C for Cranky
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I've been following the progress of a movie "V for Vendetta" which is in post-production and is due out in November. It looks like it might be a cool movie: the Wachowski brothers, Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, John Hurt, Stephen Rea. It just sort of intrigued me. While checking out the movie web site a couple of days ago I noticed that the movie trailer is available in High Definition. I figured that would be kind of neat. I haven't done a lot of video stuff on my computer, but it isn't that the computer can't handle it, I just don't think about it. Too many years with dial-up, I guess.

Anyway, in order to see the trailer you need QuickTime, so I installed it. I watched both the standard version and the HD version of the trailer. The movie looks interesting and I was pretty impressed with the HD trailer. Cool, right?

This afternoon I decided to start work on an essay that has been bouncing around in the back of my mind for the past few days. As always, when I get ready to start a big project, I open up my FreeMind software (see sidebar) to map it out. Except it wouldn't open. I tried everything I could think of, and still couldn't get it to work.

Well, this is a problem. I'm not a particularly linear thinker (at least it isn't my strong suit). I have come to rely heavily on my FreeMind software to allow me to think about essays in my normal, semi-random fashion and then organize the bits and see where the holes are that need to be filled to make the whole thing more or less linear.

Now, the only thing different on my computer from the last time I used FreeMind was that QuickTime installation. I've never liked QuickTime all that much. I used to have problems with it on my old computer when I was trying to play Myst. So, if it was a choice between QuickTime and the ability to watch Natalie Portman get her head shaved repeatedly on the one hand and the ability to use one of my favorite software programs, QuickTime had to go. Only, after I uninstalled it, FreeMind still wouldn't open. I ended up having to re-install the Java Runtime Environment that FreeMind uses as well.

"C" for Cziltang. "C" for Cranky. Coincidence?

I think not.

 

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, July 30 2005 11:09:02 PM

Some Days...
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Back in the 70's there was a comedy group called The Firesign Theater. They had an album called "Waiting for the Electrician, or someone like him."

Fast forward to a time just some time back (maybe months, probably years): There was a commercial for beer (I think) which showed beautiful people having loads of fun and the guy getting the girl or some such formulaic nonsense. There was cool commercial music and the lyrics ended with "some days are better than others." The clear implication was that if you were to drink their beer you would have "better days" and your "better days" would be like those in the commercial. I always thought the commercial was funny (although it was clearly meant not to be) because that is one of those great truisms in life. Some days are better than others. Even if your life is one big steaming pile of crap, it is still true that some days will be better than others.

Fast forward to present day: I can't begin to describe and won't even attempt to explain how much "not better" today was. Which, in a perverse sort of way may explain why the tune to that commercial kept running through my head. But (to continue with the "one big steaming pile of crap theme) Sturgeon's Law says that "90% of everything is crap" (although I've heard tell that, in fact, the actual quote was really "90% of everything is crud) so I have probably been overdue for a really crappy day.

Anyway, for the point or something like one. While this stupid jingle was running through my head this evening I started wondering about the distribution of crap. Specifically, I was wondering if crap is distributed in Bell Curve fashion, in which case the right-hand tail of the curve would be the 10% of stuff that is "not crap," the big part of the curve in the middle would be your everyday, garden variety mediocre crap, but on the other end of the curve would be the tail that is reserved for egregious, putrid, monumentally awful crap.

OK, I admit I don't really have a point. If I was having a good day, I could probably come up with one, but, you know what they say... "Some days...

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, July 29 2005 11:33:49 PM

Of Ear Pieces and Physical Metaphors
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I guess if asked, I would have to say that things are kind of rough at work at the moment. I spent most of the day doing paperwork, ordering stuff and working on a couple of projects, all while listening to music with my ear pieces firmly jammed in my ears. It appears my boss finds this behavior disquieting, although not necessarily because I'm doing it, but because of what it appears to symbolize.

