Saturday, October 19, 2002 Dennison reports on malicious activity across the sea,
Recently in Prague, some one has been derailing trams. Apparently they stick little metal bars on the tracks or whatever, and then when the trams come along they hit the bars and derail. Tram accidents are common here, but not so common as recently. There has been a derailing of a tram every day this week. So of course politicians are starting to call it "terrorism" ...
Friday, October 18, 2002 Microsoft Loves Open-Source, or will at least pretend to in order to discourage hacking and hatred. It's a very good article getting into how Linix has become a real threat, as its now commercially viable to buinesses and homes.
While small in scope, Microsoft's adoption of some key open-source tenets is monumental in meaning. It is an acknowledgement that the company sees the technology as its most serious competitor in years and is taking steps to make sure its Windows franchise can survive the attack.
The open-source movement also represents a larger threat to Microsoft that transcends any particular technology or company: The high-tech industry has undergone a psychological shift that encourages challenges to Microsoft, which for many years had been technologically possible but practically unthinkable.
Speaking of loathed internet companies, some guys are starting a campaign collecting AOL disks. Once they have a million, they will dump them all on the AOL lawn.
Friday, October 18, 2002
William L. Anderson with the Mises Institute has this analysis of Enron's collapse.
Like Al Gore, who declares that we had a booming economy in 1998 and 1999 because his government raised income taxes in 1993, the people with the “answers” have no way of linking monetary policies to the performance of the economy, especially when it applies to the huge capital investments in the high technology and telecommunications sectors. Instead, we hear things like “broadband was overbuilt because it is easy to overbuild.” That is not an explanation, for it does not tell why business decision makers chose to build in the amounts they did. (In fact, when economists give such explanations, they undercut their own arguments given in typical microeconomics texts that firms facing “downward sloping demand curves” always hold back supplies in order to support their monopoly prices. Gee, what is it, do firms “overinvest” and increase supply, or do they hold back supply? It cannot be both, but that is what they are telling us.)
Friday, October 18, 2002 Esther Dyson's motto is "Always Make New Mistakes." She has a few pointers on 'netiquitte' here
Friday, October 18, 2002
The internet censorship law went into effect in SPain this week. It requires registration of websites with "commercial prospects - no matter how small." ISPs must monitor for illegal content and keep on traffic data on record for a year.
The government argues that the principal objective of the law is to ensure that publications on the web are subject to the same tax and commerce laws as print publications. Anna Birules, Spain's Minister of Science and Technology, says the law addresses reality. "If, in the real world, a judge is able to close real media down, in the virtual world the same is going to happen," she has said.
Thursday, October 17, 2002 Nevada's rejected License Plate
Thursday, October 17, 2002
Tonight at Christopher Hitchens' reading he called Graham Greene mediocre. For shame! Graham Greene ... the reason I ever put a pen to paper ... so did I haggle him and ask if he's read "The Comedians," or these short stories, or his autobiography, or all his work that brings tears to my eyes? No, I did not. Instead I bought the book "Burmese Days," that Hitchens said predetermines anything Greene has ever done.
On art and culture we can immediatly surmise because it is subjective, it's different strokes for different folks. But aren't there certain common characteristics we expect from the goods that take up our leisure time? Without comparing apples to oranges, we have a common hiearchy of standards. You can't intellegently compare the Algarve to the Eiffel Tower, but you can argue Prague is prettier than Ljubljana. It is because of those standards hundreds of thousands more tourists visit Prague than Ljuljana
Critics are important because of the absence of perfect knowledge. I accept that Hitchens has read plenty more than me, so if he thinks my favorite writer is mediocre, he's probably right. The argument "you hate things that are popular" is as old as hating things popular. Rather than immediatly labeling someone elitist for suggesting artist x is better than artist y, why not check out x and see for yourself?
