08-26T20:45:00.001-07:00

felt amazing

John Edwards has a lot of integrity

2008-08-26T17:01:00.001-07:00

Oops that's not what I meant, because of course he doesn't.

But at least some of his supporters do!

<>

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,410323,00.html

how to make me not want to play your game

2008-07-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

Right now I am on Facebook. I saw a cool-looking game on a friend's profile. There's a daily trivia-type question and you get scored against your friends.

I thought it looked cool because I love Jeopardy, so I clicked a button to try to take me where I could add the game to my profile. A webpage loaded and my eyes immediately jumped to this most unfortunate declaration:

Wow. Reading this has a pretty big impact on one's self-image. And it definitely makes me less interested in the game. Why begin now? Would you? (HINT: I am still going to play the game)

I could definitely see how seeing this could deter new people from adding this game to their profile.

On the other hand, think of the possibilities! Did you ever ride go karts at an amusement park and pass somebody? It's pretty exciting. Theoretically I could pass over 500,000 people here. And the downside? Who cares if I lose a few spots? I mean I started the freaking race in 7 billionth place so what do you want from me?

So let's see how I do....yes, regardless of the fact that I am in 516,709th place and I haven't even started yet, I am going to see what kind of progress I can make in this game....

....because Jeopardy is awesome.
And you have just wasted 5 minutes.

Apple's marketing identity crisis

2008-07-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

I won't claim that Apple is the ONLY company out there whose marketing is a little on the pretentious side. I also don't really know anything about marketing. But from what I experienced today, I feel like I know a little.

I'm planning on buying an iMac over the weekend of Aug. 1st for my girlfriend. This is when I can take advantage of 3 amazing things: N.C.'s tax free weekend, my girlfriend's education discount (she's a teacher), and the "buy a Mac, get a free iPod" promotion that runs until August 15. I will basically save almost $500 if not more. Oh, and by "for my girlfriend" I mean that I will keep the computer and she will keep the iPod. I am really excited about this and so have been visiting the Apple Store (which is very close to my apartment, luckily) about once a week to play with computers and iPod Touches (or is "iPods Touch?").

Today however, my sacred mission of opening 50 applications at once over and over on every computer in the store was thwarted by something I avoid whenever possible: having to wait in line. I walked up to the Apple store and noticed a bunch of people standing outside. There was no fire, so I asked a normal passerby (who was standing and watching, away from the line, as if there actually was a fire in the store) what was going on. "Oh they're waiting to buy the iPhone." I asked if I could go in just to look around. "I don't know." So I approached the door to store and walked up to one of the Apple Minions. She had a clipboard and possibly even a freaking headset on. All this scene was missing was a red carpet. It was super lame already; I should have known what was coming. "Hi, I don't want to buy an iPhone. Can I just go look around?" Then, she pointed to the line. Yes, that's right. She didn't say anything, just pointed. "So I have to wait in line to look around?" "Yes." "Oh ok, thanks." "You're very welcome." I stood there for a brief moment, mere feet away from the sacred threshold which separated me from the inside of that perverted sanctuary for fanboys across the globe, and had a strange thought....

"There are fewer people inside that store than there are on a normal weekday...much less a weekend." I turned around sullenly and began to shuffle away. I used my better judgment and resisted the urge to vocalize that thought that enters my head multiple times every day of my increasingly cynical life: "What a bunch of douchebags." "No Gary," I thought. I told myself they were really just people who simply wanted to buy a product, like me. So it wasn't the customers I became frustrated with. My frustrations were focused on the unknowns who organized this whole "line" scheme at the Apple Store. The Store was functioning like a giant robot, based on Unix and wearing an imaginary black turtleneck. Let me skip all the wordiness (whatever's left..) and get to the point.

The Apple Store is putting on a front with this line-forming crap. I understand it if it's so crowded nobody can move around and it's opening day for the iThing, but it wasn't crowded. Like I said, it's more crowded (uncomfortably so, usually) on a typical Saturday. Here's why nobody at the Store said "Hey, Joe, let's take down the line thing and let everybody come in." Nobody said it because it's some big stupid marketing trick. 99% of the people who pass the store look at all the a-holes waiting in line for something they could pick up in 5 minutes 2 days later, and they think "wow what's tha -- oh Apple. Wow I wonder what's going on."

So what about the title of this post? The fact that Apple wouldn't shut down the line and let everybody come in as usual when they don't NEED to have lines is evidence that they have what I call a marketing identity crisis. They are trying to put up this face of luxury or something. "Our products are so special you have to wait in line for an hour to buy them before you can go home and jerk off on them." Apple is just selling computers and phones and mp3 players. Oh, and an image too. But the REAL products they are selling don't really warrant having a line outside.

They probably claim to do it in the name of efficiency. But I claim they do it in the name of douchebag-iness. Here's my free advice to Apple for how to sell iPhones the most efficient way: Put a big stack of iPhones behind all the registers. Let everybody go straight in and buy their iPhone. And get them out. And let the people who don't want to wait in an unnecessary line go in and look at their computer.

I guess I'm leaving out another possible reason for the lines. It's called Personal Shopping. You can set up an APPOINTMENT with an Apple Minion so they can help you buy your shit. This is great because I'm sure there are all kinds of stupid comments dropped on unknowing customers during these "Personal Shopping" appointments (see my post about ridiculous comments made daily at the Apple Store). So that's pretty freaking luxurious. I get to wait in line for an hour and then get a personal shopping appointment so somebody can blab shit to me about the iPhone that I already know because I want to buy it so badly that I'll wait in line for an hour to get it! I don't even think that shit goes down at Tiffany & Co.

When's the last time you saw a line outside of any store at the mall? Do you think people want Apple products more than any other products at the mall? No. It's marketing. It's the same as having oily bare-chested 17 year old hotties of both sexes getting paid to stand around like fools at Abercrombie. (Well maybe not bare-chested for the females....but then again it is Abercrombie.) It's the same thing: something to draw attention. Apple is so pretentious they'd probably have oily-er, skankier, sexier, and more Aryan models standing around like sluts at their store, if it only lined up well with their products. But since it doesn't they came up with this line idea. And the personal shopping. Oh and they have the whole computer angle, so they can come right out and say why their customers should buy Apple. "This will make your life easier." "This will make your son valedictorian at college." "This is more than just a computer. It's a white computer!" Abercrombie can't very well have their employees say equivalent things, i.e. what will happen if you buy their products. "Your son will get his ass grabbed by other boys at school if he wears these cargo pants made out of Egyptian cotton." "If your daughter wears this so-called clothing to tutorials, her teacher will want to do something illegal." Doesn't work with Abercrombie. I'm getting way off track....??

But back to Apple, I'm probably just repeating myself. Also, I'm probably repeating myself. But as stuck up as Apple's in-store marketing may be, I still am super excited to get an iMac on Aug. 1. And I'd probably get an iPhone if they worked with Verizon's network, since my current phone's software was designed by a guy who has never used an electronic device in his life. Actually wait that's impossible.

update

2008-06-04T20:07:00.001-07:00

I'M GOOD

weird

2008-06-04T20:04:00.001-07:00

I was about to write a post about trying to write songs. I just finished the post below about the Apple Store. But now my equilibrium is off...I mean I feel that the equilibrium is off. It's REALLY strange.

I feel like the room is leaning downward to the left at about 15 to 20 degrees! wow, this is pretty cool actually....although I'm glad it doesn't happen all the time. I wonder if this is what vertigo is like.

And no, Dan, I am not under the influence of anything....except maybe the nutritional influence of the delicious bowl of Grape Nuts I had for dinner.

I am going to move around now and see what happens...