Now I have no idea what it symbolizes to her exactly, but I suspect it is something like a physical metaphor for withdrawal from active participation in the normal ebb and flow of the organizational environment, or some such hyperbolic nonsense. I've never thought much about the idea of physical metaphors. In corrections you develop a reasonably sophisticated understanding of non-verbal communication, at least on some level, or you just don't last very long in the field. But, at least in my mind, the idea of physical action being a metaphor for something else seems bigger than just body language.

I don't really have a point here, other than it just struck me as odd that I had never really thought about it.

And as for me and my ear pieces, maybe it is a metaphor for mental withdrawal from the organization which, if one were to cast about randomly for meaning, one might attribute to being a precursor to an oncoming mid-life crisis in which I renounce everything in my current life, quit my job, buy an old school bus, convert it into a mobile living environment painted in psychedelic colors, run off with a 20 year old neo-hippie chick and become an organic bean farmer. (One might attribute it to that, but you would probably need illicit pharmacologic aid to reach that point on your own, and I can pretty well rule it out anyway, as my gastrointestinal tract is not particularly "bean-friendly" at my age.)

Or it could simply be that I like music (which is true).

Or, maybe I just want people to go away and leave me alone so I don't choke the life out of next bloody idiot who looks at me cross-eyed.

Hey, take your pick. Form your own conclusion. It won't bother me one way or the other. I've got work to do and besides, I'll have my ear pieces jammed in my ears.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, July 28 2005 09:45:01 PM

Public Health
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Radley Balko at The Agitator, has a link to what I think may be the most disturbing story I've heard of in quite a while. From Mr. Balko:

Government is simultaneously expanding the Medicare and Medicaid entitlements while increasing its power to police our personal lives for bad habits, almost always under excuse that unhealthy habits "cost taxpayers money." One feeds off the other. Socialize medicine a bit more, and it gets a bit easier to justify further intrusions into our personal lives. This is why I try to advocate returning more ownership and personal responsibility to personal healthcare -- with Medical Savings Accounts, for example. The only way to stop government from chipping away at our individual freedom is to take away its only real excuse for doing so -- the "public costs" argument. If the only people who bear the costs of unhealthy habits are the people who hold those habits, government has no justification for regulating those habits. Unfortunately, things are still moving in the opposite direction.

And the story? New York is considering a law that would require labs "to report to the city the results of a certain type of test that indicates how well individual patients are controlling their diabetes." This would be done without the knowledge or consent of the individuals being reported on. The rationale, as always, is that "diabetes costs an estimated $5 billion a year to treat in New York and was the fourth leading cause of death in the city in 2003, killing 1,891."

The thing that galls me most about this is the attitude of Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City's health commissioner:

By pinpointing problem patients, then intervening ever so slightly in their care, Frieden said the city can improve thousands of lives. “I don’t think we can afford not to do anything,” he said.

(emphasis mine, and of course, I'm sure Dr. Frieden's definition of "ever so slightly" would be acceptable to us all. And of course Dr. Frieden doesn't think we can afford not to do anything. After all, he's the expert and it's not like his department would get more money and staff to implement this plan or anything or would ever have a vested interest in expanding the definition or anything.)

And then later in the article is the argument that chronic disease is the main cause of years lost to illness. As if the only measure of a quality life is its length.

I have ranted about this stuff in the past, but suffice it to say that aside from the issue of privacy (which should be sufficient in and of itself) I absolutely cringe when I hear things like this. It's that old personal responsibility thing again. If you are a diabetic and you choose (for whatever reasons) not to take care of your diabetes properly, I don't see why other people should have to pay someone to monitor you and nag you into doing it.

Now, you might object to this on the grounds that some people don't manage their diabetes properly because they can't afford to due to lack of insurance or income or whatever. Sorry, different issue. I would much rather use tax money to provide supplies for people who need them and want to be responsible for treating their diabetes properly than pay for someone to "care" about people who don't give a damn about their own health. Providing tools that let people be responsible for themselves is different from providing services that allow (or force) people to abdicate their responsibility.

