Years ago -- in fact, more than a decade ago -- when Jill and I attended a particular church in North York (the same one we were married in), the minister delivered sermons that sounded great. Whenever I woke up during the service, and focused on the last sentence I heard, it was always an interesting thought, that had been delivered with confidence and no hesitation whatsoever, in a fine public speaking voice. But there was a problem -- whenever I stayed awake enough to actually listen to more than one sentence, I concluded that the sermon was a series of more or less related thoughts, but there was little or no internal coherence at all between sentences. The sermon may have been intended to evoke images, but was certainly not a logically constructed argument, not an an essay on some aspect of faith or the human condition (or both!) delivered from the pulpit. That was a lack that I felt, because there wasn't any real content there for me.
Sarah Palin is sort of like that -- except that her internal coherence gets lost between clauses within each sentence.
However, if you suppress all your left brain processing, and think of my former minister's sermons and Sarah Palin's speeches as blank verse poetry, then it totally works. Conan O'Brien earlier this week on the Tonight Show had William Shatner read Sarah Palin's farewell speech as if it were blank verse.
Even if you thought it wasn't much of a speech, you'd have to agree that it was marginally more acceptable as poetry.
UPDATE (Aug 2, 2009) - The original link to the Conan O'Brien video on Youtube has been removed. Here is a replacement, which will hopefully last longer:
Showing posts with label Self-Indulgence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self-Indulgence. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
How Cats Manipulate Humans
Researchers have determined that there is an audible component to the exercise of the feline mind control field on the Afflicted. The article is here.
The following result is possibly significant:
If the Afflicted could somehow be shielded from the audio emanations, it is possible that the mind control field might be less effective, and an Afflicted person might be broken free. Obviously, more research is necessary. But it is in such small breakthroughs that the hope continues to be maintained that the possibility of throwing off the feline yoke on humanity's Afficted might be achievable.
The following result is possibly significant:
In a series of playback experiments with those calls, they found that humans judged the purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food as more urgent and less pleasant than those made in other contexts, even if they had never had a cat themselves.
If the Afflicted could somehow be shielded from the audio emanations, it is possible that the mind control field might be less effective, and an Afflicted person might be broken free. Obviously, more research is necessary. But it is in such small breakthroughs that the hope continues to be maintained that the possibility of throwing off the feline yoke on humanity's Afficted might be achievable.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
On The Beach
SF readers will recognize "On The Beach" as the title of a Neville Shute novel from the 1960s about the bleak aftermath of a nuclear war. To be "on the beach" is also a euphemism used by contractors and consultants to describe being between assignments, which is my current situation. My client, a company operating in the automotive finance industry, chose not to extend my contract past May 29.
The analogy between Shute's landscape of nuclear devastation and the current economic environment is uncomfortably close. However, I have prospects -- I have had talks with potential clients that have been maddeningly elusive in terms of materializing into anything solid. Note to self - need to work on closing deals. Also a reminder -- change is good. And things could be worse -- I could have been an auto worker.
So, time to clear up and organize some things, and think about what to do next. In the meantime, find doors, and push on them.
The analogy between Shute's landscape of nuclear devastation and the current economic environment is uncomfortably close. However, I have prospects -- I have had talks with potential clients that have been maddeningly elusive in terms of materializing into anything solid. Note to self - need to work on closing deals. Also a reminder -- change is good. And things could be worse -- I could have been an auto worker.
So, time to clear up and organize some things, and think about what to do next. In the meantime, find doors, and push on them.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Cables Make All The Difference
Recently, I had to buy a length of network cable for $22 from Staples. I resented the price, until I saw this offering:
For *only* $500 you can buy a cable made by Denon, composed of "pure copper". Presumably that price is in US dollars so all us Canuckie types will need to add roughly 20 percent - call it $600 loonies for discussion purposes.
And why would anyone pay $600 for a cable?
Well -- this product will allow you to "Get the purest signal from multi-channel DVD and CD playback through Denon receiver". One way that it achieves this is that the "Connector and cable structure designed to thoroughly eliminate adverse effects from vibration". Because, ya know, vibration causes all those little electrons to jostle together and not get to where they are supposed to go. Clearly, a product designed for audiophiles who operate at a level that I can barely imagine.
But don't take my word for this -- read the reviews. There are others, who like me, stand in awe and amazement at this product, and anyone who would buy it.