Mac Geniuses

2008-06-04T19:15:00.001-07:00

If you've ever been to an Apple Store you have seen a Mac Genius. These are the specialized employees of the Apple Store. See, there are regular Apple Store employees, who you'll recognize because they ask you about every 37 seconds if you need help, and then there are the Geniuses. According to Apple, if you "got a technical question" with your Mac, you can make an appointment with one of these super-humans to diagnose and fix the problem that you "got." It seems like a pretty good setup, but I can't really speak to that. I haven't used it because I don't got a Mac. So I can't got a technical question about a Mac if I don't got a Mac!

Well, not entirely true. Just the other day in fact, I was in an Apple Store browsing their freaking awesome products. I love the Apple Store, unless it's the weekend. The only thing good about the sheer number of people in the Apple Store on the weekend is that there are more obstacles between you and the nearest Apple employee. Anyway, I was browsing their awesome products the other day. I am tossing around the idea of buying a MacBook Pro. So when the 76th different Apple employee came to me and asked me if I had any questions, I knee-jerked with "no thanks" but then realized that I actually did.

I explained the situation to him. I am not a Mac user but I am thinking about getting one. "But," I explained, "I'm really comfortable with PCs. I can work very fast on them, I like to navigate with the keyboard, and I am used to all my shortcuts." I explained that if I was going to make the monumental leap of financial faith involved in buying a MacBook Pro, I needed to know I could do it all just the same as on my PC. I asked him what the Mac-equivalent of the Windows' ALT-TAB key combination would be. I know you can press Option-Tab or whatever on Mac, but this did not maximize any windows/apps that had been minimized earlier. So that is useless for me on the Mac. Anyway, he gave it a shot, trying different things, embarrassingly having to go into all these deep menus and system settings looking around for any possibility. He couldn't find it so he said he'd ask around. Five minutes later he came back and said nobody (that he asked) knew. I should have remembered the Geniuses. I should have had him ask one of them!

Happily continuing my playing, I overheard some pretty funny shit. I mean these Apple Store employees pull out the funniest lines when they're chatting up somebody who unfortunately doesn't know any better. There was a dad shopping for a laptop for his son to start college.

Dad: "This laptop is 2.5 gigahertz and this one is 2.4. Will I notice any difference there?"
Apple Guy: "Mmmm, not much."

Not much?!? Hahaha, that's awesome. "Not much" is a more appropriate answer for "Will my burger taste different with cheddar instead of American?" For some kid whose dad picks out his laptop, he will notice a difference between 2.4 ghz and 2.5 ghz about as much as he'll notice the Sun move if he faces it and blows at it really hard. But the next part (1 second later) was even better.

Apple Guy: "....well...unless of course he's using Final Cut Pro."
Dad: "............."
Dad: "............."
Apple Guy: "......."
Dad: "............."
Dad: "What's Final Cut Pro?"
Apple Guy: "Oh it's like your studio film editing software. It's basically what Pixar makes all their movies on."

Oh, yes, Apple Guy. I bet dad's son is definitely going to be running a film studio from his dorm room at Drunk University. As I told Leslie-Ann, it's more likely this laptop is going to have a Solo cup of Aristocrat and Sunny D spilled on it on August 29th while dad's son hangs up his new poster of Bob Marley smoking a spliff in his dorm room.

So aside from the funny lines they throw out at the Apple Store, I still want a MacBook Pro. For what? I don't know. Nothing that I couldn't accomplish on a $500 laptop with Linux (free) and all the software I could ask for (also free). As much as I love to get in Apple's grill for making their computers so beautiful, I'm being lured in by the same thing. At least the product you get after you're lured in is a good one.

Ok this post is OVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

what about what

2008-05-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Every time I sit down and write on my blog I am kind of surprised at myself. I don't know why all this political stuff comes out all the time. I don't see myself as someone who cares THAT much about all this garbage flowing around the news channels while the Democrat nominee is being decided. I care a little bit, and the stuff I see and write about bugs me sometimes -- so I write about it -- but I am surprised because it seems like every one of my blog posts is about something like that. And there is so much more stuff that interests me ... that I would like to write about. So it's bizarre I think, that's all.

I confuse and surprise myself in other ways, pretty frequently. When I ride around in my car or walk around on the street or something, I can have some pretty negative thoughts. About other people. Like suppose I see a guy turn left at a city intersection when there is a "no left turn" sign. If I'm walking, and that happens, I really think that guy is a fucking jerk. I mean why do you have to do that, guy? It clearly says no left turn. You could run over a baby or something. So I get mad for a few seconds.

Sometimes, but not always, I realize soon after that if I were the one driving and I had taken the wrong way and needed to go left at such an intersection, I would about 75% of the time do it anyway. I would drive away and know that some people would probably think I was a jerk, because what do they know? -- I had a reason, so it was ok. Oh yes, that's right. I am admitting that sometimes I act as if "the rules don't apply to me." By the way, that phrase is sort of bogus anyway because it's not always that simple. There are tons of special circumstances. But I often fail to consider those. When I am the pedestrian, I don't think "I bet that guy took a wrong turn and isn't a jerk and needed to turn left there, and is probably a safe driver, and maybe I'll give him the benefit of the doubt." I bet a lot of people are the same way. People don't like to give other people the benefit of the doubt. It can be dangerous, or open you up to be taken advantage of....or so you think.

Rambling.....what blogs are good for.

I was preoccupied in my bathroom earlier today, effectively unable to move, when I heard by air conditioner come on. I had to laugh a little bit, because after coming home from work only a few minutes earlier I had happily thrown open the sliding door to let the beautiful weather inside my apartment. But what kind of dumbass leaves the A/C on 75 and opens the door when it's 79?

I guess it's probably time to sleep. Hats off to me for this blog not involving me talking about the presidential race or conservative / liberal issues. But don't worry, I'm sure something will piss me off soon.

Actually I really want to write soon about the Prius and hybrid cars in general. You might think you know what I'm going to say since I support John McCain and am sort of conservative. But you don't. And now that I said that, you might think "oh NOW I bet I know what he's going to say about hybrids!" ... But you don't. That's right friends, I am a big fat enigma. I am a super-unique and interesting individual whose opinions and feelings demand the undivided attention of everybody around me, just like everybody else in America.

This post doesn't even make sense. Is it possible for reading material to be so far below a person's intelligence level that the person can't even understand it? That might be this post.

And I'm just making it worse.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Couldn't agree more with Hillary* pt. 1

2008-05-15T20:21:00.001-07:00

She recently declared to America that it would be a big mistake for her supporters to vote for McCain rather than Obama if Obama is ultimately the nominee.

"Clinton's comments come after exit polls following West Virginia's presidential primary Tuesday indicate only 36 percent of Clinton's supporters would vote for Obama if he were the Democratic nominee."

Impressive citation.

Are you kidding me? So 64% of the WV exit pollers who support Hillary would vote for McCain over Obama??? Look, if I supported Hillary Clinton, I'm pretty sure I would rather jab a corkscrew in my eye than vote for McCain over Obama. I mean come on. And you better believe there are plenty more folks out there like these 64%. Also, there are probably even Obama supporters who feel the same way about Hillary vs. McCain. This is simply hilarious. These people clearly should not be voting. Furthermore any comment they ever make that has anything to do with anything other than their favorite cartoon show should not be taken seriously.

If you vote, you are voting because of what you want to see happen with regard to America, domestically and internationally. We have a representative government, which I take to mean that who you vote for should be the candidate you feel most closely matches the type of leader you would be if you were in office. Given that setup, the fact that these Hillary supporters would vote McCain over Obama doesn't make sense and frankly makes me want to giggle and then throw up.

There's really nothing more to say! This is obviously a stupid stupid thing for these people to do. So back to my post's title: Hillary is absolutely right, and good for her for calling people out on it.