Again from Mr. Balko:

It's funny, when corporations do shady things to make or save money, they're demonized. When government trespasses all over our personal freedom in the name of saving money, it's generally considered noble.

Diabetes isn't communicable. There's no legitimate public health concern, here.

One wonders what other conditions or habits would be fit for government monitoring without consent. Obesity? Smoking? Unprotected sex?

If the only consideration is cost to taxpayers, I can't see why those wouldn't merit policing, too.

 

 

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, July 28 2005 12:40:55 AM

Grounds?
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I don't know how much national coverage this has gotten (as I rarely watch the news on TV) but the big news story in Kansas this year has been the apprehension and subsequent guilty pleas of the BTK Strangler. I've avoided writing about it (mostly) because once you get the salient details (which takes about 5 minutes) the rest is trivial hype, at least on TV. And of course they repeat the same stuff over and over and interview the same victims' family members and ask them the same inane questions like, "Now that he's plead guilty, how do you feel?"

One of the local stations had a big news story last night in which they revealed BTK's wife's divorce paperwork. In the teaser for the story they promised to tell us the contents of the paperwork and also promised to analyze whether or not (wait for it....) she actually has grounds to file for divorce.

I didn't watch it.

But, having not watched it, and only speaking in general hypothetical terms, how about "irreconcileable differences" based on "he's a creepy, lying, sadistic, serial-murdering weasel and I'm not"?

I would think that would work for her, no?

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, July 27 2005 09:04:31 PM

Inner Cool
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Zero 7: "In the Waiting Line"

Do you believe

In what you see

Motionless wheel

Nothing is real

Wasting my time

In the waiting line

Do you believe in

What you see

Every time someone did something at work today that was not conducive to maintaining my inner cool, I just stuck my ear-pieces in my ears, assumed my "Zen of Anger" posture and went about my business. A lot of people did stuff that was not conducive to maintaining my inner cool today. Consequently, I spent most of today listening to "In the Waiting Line" on a continuous loop at work. When I was a kid, I learned to focus on the bridge of my mother's nose, put on a half smile, nod occasionally and completely ignore whatever she was saying.

I am happy to say that this is a transferable skill, made easier through the addition of an appropriate soundtrack to drown out all that annoying chatter.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, July 27 2005 01:39:18 AM

Wordsmithing
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I have mentioned various writers in the past who have stunned me with their ability to evoke incredibly vivid images through the creative use of the English language. Today I pay homage to Dale Franks who (in a Q and O piece about unions and in particular about the AFL-CIO and its affiliation with the Democratic Party) came up with this gem:

In the end, Sweeney made the AFL-CIO a powerful arm of an impotent party, making the union the political equivalent of the toughest guy in the high school chess club.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, July 26 2005 11:31:40 PM

Be careful what you wish for
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I once told a friend that I was pretty sure God was a woman and that a) she didn't like me very much and b) I could do with a little less of what apparently passes for her sense of humor. My friend thought that was funny and has repeatedly reminded me of it (in much the same way your parents always bring out that family album with the picture of you doing something disgustingly cute while taking a bath when you were 2 whenever you bring a girl home to meet them for the first time).

I got a call from work late this afternoon (I took the day off to take the Head Rat to the doctor). There's nothing official to talk about yet, but it appears a furry demon with little beady eyes and razor-sharp teeth and claws may have just taken notice of me. And yes, that is a deliberate reference to the rabbit in Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Actually, now that mention it, that is about as good a metaphor as I could have come up with. This thing I may be involved with should be a simple thing, like a furry, cute bunny. But it is likely to take my bloody head off. And the worst (as in God is a woman and doesn't like me very much) part is that if I should (metaphorically speaking, of course) kill the damn thing, the powers that will be will look at it and say, "see, it was just a cute, furry bunny." Meanwhile, there I will have been, risking death, dismemberment, the loss of my soul and a rather large bill from the dry cleaners, fighting the demon, and with no Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, to boot.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, July 25 2005 07:12:28 PM