UPDATE - Audioquest make an ultra-deluxe speaker cable for $6800. This relegates the Denon offering to the little leagues. The $22 network cable I was bitching about doesn't even register. People who use this product probably aren't even in the same species as those of us who meet our cabling needs from the Dollar Store.
For *only* $500 you can buy a cable made by Denon, composed of "pure copper". Presumably that price is in US dollars so all us Canuckie types will need to add roughly 20 percent - call it $600 loonies for discussion purposes.
And why would anyone pay $600 for a cable?
Well -- this product will allow you to "Get the purest signal from multi-channel DVD and CD playback through Denon receiver". One way that it achieves this is that the "Connector and cable structure designed to thoroughly eliminate adverse effects from vibration". Because, ya know, vibration causes all those little electrons to jostle together and not get to where they are supposed to go. Clearly, a product designed for audiophiles who operate at a level that I can barely imagine.
But don't take my word for this -- read the reviews. There are others, who like me, stand in awe and amazement at this product, and anyone who would buy it.
UPDATE - Audioquest make an ultra-deluxe speaker cable for $6800. This relegates the Denon offering to the little leagues. The $22 network cable I was bitching about doesn't even register. People who use this product probably aren't even in the same species as those of us who meet our cabling needs from the Dollar Store.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Dangers of Re-use
In complete contravention of what the bottled water people say is safe usage, I re-use my plastic water bottle many times before it usually ends up being thrown out, typically by someone else. Of course, bottlers of water have no vested interest in making sure that you buy more bottles instead of using the one you have, nosirree.
The latest study from the plastics industry (news article here) showing health problems with re-usable bags strikes me the same way. No bias from this source, either.
On the other hand, I am probably not going to be incredibly sympathetic to someone who got sick because because they brought vegetables home in a bag that they had previously used to transport used diapers. Those cloth bags are in fact washable as well as re-usable.
The latest study from the plastics industry (news article here) showing health problems with re-usable bags strikes me the same way. No bias from this source, either.
On the other hand, I am probably not going to be incredibly sympathetic to someone who got sick because because they brought vegetables home in a bag that they had previously used to transport used diapers. Those cloth bags are in fact washable as well as re-usable.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Just Call Me Joe-Bob
A few days ago, Ramey Ko of the Association of Chinese Americans was testifying before the State Elections Committee of the State of Texas in the US. In response to Ko's testimony regarding problems that Americans of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean descent have in voter identification in elections, State Representative Betty Brown, a Republican member of the Texas State Legislature representing District 4 (Athens/Terrell) said the following:
Additional source for this story here.
I am not Texan, or even American, but I just have to comment on this.
Brown's remarks undoubtedly summarize the intellectual position of at least some portion of the American population. And there are bound to be people of similar minds on this side of the border. I am reminded of the difficulties that I had growing up with a Chinese name -- one that was very different from the Anglo-Saxon mainstream. At my first job when I was a teenager, the advice given to me (I worked in in a telephone sweatshop) was that I should identify myself using a name that was more consumer-friendly.
However, that was then and this is now. Brown's colleague, Representative Trey Martinez Fischer and the people who run the Rum and Monkeys website have made available the "Betty Brown Name Generator", a web application that will help anyone with a name that is non traditional (or at least non traditional in Betty Brown's judgement) replace their name with one that people like Ms. Brown would understand and would identify with.
I am very pleased to report the following result from the Betty Brown Name Generator for me:
Y'all should call me "Joe-Bob", although if we are in a business meeting together, you could call me "J.B." At parties and in public, I will continue to respond to "hey you". While I have issues with being called "WalMart", y'all could call me "Wally" if y'all needed a nickname.
I can't help thinking that Betty Brown's problem with some names might be due to their (relatively larger) number of syllables as well as cultural context with which Ms. Brown may lack familiarity, even though she is an elected government official in a state of the wealthiest (and theoretically best educated) nation on Earth.
The Betty Brown Name generator can be seen to therefore have some wider application. In addition to the modifications to biology and astronomy textbooks that will be required to implement the position taken by the Board of Education of the State of Texas on intelligent design versus conventional scientific theories of cosmic origin and biological evolution, there could be similar rewritings of history textbooks as follows:
- replace "George Washington" with Forrest "Pabst Blue Ribbon" Brown. Even though General Washington is a Founding Father of the great nation of America, his name does have too many syllables in it for easy comprehension. Also, if this change is made, George Washington Carver can be Forrest Blue Brown Carver. Texas history books could thus immediately identify Dr. Carver as a man of colour by his name alone.