Rough math session:
Voting America is 50% dems and 50% repubs. Voting dems are 50/50 Obama/Hillary. If 60% of Hillary's supporters go McCain (and none of them don't vote), that leaves Obama with 50% times 40% of the vote. That's 20%. That leaves McCain with 80%. Yes these numbers are more or less made up and these people would probably realize how stupid that elementary-school-revenge strategy is before they actually vote, but the point is that people are really entertaining this idea. I'm going to stop writing now because I'm tired of thinking about how utterly moronic it is.

The best way to use a laptop

2008-05-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

...is standing up, holding it underneath with one hand while I use the trackpad with the other hand. I also enjoy typing with one hand.

I also like it when my moron spouse stands next to me and pokes at the screen repeatedly while I'm trying to balance my $2,000 computer on my palm.

See my method of laptop-use in action!!

American Idol: scripted?

2008-05-01T04:35:00.001-07:00

No. At least not that you would be able to tell.

The recent incident with Paula Abdul wouldn't help reveal any secrets of scripting. Here's why thousands of people are getting their panties in a bunch recently, claiming American Idol is scripted:

On a recent episode of American Idol, the five remaining contestants each sang one song and only after all five had sung did the judges critique them in a rapid-fire burst of comments, one judge at a time. This is in contrast to the usual routine of the show, where a contestant sings and is immediately critiqued.

Randy Jackson gave his comments first, and his critiques of the five contestants lasted 30 seconds or a minute. ("Hey dawg, blahlbahblah, and Archuleta, yours was blahblah, and David, blahblahbalh") Then it was Paula's turn. You can watch the video of her comments here.

This mess-up does not show that American Idol is scripted. If you have ever performed anything in your life and had comments given, you probably understand what I'm talking about. Directors/judges/comment-givers frequently look at their notes while giving critiques and say "hmm. I wrote ______ but I don't remember why!" I imagine this is much easier when you are a bad note-taker like Paula Abdul apparently is and you write all your notes for five people on the same small piece of paper. If anything this incident shows that the comments really are NOT scripted. Unless you consider scripted to mean taking notes and then reading them a minute later.

Why being an actuary could be exciting

2008-04-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm (still) studying for Exam C. Here's a question I just came across:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
83. You are the consulting actuary to a group of venture capitalists financing a search for pirate gold. It's a risky undertaking: with probability 0.8, no treasure will be found, and thus the outcome is 0. The rewards are high: with probability 0.2 treasure will be found. The outcome, if treasure is found, is uniformly distributed on [1000, 5000]. You use the inverse transformation method to simulate the outcome, where large random numbers from the uniform distribution on [0,1] correspond to large outcomes.

Your random numbers for the first two trials are 0.75 and 0.85.

Calculate the average of the outcomes of these first two trials.
---------------------------------------------

Of course the best part is the first sentence. It was very unique. Not so unique for these types of problems, though, is that the longer you read the worse it gets.

America's endless war

2008-04-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

The war in Iraq as most people know it started in March 2003 when we invaded. Bombs were dropping here and there for long before that, but we won't count that, because let's be clear: the war that most people want to end is the war that started in March 2003. It has thus been just over five years since we got there.

Many people are sick of this war. They are sick of it for different reasons, but a lot of people are sick of it for one reason that I really can't stand. They are sick of it because it is an endless war. I've heard that phrase used quite a bit recently. This "endless" war. There are bumper stickers that say "End this war" with the "this" crossed out and "less" in its place. If you are one of those people, I'm talking to you.

Frankly that is a pretty bold claim after only five years. Yes, I know...I said "only" five years. Don't get me wrong...I know that the Iraq war costs a shitload and I am not disputing that five years is a long time to be a in state of war. So, while I did say "only 5 years," you said "endless." Describing the Iraq war as "endless" is a hand in the face of anybody who could ever hope to have an intelligent discussion with you. By brandishing that phrase you are basically giving up, saying "there's no end in sight so I might as well call it endless." Do you even know what's going on in Iraq right now? "War" is correct, but not complete. A war is not like on T.V. where people's only job is to run around and shoot guns all day, after which some NPR correspondent goes through after dark and counts all the bodies to send the number to your local news station. It's more than that...it's trying to make political progress, set things up, rebuild what we have destroyed and (to a larger extent) what the sectarian violence has destroyed. Train Iraqis, recruit them, get them in place to run a real country again. Whatever that means, that is what the coalition folks are trying to do.

Most of you know that general story even. But do you know any details? Do you just gasp every time the body count goes up and think "oh, this endless war." Do you know where violence is the worst at this time? Do you know where we've made progress? Do you know how many of the American fatalities were non-combat? Do you know how many were combat? What do you know about the ethnic groups involved?

Most people are not doing their duty in this respect. I include myself there. You can be against the fact that we went there. You can be against the fact that we are still there. But the reason you feel like all you hear about is dead Americans is because that's all you choose to hear about. It's your choice.

So here are some positive thoughts for you. Think these thoughts any time you are in your comfy 2-year old car (be honest: when it came to car payment vs. used car, you chose car payment) with the "endless war" bumper sticker, zooming around town thinking how terrible it is that you have to pay 4 dollars a gallon for gas. Say these thoughts quietly to yourself until you feel better and start to realize that 5 years in Iraq is not even close to "endless."

Thought 1: I don't live in Sudan. I do not daily fear getting raped.
Thought 2: I never lived in Guatemala. 36 year civil war.
Thought 3: I didn't live in Rwanda and the surrounding countries in the 1990's.
Thought 4: I didn't live in China during the mid-20th century (millions dead: famine, etc.) Or Zimbabwe, or Uganda.
Thought 5: I ate a meal less than 8 hours ago, and I will have another one today. If I feel like it. And I won't even have to be part of a riot to get it.

Five years. And you're already calling it "endless." The fact is that it could end very soon! Both Clinton and Obama have promised many corn farmers and blue-collar diner-eater-outers that they will withdraw the troops before they have time to hang their hat in the White House. Not that I really believe both of them would. Obama probably would start a process. Hillary would start a slower process. McCain would ... not. But the point is McCain is probably not going to win, so the war will probably be over soon. So quit your bitching! And don't insult all those people in the world who really know what an endless war feels like. For many people calling it an "endless war," it's been 5 years but it's been 5 years of your news-watching life. You still go to work and come home and eat dinner every day. Millions of other people live an endless war, because they were born into it and might die in it. See the above list again or do your own research to assist you with understanding my line of reasoning. And cut out this "endless war" garbage. Call it many other things and I have no problem. But for some reason "endless war" really gets to me.

Have a nice day!

McCain campaign finance scandal

2008-04-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

The "Race for 08" is in full swing. If I remember correctly, Good Morning America (which I watch every morning as I eat my breakfast) was calling it the "Race to '08." They were calling it that until something like February or maybe even March. Then they switched to "Race for '08," which was appropriate considering the race "to" '08 ended on midnight of December 31, 2007. But let's get to the meat of this blog post.

When you hear about the candidates recently on the news, what do you hear? It's roughly split up like this:

45%: CNN reports in an alert that Hillary Clinton recently spilled her guts to primary voters about how much she loves to shoot guns, drink hard liquor in overalls, rebuild carburetors, etc. etc. I give it a couple of weeks max before you see her during an American Idol commercial break, confessing in a T.V. ad to 20-somethings that she "totally checks Facebook when I should be, like, campaigning."

45%: NPR diligently reports that Barack Obama last night soothed throngs of anxious blue-collar workers at a local diner. Indeed, Mr. Obama's charisma is amnesia-inducing: the voters forget within minutes that only a half-hour earlier, Obama and TV crews had stormed into their favorite diner during dinner time and set up shop so that Obama could tell them - while their food and coffee gets cold - about giving tax breaks to corporations so they won't send jobs overseas. Or wait: was it that he DIDN'T want the corporate tax rate to be cut? Gosh, I can't remember. Oh, yes I do. It was both.