Heroes
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I, I will be king

And you, you will be queen

Though nothing will drive them away

We can beat them, just for one day

We can be Heroes, just for one day

DAVID BOWIE "Heroes"

Each of us has his own personal demons. For some men they are the ravenous beasts of nightmare and legend and those men struggle mightily. Few, if any, vanquish their demons. They earn, instead, a temporary respite, a moment of calm before the next storm. The demons return in moments of fatigue, or complacency, or insufficient vigilance, or in the temptations of comfort and ease, or in the night in the quiet on the edge of sleep, and the battle begins anew. There is something heroic about fighting the good fight against one's demons. It is what makes men larger than life.

When I was younger I sought out the demons with a vengeance, although, for some reason, most of them ignored me. I didn't realize until later that even if you poke a demon with a sharp stick, they rarely engage an unworthy opponent.

But I went on about my life, convinced that somewhere, deep down, there was something there, something worthy.

John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Indeed it does. Then one day you wake up and realize that today is just like any other day. And you realize that somewhere along the line your expectations were lowered in a nearly imperceptible but ultimately inexorable glacial creep. You realize you aren't going to get that big promotion, you aren't going to go all the places you thought you would, the Great American Novel you thought was inside you isn't. In short you aren't what you thought you would be when you grew up.

When you hit that point, all you have left is your demons. The only honor left in such a situation is that which derives from fighting the good fight, not for others to see, but purely for yourself, for the knowledge that in some way, you were worthy. Men who battle their demons don't always win, but Great Men battle mighty demons. Lesser men battle lesser demons.

For me, at least, the knowledge that I am not what I thought I would be is not depressing, only bittersweet. I have a life that is mostly good and I would not trade any of it for some romantic fantasy about what my life could have been. What is depressing is to realize that my demons aren't mythic fire-breathing beasts with poisoned fangs and razor claws. They are more like cranky Ewoks with fleas.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, July 25 2005 03:23:55 PM

Methodist Terrorists?
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(I feel a bit awkward about posting this. No, it isn't the subject matter, it is about giving the author the respect he or she deserves. Since I've started blogging I have felt that quoting an entire article by someone else was just bad form. I don't always follow the links back from something I read and I doubt that many people do always follow all the links. By posting someone else's entire article - even with appropriate links and credit - I've taken away all incentive for someone to go visit the author's site and see what else they may have written that is interesting and worthwhile. On the other side, not providing a teaser pretty much guarantees that no one will follow the link. I know I certainly get annoyed when bloggers post only a link and a comment that says "go read this." So I'm really stuck on this one, because for this particular article I can't figure a way to give a teaser that makes any sense without posting the author's part of the entire article. That said, here it is, minus the text that the author, Dale Franks at Q and O, quoted from someone else's article.)

Islam, as the president of the United States constantly reminds us, is the "religion of peace".

(...)

There is a reason why, when something blows up, we immediately assume that, if it wasn't "Muslim terrorists" who did it, it was at least terrorists who claim that they are Muslim. There must, after all, be some reason why the Radical Lutheran Liberation Front isn't blowing things up. Indeed, there must be some reason why there isn't an RLLF in the first place. Or the Soldiers of Buddha, while we're on the subject. Conversely, there are Hamases and Hezbollahs by the dozen.

Why is that exactly? Why is it when a suicide bomber blows up families in a pizzeria, we don't start rounding up Swedes? There must be some reason for it.

If only I could figure out what it is.

Naturally, one is constrained by the niceties of the day to point out that terror is confined to a small subset of Muslims. But compared the the subset of, say, Methodist terror organizations, the Muslim subset of terror supporters seems...rather larger.

It's not unreasonable to wonder why that might be.

Ok, I will try not to do this again. And I encourage you to go visit Q and O for its interesting perspective on a number of issues.

