Not So Fast

Do they get all their medical information from the NFL? Also, where was the NFL when they were in peewee, high school and college football? They should probably sue their parents for allowing them to play as minors.

42 years ago today we landed on the moon.

A test of whether the Fifth Amendment applies to your computer passwords is coming up in Colorado.

Related: TrueCrypt

I’m not as convinced that politicians couldn’t see the outcome writ large in the communist countries at the time, making it less of an attempt at benevolence and more of a power grab, but other than that, a good article.

The numbers on what a bank run in America would look like. Based on my semester of microeconomics, I suggest avoiding that kind of thing.

While we’re on the downer talk, an historical look at federal borrowing over the last 30 years.

360 degree HD view of the Discovery shuttle flight deck.

Soon enough people will just walk out with their groceries under their arms. Inconvenient for people that buy more than a meal’s worth of groceries, and makes life easy for shoplifters, but hey, good for the environment.

Today marks the first full orbit of the planet Neptune since its discovery on the night of September 23-24, 1846.

A cool time lapse video of the last space shuttle rollout, complete with annoying voiceover. Atlantis is supposed to launch tomorrow at 11:26 EDT. You can watch it launch here.

I shudder to think how the TSA could become more pointlessly invasive in their searches.

I came for the They Might Be Giants covering Tubthumping, I stayed for the other interesting combinations.

Nasty coal energy may have kept the planet from warming over the last decade. And surely we all still remember the last decade of global warming alarm. Back when it was still called global warming. And it was alarming.

Way to be awesome. I would have got you something, but I already did April 15th.

Happy Canada Day

The more power you give the government, the more it will haunt you later on. It seems like most people only remember that when it’s too late. If you want the freedom to define a social relationship, the last thing you want is government interference. Yes, the government has to have some say for legal, tax, and census purposes, but it should really be kept to a minimum.

I am posting this purely because of that awesome quote. I hope to be able to use it someday. But as Jesus on a cracker appearances go, it’s pretty weak.

Now I have two movies to look forward to in 2012. C’mon, it’s Pixar, first of all, and secondly it has Emma Thompson, Kelly MacDonald, Billy Connelly and Craig Ferguson.

Everyone’s building large lego things these days, but this Barad- Dur is truly impressive.

Ralph Nader thinks Cisco should hand out more cash and dividends to their shareholders. Oh, did he mention he’s a shareholder and that a significant part of his portfolio is in Cisco?

I too think all the companies I’ve invested in should just give me more money regardless of the economic environment or their financial plans.

Backin 2003? 04? 0-something I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire. I was horrified by the first book and by halfway through the second book fed up with Martin setting up heroic, likable characters and killing them off. So I flung set the book aside and refused to finish. This has served me well as Martin has dithered about for 5 years not finishing the second half of the 4th book, better known as the 5th book in the series (what? it makes perfect sense).

Skip ahead to 2011 when HBO films A Game of Thrones. There is much internet buzz about it. I don’t have HBO or particularly care enough to watch the show, but every week io9 has a recap and I find myself drawn into the discussion. Luckily, the first season is the first book so I know what’s going on.

I resist for a while, but having had all of the major deaths spoilered one way or another over the intervening years, I decide to pick up the books again, determined not to care too much about the characters (because they’re just going to die). Know what? These are well written stories with awesome characters and as long as you don’t hold too tightly to them, the books are a great read.

Now, however, instead of the impending death of every likeable character being my biggest complaint against the book, I have to say I’m not a fan of some of the storylines. The whole multiple storylines thing has been a big thing in the 90s/00s and it frustrates me in general. Given the structure of the ASOFAI books, with each chapter being told from a different character’s point of view, Martin takes it to new heights. I don’t care about the Dornes, or the Krackens. Samwell is tolerable, but most of the time I have a hard time caring what’s happening to Jon or Bran. It’s so annoying to have to switch from an interesting story with Jamie or Tyrion or Daenerys to go read about people I don’t care about in the least. I’m sure it’s all very important to the story development, but it’s very frustrating as a reader. A roller coaster ride is fun for a short time, but it grows tiresome after a while. Like 15 years. I’m looking at all you genre fiction writers.

Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed A Storm of Swords, though by the end of the book I found myself caring about characters. I sternly warned myself against the caring and continued on through A Feast for Crows . Just as I feared, death comes to the ones you least want it to. Alas. But knowing ahead of time softened the blow and along the way I enjoyed the story. There were a couple of occasions where I marveled at the writing and now I can see why people say it is a great series and reread it often. It is good storytelling. And now I am anxiously awaiting book five, A Dance with Dragons where most of my favorite (but no doubt inevitably doomed) characters are waiting.

The TSA has gone mobile and expanded their brief to include immigration. It was bad enough when they were just violating our rights in airports. These people need to be stopped now before they get any bigger or more powerful.

Yet another thing to opt out of on Facebook.

I’m glad the Department of Defense is looking forward into the next century and wants to build starships. But I’m still waiting on my moon visit. What’s the point in living in the country with the greatest military spending in the world if I don’t get a ride on a rocketship?

Thanks for all the computers.

The internet says it’s Captain Picard Day and who am I to argue?

Our brains are weird and powerful and do surprising things when we aren’t paying attention, so the fact that they argue amongst themselves surprises me not at all.

Duke Nukem Forever is on sale now.  Expect the four horsemen any minute now.

