Fourteen Forty Two
Ogged at Unfogged writs about Paris Hilton.#
This is all true, of course, but there is something special about Paris Hilton: she's the cool kid. It's not easy to say what makes her (or anyone) a cool kid (that's why they're fascinating), so it's tempting to attribute her fame to her name and skankiness, but really, does anyone think she's unique in those ways? Of course not. And we shouldn't confuse the fact that she's cashing in on her fame now for some master plan: she was an object of fascination before she capitalized on the fact that being that object could be a career.
Paris Hilton is the kind of woman that people want to talk about, figure out, fuck, hate, be with, or be. But that's not her fault. And it's fine to say that she's spoiled and vapid--certainly there's evidence for that--but it's absurd to write an article about someone who's famous and alluring arguing that she's not really alluring and shouldn't be famous.
Adina Levin writes about Matt & Ben.#
On Saturday night, I saw "Matt & Ben", the off-broadway play, about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in their pizza, beer, and rehearsal days. The screenplay for Good Will Hunting falls from the ceiling, testing testing the friendship of the aspiring actors, who'd been buddies since Cambridge Rindge and Latin. The play is written and performed by two women, Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers, who carry off the drag pretty well, showing the loyalty and rivalry between the buddies, til a fight scene at the end which overstretches their abilities.
Jeremy Bowers on the Big Number Fallacy.#
I couldn't find this on the Internet, so I present to you the Big Number Fallacy:
Big Number Fallacy: All big numbers are infinite. In particular, they are all larger then each other, smaller then each other, and the same as each other, randomly.
In mathematics, depending on your choice of axioms, infinity is a "number" that can be greater then itself, less then itself, and equal to itself at the same time. Its ability to perform this feat is fundamentally why it's not a number (hence the scarequotes); it does not act like a number, therefore it isn't one.
Kevin Drum links to Chris Mooney on college essay questions.#
Best Essay Question: The award goes to the school that asked, "You have just completed your 300 page autobiography. Please submit page 217." Talk about giving students a chance to be imaginative and distinguish themselves from other applicants. My own conceit for answering this question--which would, admittedly, be tough to execute--is to borrow a gag from the novel Tristram Shandy: At page 217, I would still be in the womb. After all, a lot of things happen in life. If, as an autobiographer, you're really committed to telling all--or "tout dire," as Rousseau put it--then it could take an awful lot of time to get yourself born.
A friend of my mother has a different approach. This person would begin the essay in mid sentence, with this phrase: "...after that frightful business with the duchess..." I think that's also a pretty amusing idea.
Fullness links the Dragon Go Server.#
Kori took it pretty well. I thought I was going to have to spend the night at a hotel, but her reaction was very sensitive and mature. She pretended like she didn't even care, obviously trying to make me feel more comfortable about having just dropped this bomb right in the middle of our relationship.
It's times like this that I know I really understand women.
Hey - if any of you out there ever need any relationship advice, then just give me a holler, 'cause the Doctor of Love is in.
SilverStr on security procedures...#
Recently I have found myself with the opportunity to continue my ambassadorial role as it comes to information security, and provide some teaching on the basics of security as it relates to business. As I sit here and reflect on just what should be covered in a span of 15 minutes to give the most in depth understanding, I realize that its not such a simple task. Traditionally, people look at the infosec field as something to do about firewalls and antivirus. They treat technology as THE solution, instead of simply the enabler. And it's this fallacy that weakens any security implementation. Security is a process, not a product… and should be treated as such. Through the security lifecycle, policy and procedure needs to take precedence over implementation. It's a bigger part of the circle for a reason.
Felix Rayman on "Free" discussions sites that are not free.#
A comment posted to another Free Republic story, "Howard Dean: The Mayor of Milwaukee", in an attempt to belittle Howard Dean's fiscal record claimed that the budget of one county in Illinois was larger than the budget of the state of Vermont. It claimed the budget of the County of DuPage, near Chicago, to be $1.6 billion, and that the budget for the entire state of Vermont was $73 million. After a quick google search, I found this assertion to be incorrect. The reply I posted 'The "$73 million" figure you quote is for the Vermont Municipal Employees' Retirement System, not the entire Vermont budget. Vermont's budget calls for 1.8 billion in state spending with another billion in federal spending', wasremoved within a few minutes.