10%: NPR collectively emits a loud sigh and reluctantly devotes 5 minutes of time, once a week, to talking about John McCain's campaign. Admittedly, nothing much is happening. But you wouldn't even know that unless you happen to be listening during the 5 weekly minutes he's talked about. This usually airs around 3:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Recently I (and this is true) heard some stuff about campaign financing with McCain. He did this, did that, people are upset, blah blah blah. On an unrelated note, I went to his website and discovered that there really is something sketchy going on with his campaign finance:

Let's crunch these numbers, shall we? It appears from this leaderboard here that a fellow named "Bill Borman" has raised PRECISELY two-hundred trillion, four-hundred-forty-six billion, five-hundred-forty-two million, ten thousand, four-hundred and eighty five dollars. "Gosh," you might think, "that seems like the most obscene amount of money I've ever heard of." Yes, it probably is. But how much money is it? What kind of fundraising would have to go on to raise this?

Here's the fundraising strategy. Let's say that Bill Borman started by rounding up all the cash he could get. Literally. Let's say he got together all the cash that is in circulation in the entire country, and put it in a discreet brown paper bag. Then, let's say he convinced every American with a checking account to empty their checking accounts into McCain's campaign. So, all the cash in circulation, plus everybody's checking account in the entire U.S. How much would that be? That amount roughly equals what's called M1, an amount of money economists use to estimate stuff I don't understand. The point is that the American "M1" money (cash in circulation + all checking accounts) was about $1.371 trillion dollars at March 1, 2008. That would get McCain's top fundraiser about 1/2 of one percent to his current total. In other words, if he did what I just described for 200 Americas - THAT is how he could raise that much money.

Fun fact: if McCain's top fundraiser total (the 200 trillion number from above) was divided equally among all Americans, each person would get about $659,000.

I'm pretty excited at such a high-profile error, that's all...

facebook is becoming a garbage heap

2008-03-31T17:58:00.000-07:00

It used to be exciting when I had a new request on Facebook. It was inevitably a new friend request, or maybe an invite to an event that was actually hosted by someone I knew and that would actually be hosted in real life with real people attending.

I just deleted about 13 requests. Sure, some were a week or two old, but it was still a lot. Only one was a friend request. The rest were things like invitations to become a vampire or a knight (things that are way cooler to do in a video game, so no thanks Facebook), or invitations to plant a hypothetical strawberry to fight global warming? I'm afraid I gotta bring out the "WTF" on this one. I actually got two of these requests to plant a strawberry to fight global warming. I don't even understand what that means. To be fair, I didn't even read the request. I just deleted it.

I was notified that someone prayed for me and asked would I like to pray for him in return. I got a request to see what kind of criminal personality I am. There are so many little mini games, requests from my friends, and noble causes to save the world that I'm afraid some people will shift their attention away from games, friends, and noble causes that actually exist in real life. Friend #274, I would really love to plant an electronic strawberry to help electronically fight global warming, but I could just as easily send a real letter to my real-life Congressman....which as we all know from 4th grade social studies is the way shit gets done in America. Have you done that, Friend #274? I haven't either. But maybe my point is still valid.

more studying

2008-03-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

I got it right. This concludes my exciting night of blogging. Time for bed...

studying

2008-03-17T20:28:00.001-07:00

I'm studying for an actuarial exam.

I'm bored so I thought I would post a problem I'm about to work. It's basically a probability problem with 3 or 4 steps. The key is to stay organized.

---------------------------------------------
A car manufacturer is testing the ability of safety devices to limit damages in car accidents. You are given:
(i) A test car has either front air bags or side air bags (but not both), each type being equally likely.
(ii) The test car will be driven into either a wall or lake, with each accident type being equally likely.
(iii) The manufacturer randomly selects 1, 2, 3, or 4 crash test dummies to put into a car with front air bags.
(iv) The manufacturer randomly selects 2 or 4 crash test dummies to put into a car with side air bags.
(v) Each crash test dummy in a wall-impact accident suffers damage randomly equal to 0.5 or 1, with damage to each dummy being independent of damage to others.
(vi) Each crash test dummy in a lake-impact accident suffers damage randomly equal to either 1 or 2, with damage to each dummy being independent of damage to the others.

One test car is selected at random, and a test accident produces a total damage of 1.

Determine the expected value of the total damage for the next test accident, given that the kind of safety device (front or side air bags) and accident type (wall or lake) remain the same.
---------------------------------------------

I will now try the problem and post again with the result.

Reason #1 why craigslist is good for America

2008-03-11T18:25:00.001-07:00

1) It gives under-represented voices a chance to be heard.

Just consider this truly masterful display of the English language I came across while browsing the "politics" section of craigslist. If this is the way we are teaching young Americans to think and debate, then ours is a bright future indeed!

does ron paul........................
supporters know how fucking dumb they make there selfs look , america does not need a youtube dumass for president and to that stupid fuck head that says taxes are not used for the military, i am sorry you cock sucker you are wrong,wrong, wrong and you and the ron paul idiots are all losers and suck. ron paul should drop out and quit wasting peoples money he does not stand a china mans chance in hell of winning anything except the dumass of the year award!

left out in Flickrland

2008-01-28T19:41:00.000-08:00

I've kind of been feeling like the last kid picked for dodgeball over the last -- year?! Yeah, it's been almost that long. I have a flickr account, and I think I take some pretty good pictures, plus I've done a little bit of traveling, but I never get any comments on my flickr photos!

Turns out I don't really have tags for any of my pictures. Soo....my pictures are like a book crammed in the back corner of the 700 millionth floor of a library that has a billion floors, and the dewey decimal card for my pictures doesn't exist! Time to get to work on tagging. This is going to take forever.

In the meantime if you're interested: my Flickr page

which lens to buy?

2008-01-28T19:31:00.001-08:00

The next couple of months will be an exciting time for me. I'm shopping for a lens to replace the 18-135mm kit lens that came with my d80. A good portion of that lens is likely still on the side of the road somewhere in Tibet, where it broke apart while I was taking pictures of what were probably yaks as the Land Cruiser sped down the bumpy dirt road we were using on a return trip from Mt. Everest.

Since then I've used a 50mm prime as a replacement, which is a fast and super cheap replacement, but not really a replacement. Thinking of that 18-135 lens, I'm missing the 18 part and the 135 part real bad.

So, the question is: replace it with the 18-135? Or, the much more exciting and thus more expensive option, the supposedly amazing 18-200mm VR?

Since I know Harvard (harvardwang.blogspot.com) reads this, he may offer some advice.

mac vs. pc

2008-01-27T21:20:00.000-08:00

Both sides just need to shut the hell up. People will continue to buy whatever computer they want to, so if your contribution to any mac vs. pc "debate" on the internet is:

"macs are so much better than pc's. I know because in elementary school all the teachers had pc's and they all hated them, then they got macs and they were like oh these are so much better"
..then you should shutup. Likewise, if your opinion is:

"pc's are so much better because BLAHBALBLABHL"
...then you should also shutup.

Well, I guess some people might care what you think about macs vs. pc's. But I sure as hell don't. And why not, you ask? Well here's a crazy thought: because I like them both. I think they are both great computer systems.

Both have positive things about them. Both have negative things about them. And both have plenty of haters lined up on either side ready to take a bullet for their freaking computers.

Why I used to think blogs were extra useless

2008-01-24T15:57:00.000-08:00

My logic went something like this:

- there are lots of people in the world
- most of these people have lots of their own concerns, and things to keep them busy
- on the internet, there are (# of people in world)^(1000000000*100000000) things
- subtract porn
- on the internet, there are (# of people in world)^(1000000) things
- thus for each busy and occupied person in the world, there are tons of things to do on the internet, net porn.
- why would someone want to read what another person thinks about Thing X ?

