Surreallism in Action...

When you look across your cubicle wall and see this:

In other terrifying Halloween news, courtesy of Geek Press, scientists have decided to create an evil supercomputer intentionally in order to learn more about human morality. Because evil supercomputers, HOW CAN THAT POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

On that note,
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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Overheard At Work, pt 18

(I am returning from lunch & walk by a coworker)
Co-Worker: So, the weather is already causing static problems for your hair?
Me: ... :o ...
Co-Worker: Oh, I didn’t mean it like that!

Whatever you say pal.....Totally random subject change: What are the most common ways orbital riveting could go horribly, horribly wrong? I’m curious.

*not plotting vengeance really*

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My Civic Duty – 2008 Election Edition

Aka “Things I Did Not Know Before This Election But Discovered When Researching Candidates On My Ballot”:

1) Texas puts a crazy amount of information online! It was incredibly easy to find information on incumbents & what they had been doing. While downloading court opinions was very easy*, I would like to compliment especially the state house bill tracking system. Check this out:


I can track the progress of the bill, read supplementary reporting and if it was voted on get the voting info. For fun, I compared this to the website for my US Senator which frankly was terrible when it came to viewing his bills. First of all, getting to his sponsored bills took three screens starting with a teeny-tiny link at the bottom of his homepage. Then, the actual bill review site was very underwhelming:

In all fairness to my senator, he does have a very good history of pushing for government transparency & the like. Also the webpage for reviewing his bills appears to be handled through the Library of Congress so it maybe their faulty web design & not his. But why does his site make it so difficult to get to?

2) San Antonio’s 4th District Court is almost entirely female! And a pretty ideologically diverse and fair-minded group at that (reading the histories and opinions of the court). *is overcome with girrrrrl power glee*

3) While Texas is a lot better than some other states about at least allowing Libertarian candidates on the ballot, the local newspapers are terrible about reporting on them. Even when they mention a lib-candidate, there’s a very begrudging tone like “Oh yeah, both republican & democrat candidates suck so we’re not favoring either...and btw, whatshisname is running as a libertarian *textual giggles*”. Needless to say, this made googling libertarian candidates very annoying. I rarely found more than a name mention in any public newspaper OR on the libertarian party website listing their candidates! Newspapers I have little expectation of fairness from but when the libertarian party doesn't provide details, COME ON! I'm interested but I'm not voting for somebody I know nothing about!

4) Unique Texas practice: “the jury shuffle” – significantly less fun than the two-step. I discovered this while reading an opinion by the current Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Apparently, in Texas lawyers are allowed shuffle the seating placement of potential jurors if there are too many of one gender or one skin color(!) seated together. The only slightly-not-skeevy thing about it is that both the prosecutor or defense attorney can do it. Otherwise, this just sounds unwise.

5) Favorite phase actually used in Texas Court opinions (and quoted from precedent) – “A vain and useless thing” (translation: don’t waste the court’s precious time with BS that has no bearing on the case)

6) We have a LOT of uncontested District Judges being “reelected” in this area of Texas. The so-called candidates are from both parties. I don’t know the causes for this but I’m pretty uncomfortable with the idea of uncontested elections, even when the incumbent has done an all round good job. There’s something democratically unseemly about the false choice of an elected but unopposed candidate.

7) People in my area really enjoyed voting. There was no drama at all. Everyone was very polite and considerate and it was a very efficient process. One mother teased her son when he came out, “First time voting, just like the first day of kindergarten.” That earned her a "Mooooommm!".

* I got a little too enthusiastic about downloading court opinions and had to cut myself off. I originally intended only to download 1-2 opinions written by those justices up for re-election but…it got a little out of control. If the Texas Court System Database ever crashes, I can provide backups for a significant chunk of the published opinions in the Aug-Oct 2008 timeframe.

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My Eyes Are Kinda Melting Right Now...

via here.