As Bill Clay wrote, "like almost any argument I've ever heard about music this is a mess." I do hate to use the "taken out of context" argument, but here its applicable. Apparently, I'm an indie-elitist who hates everything that's popular. I'm an anti-populist! Well, I'll cool down the language. Someone get me a thesuarus for christmas, k? (For the record, I think Jeff Tweedy is a very cool person, but unfortunatly his music is bland. I've seen the film. I've heard his albulms. Ihaveheardbetter)
Thursday, October 17, 2002
I completed two excellent books last week. The first, Super-Cannes by J. G. Ballard is more than just a sexy murder mystery, but an intruiging story about corruption within an obscenely-wealthy suburbanized high-tech industrial park in France. He's got a very beautiful, funny prose, kind of like Raymond Chandler -- but better. The other book, Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest, is beyond compare. Conquest has assumed his authority and command of history, and thus affirms with certainty that his opinions are correct. It's refreshing to see an expert without any heitation in his role. Conquest is rigorously educated and researched, and can put all anticipated objections to rest. He places blame where it belongs -- on the liars, propagandists, and fools to fascist and marxist dogma. The book is invaluable to a skeptic. It reminds us why the written word may not outweigh common sense. Skepticism is a neccessary part of liberarianism. Too often we are dismissed as utopists
Thursday, October 17, 2002
About half the search-strings I receive are for All Seeing Eye Crack. WTF is that? I also get alot of people looking for the Bush twins most recently, Bush Twins Down and Dirty
Thursday, October 17, 2002
I've been reading a little of the ballistic fingerprinting debate. The term is a fancy way of saying guns produce unique markings on shells and bullets like "fingerprints." If the type of marking were recorded, it would be much easier to trace a crime to the gun owner. Would that I were a utilitarian, I'd be very much in favor of ballistic fingerprinting. It seems better than whatever nonsense is on the books presently. But not so fast -- it is but a sneaky way to impose Big Brother and turn us into Database Nation, as "ballistic fingerprinting" in effect would register every handgun owner. Not cool.
It's interesting to note some handgun manufacturers like Glock, have serial numbers to fingerprints already -- perhaps to maintain their family-friendly image
Thursday, October 17, 2002 Walter Williams' new column brags about our economics department and law school.
You might say, "Williams, George Mason University's economics department and law school sound like excellent places to send my kid or to enroll myself." You'd be right. We both accept the evidence that peaceable, voluntary exchange is not only morally superior to other forms of social organization -- such as those involving force, intimidation and threats -- it also provides for the highest standard of living for the ordinary man. What makes our law school so unique is that our professors respect and revere the U.S. Constitution.
Indeed, Vernon Smith's win doubled my resume's worth overnight. And as much as I despise the campus' suburban architecture and community college-like College of Arts and Sciences (and that there is nothing edible to eat for lunch that does not cost $7,) I do have some school spirit. The school's barely thirty years old and already out-ranks many red-brick and ivy covered buildings. That's no small feat from Snobbus Americanus
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
He may be a bad shot, but he gets the pick of the litter it seems.
James Martin, 55, was leader of his son’s Boy Scout troop. Kenneth Bridges, the most recent victim, was the father of six, and spent his nights and weekends helping low-income workers start their own businesses. Friends of James (Sonny) Buchanan, 39, recalled how he used to cajole Baltimore Oriole tickets from his corporate clients so he could take kids from the Boys and Girls Club to the games. “He used to spend a fortune on those kids buying them snacks and hats and whatever they wanted,” says a friend
This and this profile of Linda Franklin makes her sound like a great person. She worked on cybersecurity at NIPC. What a pity. But maybe everyone's a saint in the obituaries
Wednesday, October 16, 2002 Lufthansa is offering sweet deals on flights to Europe this winter.
Atlanta - Stuttgart $178
Boston - Geneva $201
Washington, D.C. - Milan $189
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Oh, the unbearable lightness of being a dandy! NYT has this article on the Amis/ Hitchens quarrel
"My provisional critique of this ahistorical reasoning would fit into three short italicized sentences. Don't. Be. Silly," Mr. Hitchens wrote in The Guardian. In The Atlantic, he accused his old friend of "self-righteousness and superficiality."