And that was what I thought. Why should I care to read about what went through some acquaintance's head last Wednesday when she ran over a Canada goose on the way to work and felt so bad the rest of the day that she donated $10 to the Audubon Society?

Actually, more to the point, what I really wondered was why all these other people would care? How could blogs become so popular when people are already seemingly so busy?

But alas, they did become popular, and soon everybody in the world became more of an expert at whatever they thought they were an expert at before.

the (re)start of something (possibly) big

2008-01-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

Dear nobody >>> 3 people:

I am going to resume what was once a non-impressive streak of blog posts to this blog. Few people read it. Well, few, welcome back. Maybe I'll just pretend like no one can see this blog and see what kind of garbage comes out onto the pages.

I have friends with many different ideas -- or maybe that's "many friends with different ideas." I wonder what they'd think about some of the things I could say on here. But, of course, I could say these things anywhere! What's special about a blog? Maybe it's the fact that it's a one-man conversation. I can say whatever I want. And I shouldn't care what people think! Thus far I have cared. I think maybe I'll do an experiment with this blog: I will try to stop caring what secret complaints / thoughts of mine are known to the world (/slash/ the two people who read this blog) and just write what I feel. It'll be just like that cool English class everybody had once when the teacher gave you journals in 7th grade and said you could write about anything, and it would be private, but then went and photocopied the entry about your wet dream and dropped it in leaflet form over your whole neighborhood. Yes. I could see this blog turning out like that.

So don't stop reading now. I might say something "shocking" or "enraging." I will also go for "funny" and will likely achieve "boring" sometimes.

Hopefully the things I say will seem so uncharacteristic of me you will just be sitting at your computer screen thinking "GASP. Gary! How could you say something so uncharacteristic of yourself, when you ARE yourself! My friendship with you only deepens." It could make you want to read more, yes?

The other issue is me keeping the goods coming. I have to be productive with this blog. If I am lucky enough to have someone reading it, he will want a regular flow of posts so he can pick it up whenever he wants. Or she. But definitely not they.

And so it begins again! Until my next post (should it ever come), enjoy my previous blog posts, containing personal opinions with perhaps less-than-sound arguments!

p.s. everything I just typed is probably what goes through a newbie blogger's head right before his first post. Then he posts about SOMETHING. Thought I'd change it up a bit.

zooomr

2007-07-10T02:01:00.000-07:00

This blog post is to test zooomr's claim that they will give me a free Pro account if I just link to a photo that's been uploaded to their site. I am testing to see if this deal is still in effect. I guess we'll see.

Here's the blog post code I'm supposed to paste:

I'll finish the steps and see if it works...

how should I even title this post?

2007-05-12T00:34:00.000-07:00

This post is about smoking. I didn't know what to call the post, because I couldn't decide on something sarcastic, plain informative, or what. But the post is about smoking.

These are my thoughts on a recent move by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to be more informative about smoking in movies. See the article here.

The idea is that the ratings system you're now familiar with for messages such as "frequent drug use, violence, sexuality, and adult language" will now include messages like "frequent smoking." The chairman of the MPAA has said: "Clearly, smoking is increasingly an unacceptable behavior in our society. . . . No parent wants their child to take up the habit. The appropriate response of the rating system is to give more information to parents on this issue."

This film contains frequent nudity and glorifies smoking.

Why? Why do we need this information about a movie? First, we can exclude from this argument people who have already made up their minds about smoking. Plenty of folks, kids included, have already made up their minds about smoking. Their parents or friends smoke, and they either have never tried it and never will, tried it and didn't take it up, or tried it and loved it and now smoke.

In my simple scenario, this leaves those who have never tried it but will try it in the future....hmm, what to say next. Well, I guess in the interest of not rambling I should try to have some kind of thesis to this post.

So, my main idea is that whether or not smoking is glorified in a movie has little effect on the eventual "decision" of a kid to start smoking or not. And here's the strange part: If I see that the guy that plays Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck is loving his every cigarette, actually it might make me want to try. Gosh, cigarettes look good. I mean, this guy really loves them. He smokes them to celebrate, relax, calm his nerves, etc. Maybe I should give them a try! Then I do. And you know what? The fact that some guy on TV loves his every cigarette really makes no difference in the way that cigarette tastes to me. Do I like cigarettes?

Maybe that is the question kids should be encouraged to ask! "Do I like cigarettes?" Convince kids that they taste terrible - then who will want them? Cigarettes are, in my opinion, an acquired taste. If you show me 400 movies about how delicious raw pork fat is, I will never enjoy eating raw pork fat, even if it's addictive. I will try it, decide it sucks, and move on with my life.

America these days would like to safeguard every person against his own choices, and not just regarding smoking. Seems there are lots of reasons for this, angry lawsuits being one, but the fact remains. America thinks Americans are stupid. "We better get smoking out of movies...so that these American kids aren't subliminally duped into walking out of the theater like zombies right into the hands of their cigarette-wielding friends!" And yes, you say, this does happen. Kids do go try smoking, some take it up, and the movies don't help. So I do admit that.

Man there are so many directions I want to take with this post, and I think that trying to take too many of them (at once) will make it really confusing to read. Anyway, my next thought is that smoking is not exactly the next enemy in line to be dealt with if we want to safeguard our kids from bad behavior in movies. How about ANYTHING ELSE that [what is probably] the majority of Hollywood engages in outside of the movies.

This is the new main idea of my poorly organized thoughts:

While people and especially kids do things all the times that are stupid, the kids themselves are not stupid. They are not stupid in the sense that they know it is an actor smoking on screen, but off screen the actor is doing cocaine. They know this. There is no warning before the movies that warns against the role model that the actors and actresses have become. "The leading role in this film is played by someone whose real life is characterized by rampant sex with people he doesn't care about. He also has a drug problem." These are the things that kids know but aren't told to think about. They are told to think about how many cigarettes the guy smokes while he runs around shooting rocket launchers, driving stolen Ferraris, and spouting off poorly-written lines. I'm tempted to start rambling about stars in the music industry, too, but hopefully my point is at least sort of clear.

People today only attack problems that are popular. It is popular right now to attack smoking, from all angles. We hate the tobacco companies for their years of deception and misleading the public into thinking that inhaling smoke is good for you. Hmm, actually here's an instance where the public actually was completely fooled, so maybe we are stupid after all. (If they want to claim that they were fooled, that is, to fight the tobacco companies. Do you follow?) Inhaling the smoke from something that is burning is actually SAFE. Who would have thought? I guess none of these folks had ever walked around the wrong side of a campfire on a windy day, or, heaven forbid, ever barely escaped a burning building, or knew that the greatest threat in a building fire is death from smoke inhalation. These smokes must be inherently different from the smoke coming out the end of a cigarette (and, well, they kind of are, but it's still SMOKE for cryin' out loud)!!!!

Anyway, like I was saying, people only attack problems that are popular. It is only vaguely popular to attack the modeling and fashion industry for the unhealthy lifestyles that are practically mandated for runway and other models. By the way, these lifestyles trickle down (more like a gush than a trickle, I think) to people's daughters, the clothes they wear, and the food that they choose to (or more often, choose not to) eat.

Ah, my ideas are flawed here because obviously the only problems that I will see being attacked will be those that are attacked en masse and are therefore, by definition, popular. However, what I mean is that here we are faced with many problems at the same time, all of them exposed to the entire movie-watching world. We are supposed to believe that the problem is the smoking that we all see in movies. But what about the other problems that we all see in movies? The ones that kids also see but aren't warned about? Actors glorifying drugs and all sorts of other bad-stuff-for-kids in their REAL lives, not their screen lives. Actor X has a terrible cocaine problem, but obviously he can still be successful in life, apparent by his appearance in three consecutive blockbusters! Maybe cocaine isn't that bad after all....and the kid goes home from the theater not even thinking about the cigarettes that Actor X smoked on screen, but more about whether cocaine would suit him and his friends this weekend.