*the pattern-loving part of my soul whimpers pathetically*

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Old School Desktop

Once again, the Ubuntu forums monthly Desktop thread forces me to step up my game....Using a homemade wallpaper and some new controls/icon themes, I decided to create a yellow-themed desktop as I’d never done one before and figured it would be a bit of a challenge. The final result:

Clean:

Expo:

Wallpaper: “Antiquing” made by me in GIMP with GPL/CC licensed brushes, gradients & patterns
Controls: Zenburn-Murrine
Icons: Foxtrot
AWN Theme: Shotglass modified to match wallpaper colors
Firefox Theme: Default
Thunderbird Theme: Outlook 2003 GreenTB (not shown)
Songbird Theme: Default with “Personas” AddOn reconfigured with wallpaper as background image
(Oops - forgot one!) Emerald Theme: Argilla

*eyes laptop speculatively*

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Farwell Dear Winnifred!

This week I traded in my long-time mode of transportation, my Honda Civic (named Winnifred). She’s more than served me well but it’s time for a change. I knew I wanted one of two cars to replace her, either a Nissan Versa or a Toyota Matrix. Having test driven both, I can say that they are remarkably similar cars in almost all respects. In the end, my decision came down to one area of difference. The main deal-breaker was this:
This is a fabulously designed trunk! Some Toyota engineer(s) gave real thought to the fact that people who buy a car in order to extend the trunk space probably also have other needs that should be addressed. Then, those engineers proceeded to include lots of little features that turn the trunk into a massively functional space. Although the Nissan Versa was very comparable in all other respects, it has nothing trunk-wise to compete with what the Matrix has going on here.

In other slightly odd news, based on the online information I expected to be buying the Versa so I had a name picked out for that vehicle. Since instead I bought the Matrix, I’m at a loss name-wise. While it isn’t directly impairing my ability to enjoy my new car, I find it strangely impersonal to be driving an unnamed car.

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I Like This Guy! Oh, him too.

With all the brouhaha about “Joe the Plumber” & how he’s being treated in the media, I was exceedingly amused to read this story over at the National Review about a Colombian immigrant who showed up at a McCain rally to debate the press. The money quote:

When I first made my way over to him, Munoz thought I was there to give him the third degree.
“Are you going to check my license, too?” he asked me. “Are you going to check my immigration status? I’m ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my green card, I have my passport — “
I was a little surprised. Did Munoz really bring his papers with him to a McCain rally? I asked.
“Yeah, I have my papers right here,” he said. “I’m an American citizen. Right here, right here.” With that, he produced a U.S. passport, turned it to the page with his picture on it, and thrust it about an inch from my nose. “Right here,” he said. “In your face.”

“In Your face.” Wouldn’t the world be a better place if more people said that to our reporters? They are not holy arbiters of objectivism but people with all the prejudices and preconceptions that everybody else has. Please read the full article including this guy confronting a MOTHER JONES reporter on their coverage. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one calling these guys out in person on their reporting.

The problem with this election cycle is that when the average citizen can discover contradictory evidence for most political reporting with 5 minutes of googling during lunch, they begin to understand exactly how terrible reporting is in general. Having discovered that 5 minutes of googling teaches them more than 30 minutes of nightly news, why would they watch the nightly news? Or spend a half hour reading the newspaper?

PS. In the category of "Why I Like Conservative Blogs Better Than Liberal Ones Even When I Don't Always Agree With Them" here's a money quote from "Ace of Spades":

UPDATE: Jesus Christ, I love you morons, but are you all on crack?

RTWT as they say.

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60s Surprises

From when they could actually play live music WELL.....

The Association - Along Comes Mary


The Seeds - Pushing Too Hard


The Sorrows - Take A Heart


Blues Magoo - We Ain't Got Nothing Yet


*bubble is burst* (see comment)

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Pointless Sunday Stuff

After a week of planning, I'm left with not much to do today as I never got the memo that car dealerships were all closed on Sundays! However, as a follow-up to my "Hobby-Lobby" post, here's a couple of patterns straight off the shelves at "Michael's" (while they do not have wacky fabrics, they have a wonderfully eclectic scrapbook paper collection).