Update: Oh, and by the way, I will also try to refrain from posting any more cat pictures.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, July 12 2005 11:03:08 PM

Blood Feud?
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(via Belmont Club) I found a link to an article at Tech Central Station in which Lee Harris argues that part of the problem we have in dealing with Islamicist terrorists is that we think in terms of this being a war between them and us, when it might be more instructive to conceptualize it as a blood feud.

Immediately after 9/11, the general consensus was that we were at war. And yet this evocation of the concept of war bothered me because it did not quite fit. Wars were things that Westerners did. They were fought for economic reasons or for territorial expansion; they were instruments of policy; they had a point and an objective. You knew when a war started, and you knew when it was over. On both sides of a war you had diplomacy -- the breakdown in diplomacy normally started wars, and a recommencement of diplomacy inevitably signaled their termination. Finally, wars, when they were fought, tended to resolve into a series of increasingly climactic battles, allowing each side to keep score of its position, as in a game of chess, and ending in some well-established gesture, like waving the white flag or slaughtering your enemies en masse.

If you try to make the random and scattered terrorist attacks since 9/11 fit into this pattern, you will soon realize that it takes a good bit of twisting and squeezing to make these events match the profile of Western warfare.

(...)

In the blood feud, unlike war, you have no interest in bringing your enemy to his knees. You are not looking for your enemy to surrender to you; you are simply interested in killing some of his people in revenge for past injuries, real or imaginary -- nor does it matter in the least whether the people you kill today were the ones guilty of the past injuries that you claim to be avenging. In a blood feud, every member of the enemy tribe is a perfectly valid target for revenge. What is important is that some of their guys must be killed -- not necessarily anyone of any standing in their community. Just kill someone on the other side, and you have done what the logic of the blood feud commands you to do.

In the blood feud there is no concept of decisive victory because there is no desire to end the blood feud. Rather the blood feud functions as a permanent "ethical" institution -- it is the way of life for those who participate in it; it is how they keep score and how they maintain their own rights and privileges. You don't feud to win, you feud to keep your enemy from winning -- and that is why the anthropologist of the Bedouin feud, Emrys Peters, has written the disturbing words: The feud is eternal.

While I find this idea most interesting, I think that there is a problem with it. On a tactical level I think it can be really instructive. But, if we embrace this concept too wholeheartedly, I think we run the risk of forgetting (or never acknowledging) that at the strategic level, there is an overall objective to Islamicist terrorism: The downfall of western civilization and its replacement with rule by sharia.

See this: In Dalston market in north-east London on Thursday, "Abdullah," a Muslim watch-mender and evangelist, was in a pugnacious mood.

"We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" he said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God."

Or this: The main mission for which the Military Organization is responsible is: The overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, July 12 2005 08:37:57 PM

Feline Fear and Loathing
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Galen covers his face with his paw, unable to bear the shame of being the cause of my fall from PC grace.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, July 12 2005 08:12:53 PM

What I did on my summer vacation:
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Pretty much nothing. The Head Rat and I have both been sick for most of the last week and a half. Mostly, I've stayed in bed. I did get around to watching the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings back-to-back-to-back yesterday. And, I did get around to cleaning out some odds and ends in my office.

One of the things I found was my ticket to a March 27, 1980 luncheon to see John Anderson. In case you are too young to remember, John Anderson ran as the National Unity Party candidate for president. I had forgotten what it was I liked about him then. This is a quick reminder:

Anderson felt that neither party, nor its candidates, represented American ideals: the Republicans were too socially conservative and intolerant, he said, and the Democrats' tax-and-spend, social welfare agenda seemed to ignore economic realities. The ongoing oil crisis, which had manifested itself in terms of long gas lines and rampant inflation, was a serious problem, and Carter's only response was to blame the public's "crisis of confidence." And Anderson feared that Reagan's hawkish defense attitudes and social conservatism were bad for America.