And finally, calling it "glorifying" smoking is just dumb. It looks like people really smoking in real life, most of the time. People that do smoke really enjoy a cigarette when they smoke it. It tastes good, it feels good, and they love it all the way from packing the tobacco to putting it out in the ashtray. So what part of that do you expect not to look enjoyable? If the movies want to show smoking that's not "glorified," they oughtta show some kid trying it for the first time (HA! I suppose that's the last thing we should never expect to see...) Watching a kid cough and double over, cringing at the taste and the reaction his body has made to inhaling this horrible smoke. Now that would keep it from being "glorified." Other than that, doing something you enjoy is always glorious.

Sigh, this post is way too long with too few pictures....just like all those BOOKS. Bleh. So, I better stop writing. Any thoughts? Send me your comments!

And hopefully this time I have not done something so stupid as to support a conservative argument with a Fox News article. I did that once and Dan called me out on it, which needed to be done. So bring on the comments and thanks for reading the whole damn thing!

A short article on the 2016 Olympics

2007-04-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

A super sarcastic, entertaining, and intriguing article about the 2016 Chicago Olympics. I didn't even know the location had already been decided! Here's the article. The author makes some good general points about wasting money, and how important these athletes really, truly are.

horror movies

2007-04-07T23:18:00.000-07:00

I think when Hollywood says "horror movie" they really mean "horrible" or "horrific." As in, the movie will suck. Take The Hills Have Eyes, for example. Just watched it last night. It was completely ridiculous. I think there might even be a sequel!

SPOILER WARNING (when, really all you needed to know is that the movie sucks..that's the only real spoiler):
The guy with the binoculars is still there at the end. So, I guess there's a sequel. I don't have anything really organized to say in this post. The only thing is that major Hollywood scary movies have been notoriously unscary recently, i.e. every time I watch one.

I've probably missed the better ones just by dumb luck; I'll admit that much. I thought The Exorcism of Emily Rose was quite good, so thumbs up on that one. To Hollywood's non-credit, though, that movie was based somehow on true events or something, so it wasn't completely Hollywood's idea. :)

It seems that scary movies fall into two major categories:

Cheap scares
Real scares

The first category is where you'll find The Hills Have Eyes. These are movies with too many startling scenes where things jump out and scare you. This is completely cheap. Anything you don't expect can scare (read: startle) you when it happens. It doesn't matter if it's a bowl falling off a table behind my back in real life or a genetically-mutated freak on the TV screen -- if it's a sudden enough noise, I will be "scared." Unfortunately "scared," as I said, really means "startled" here. And Hollywood thinks startling is scaring.

The second category is home to movies that are truly scary. Movies that don't have extremely gory scenes or frequent cheap scares (startles) already get a few points and are worth consideration for membership in this category. The Ring comes to mind for me. The Exorcist, The Shining, etc. Truly scary movies.

It takes a smart movie to really scare somebody. To pysch them out and have them thinking about it for a long time after the movie's over. As you walk across the parking lot to go home from your friend's apartment after watching a so-called scary movie (which may be in either of the two above categories), you shouldn't be worrying about a chainsaw-wielding maniac jumping out from the bushes a foot away from you and simultaneously beginning a blood-curdling scream. You should be worried about seeing, 100 feet away, a little girl with long black hair and dressed in a white robe dashing behind an old shed after you make the briefest eye contact with her. THAT is scary.

An Inconvenient Truth (part 2)

2007-03-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

Now in the news: some scientists are growing tired of Al Gore's movie. A couple of short news stories:

- Scientists: Gore goes too far in "An Inconvenient Truth"
- Scientists have inconvenient news for Gore

I still haven't seen the movie. I really need to watch it, so I can satisfy my desire to talk about it on here. Who knows, maybe I'll find it to be a well-presented argument. Probably not, though. Scientists are saying Gore ignores science with the claims he makes. He ignores climate changes in the past 15,000 years by saying the current temperature trend is the only one we've ever seen, or some such nonsense. Don't take my inaccurate word for it; I'm paraphrasing at best.

Just pick one, or read both, of the short articles above. And see how Gore's little slideshow is not as solid as it might look.

On another note, it is downright stupid for Hollywood or whoever the apparent idiots are that decide who wins on Oscar night to allow a documentary like this one to win. For Gore to ignore the things he ignores in the movie and then make outrageous claims and predictions on top of that ought to preclude the movie from even being mentioned for an Oscar. But no, all these Hollywood folks are so giggly about the global warming message getting out there that they couldn't contain themselves. Let's drop our standards for the Best Documentary Oscar, and try to show people that this is a great movie that they should see by giving it an Oscar. Fantastic! What a load of crap.

If Hollywood were the scientific community, a result like the one leading to An Inconvenient Truth getting an Oscar would cause an uproar. Scientists are great - here's one way to look at it - because they often do things in very small groups, yet there are tons of others in the field ready to scrutinize any results they come up with. If Hollywood had some scientists in the fray, some real scientists instead of just slideshow scientists, those scientists would've been heard loud and clear at the first screening of Gore's slide-movie-fantasy documentary. The movie ignores too much science, and then makes the claims and tells the story it wants to tell. Hollywood wets its pants and before it knows what happened it gave this "documentary," which may as well be a true story about a different planet altogether, an Oscar! Beautiful.

blogness

2007-03-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

Adding the suffix "-ness" (maybe "suffix" isn't the proper word, I dunno) to words of your choice -- this means YOU, teeny bopper and 20-something girls -- is the "cool beans" of these current years.

Sometime in the not too distant future you will look back on all your Facebook albums, wall postings, email subjects from your friends, etc., and think "what was I thinking."

I'll only give examples of "-ness" where it appears in names of online photo albums I've seen, because that will more than get the point across:

- randomness
- partyness
- awesomeness
- Seniorness

Are you annoyed already? I thought so.

PhD in Women's Studies

2007-03-06T19:14:00.000-08:00

Maybe some of my opinions are just waiting to be proven wrong. This may or may not be one of them.

But PhD in Women's Studies? What?! I have never taken a Women's Studies course, and from what people I know have told me, there are some interesting and useful things to be learned in them, for sure.

But at the same time, this looks too dangerous to me. A PhD program in Women's Studies has the potential to produce some Doctors of Philosophy with .... with what? Why can we get a PhD in Women's Studies? I understand the whole "learn for the sake of learning" or "study to advance human knowledge" and blahblahblah.....I would use the very same argument (albeit a different flavor thereof) to argue why we should study faraway stars, galaxies, and the universe in general. But WHY? Why a PhD in Women's Studies? I know "why" for PhD's in other to-some-degree useless disciplines such as theoretical physics, experimental _____ physics, etc.... (hundreds of millions of dollars are spent worldwide every so often in experimental physics fields, for example, to produce what: a handful of admittedly interesting but possibly otherwise useless papers).....yes I know "why" for these disciplines and I could support them fully if needed.

But, why the hell a PhD in Women's Studies? I wonder how the world at large can benefit. Or anyone.

Beware: retailers may think you are an idiot

2007-03-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

I've never heard many people mention that the "the more you buy the more you save" gimmick touted by department stores every time they have a sale is the stupidest bunch of poo ever. If that really WERE the case....then what are they saying? If you buy nothing, you owe the store money? Sooo...nevermind I'm confused already.

Try to sell this gimmick to a four year old and he will see right through it. Actually, let's do a quick and fun example.