Blue-Lime Monstrousity:

And "Should Be Ugly But Isn't"
I have no explanation why I like this except that it's vaguely fractal...

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Times Are A Changin’

Yesterday, during “Supernatural”, there was an advertisement that kinda made my brain stop in its tracks. They aired a commercial for “The 700 Club”. In the ad, religious show advertised upcoming special reports....Including what looks like a very positive report on solar power for your home.

You know the public’s perception of renewable energy has undergone a major shift when the fundamentalist crowd is talking about it positively. I’m just saying.

On a sidenote: What network super-genius thought selling ad-space to “The 700 Club” during “Supernatural” was a good fit with their audience? Seriously, do they think just because there are angels on the show the fundie crowd will adore it? Because the online fans of SPN are more than a little notorious for being kinky as all get out (although the show does make it easy sometimes). Can we expect “Focus On The Family” ads during “One Tree Hill” next?

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Horribly Distracted At Hobby Lobby

I risked venturing into “Hobby Lobby” yesterday evening for a completely fruitless search for a 20” x 34” picture frame. However, the trip did yield some truly earth-shattering patterns when I somehow ended up in the fabric department instead of framing (they start with the same letter!).

I'll spare the eyes of casual readers and put the majority of the pictures in the full post. Be warned these are BAD.

Teaser: So orange it blurs your vision.....


Stores like this are really a goldmine for a pattern-collector such as myself but even I had to pause at some of the wacky for sale. The racks of regular cloth are what first caught my eye:

These aren't all bad. It's just the bad are so loud and distracting you have to risk staring to seek out the good (or not-so-bad). I do like the third from the left on the top and the pale-blue-brown flowers pattern in the middle of the second. Later blue-brown combinations were....disappointing.

The real meat of this post came from the upholstery/curtain aisles. Just wow...I was quickly overwhelmed. They apparently stocked up on shockingly loud fabrics. Including, the below eye-catching number:
And what happens when Impressionism explodes:


Brocades are coming back into fashion:
For those who wish to create their own personal Versailles.

They also had a lovely assortment of curtains fresh off the presses in Candyland:


Also, they had rubber fabrics! I can only assume for outdoor tablecloths & such. But seriously, would you put this:
On your back patio? Seriously?

In the middle of all this color, I discovered a string of unfortunate blue-brown patterns that may forever turn me off the combination. Let's start with the misdemenor offender:
Unappealing but it could just be me. The below patterns are however inexcusable:

Warning! Covering your furniture with these patterns increases the risk of suicide by 75%.

The two worst of the worst (on the curtain aisle) still remain. Until now, you only think you've seen color, but alas those were but a pale palette compared to this guy:
It's paint by numbers for chairs!

Finally, the worst of the worst:
If Satan had a grandmother, her couch would be covered in this fabric.

Now, some of the patterns did catch my eye in a pleasant way. For reasons I cannot identify, I like this combination of fabrics:
Anyone want to hazard an explanation?

Curtain-wise I tend to favor sheer or small-flowery patterns like so:



I was also surprised to find myself liking this one:
It looked more pinkish in the store...I wouldn't want this for a full curtain set but on a couple of throw pillows? I don't hate the idea at all.

But by far my favorite print of the trip:
Vaguely dreamy purple flowers, enough to draw the eyes but not overpowering.

After physically removing myself from the fabric section, I continued browsing. During my wandering I discovered that Hobby Lobby has created certain product lines for the disabled. Here's their "Pillows for the Colorblind Collection":


They also had some really disturbing lamps. Apparently, “Victorian Bordello” is making a comeback. And sometimes, they couldn't even get that right....
They didn't quite get it right on this pair. I'm kinda getting a “grandma bordello” vibe which really isn't what I usually go for in a living room.

The best lampshade by far:
Really striking and distinctive. Alluring without the slightly slutty/garish vibe of the other lamps. Like the Grace Kelly of Lampshades.