- replace "Benjamin Netanyahu" with Billy-Ray "Chicken and Dumplings" Brown. Although a long-time ally of the United States, Mr. Netanyahu's Hebrew name also has way too many syllables and "Benjamin" just makes him sound stuck up. Discussing Middle East history of the last few decades and how they were driven by an American ally named Billy-Ray should make this subject both more comprehensible and sympathetic to students in Betty Brown's Texas. Also, the "Chicken and Dumplings" nickname can be a vehicle by which the Texas educational system introduces the richness of Jewish heritage and culture and in particular, matzoh ball soup to ordinary Americans. But instead of forcing those ordinary Americans to learn the Hebrew word "matzoh", they could move with immediate understanding to "Chicken and Dumplings".
- don't replace "J. Robert Oppenheimer" with Joe-Bob "Cracker Barrel" Brown. Even though this distinguished American physicist and I share the same Betty Brown approved name (except for the nickname), Oppenheimer was attacked by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and in a Betty Brown world, it would be inappropriate to give him a name that makes him more like a "real American". (In the Sarah Palin sense of the term "real American").
- replace "Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar" with Billy-Ray "Cracker Barrel" Brown. This American physicist of Indian origin for whom the Chandra Space Telescope is named clearly has way too many syllables in a name which would be incomprehensible to people living in the world of Betty Brown. Therefore, physics textbooks in Texas can make reference to the "Cracker-Barrel Limit" instead of the Chandrasekhar Limit for calculation of the upper bound of stars which can collapse to form a white dwarf star. Keep in mind though that all this long-hair stuff is only a theory -- you know, like evolution. Or the Germ Theory of Disease. Or gravitation.
- and for goodness sake, definitely replace the names of Samuel Chao Chung Ting, Yao Ming and Kalpana Chawla. Real Americans in Betty Brown's Texas can't believe that people with names like these could win a Nobel Prize and be on the staff of a major scientific facility intended to be in Texas, or play basketball in Texas, or die in a space shuttle accident over Texas.
Betty Brown's remarks have done a lot to demonstrate the care and commitment that she feels toward people of Chinese descent, as well as to show the seriousness and credibility of some members of the Texas State Legislature. I, Joe-Bob Brown, her spiritual brother, wish her the very best political future that her remarks have shown that she deserves.
"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it's a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?"
Additional source for this story here.
I am not Texan, or even American, but I just have to comment on this.
Brown's remarks undoubtedly summarize the intellectual position of at least some portion of the American population. And there are bound to be people of similar minds on this side of the border. I am reminded of the difficulties that I had growing up with a Chinese name -- one that was very different from the Anglo-Saxon mainstream. At my first job when I was a teenager, the advice given to me (I worked in in a telephone sweatshop) was that I should identify myself using a name that was more consumer-friendly.
However, that was then and this is now. Brown's colleague, Representative Trey Martinez Fischer and the people who run the Rum and Monkeys website have made available the "Betty Brown Name Generator", a web application that will help anyone with a name that is non traditional (or at least non traditional in Betty Brown's judgement) replace their name with one that people like Ms. Brown would understand and would identify with.
I am very pleased to report the following result from the Betty Brown Name Generator for me:
My Betty Brown Approved Name is Joe-Bob "WalMart" Brown.
Try The Betty Brown Name Generator yourself!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.
Y'all should call me "Joe-Bob", although if we are in a business meeting together, you could call me "J.B." At parties and in public, I will continue to respond to "hey you". While I have issues with being called "WalMart", y'all could call me "Wally" if y'all needed a nickname.
I can't help thinking that Betty Brown's problem with some names might be due to their (relatively larger) number of syllables as well as cultural context with which Ms. Brown may lack familiarity, even though she is an elected government official in a state of the wealthiest (and theoretically best educated) nation on Earth.
The Betty Brown Name generator can be seen to therefore have some wider application. In addition to the modifications to biology and astronomy textbooks that will be required to implement the position taken by the Board of Education of the State of Texas on intelligent design versus conventional scientific theories of cosmic origin and biological evolution, there could be similar rewritings of history textbooks as follows:
- replace "George Washington" with Forrest "Pabst Blue Ribbon" Brown. Even though General Washington is a Founding Father of the great nation of America, his name does have too many syllables in it for easy comprehension. Also, if this change is made, George Washington Carver can be Forrest Blue Brown Carver. Texas history books could thus immediately identify Dr. Carver as a man of colour by his name alone.