You go to Kohl's. You wouldn't have, but everything's on sale 50%. As your cart happily careens at top speed through the 50% dream world of clothes, you pick up the following:

1 shirt. Regular price: $40. Sale price: $20. Total expenditure so far: $20.

As you move toward the register, satisfied with your choice, you are attacked by a sign: EVERYTHING 50% OFF! STOREWIDE! THE MORE YOU BUY, THE MORE YOU SAVE!

"Holy mackeral," you think...you've already saved $20 from that regularly-$40 shirt. So, your cart screeches around 180 degrees and heads for the pants. You pick up the following:

1 pair of pants. Regular price: $50. Nice pants (maybe). Sale price: $25. Total expenditure so far: $45. Total saved by not paying full price: $45. (Total saved by coming to Kohl's because of the sale when you normally wouldn't have: -$45.)

Later, sitting at home and still unaware of the note in that last set of parentheses, you happily reflect that the $45 you have left in your wallet was saved by not going to Kohl's on a regular day. You were about to only save $20, but you bought the pants too, so you actually saved $45!

The next day, after spilling red wine all over your new shirt at a restaurant, a realization hits you: you weren't going to go to Kohl's in the first place. You went because of the sale. The sale attracted you, pulled you in, and there is a simple economic moral to this story:

The more you buy, the more you spend.

An Inconvenient Truth (part 1)

2007-03-01T00:12:00.000-08:00

It won an Oscar for Best Documentary. First I should say before I write anything else that I didn't actually see the movie. (I might just buy an illegal copy of it here in China for about 75 cents.)

Well, you know what....I should probably try not to be a hypocrite here. I really want to rant about Al Gore and the movie, but I don't know about the movie. My comments would really only be based on what I know (or, I'll admit, what I think I know or what I claim can't be known...) about global warming.

Ok, well, yes I can blog a bit about Al Gore. To that effect I will instead just link to this article I found very interesting considering the messages he's trying to get across. I *do* understand and give credit to the fact that I don't (nor do many other people, realistically...) expect Al Gore to move out of his ridiculously huge mansion into a $100,000 home and cut coupons just because he's a spokesman for a global warming fight. I don't expect him to stop flying around all the time, even in dozen-passenger jets. I don't expect him to do all the other things that would lower his "carbon consumption" down to the levels that the rest of America et al would have to lower theirs in order to make a difference (if that's possible) with respect to global warming.

But, what I do expect is for someone who lives a lifestyle like his to avoid making claims that his lifestyle is "carbon neutral." Avoid pretending that you are the most environmentally-conscious person around because you drive a hybrid or recycle. Al Gore needs to decide what he wants: does he want to be the globe-trotting spokesman for slowing global warming, recruiting thousands and millions to his cause to avoid a major catastrophe (which is supposedly predicted to send the world into a "tailspin" in 10 years if we don't do *something*!!!) , OR does he want to be a role model for those he wishes to recruit? He can't have both. He can't be rich and famous and fly around the world all the time and live a "carbon-neutral" lifestyle. At least not in the way Al Gore's trying to do it with his $1,300 a month power and gas bills (that's at his Nashville home, to be specific. Please don't confuse this residence with any of his other homes, even though they also use lots of fuel).

Here's the article again. Check it out. It's just one point of view. On the other hand, the number that sits on the bottom line of Al Gore's power bills isn't really a "point of view." And though I repeat myself, all I'm saying is he needs to choose. Claim you're a role model for tree-huggers, or be the leading man in a movement to make people lead a more tree-huggy lifestyle? Choose one.
I've managed to avoid saying anything about the movie in particular. Phew. So, next time I go to the train station shopping center to get some cheap-ass DVDs from my 6 kuai (RMB) man Kin, I'll get An Inconvenient Truth. And I'll watch it and afterward I'll probably want to punch somebody in the face.

And this post is to be continued...

White student sues for racial discrimination

2007-02-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to link to this article I found. The author's comments line up pretty well with how I feel about this whole thing: that college admissions practices (in particular) or even job interviewing /acceptance practices that aim to diversify a population of students or employees (or faculty members) are too often discrimination. "Civil rights" groups and pro-diversity individuals don't seem to see a problem with the cases where a minority is admitted or hired when a white candidate with better qualifications is also in the running.

The white candidate doesn't even need to be better qualified for this to still be a problem. Even if the two candidates are equal in every way, and the minority is admitted/hired because of diversity concerns, that still means that the white student/interviewee was not admitted/hired because he is white. Last time I checked, when the color of someone's skin is the reason for his not getting a position (as a student, employee, etc.), that is discrimination.

One color can't be favored over another... and the choice of the colors under consideration doesn't really change that.

I'm not trying to say one way or the other how I feel about the idea of diversifying college student bodies or faculties. Oh, did I just say "diversifying?" I didn't mean diversifying in the sense of intellectual, religious, socioeconomic, sexual preference-related, or ideological diversity. I just meant skin color diversity. Although not always the case (of course), there are too many "diversification" programs that are suspect because the college campuses or companies in which they exist really care primarily about adding more skin colors to the mix.
Anyway, like I was saying before I had to distinguish exactly which kind of diversity I was talking about, I don't disagree with the idea of diversification. After all, it works for investment. Companies diversify their investments like mad....and what's good for GM is good for America (...sort of). But back to the point. I disagree with the way this diversification is put into practice....

****************************

Ok, that post was started back in October 2006. There is no way I can keep going with the same train of thought, and even though I didn't really say all I wanted to say, it's enough I guess.

back to blogging on here

2007-02-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

I've just made a list of 4 or 5 things that I want to blog about. Wait, why did I say "4 or 5?" I just made the list, let me count...

...ok only 3 things. But I know there are more. In any case, I'll be posting on here again soon. I wonder if the only three people I know that have ever read this blog (my dad, Dan, and Parky) either (1) have given up on checking it, since the last post was Dec. 19, 2006 or (2) subscribe to it somehow so they know when there's a new post. I'd put my money on Dan for subscribing, Parky for checking occasionally w/out subscribing, and dad on giving up on checking it.

Actually, since my reader base is so well-defined, I can just send a three-person email and tell each of them that I'll be posting more soon. Or maybe I should just wait until I'm done posting some things.....

Happy Holidays, whiners

2006-12-19T01:08:00.001-08:00

I was just talking with Ty on the internet and he wished me a Merry Christmas. Maybe it's because I was less aware when I was 10 years old, but it seems like sometime between then and now it's become not OK to say "Merry Christmas" to people.

Right in stride with that disappearance of "Merry Christmas" greetings (and all others, in lieu of the PC "Happy Holidays"), it's become increasingly more important to respect the differences of others.

I think a good way to respect the differences of others is to respect their right to tell me "Happy Hanukkah", or "Happy Kwanzaa" or whatever they celebrate, even if it's nothing. People who are offended by me telling them "Merry Christmas" need to reconcile their short fuse with their desire (which I'm sure they have) for everyone to respect everybody's differences, etc, etc.

Merry Christmas.

thank you, Parky

2006-11-06T01:08:00.000-08:00

Parky = An*rew Park, name "starred out" to protect his identity. He is a friend of mine from Australia and perhaps the only person other than myself that will ever read this sentence.

I say "thank you" because he responded to something on my blog! He pointed out some things about the last post (...the Muslim official's comments). Turns out the Muslim official in question actually spoke at International House a few years ago! International House is the residential college where I lived during my semester in Australia. Crazy...a small world, or something like that.

Anyway, back to my main blog to write about something China-related.

good for you, Australia

2006-10-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hats off to Australia for responding to their leading mufti's comments in the way that they did. ("Australia" meaning those Australians who made statements in response....).

This is the second time I remember an Australian or two standing up against extreme Islamic beliefs.* The first time was a comment made just after Australia thwarted a final-stage plot to blow up some Australia public transportation, in which John Howard effectively said that traditional Islamic law used to justify violence is not welcome in Australia and anyone who thinks otherwise should leave Australia.