In conclusion, there was color, a bit of shock and some gorgeous sheer curtains.

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I Need To Clean But....

Instead I'm staring in awe at these awesome vintage space travel posters by Steve Thomas. I've been dying to replace one of the pictures in my dining area so out with the dorky castle/dragon fantasy poster! In 2-7 days this will be what I see at breakfast everyday:

Travel to Jupiter
by

stevethomas

See the other posters prints On www.zazzle.com
View more Digital Art Posters

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YouTube Is Changing The World, pt 2 Trillion

I know, I'm blogging like a fiend today compared to my usual rate. But this is probably the most concise summary of what caused the current economic meltdown I have seen yet!

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Overheard At Work, pt 17

In the category of I-cannot-believe-I-forgot-to-post-this!

“I want the eyes of a newborn baby!”

Prompted by this lovely piece of advertising (courtesy of a coworker):

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Dead People Voting In Droves!!!

As a follow-up to this morning’s post on ACORN’s illegal election tactics, here’s this report on voter registration fraud in the Houston Area (oh no, not H-town!). From the facts in the article, these incidents don’t to have anything to do with ACORN. However, the situation does exemplify the sort of voter “irregularities” that undermine the public’s faith in elections. That’s it! I’m putting John Fund’s book on order pronto. If I’m going to be grumpy and indignant about something I might as well be grumpy, indignant and informed.

Also, I had no idea TexasWatchdog.org existed but wow, it is a really useful site. Government accountability FTW!

In light of the article, I got a little creative....


UPDATE: Darnit! I got beaten to the punch by 6 minutes over at Ace of Spades.....If only I could blog at work.

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ACORN, taking our $$$ to undermine the election system

Looks like ACORN is finally going to be held accountable for its bogus voter registration drives. Seriously, how can an organization under investigation in 10 states be receiving federal funds?! While the Republicans have had their own scandals regarding voter registrations, it doesn't change the fact that in the form of ACORN the Democrat Party has a whole organization dedicated to manipulating the voter rolls for their own ends. Belief in the system is the one of the larger things keeping the American election system working. Registering dead people or 105% of the eligible voters does not do any favors for Americans' trust in the system.

Congressman Boehner gets the "good job" tag for this one.

If you want even more details on why ACORN shouldn't be trusted to run a cheese mold factory much less a voter registration drive, check out this Rachel Lucas post.

(Found via Ace of Spades)

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Congress At Work....

You know, as long as we keep them out of economic, foriegn policy and health care issues, the Democrats do good work. Case in point, three Congressmen's* new proposed bill to more clearly delinate the rules for border laptop searches. The current rules of "at the border guard's discreation" are overly broad and the competing bill would merely take statistics on the situation and not actually provide the guidance it sounds like the Travelers Privacy Protection Act would.

After last night's single most boring debate ever and last week's disastrous posturing by Congress, it's nice to know our elected officials aren't totally useless.

* technically, it's Congresspeople b/c one is a woman but I think Congresspeople sounds incredibly lame and refuse to use it.

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AAAAHHHHH (No Coffee Req'd)

Thanks to this discovery I made in my bathroom sink.

As if it being Monday isn't traumatic enough....

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Stupid Geniuses & Other Cliches

What's that old quote? "Some ideas are so stupid only smart people believe in them." Or something like that....

I was all excited about the TEDTalks YouTube channel, so I click the very first video and listen to some old guy talking about how large our population should be....Of course, if only we only had 100-500 million all our problems would just magically disappear. What Zero-Sum Pro-Maltusian bullshit!

It's not about how many people we have, it's about how inefficiently we provide for them! You would think someone considered an expert in their field wouldn't fall prey to the same blinkered thinking that caused so much death and destruction in the last century.

You want to know where Americans get their anti-intellectualism streak? It's from guys saying stuff like this: "There should only be so many people, spread out where they cannot cause trouble....The right ones of course." Dude, where have we heard that one before? You want to convince people to build sustainable healthy societies, how about you not tell 6.1 billion of them that they are unnecessary?