- replace "Benjamin Netanyahu" with Billy-Ray "Chicken and Dumplings" Brown. Although a long-time ally of the United States, Mr. Netanyahu's Hebrew name also has way too many syllables and "Benjamin" just makes him sound stuck up. Discussing Middle East history of the last few decades and how they were driven by an American ally named Billy-Ray should make this subject both more comprehensible and sympathetic to students in Betty Brown's Texas. Also, the "Chicken and Dumplings" nickname can be a vehicle by which the Texas educational system introduces the richness of Jewish heritage and culture and in particular, matzoh ball soup to ordinary Americans. But instead of forcing those ordinary Americans to learn the Hebrew word "matzoh", they could move with immediate understanding to "Chicken and Dumplings".
- don't replace "J. Robert Oppenheimer" with Joe-Bob "Cracker Barrel" Brown. Even though this distinguished American physicist and I share the same Betty Brown approved name (except for the nickname), Oppenheimer was attacked by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and in a Betty Brown world, it would be inappropriate to give him a name that makes him more like a "real American". (In the Sarah Palin sense of the term "real American").
- replace "Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar" with Billy-Ray "Cracker Barrel" Brown. This American physicist of Indian origin for whom the Chandra Space Telescope is named clearly has way too many syllables in a name which would be incomprehensible to people living in the world of Betty Brown. Therefore, physics textbooks in Texas can make reference to the "Cracker-Barrel Limit" instead of the Chandrasekhar Limit for calculation of the upper bound of stars which can collapse to form a white dwarf star. Keep in mind though that all this long-hair stuff is only a theory -- you know, like evolution. Or the Germ Theory of Disease. Or gravitation.
- and for goodness sake, definitely replace the names of Samuel Chao Chung Ting, Yao Ming and Kalpana Chawla. Real Americans in Betty Brown's Texas can't believe that people with names like these could win a Nobel Prize and be on the staff of a major scientific facility intended to be in Texas, or play basketball in Texas, or die in a space shuttle accident over Texas.
Betty Brown's remarks have done a lot to demonstrate the care and commitment that she feels toward people of Chinese descent, as well as to show the seriousness and credibility of some members of the Texas State Legislature. I, Joe-Bob Brown, her spiritual brother, wish her the very best political future that her remarks have shown that she deserves.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Feedback Controls
A big chunk of my work life has been in the automotive finance industry, but I can't really say that I am a car guy. A car is a necessary evil, not the raison d'etre of existence.
So it was that in early January, after delivering our friend Annalee to the airport, I noticed an instrument panel light that I had never seen before. A quick check showed no flames or smoke or other serious issues, so I continued driving, and got the car home before I hauled out the manual.
This particular problem, it said, was related to the exhaust system, prompting dark thoughts about the expense of replacing a catalytic converter. According to the manual, this problem was serious and needed fixing. Or Bad Things Would Happen.
The mechanic at our favourite garage was more enlightening. It wasn't the catalytic converter -- instead, it was an oxygen sensor. Of which there were three -- two in the engine itself, one in the exhaust. Our failure was the one in the exhaust.
At which point a light came on over my head. The oxygen sensor in the exhaust is the last part of a feedback loop providing information to the car's onboard computer. The computer adjusts the fuel mix until it achieves a preset level of oxygen in the exhaust, indicating that a predesgned fuel to air ratio had been achieved. The system is designed to monitor the output so that the input can be tweaked. Leaving this uncorrected would have meant that the car would have been doing strange things to the fuel mixture -- potentially damaging the engine, but certainly not optimizing for fuel consumption efficiency.
So, a feedback loop. A useful idea -- one could imagine monitoring the activity of, say, a financial institution and its effect on the economy. Then tweaking the government bailout money going in until the required output goals were achieved. Or one could imagine feeding bailout money into the auto industry based on what kind of vehicles it was producing -- set the feedback loop to optimize for fuel efficiency and low carbon emissions.
So it was that in early January, after delivering our friend Annalee to the airport, I noticed an instrument panel light that I had never seen before. A quick check showed no flames or smoke or other serious issues, so I continued driving, and got the car home before I hauled out the manual.
