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August 27, 2007

If Jabba had survived...

This is my first time at an AA meeting. I've been sober for one day. First, I'd just like to say how moved I am that you all have agreed to hold this meeting in the gymnasium. I think we all know it would have been a little cramped in the Sunday school room. Oh, dang it, that's embarrassing. I'll pay for the chair. No, I'll just lie here on the floor. Okay, well, I've been an alcoholic for, oh, I guess about six-hundred years, give or take a decade or so. I started drinking in high school with my friends on Tatooine. I'm sorry? No, it's not outside of Sacramento. Anyway, I didn't always look this bad. As a teen I actually did a runway show in Mos Eisley. But then, a few drinks with my pals became nights alone with a bottle of something blue, just listening to old Genesis records. What? No, before Phil Collins. Well, Peter Gabriel, of course. He absolutely was. No, I'm afraid there were a number of albums before Invisible Touch.

Posted by Andrew at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2007

Quick thought:

One thing I'd like to see become a journalistic standard, any time anyone is quoted making a statement of fact, that statement is verified and contextualized. For instance: "Candidate B said 'Candidate A is on record as letting babies drown'" becomes "In saying 'Candidate A is on record as letting babies drown', Candidate B highlighted Candidate A's little known act of heroism in saving 8 out of the 10 drowning infants during last year's deadly storm. Pundits are still puzzling over this uncharacteristically charitable..."

Posted by Andrew at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2007

Racism: Still a problem in America

I know I've written about this before, but...

Almost a year ago, in the small northern Louisiana town of Jena, a group of white students hung three nooses from a tree in front of Jena High School. This set into motion a season of racial tension and incidents that culminated in six Black youths facing a lifetime in jail for a schoolyard fight.

The story that has unfolded since then is one of racism and injustice, but also of resistance and solidarity, as people from around the world have joined together with the families of the accused, lending legal and financial support, adding political pressure, and joining demonstrations and marches.

The nooses were hung after a Black student asked permission to sit under a tree that had been reserved by tradition for white students only. In response to the three nooses, nearly every Black student in the school stood under the tree in a spontaneous and powerful act of nonviolent protest. The town's district attorney quickly arrived, flanked by police officers, and told the Black students to stop making such a big deal over the nooses, which school officials termed to be a "harmless prank." The school assembly, like the schoolyard where all of this had begun, was divided by race, with the Black students on one side and the white students on the other. Directing his remarks to the Black students, District Attorney Reed Walters said, "I can make your lives disappear with a stroke of a pen."

The white students who confessed to hanging the nooses never received any meaningful punishment.

It gets uglier...

Posted by Andrew at 10:03 AM | Comments (2)

August 14, 2007

Funny

Your Score: the Cutting Edge

(57% dark, 46% spontaneous, 15% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | DARK

Your humor's mostly innocent and off-the-cuff, but somehow there's something slightly menacing about you. Part of your humor is making people a little uncomfortable, even if the things you say aren't themselves confrontational. You probably have a very dry delivery, or are seriously over-the-top.

Your type is the most likely to appreciate a good insult and/or broken bone and/or very very fat person dancing.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: David Letterman - John Belushi



The 3-Variable Funny Test!
- it rules -

If you're interested, try my best friend's best test: The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Masterpiece

Posted by Andrew at 08:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 09, 2007

Intellectual's Property

I'm not a copyright lawyer. I am a political theorist-- a non-practicing one with the smallest degree one can have and still call oneself a theorist. Indeed, my old political theory professor would probably have a stroke hearing me call myself a political theorist. Nonetheless, some things are very, very basic. Like the basis for intellectual property protection...

I once had (my then congress critter) Richard Pombo explain to me that copyright was basically like any other form of property, and therefore deserved the exact same protection as A) your jewels, B) your house, or C) anything else you might own. I started voting against him right away...

The US constitution is very clear on why we have IP protections: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" (US Constitution Article 1 section 8).

Matthew Yglesias sums this up very susinctly: "The idea of copyright is not that creators deserve your money, but that you, the citizen, deserve a world in which creators have incentives to create."

Every time we are asked to set aside certain memes for the exclusive monetization of others, we must first ask "who is it that is not able to be creative in the current environment?" American Society is currently producing more and better memes than anyone else in the history of the planet. That's a pretty strong argument for the status quo...

Posted by Andrew at 08:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 07, 2007

Do you have a flag, part 2

Trailer for a bold new summer movie

Posted by Andrew at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2007

Sins of a solar empire=awesome

Galactic Civilization 2 has managed to keep me up past my bedtime for more than a year. When Stardock works with another company to bring out a new game, I figure that must be worth my time. Sins of a Solar Empire it's still in BETA-- the game has a disclaimer explaining how it may not be fun yet. They're wrong: the game is a blast!

Starting from the beginning: the game is billed as a 4X, with RTS elements. It's actually the other way around. The game is simply too fast-paced to be thought of as a 4X, though it does have much of the depth we associate with the genera...

The game's controls and style took me about an hour to get comfortable with-- at this point the game literally demands the scroll wheel which I don't have. Nonetheless, even with that limitation, I'm having a lot of fun...

Just as an example of the thought that has gone into the game-- the game has the standard 3 RTS resources: "credits", which come from taxes, "crystals", which come from asteroids, and "metal", which comes from, um, other asteroids. I was noticing that I consistently had little to no crystals. I was literally on the verge of hacking the game files to increase the rate of crystal harvesting. That's when I remembered that the game has a "black market"; players can trade all 3 resources for each other. Best of all: price fluctuates with supply and demand. I'm hooked...

The next time the game has an open beta, plunk down your cash and sign up. You may regret the time spent not getting to know your significant other and children, but you'll barely remember who they are...

Posted by Andrew at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)

August 03, 2007

Do you have a flag?

In it's continuing efforts to be a parody of a great power, Russia plants flag on North Pole seabed.

This really is an interesting bit of geopolitics, encapsulating as it does the intersection of a petroleum economy, global warming, and Russia's attempted resurgence as a viable nation. In many way's, it is reminiscent of the Cod Wars which did so much to prove the Democratic Peace Theory.

Nevertheless, I think Eddie Izzard sums it up:

Posted by Andrew at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)