There is no "perfect" amount of people for the world. There is only how many are sustainable at this time with the current level of technology. If you change the level of technology, then you can support more people. And we are constantly increasing the level of technology, a fact you'd expect a robotics professor at MIT would be aware of.

And spreading people out? How dumb are you?! Urban areas are more efficient than rural areas, hands-down. It's easier for people to combine their efforts in sustainable and effective ways in cities. It's easier for them to close loops so resources aren't lost or left un-recycled. It's also more likely people will hold their own reproduction in check when they are in an urban setting versus a rural one.

Let me tell you my completely non-expert opinion: Poor people who become rich have fewer children (Note: NOT poor people who are made rich by government fiat or redistribution schemes). Rich countries more efficiently use their resources so problems like sustainability and resource-shortage become smaller problems over time. As the wealth of the world increases, like it has been, these problems will be solved by people, all those supposedly non-essential workers you don't see any value in.

All I can say is, the quicker we lose these outdated 20th century thinkers from our educational and research institutions, the better off the world will be. I mean compare this view of the world with all of these other people.

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OMG Really?!

I will not be doing anything constructive with my weekend. Instead, I will be studiously preparing for the release of the Stargate Worlds beta on Oct 15th. It looks gorgeous!
More screenshots are available here....
If anything will help me get over the cancellation of Atlantis, this is it!

*runs off to register*

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The Big Next Big Ubuntu

I'd never read the release notes for an upcoming version of Ubuntu. Sometimes, the surprise of a new feature is a joy in and of itself. However, I did a quick read through of the notes and there's some pretty cool things on the way.

From improving privacy to little tweaks to the desktop, it sounds like I'm going to enjoy my post-upgrade experience. I can only hope they get flash/sound issues under control. Right now, that's the biggest day-to-day weakness in the system. This problem isn't Ubuntu's fault but the average user doesn't care about the politics of proprietary codecs, they just want to easily switch between playing their music and watching YouTube videos.

Ok, this post isn't intended to be a lecture. Two little things I'm looking forward to trying with the next release"
1) Encrypted Private Directories in your "Home" folder - Very neat idea.
2) "Last Successful Boot Option" - To make it easier to recover from a bad upgrade to the kernel.

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Putting my $$ where my mouth is...

Via the super-cool idea of DonorsChoose.org. It's like crowd-sourced education funding. Teachers post their requested items, they provide you location information and you choose which things to fund. I saw BoingBoing advertising it this morning but only just now checked it out.

So, in an effort to address the lack of math skills that I frequently complain about, I think my donations will be targeted toward math classes. There's actually a teacher in Houston requesting calculators. Definitely giving my old hometown the nod. I hit a couple others also but there's too many for just me. If you're interested in helping math & science education in Texas, please consider these:

1) Buying Students Copies of "A Short History of Nearly Everything" to promote interest in Chemistry
2) Book bins for 2nd Graders (Hey, I'm a big reader too)
3) Buying TI-83 Calculators. Heck, I still use the TI-85 bought for my high school Algebra II class. Learning to use doesn't just help math but also works as a good introduction to programming.
4) Six Pre-packaged Science Tubs full of experiments & hands-on equipment.
5) Computer Lab - This is a big one but learning to use a computer early is critical in today's world.
6) 2nd Grader's Making Their Own Science Lessons - Really fantastic idea. Just the act of explaining a topic to someone else helps you learn.
7) Fetal Pig Dissection Kit - Yeah, it's gross but I remember doing this lab in 9th grade and it really did help me understand anatomy when I took Biology.
8) Geology & Jewelry Making - Teaching kids geology and small business skills at the same time. Also, it's a fundraiser to help the kids continue to raise more funds on their own. I really like this one.
9) MANY MORE. If you're not from Texas, it's worth it to search the site for projects in your state.

Man, the internet really does help you do everything better!

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