Of course, my ideas about politics have changed in the last 25 years. But I do remember Anderson being civilized and reasonable. If you wanted to know what he stood for on any issue, his campaign had photocopied position statements on almost everything. I liked that he appeared to be forthright. In the end, being from Kansas, it doesn't really matter who I vote for, as we haven't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Johnson in 1964. Usually, somewhere between 55% and 65% of us vote Republican. But, I voted for Anderson anyway.

So, I guess it has been kind of an interesting trip down memory lane, but I think it's time I throw the ticket away. (Although, if there are any political memorabilia collectors out there who are interested, I would be more than happy to send it to you. I also think I've got a Perot '92 button running around here somewhere I would part with cheap. And no, I didn't vote for him.)

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, July 11 2005 09:15:17 PM

It must be his fault
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I've been on vacation for the last two and a half weeks. I am currently running around the house in scruffy sweatpants. I haven't shaved in over 2 weeks. I'm feeling cantankerous and irritable. I want to go to an air show in Canada. I want to drink a Coke in Wichita. I want to smoke a cigarette in my car in New Jersey (via the Agitator)

This is Galen (the name is another one of Rat Jr.'s ideas). It must be his fault.

Why? Well, he's a cat.

THEY may look like lovable pets but Britain’s estimated 9m domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people’s personalities.

The startling figures emerge from studies into toxoplasma gondii, a parasite carried by almost all the country’s feline population. They show that half of Britain’s human population carry the parasite in their brains, and that infected people may undergo slow but crucial changes in their behaviour.

Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the “sex kitten” effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun- loving and possibly more promiscuous.

Interestingly, for those who draw glib conclusions about national stereotypes, the number of people infected in France is much higher than in the UK.

(...)

By contrast, the infected men appeared to suffer from the “alley cat” effect: becoming less well groomed undesirable loners who were more willing to fight. They were more likely to be suspicious and jealous. “They tended to dislike following rules,”

So, if it weren't for the damn cat, I would probably still be a suave, debonair, clean-shaven, correct thinking liberal and would be working on filing a lawsuit, given that I am a victim of the local government's failure to protect me.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, July 11 2005 08:43:20 PM

Thoughts on Legalizing Drugs
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I'm having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, so I'm spending a lot of time reading weblogs, some new and some of my favorites in more depth than I usually manage. I found this discussion of the Heroin trade in Britain at Samizdata.

The trouble is that our political class has persuaded itself that it simply cannot legalise this trade. People might kill themselves by taking too many drugs. (The perfect punishment, I would say.) The politicians already ban lots of other things because they are unsafe. (Stop. Let people take their own risks and their own chances.) "Middle England" would not stand for it. (Middle England stands for lots of other things it dislikes.) But, but, but, we just can't. (Why not?)

Well, why not indeed? What is going on here? Maybe the root cause, if there is such a thing, of the utter refusal of the present generation of politicians to legalise drugs is that they have got it into their heads, as have an appalling proportion of their voters, that it is the job of politicians to look after the voters, in the manner of parents looking after their children. To legalise drugs would be to send out a message that the politicians simply cannot bear to send out, namely: We don't care about you! Look after yourselves! If all you can think of to do with your lives is take drugs, you will get no money from us to pay for them. And if you wreck your lives with them, and find yourselves ill and starving, tough. The only way you will get our attention is if you commit crimes under the influence of drugs, or because you can think of no other way to make a living, in which case we catch you and punish you some more. (emphasis mine)

As someone who's job security is pretty well ensured due to our obsession with the war on drugs, it might seem a bit odd for me to be sympathetic to this point of view. Actually, I don't see it as being odd. We waste an unimaginable amount of money punishing people for taking drugs. These folks clog up the prison system, the courts and facilities like mine. In the mean time, we have truly violent, despicable thugs and sexual predators who do not get the intense scrutiny they so richly deserve because the system is overloaded with individuals who can't think of anything better to do than ingest substances which have been declared illegal.