The Free Republic claims in its help section that, "While Free Republic is not edited or censored, it does reserve the right to remove any postings that are considered inappropriate. Examples of inappropriate posts are those that are off-subject or contain advertising, pornography, obscene material, racist material, Nazi (or other hate group) material, materials promoting violence, threats or illegal acts, etc". It would be interesting to know under which category my replies were considered to fall.
David Brooks writes about the religious style of Americans.#
Nearly 200 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville was bewildered by the mixture of devout religiosity he found in the U.S. combined with the relative absence of denominational strife, at least among Protestants. Americans, he observed, don't seem to care that their neighbors hold to false versions of the faith.
That's because many Americans have tended to assume that all these differences are temporary. In the final days, the distinctions will fade away, and we will all be united in God's embrace. This happy assumption has meant that millions feel free to try on different denominations at different points in their lives, and many Americans have had trouble taking religious doctrines altogether seriously. As the historian Henry Steele Commager once wrote, "During the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, religion prospered while theology slowly went bankrupt."
Don Park writes about hive-minds, social networks, and millions of dollars.#
Social network is a network where nodes are people and connections are positive relationships -- I guess negative relationships can also be used to build social networks but they are not very useful. Current upswelling in the interest about social software can be divided into two:
- Forming new connections and nurturing old connections
- Sending and receiving data through social connections
Companies like Friendster and LinkedIn are focused on the first. Bloggosphere is all about the second. I tend to favor the second because the first reminds me of the sneaker net and because relationships are easy to stress and difficult to create.
Seeing social networks as a data networks like the Internet or intranet helps me see new opportunities. One I recently thought about involves distribution of favors, Favor Network if you will.
Weblog Hype on Dave Pollard and his Time-Savers.#
Perhaps there are some who take tips like these to heart, but I imagine the majority of webloggers just write what they want, when they want. Stopping to think about the process could detract from what the blogger had in mind in the first place.
The Binary Circumstance has a great piece on the intersection of religion, politics, and evolution.#
Begin with the binary circumstance: things either exist or they do not. Knowledge and evidence can only be acquired about things that exist. Knowledge is nothing more than a state of mind that is in sync with existence. That knowledge state of mind is constucted of concepts and ideas that are rational because they can be reduced to existents, things that exist. A mind that is full of concepts and ideas that have no connection to existence, is an irrational, mystical mind.
[...]
A mandatory government is based on what I call theplantation premises: some superficial collectivist identity, like skin color, ethnicity or sex, makes certain groups inherently superior to others and those individuals or groups have a "right" to control the lives of others. This control requires that those who are being controlled cannot act in their own rational self-interest (by law), and must surrender the fruits of their labor to the superior class (taxes).
[...]
Any rational individual who dares to point out that the government is based on irrational premises will be ostracized if not put in jail. If he uses force in self-defense to protect his natural state as a free, rational man, he will be killed. This puts selective pressure on rationals in the gene pool, making it more difficult for them to pass along their genes, while making it easier for mystics, irrationals and the delusional to rise to positions of power.
ScrappleFace reports some great news for Atheists.#
(2003-12-29) -- The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, Episcopal bishop of Washington, today announced that the "angel Gabriel" told him that Christians worship the same God as atheists do.
"Gabriel said we're all God's children," said Mr. Chane, "and any distinctions in belief are not meaningful. Faith in God is the same thing as non-belief and we should unite with our atheist brothers in this revelation from Gabriel -- who either exists or does not."
Brad Edmunds on why Government WILL be abolished.#
That having forcible government is not in our best interest is demonstrated every day. A basic illustration shows the implausibility of any hope that government, even at its most benign, can improve our lives: Say you have three people, one of whom is poor. Under a free market, the poor one builds a fence for a non-poor one, and is paid. Now, three people are working, each producing and earning wealth. Under forcible government, the poor one appeals to the government one. The government one points a gun at the non-poor fellow, takes some of his money, and gives it to the poor one. The government one keeps some of this money for himself. He does this all day long. It's his job. Under the government scenario, we have one of the three people working to create wealth while the other two commit an injustice and forever operate under distorted incentives. All three now regard each other with distrust and resentment, with two of the three (the non-government folks) wishing there were a better way. This scenario applies equally to law enforcement, justice, roads, and geographic defense.