This particular problem, it said, was related to the exhaust system, prompting dark thoughts about the expense of replacing a catalytic converter. According to the manual, this problem was serious and needed fixing. Or Bad Things Would Happen.
The mechanic at our favourite garage was more enlightening. It wasn't the catalytic converter -- instead, it was an oxygen sensor. Of which there were three -- two in the engine itself, one in the exhaust. Our failure was the one in the exhaust.
At which point a light came on over my head. The oxygen sensor in the exhaust is the last part of a feedback loop providing information to the car's onboard computer. The computer adjusts the fuel mix until it achieves a preset level of oxygen in the exhaust, indicating that a predesgned fuel to air ratio had been achieved. The system is designed to monitor the output so that the input can be tweaked. Leaving this uncorrected would have meant that the car would have been doing strange things to the fuel mixture -- potentially damaging the engine, but certainly not optimizing for fuel consumption efficiency.
So, a feedback loop. A useful idea -- one could imagine monitoring the activity of, say, a financial institution and its effect on the economy. Then tweaking the government bailout money going in until the required output goals were achieved. Or one could imagine feeding bailout money into the auto industry based on what kind of vehicles it was producing -- set the feedback loop to optimize for fuel efficiency and low carbon emissions.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Not 3 regular readers -- 4!
After yesterday's post, I got an e-mail from someone I hadn't heard from for years, pointing out that I have one more regular reader than I think I do. That is very cool. So, WT from western Canada -- thanks for the e-mail, and hope you continue to enjoy these occasional maunderings!
Upcoming -- I need to blog about the great 2008 Cross Country Road trip and the second year that the Usual Suspects occupied Lake Herridge.
Upcoming -- I need to blog about the great 2008 Cross Country Road trip and the second year that the Usual Suspects occupied Lake Herridge.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Are we there yet?
Yes, I know the blog has been a posting disaster. With no new updates in the last eight months, I am not surprised that all my regular readers (all three of you) have given up. But this is the week that we'll work on catching up, I promise!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Blog Valuation - Taken With A Grain of Salt
Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities Weblog has a tool on it which allows you to submit a URL for a blog, and to determine the value of the blog, based on the same link to dollars ratio as the deal between AOL and Weblogs Inc.
Using this measure, Luminosis is worth around $560.
However, Designated Import is worth $2,260, and fandrogyny is worth nearly $12,000. John Scalzi's Whatever is worth just shy of $664,000. Unhappily, Karl Schroeder and Mutatron are worth zero. I didn't check any others.
I don't think I take these valuation numbers very seriously, but still and all, these are good for entertainment value. Were I a self-promoting kind of guy, it would now be possible for me to say, truthfully, that my blog, Luminosis, had a higher valuation, according to an independent source, than the blog of one of the finest science fiction writers of this decade.
Yeah, right.
Using this measure, Luminosis is worth around $560.
My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?
However, Designated Import is worth $2,260, and fandrogyny is worth nearly $12,000. John Scalzi's Whatever is worth just shy of $664,000. Unhappily, Karl Schroeder and Mutatron are worth zero. I didn't check any others.
I don't think I take these valuation numbers very seriously, but still and all, these are good for entertainment value. Were I a self-promoting kind of guy, it would now be possible for me to say, truthfully, that my blog, Luminosis, had a higher valuation, according to an independent source, than the blog of one of the finest science fiction writers of this decade.
Yeah, right.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
I have succumbed to the dark side...
...and created a Facebook account. And just for good measure, Myspace as well.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Blogging Regularly Is Hard
It has been nearly two months since I did anything on the blog. Today, I finished Part 2 of the Newfoundland Trip Report, more than three months since these events happened. Let me state here for the record that I have nothing but the utmost respect for those people who manage to juggle career, family, and social life -- and who still manage to post more than once a week. And I am in awe of those people who actually manage to write coherently and post on their blog daily or near daily.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Pimp My Ride
On the subject of being a Star Trek geek, as noted in my previous post, here is a bit of silliness from Allan Goodall's blog.
Update - here is a photo of my car, just to demonstrate that it isn't as, ahem, nicely decorated as the vehicle that Allan has displayed on his site.
So whaddaya think? White paint, then red racing stripes down the sides, a Starfleet logo...?
Update - here is a photo of my car, just to demonstrate that it isn't as, ahem, nicely decorated as the vehicle that Allan has displayed on his site.
So whaddaya think? White paint, then red racing stripes down the sides, a Starfleet logo...?
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