Friends

Holiday happies to you!

Imagine, for a moment, that you could put a dozen of the world's most beautiful supermodels together somewhere. Then, you dress them all up in ridiculously vivid clothes, only to start hosing them down with fluorescent paint and glow in the dark glitter. Then, at the peak of this wet-nightie extravaganza, you demand that they start debating the merits of shamanic animism in the context of present-day environmental devastation, punctuating their sentences with fireworks and a fresh round of glow-spray.

Do all this as a $400M science fiction film and you have AVATAR. Dumb as mud, cringe-inducing, a fifteen-year-old's notion of deep ideas at best... but I would happily watch it chatter away for any arbitrary length of time. After all, I was fifteen once myself.

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For consideration: And say whatever else you must, as big dumb Hollywood blockbusters go, at least it's not an adaptation or licensed property or remake for once

What I really want for Christmas is a recommendation for a workshop or intensive class where I can immerse myself in making art, especially painting-type activity.

A few years ago, I took a "vision painting" workshop at Esalen -- I suppose I could go back there -- but I wonder if there's anything closer to San Jose, maybe not quite so earthy-crunchy.

"Since" is since the last update six months ago.



Go-Gos continuing on a strong streak, but the new dark horse is Peter Gabriel with "Down to Earth" aka "the closing credits to WALL•E" aka "the only movie Liana has ever actually asked us to get for her on DVD so she could watch it again".

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For consideration: which she does, continually, now, so we're going to have to think about how to temper that

Today I am very thankful. I missed a horrendous 4-lane, tractor-trailer jackknife accident by, oh, a good 15 seconds.

As I drove up the on-ramp and began accelerating into the right-hand lane of the freeway, I saw up ahead at the crest of the hill that there was a tow truck in the break-down lane. I thought to myself, "I'll just pick up speed a little bit so I can merge into the next lane to the left, give that a wider berth." Before I had time to translate that thought into the action of pawing my left turn signal on, all four lanes of traffic at the crest of the hill flared red with brake lights, and a wall of blue-white smoke billowed up from tires skidding hard on pavement. Simultaneously, I saw a tractor-trailer jackknifing across two or three of the lanes.

Instead of my left blinker, I turned on the right and pulled into the parking lane and stopped. After a moment's pause, I scoped out the road behind me, put the car in reverse, turned on my hazard lights, and slowly -- very, very slowly -- backed up to the entrance ramp and then continued backing down the ramp to the city street I'd come from. Another car a little further behind me did the same. Twice I stopped completely while police cars rushed past me and up the ramp to the accident.

Luckily, I was just around the corner from where two of my very dearest friends live, and they happened to be home. I went there for hugs and a half-hour sit-down. Ellen's client showed up and she left to work. So I sat with Dave in the back yard. We crouched -- bottoms down, knees bent up -- on the concrete walkway by the garage, what Dave calls his "sunning spot." And indeed it was warm there, backs against the garage wall, with the afternoon sun on us. I leaned into him, wrapped my arms around his bent leg and rested my head on his knee, soaking up the warmth of the sun, the warmth of his friendship, listening to the rumble of his voice and to the wind rustling the neighbor's bamboo. And I was very, very thankful.

EDIT: Gizmodo, and especially their commenters, have really hit it: http://gizmodo.com/5432351/olpc-xo+3-an-impossible-75-fantasy-tablet-i-want-to-believe-in

Earlier this year, there were pictures shown of a new OLPC model, "XO-2," which would have two multi-touch screens. Unfortunately, that got cancelled: http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/03/company.changing.focus.following.layoffs/

Now they are talking about a model "XO-3": http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/12/22/olpc.xo.3.may.get.camera.wireless.power/

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/22/tablet-computer-negroponte-technology-cio-network-olpc.html


In the mean time, they are currently making small batches of "XO-1.5" models, which are cost-reduced versions of the XO-1, and planning an "XO-1.75" model, which will use ARM processors.

I still have my OLPC XO-1. Maybe you have one, too? If so, you should be helping test the newest release of their software, because it's WAY better than the previous releases. It's a pretty widely-supported "Remix" of Fedora's "F11" version.

Because more of the OLPC's OS is standard:
1) the OLPC company has less work to do, and might just survive even though they have fewer programmers on staff, and
2) It's getting easier and better to run OLPC simulators on "regular" laptop computers -- which typically have full-size keyboards. (I'll admit, I can't type on that little keyboard.)

(Also, maybe Fedora can use some of OLPC's power-saving code.)

You can find out more, here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/F11_for_XO-1

in maryland

I think it would be swell if you were tall
And I could surf and fight and levitate
And there were robot servants in the mall.
Don't talk to me about the steps we'll take,

Let's just get on the same last page for now.
I'd like a pony, and you'd like a car
That runs on bonhomie. Don't ask me how
We'll get there. 2050 is so far

Away! We all have idle fantasies
(And as we idle, our engines pollute).
Bring on the astronauts, bring back the bees!
I have a hybrid SUV. It's cute.