The 279 million of us who believe forcible government is necessary haven't yet seen enough history or enough entrepreneurs (government schools ensure this), even though the occasional government official utters something vaguely supportive of free enterprise. As historians have documented from the dawn of civilization, government works only for its own purposes. Any good work a government chances to accomplish for any person or people can come only at someone else's expense. Government never creates wealth, and it never improves, but can only degrade, the standard of living of those under its rule. Forcible government has no moral standing, no right, to exist.
Michael Hansom on advertising.#
One of the great benefits of living a TV-free lifestyle (and one of the reasons I went to a TV-free lifestyle) is that I don't need to sit through the neverending stream of stupid, pandering, insipid ads that eat up a quarter of every show on television. However, every so often, some ads are rather entertaining to see, and it's nice to be able to take a peek at them from time to time.
While I hate, hate, hate the appearance of what's so euphemistically called "pre-show entertainment" in the movie theaters lately (the ten minutes of advertising that runs after the advertising slides, but before the fifteen minutes of trailers before you finally get to see the movie you paid for), I saw a great ad for HP photo printers that used a 'flipbook' form of animation. The spot opened with a 20-something guy standing in front of a staircase, and you watch him jump up and down a couple times. The scene then cuts to a pair of hands holding a flipbook titled "I defy gravity" made of photos taken of the guy at the peak of multiple jumps, creating an illusion of him flying over the ground, up and down staircases, and over parked cars. Once the flipbook finishes, you get a couple more shots of him jumping up and down, and then it's over. Quick, simple, amusing, and sticks with you — nicely done.
Matt May on why Permalinks and Cool URIs shouldn't Change.#
This is more or less why I started writing my own blogging software. I wanted to make sure that I could have absolute control over my content, including my URIs, and mix it up any way I want. I have about three lines of server-side code that gives me a little flexibility with my physical directory structure, but that's all. Permalinks are neato. They should be respected even when you change blogging apps.
Hossein Derakhshan writes about when a government is disconnected from its people.#
However, the reason is pretty clear: When a government can run the whole country only by the oil and gas income, it doesn't have to answer its people's needs; it only thinks about its own needs. (In 2004, Iran will have $16 billion revenue from oil export, while it only depends on approximately 18% of citizen's taxes.)
So it's not important for the government that tens of thousands of lives are lost in road accidents every year, or millions are living in homes poorly resistible against any earthquake bigger than 5 Richter, or millions are open to different kinds of cancer because of the poisonously polluted air of Tehran, etc.
But they are pretty concerned about their own power and the threat from their own enemies; so they are always ready to spend a whole year of oil income, $16 billion, to achieve nuclear technology to use it as defensive weapons.
Even if a government needed the people's taxes to operate it would still not need to meet their needs. It would simply need to have a strong enough arm to continuing forcing the money out of them.
Governments are, by their nature, coercive entities. If they were good then you wouldn't need to be forced to pay taxes.
Ed Cone writes of mistakes in the Lord of the Rings series that he can live with.#
But Frodo -- please. He's supposed to be older than Merry, Pippin, and Sam, but he looks like their kid brother. Even when he embarks on that last ship, after going literally to hell and back, his face is unlined and boyish.
Jackson skipped the critical 'Scouring of the Shire' chapter, wherein the story of the books is recapitulated in microcosm in the hobbits' homeland. OK, he had to skip it, for reasons of time and pacing. But that means he skipped an important explication of Frodo's character -- the moment when he keeps the mob from killing Saruman, thus revealing his hard-won maturity, even nobility. The movie could have used that moment, because we damn sure don't get it from visual cues.
Michael Williams on the essay, Polyamory - What it is and What it isn't.#
Aside from being awkwardly written (avoiding some common contractions, but using one in the title, for instance), the essay is dull and boring. Plus, it's not based the slightest bit in reality. Anyway, what is "polyamory"?
Polyamory has been defined as the philosophy and practice of loving more than one person at a time with honesty and integrity. Synonyms for polyamory are responsible, ethical, and intentional, non-monogamy. Because those descriptions are somewhat clumsy, the term Polyamory was coined in the late 80's by a pagan Priestess, Morning Glory Zell, and defines a range of different lifestyle alternatives. In most cases, but not all, this involves some sexual or at least intensely intimate sensual behavior.
Let me summarize: you have sex with lots of people, but there won't be any complications if you all love each other