As long as Obama means he’s pledging the US’s moral support on the issue, that’s okay. Europe wanted this union, let’s let them deal with their problems. It’s not like we have our economic house so in order that we can be giving help willy-nilly.

Yes, I get that it’s all one big global thing and a butterfly going bankrupt in Greece causes major storms in the US markets. I don’t think trying to boss Germany around is the way to approach, well, anything. They don’t take it well.

I like PBS. I like the shows they show. I like the shows they make. I hope WGBH never stops making shows. I like that they make restricted British stuff available for streaming in America. But if PBS is only getting about 20% of its budget from the federal government, I don’t see why they can’t make that up through the corporate funding and viewers like you that they apparently use for the other 80% of their budget. Do four pledge drives a year instead of three. Problem solved.

Consequently, I don’t really have a problem with Chris Christie selling off New Jersey’s public broadcasting stations. Even more so since it sounds like he’s just leasing them to other public broadcasting stations. And those states back East are so small it’s kind of immaterial, really. You could take four or five of those “states” and combine them into something resembling an actual state. Christie is saving the state, well, I don’t know all the details so $2-$4 million. Call Bill Gates up and see if he can donate some pocket change.

Since I was on the site, I’d just like to point out that once again, the Idaho government is giving the northern half of the state the shaft. On the other hand I applaud their thriftiness in getting Washington state to provide us with our public television.

Anybody that thinks they “own” any portion of what they do or have a say in anything on a website other than their own is deluded. Just because you use a website constantly, buy things, have friends there or feel welcome doesn’t mean it’s yours. It belongs to the website creator and they have to answer to the EULA (or whatever the big boys have) of whoever is serving their site.

Facebook has never had a good track record with privacy or fairness, perceived or otherwise. Someone needs to come up with the Facebook killer. Hopefully something open source. Though I have my doubts the open source crowd could pull together on something of that size and scope.

I have no exciting books or series I want to get through this summer, so the list is sparse. Even Baen doesn’t have anything that’s really calling out to me and I’ll probably just drift along picking up this and that, but here is what I do have planned for this summer:

Consider Phlebas – Ian M. Banks. Having enjoyed the latest Culture novel Surface Detail, I thought I’d start at the beginning.

The Forge – S.M. Stirling and David Drake. If it’s any good I’ll get the rest of the series.
Doctrine of God – Herman Bavinck

I’m debating reading The Hunger Games. Everyone says its good, but I’m just not sold on it. I should just borrow it from someone.

Tune In Radio is a fantastic little app for the iphone. Since Spokane has lost it’s only alternative radio station (apparently the 3 “modern hits” stations weren’t enough), now I can listen to all the stations in the world that have an internet stream. I can have The Current and 91x and KWAVE and BBC 4 and Absolute Radio  IN MY CAR because the app works over 3G. Woo!

Plus it’s cool and gives my my usage stats so I don’t go over, lets me choose bandwidth sizes, shows what is playing so if it’s lame I don’t have to waste buffering time switching.

The day they go subscription is going to be a sad one though. Try it though, it’s pretty awesome.

Manos: The Hands of Fate sequel.

We should let Torgo and the Master rest in peace and bask in the epicness of the MST3K episode.

I’m starting my countdown now.

The first film, titled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will be released on December 14, 2012. The second film, titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is slated for release the following year, on December 13, 2013.

Because what we know about the Patriot Act isn’t bad enough. I’m shocked, shocked to discover that the government is broadening its definitions in order to invade our privacy further. That sort of thing hardly ever happens. Oh wait, it happens every time we give the government a modicum of power.

He warned in a Tuesday statement about the government’s “unfettered” access to bulk citizen data, like “a cellphone company’s phone records.” In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Udall urged Congress to restrict the Patriot Act’s business-records seizures to “terrorism investigations” — something the ostensible counterterrorism measure has never required in its nearly 10-year existence.

Glenn Greenwald knocks it out of the park with this article.

And note the rationale for why it was done in secret bipartisan meetings:  to ensure “as little debate as possible” and “to avoid a protracted and familiar argument over the expanded power the law gives to the government.”  Indeed, we wouldn’t want to have any messy, unpleasant democratic debates over “the expanded power the law gives to the government.”  Here we find yet again the central myth of our political culture:  that there is too little bipartisanship when the truth is there is little in Washington but that.

I also quite like this quote:

The way a republic is supposed to function is that there is transparency for those who wield public power and privacy for private citizens.  The National Security State has reversed that dynamic completely,….

The RIAA, everyone’s favorite goon, backs warrantless searches in California.

but critics worry that it may open the door to Fourth Amendment violations.

Open the door? OPEN THE DOOR?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I think we’re a bit past that.

Who’s buying these discs anyway? Do they  not have the internets?

I don’t care if it’s all legal; it looks shady, and it should be illegal, and none of you should have done it.

Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the two Republican Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, plans to step down—and right into a top lobbying job at Comcast-NBC.

As usual Yes, Minister explains it to us (relevant part starts @ 7:07):

As Homeland Security has moved on from terrorism (who could have seen that coming? Oh wait, everyone…) to protecting us from the dangers of knockoff handbags or blacked-out and other countries sports feeds on the internet, Mozilla has some inconvenient questions for the DHS’s demand that they remove an extension that routes around the blocked IPs.

His proposal is that evil be understood as a lack of empathy — a condition he argues can be measured and monitored and is susceptible to education and treatment.

We all know how this will end.