We'll drive the devil now, and pay him then,
In Bangalore and Detroit and Shenzhen.

Preparing for travel to Maryland tomorrow, assuming the weather there holds.

The perfect time to watch this entire 70-minute-long "review" of the Phantom Menace with a creepy-ass framing story about the reviewer.

[Hangs head in shame]

Briefing time
And the treason comes easy.
Mutation's spreading
And the Commies are nigh.
Your mission's failed
And Team Leader is crazy.
Confess, Troubleshooter,
before you die.

One of these mornings
You're gonna wake up screaming.
Then they'll decant you
So your next clone can try.
But until that morning
When you're finally terminated,
Friend Computer is here
to ask you: why?

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For consideration: apologies to George Gershwin

Eleanor reinvented MacPaint today.

Extraterrestrial 'UFO' ballot initiative heads for Denver election....

Well, there it is! More clear proof that the evil liberals in California kontinue their hatred of earth born persons, and are soft on the criminal illegal space alien problem!!!

You probably read the story already, but did you see the video? Tool using invertebrate powers, activate! (Watch through at least 1:05 to see him grip it by the husk).



Travel tip: Don't tell your Japanese co-workers that you don't eat Octopi because they're too smart. Neither the facts nor the humor will survive translation.

For the last couple of mornings i have woken up to mull over the phrase:

Prelude to a Problem

as the working title of the collection of epistemological problems that arise with the various jeffersonianisms about 'we hold these truths...'

Are these really mystic moments? Wherein we are talking about a leap of faith to the notion of 'certain inalienable rights'? Does it have to be? is also on the question rack. Amongst the general arguments normally put forward for the jeffersonianisms is the desirement that things like rights are not something that are 'granted by the government' - and hence can not be taken away by the government. But do we need an imaginarySkyFriend of any form to get that proposition out there?

Which also raises the unpleasantry that perchance secular mysticism is not really any more useful a form of detaching 'the thing in itself' from the ikky part of epistemology, namely, that, uh, what if it is not really, well, 'the thing in itself'. What if it is more like say, bob. A little bashful, and not always interested in whether or not there is a thing in encounter let alone a thing in interpretation. ( yes, you will want to start with at least Noumenon as it also works for "Ding an sich" - when you are webSurfing for the phrases. Yes, you will have to feel at home with the need to deal with epistemological issues. But the alternative of course is that one adopt the post-surrealist world of the TeaBaggers, where all is as it would have been, if the history of our founding fathers had been the absurdities that the electric kool-aid acid test would have made them, if the founding fathers had only done the right types of gnostic mysticism... Which many of them did not. So let us skip over the whole re-inventing abbie hoffman's yippies as the new enlightenment phase, and start back to worrying about the old enlightenment phase that occurred in the reality plane before the first 'back to the future' movie. Ever notice that the whole cosmos sorta fractured after that.... long before the 12 monkies. )

At one end of that is the hope that we can arrive at a safe place where we can have a rational discussion about american political philosophy. But that would of course require that we move the discussion into the realm of reason. The alternative is to re-define 'rational' so that it can engage the whole range of wild mystico-religious leaps that american political philosophy has taken in the last few decades. Is it even worth it to try to ponder the problem, if, in the end, the whole discourse will involve translating it into the sort of post-surrealism of the palineqsue. { ah yes, for those kinder, gentler days, when the rational knee-jerk liberal response was to Michael Palin of the Monty Python crew. Rather than the other absurdist, who, uh, tends to think that she is being, well, not quite pythonesque in the holy grail beacon lighting that she has done. }

So is the problem really worth the pondering, let alone the effort to take the matter seriously? I mean, in our current cultural kampfGruppen, uh, will any form of rational discourse survive the collapse of the Mayan Calendar Crisis? And will any of it mean diddly squat, if the american dollar winds up in the game of $2,000-$5,000 per ounce gold that is all the popular desirement of the alleged contrarians... And will there still be a need for rational discourse in those coming halcyon days???

I'm on a mailing list where we're having a civil, constructive, non-contentious discussion about religious views or lack thereof. There's general consensus that you don't need a higher power to explain the way the world works but someone brought up this point:

But what about the soul?

I have a lot more trouble giving up the soul than God.  Is this again the result of my Judeo-Christian upbringing?  (Eugene could help here.)   I am perfectly aware that (most likely) every single thought and feeling about my own consciousness, including the irrational suspicion of its immortality, come from a complex algorithm based on chemical processes in my brain, and not from any yet-to-be-discovered supernatural factor.

I struggled with this for a while before realizing that it's not quite accurate to describe our minds as the product of "a complex algorithm". Our minds are an emergent property of various cognitive processes in our brains, which are themselves an emergent property of their evolved structure and neurochemistry, which are an emergent property of our environment and evolutionary history, which are an emergent property of the physical laws that govern our shared reality.