(Yes, I know this is a gross over-simplification, and if you want to engage in a more detailed discussion, e-mail me. The fact that it is an over-simplification doesn't alter the fact that drug addicts can be more effectively dealt with via treatment than prison. And, yes, I know legalization would have significant social consequences. No, I'm not saying drugs are good. The point of the article is that we can't even consider whether this would be a better way to deal with the problem because we are caught in a "Nanny State" mentality.)

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, July 06 2005 01:55:06 AM

A Real Hero
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Given that a lot of the blogosphere is a lot younger than me, I expect a lot of people out there won't remember James Stockdale. Folks my age and a bit younger may remember him as Ross Perot's running mate. At any rate, he has died at age 81.

If you aren't familiar with James Stockdale, here is an excerpt from a post at Q and O.

Vice Admiral James Stockdale has died at 81 years of age. In a life dedicated to the service of the United States, VADM Stockdale received 26 combat decorations, including the Medal of Honor.

Please go read the whole post, which describes how he earned the Medal of Honor while in a POW camp in North Viet Nam. Then come back and we'll have a discussion about self-sacrifice and how important most of the things we complain about in our lives really are.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, July 06 2005 01:40:28 AM

MIT Survey
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I saw this at The Smedley Log. A couple of researchers at MIT are doing a study of weblog authors and communication patterns.

The researchers describe the study like this:

This is a general social survey of the greater weblog community being conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our goal is to help understand the way that weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other. Specifically we are interested in issues of demographics, communication behaviors, experience with weblogs and other technology, and the meaning of various types of social links within the blogosphere.

The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete, and we are asking anyone with a weblog to participate. The larger the sample of individuals we can get, the better our picture of the community will be.

As of the time I'm writing this they had almost 49,000 participants. Interestingly, women participants outnumbered men by about 3 to 2.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, July 05 2005 03:04:13 AM

Annotated Archive Update
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I've finished the archive project through August of 2003. This is turning out to be more tedious than I had anticipated, but I did take the chance to re-read the essay on Personal Responsibility (now collected in the Essays section). Actually, I think it wasn't too horrible.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, July 04 2005 04:23:15 PM

Live What?
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I have specifically and purposefully avoided any contact with Live 8. I find the whole thing annoying and misguided. But, to each, his own. I am simply exercising my innate capacity to make choices for myself rather than allow someone else to choose for me.

That said, I found this quote over at Samizdata.

You know what, I've finally understood what this whole "live 8" nonsense is about. I twigged when I heard a quote on the news, something like "this is all about you, the leaders of the G8, because you make the decisions". Recognise the instinctual pattern: singing and dancing, mass ecstatic rallies, high moral cause, loud appeals for attention and for aid from on high - they're praying, to the only gods they know.

- Julian Morrison

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, July 04 2005 03:05:04 PM

Annotated Archives
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I've been at this nonsense for over 2 years now. Basically I do it for me. Occasionally I direct someone to one of my essays, but mostly I do it for me. Consequently, one of the things I have grown to dislike about the layout of my site is the archive list on the left. It just sort of screams, "Oh, look. I've got tons of this drivel!" What it isn't, is useable. There is no index, or any handy way to access the archived entries other than just look through them one at a time. In the past this wasn't such a problem for me, as I could vaguely remember when I wrote most of the stuff I was interested in. Some time ago, I passed the volume where that is a possibility. So, for my own use, and for anyone else who might be interested, I'm starting an Annotated Archive. I may or may not get it finished this week while I'm on vacation, but I'm going to try. The link to the Annotated Archive section is now in the upper left of the page.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, July 01 2005 10:23:25 PM

More Things I Shouldn't Do
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Another thing I have discovered that I probably shouldn't do (not because it looks wrong, but more from a tactical standpoint):

Eat hot wings and have a couple of beers right before going to a movie.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, July 01 2005 09:27:17 PM