I wonder if there would be similar responses in the news in America. Which politicians / public figures would stand up and say something if a Muslim leader suggested the same thing about women "inviting" rape? Oh jee, I forgot to even mention that the Muslim leader in question (linked in the article linked at the top of the page) described women not wearing the black garb (sorry, I forget what it is called) as "uncovered meat."

Read the article for a synopsis. It's pretty short and really only offers a kind of third-person (or farther-removed?) perspective on the whole thing. But hats off to Australia.

* "extreme Islamic beliefs" - beliefs courtesy of Islamic law that are not exactly in sync with the modern day and that are not necessarily held by all Muslims. For example, the belief that blowing up Americans / others is a good way to stand up for what you believe in, or the belief that women invite not only rape but gang rape by wearing anything that reveals more than the slit of skin containing their eyes.

Che Guevara

2006-10-09T00:15:00.000-07:00

If you wear the t-shirt, do you know why you wear it?

Here's one side of the story.

my true colors

2006-10-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

According to the political affiliation test I just took, I have been right all along.

Some people think I'm indecisive or that I always ride the fence on certain issues....I have always just considered myself sort of moderate.

So on a political grid with the origin (i.e. dead-center) being of course at 0.0, 0.0, I scored a (-0.13, 0.36), with the abscissa being Economic left/right and the ordinate being Social left/right. If you don't know what the words abscissa/ordinate mean, then we probably couldn't be friends.

oh Al Gore

2006-09-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

...please find something else to do with your time. So many impressionable young folks are misled by your little hurricanes-coming-out-of-smokestack campaign...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm

See you in the smoking lounge

2006-09-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen a "smoking lounge?" They're the rooms in airports, hospitals, and maybe other large public places where smokers are sent to have a cigarette.

Picture this: you are in the Denver airport. Hundreds of people all around you during a busy period of the day. You're a smoker and you want to smoke after getting off of a crowded flight. Where can you go along with the dozens of other smokers? Ah, right this way sir, to the "smoking lounge." It's a relatively tiny room when you consider the sheer numbers that pack in there during the busy times, just to have a smoke.

"So what," you are probably saying. Well the crappy thing about the smoking lounge is the people who are ultimately responsible for it have created a giant .... contradictory, inhumane death trap. Smoking lounges exist because people are scared of and do not like second-hand smoke. They either don't like the smell or they are scared that overexposure to it will give them a laundry list of things only a doctor can pronounce. So, they demanded that smokers at airports, etc. be confined to the sexily-named "smoking lounge." Where the inhumane death trap comes in is that if second hand smoke is really THAT bad for you, then surely directly inhaled smoke is MUCH worse.

So, not only do you sit in that Denver airport smoking lounge inhaling the certain death coming from your own cigarette, but the other righteous and health-conscious citizens of the world (thank God for them!) have condemned you to a room where you are also inhaling the second-hand smoke of everybody else! So either the people that are all freaked out about the supposedly inevitable health consequences of second-hand smoke inhalation are wrong, or there really ought to be legal consequences for those who developed the smoking lounge.

Two pictures for you. While the first appears to be doctored up quite a bit, it is pretty much the type of "smoking lounge" you can find in an airport when things are busy.

If you are going to call it a "smoking lounge," it really should look more like below:

The thrilla in the Vatican: Benedict XVI vs. Islam

2006-09-18T03:52:00.000-07:00

Recently Pope Benedict XVI made a speech at a university in Germany. In the speech he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor. The quote was about the Prophet Muhammad (the founder of Islam), and it basically said if you look at the things Mohammed did that were new, you will only find things evil and inhumane. I have been able to find the quote, but I haven't been able to find the full text of the Pope's speech. Oh, so here's the quote from the 14th century guy:

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Apparently the Pope's speech has angered millions of Muslims worldwide because apparently the speech associated Islam with violence. Like I said, I can't find the full text of the speech, so maybe he said all kinds of worse things...but it's unlikely since most of the Muslim anger stems from this quote (according to the news stories I've read).

So the Pope supposedly linked Islam with violence. Leslie-Ann and I discussed the other night our thoughts on Islam. She thinks it is a violent religion, and I don't. The problem with my argument is that no Muslims seem to be standing up and denouncing all the acts of violence that occur in the name of Islam. If some crazy "Christian" whackjob blows himself up or kills somebody because it was supposed to be God's work, Christians everywhere would be coming to Christianity's defense. But where are the peaceful Muslims coming to Islam's defense? I know they are out there, I do.

The thing that is ironic about this whole thing is the backlash the Pope is getting. First of all, there are crazy bastards all over the world who really like burning things. Lots of them are French youth. Remember last year? France was considering a labor law that would allow employers to fire workers within 2 years of employment without giving a reason. The youth of France respond diplomatically in Paris by setting things on fire!!! Actually I think it worked for them in that case....but anyway, if you read the news to find out how the Muslim world has reacted to the Pope's questionable comments (that don't even directly relate Islam to violence), here are the events you will read about:

In Kashmir, dozens of lawyers wearing black court robes marched Friday through the streets of the summer capital Srinagar, shouting, "Those who dare to target Islam and the Prophet will be finished."
The head of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood called on Islamic countries to threaten to break off relations with the Vatican unless the pontiff withdrew his remarks. http://www.itv.com/news/world_5cbae3408eb7bf095b7f410fee0e48d0.html
Mohamed Mahdi Akef,whose organisation is one of the oldest, largest and most influential in the Arab world, said: "The Pope has aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world and strengthened the argument of those who say that the West is hostile to everything Islamic." http://www.itv.com/news/world_5cbae3408eb7bf095b7f410fee0e48d0.html
Two churches were set on fire in the West Bank, raising to at least seven the number of church attacks in Palestinian areas over the weekend blamed on outrage sparked by the speech. [personal note: at least some of these churches are not even Catholic.]
There was also concern that the furor was behind the shooting death of an Italian missionary nun at the hospital where she worked for years in the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia. The killing came just hours after a Somali cleric condemned the pope's speech.
In Turkey, the deputy leader of the ruling party, Salih Kapusuz,said: "He [Benedict XVI] is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
The Pakistani Parliament unanimously passed a resolution demanding the Pope "retract his remarks in the interest of harmony between religions".

Unbelievable. I could write a bunch more about how ridiculous I think the reactions are, but I won't. To be fair, I did find some instances where Muslim officials tried to tell Muslims through the media to "keep your cool," but should they really even have to do that? I mean, all the Pope did was say something that possibly was offensive. Everybody just needs to chill out. Another quote, something we need more of....

Meanwhile Andrew Robb, parliamentary secretary on multicultural affairs, has told Australia's Muslim clerics they must work harder to denounce terrorism. He said fear and misunderstanding of Muslims was driven by "evil acts done falsely in the name of Islam around the world. These need to be addressed, not swept under the carpet."

Purpose of this blog

2006-09-18T02:08:00.000-07:00

This blog is just a big scratch pad for me to write out things I am thinking. Most of this stuff will probably have to do with current events, etc. See, I'm in China right now and the best way I've thought of so far to stay in touch with the U.S. is to read the news. Fortunately and unfortunately, lots of stuff that happens in the news gets me all excited. Sometimes it's just the way it's reported. Everybody's got an opinion, right? This blog will be about mine!

Speaking of being in China, I have another blog at http://chinesegary.blogspot.com. I want to keep that one strictly about China and what's going on while I'm here.

Some of my friends from University of Richmond remember those lovely Thursdays when, walking into d-hall for dinner, I'd pick up the new issue of the Collegian, read it during dinner, and then be sad and/or pissed off for the rest of the night. Hopefully this blog won't be that kind of reaction over and over again!