It's similar to the way that a rainbow is an emergent property of physical, chemical, and weather systems, or the way that the Grand Canyon is an emergent property of gravity, precipitation, geology, and incomprehensibly vast amounts of time. Our minds are beautiful in the same way, but built upon layers and layers of systems and super-systems shaped and directed by adaptive natural selection, in much the same way that our art, culture, and civilization are the emergent property of the history and properties of those minds.

We're fortunate to be able to appreciate this truly remarkable, beautiful, life-affirming realization and there's nothing wrong with being occasionally awestruck in that appreciation. Atheists should not and, generally, do not deny themselves access to or appreciation of these numinous experiences.

Somebody made a music video about the PNG image format.

[Sound of Tom's ego exceeding the capacity of the core containment field]

Crazy.

I had to taste the competition's wares
(Electric bicycles surround the hill)
They specialize in presentation there
(A half-assed charge, a triumph of the will)

And no one violates the hipster code
(It's an aristocratic sacrifice)
They just watch as their business plan implodes
(When you buy local, someone thanks you twice).

In Chestnut Hill the eco-shops advance
(Made lovingly by mothers far away)
And no one gives the cheesesteak half a chance.
The healthy babes sip lattes every day,

Recycling dollar bills on Google Wave.
I'll wear my moral purchase to the grave.

matrushkaka dropped me off at the airport. I forgot to put the JAL silverware in my luggage so I didn't get to do the thing where they confiscate it at TSA, then reissue me an identical set on the airplane.

The international terminal didn't have the free Google wifi that I'd heard was being deployed, but my departure gate was close enough to the British Airlines first class lounge that I had a pretty good signal from its access point. Unfortunately it was a captive portal and I didn't know the password. Fortunately the login page wasn't SSL, which meant it would be transmitted in the clear the next time someone logged in. I started Wireshark, captured packets of myself trying a few guesses, wrote a filter to catch only those packets, and left it running. About 20 minutes later someone logged on with the password 'london', which allowed me to connect and chat with matrushkaka for a few minutes before the plane took off.

On the plane I was seated next to a nice old couple on their way to Jakarta with a crazy life story. They're ethnically Dutch/Indonesian dual citizens who grew up in Dutch-occupied Indonesia. Their country was invaded, occupied by, and suffered greatly under the Japanese and the husband especially didn't seem ready to let it go even though he acknowledged that today's Japanese are a lot nicer than they were back then. I told him about Xray's trip to Indonesia last year and his dinner at the bat restaurant and he told me that the trick to cooking a good bat is to remove the musk glands under the wings, which can spoil the meat. Informed!

Uneventful flight. I didn't watch "The Chef Of South Polar" but maybe I can rent it and watch it with Sandwich when I'm back in the states. It's about a guy who becomes the chef at the Japanese research station at the South Pole.

One of the things I'd intended to do before leaving was get some things for @fzhenghu, a Chinese dissident who's camped out in Terminal 1 of Narita Airport because the Chinese government won't let him into his own country, and Japan can't deport him for the same reason. I meant to bring him something like fresh underwear or some notebooks but the only thing I could find in the airport gift shop was some beef jerky and sausage sticks. It's illegal to import meat products into Japan but he's camped out before customs so I figured I'd be able to hand them off to him. Unfortunately I couldn't find him, I think because my flight came in on Terminal 2.

I took the Narita Express direct to Yokohama, availing myself of the special foreigners-only N'Ex Suica package that gives you a discounted ticket and a Suica card. I got a little confused after Yokohama, getting out at the wrong stop and then wandering around for a while before finding my hotel: the Yokohama International Seamen's Hall. It's about as weird as the pictures make it look: a hotel with a nautical theme catering to merchant marine sailors. They seem to be slow so they put me into a double-bed room.

Yokohama chinatown is HUGE and EXCELLENT. I spent a few hours walking around there and ended up eating an enormous bowl of beef lo mien soup, then I drew myself a huge hot bath in my room's deep japanese-style tub and fell asleep in it. The only problem with my room right now is that it's freezing cold and the thermostat control panel is all in Japanese. I'm going to have to ask someone about that.

Let us pause, and think a moment about the HORROR of the Obamanite Apostasy that is the news story of the five americans who were detained in Pakistan for allegedly wanting to join al-qaeda, and attack the evil Pro-Obamanite Welfare Queens of the Department of Defense.

Hum. How would the obamanites responde to the freedome lovers who rallied to the battle standards of Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, and Glenn Beck, to win the Coup against Obama???

Would it be any different?

As such we must ask how exactly can we tell when the Obamanite Persecution of freedome fighters is in any way different from the rest of the Obamanite Persecution of Americans who support the military coup against the evil obamanites!!!