Speaking of, how much self-love went into Hitchens' cover photo?
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
The National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign has unveiled its new propoganda, and "Smokedot" is buzzing about it. Insterestingly, many of those ads could conclude with "And that is why we must decriminalize cannabis sativa." But the ads on the left are chilling, suggesting a few tokes might get you raped, or dead. In "den," two stoned teenages are chatting and one pulls out gun. He plays with it, then -- POW! An anti-drug and anti-gun ad in one.
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Last night I went to see Wilco -- correction, I went to see The Shins, who unbenownst to me had cancelled their appearance as the opening act -- and it was pretty boring. Not since I was dragged to a "Sex and the City" party over the summer had I been crowded by less desirable company.
Wilco's good but not a terribly inventive lo-fi band like the Kingsbury Manx is, or Luna was before they had a video on VH-1. Their fanbase appropriately reflects this: mostly passionless yuppies who want all the hip without the edge.
It's hard to formulate an opinion on people like that because by definition they are vapid. They like things that are good, like Wilco and Nick Hornby; but not the kinds of things that are great.
The Shins, although hardly an obscure indie band, will never appeal to the extent that Wilco does -- they're too good. They've basically reinvented the wheel with an album (and dozens more B-sides) packed of compelling, weird, vivid songs detailing the kinds of emotions yuppies are incabable of experiencing. So, Wilco might recruit millions more fans over the next twenty years, but in that time, The Shins will have influenced millions of bands.
On that note, next week The Black Cat is pulling a hat trick. On Friday they have The Oxes, Saturday is The Mercury Program, and Sunday they host The Skelton Key. I'm not being an indie-elitist here, each one of those bands is unbelievable. Also, you can catch me there tomorrow night for Shellac, fronted by alpha Steve Albini. Go read his essay, The Problem with Music if you haven't already.
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
On the subject of discarded ideas: I have (and have had) many. I'm not talking small stuff like doing my homewrok (which I somehow never get around to) or the laundry (I just go to the store and get more underwear>) I have many larger ideas that never reach fruitation. This summer I was going to write a book. I got so far as a title ("The Empire has No Clothes," he he) By now I was supposed to have graduated and move to India or Malaysia or somewhere ... but I didn't. I even discard ideas for my blog. Like, I thought it would be funny if I took a jpeg of John McLaughlin and wrote "WRONG" in bold red font then posted it whenever I quoted something I disagree with. Yeah, that's not that great an idea, so it was trashed. Just like my other idea to change my links to mock VodkaTool: I'd have my favorite links the "K.B," then also the "Middie" and the "shwag." Alas, trashed.
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
You know Montaigne's take on influences and emulation -- that it's comparable with what bees do with nectar from flowers? You take something and make something that's just as good but different. That's kind of like what The Agitator's done with my Tatu post
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
So, the sniper's last stop was just down the street from me, at a mini-mall where I had been grocery shopping only two hours prior. Motherfucker! I managed to take backroads home but even there were police cars on every block. On M street to get to the Key Bridge, the cops had us go single-file so they could inspect every car. I've seen them pull over a dozen white Astro vans even before yesterday, so I imagine the night was hell for anyone with a vehicle of that description. Apparently the highways were obscene. Some exits were even blocked off so people couldn't get home. Yep, we live in a police state -- and not even a very good one. After all that he's still on the lam
More than anything the sniper case is annoying fodder for boring housewives. I see them with their kids, zig-zagging when they walk from the parking lot into Safeway. They're are a lot of people out there drawing up their wills right now, and I bet a small part of them will be disappointed when it's over that they didn't get the chance to die so romantically. And the sniper is a romantic. He is "god," chosing victims at random.
My father, who came down to visit me this weekend, is losing sleep because it could have been me. Well, I also could get cancer tomorrow or get run over by a truck. You always run the risk of something, but is it worth it to live your life under ridiculous constraints to eliminate those risks? Fuck you sniper, I'm still pumping my own gas.
