Everything I've Ever Wanted

It may be the bushmills, or it may very well be all the halloween candy coupled with back to back episodes of Caprica interspersed with Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog but my I feel the need to explain why I hate people so much.

I mean, other than this...

There.  That is all.

Scientists: they're just messing with us, right?

Quick! How many planets are there in our solar system?  Got an answer?  You are probably quite wrong.

Hey, brainiacs, let's pull it together, allright?  People are watching you, and you look retarded.

Now, quit fucking around and build my god damned time machine, asshole.

Fine, you can have them back!

Some lawyers are going to argue over whether the declaration of independence was legal or not.

This historic reconsideration of the document that set the American Revolution in motion was the idea of Anthony Haller, a Blank Rome partner who also happens to be a member of Gray’s Inn in London. Assisting him is U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe. She acknowledged mixed emotions about the American team’s expected argument that the Declaration is legal.

“For a judge, who is supposed to uphold a legal system, it is hard to uphold a document that says `We’re going outside the law and making one of our own,’” said Rufe.

Then again, when she gets an earful of the British argument it might not be so hard to root for illegality. Arguing for King George will be Hon. Michael J. Beloff, former president of Trinity College, Oxford and member of Gray’s Inn; Sally Jane O’Neill, with Furnival Chambers; and Sir Charles Haddon-Cave,  to take his seat as Justice of the High Court on Oct. 31.

I want to know if we can ask for them to take back the original thirteen colonies as reparations.  It seems like letting someone else ride herd on the east coast would take care of a lot of our problems.  Also, anyone currently in DC (part of the original 13!) must now speak like Dick Van Dyke* in Mary Poppins.

He might have something to say about independence movements...

Fear the Future

Modular Robotics is the next step in robot evolution.  This is the bridge between the uni-tasker (ex: kill-bots) and the multi-tasker (ex: kill/torture/maim-bots).

He's fucking awesome at multi-tasking.  Alton Brown wants to have his babies.

The Default Position

A human ancestor hears a rustle in the grass. Is it the wind or a lion? If he assumes it's the wind and the rustling turns out to be a lion, then he's not an ancestor anymore. Since early man had only a split second to make such decisions, we are descendants of ancestors whose "default position is to assume that all patterns are real; that is, assume that all rustles in the grass are dangerous predators and not the wind."
Ronald Bailey, at Reason, review of The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer

This is where belief comes from, evolutionarily.  Which, I'm kind of okay with.  I don't mind people believing, but as the Grand Master said about writing, it should be done in private, and wash your hands afterwards.

People are Stupid and Should Die

Seriously, people are terrible.

Schoolchildren are closely watched by teachers and parents as they make their way home from school. In playgrounds and on the roadside are posters warning of the danger of abduction by witch doctors for the purpose of child sacrifice.

The ritual, which some believe brings wealth and good health, was almost unheard of in the country until about three years ago, but it has re-emerged, seemingly alongside a boom in the country's economy.

Shambling towards collapse...

Topeka, apparently a city in Kansas, has decided that domestic violence cases are too expensive to prosecute.

Shawnee County has already dropped 30 domestic violence cases since it stopped prosecuting the crime on Sept. 8. Some 16 people have been arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery charges and then released after charges were not filed.

If they think prosecuting these cases is expensive, wait till they get the lawyer bills from the first lawsuit filed as a result...

What I've always wondered is how is domestic violence different from, you know, violence?

Actually Topeka won't be prosecuting any MISDEMEANORS, but what reporter wants to write that when he's got an honest to goodness "World to End Tomorrow, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit" style headline?  None.  None reporters, that's who.
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Also, Oakland has come up with a set of laws it's no longer going to worry about because they don't want to fire cops in order to save money.
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Hey! Remember how optimistic I am about Detroit's future?  Well, now we learn that more than half of Detroit's population are able to read. That's awesome!

Want more good news?  There are at least two whole other cities on Earth more dangerous than Detroit, and eight that are worse than New Orleans!  Amazing!  Don't you dare ask what these two cities have in common...




Abe knows his shit, Homer.  Take the damn pill.



This is how supervillains are born

Mechanical arms?  Check. 

Bug-Themed Super Hero to hate?  Not yet, but soon, I'll bet.


I want to believe I'll live long enough to have a suit like this.



The Gritty Re-Boot

This is worth a read, if for no other reason than it mentions a fan film version of Strawberry Shortcake getting a hysterectomy.

Gloria Steinem, please come to the lobby, you have a visitor.

Apparently, being a narcissistic bitch isn't as fulfilling later in life after all.  Who knew?

Feminists are funny, until they get old and lonely. Then they're hilarious.

MBAs to the rescue!

It's the really top-tier schools that give really awesome business advice.  Like Harvard.  Harvard must really produce some stellar examples of really great advice.  Let's see what the Harvard Business Review says about how to save your company money and time:

Stop Making Decisions that Waste Time and Money.

That's the HBR tip of the day for October 4, 2011.  That's the product of who knows how many $500K salaries.

WE. ARE. DOOMED.

Jobs Americans won't do...

...apparently include almost anything related to math or science.

Look real close, America.  This is two years from being every damn person you know: retarded useless, unemployable, and blaming you for it.

Bad Reporting

In another case of ignoring the "man bites dog rule of journalism," the NY Daily News is reporting some unsurprising shit:

"Tavarez was ... was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case," he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.
"I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

He made clear he wasn't about to pass off the two legit arrests he had made in the bar to Tavarez.
"As a detective, you still have a number to reach while you are in the narcotics division," he said.

NYPD officials did not respond to a request for comment.


Anderson worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics squads and was called to the stand at Arbeeny's bench trial to show the illegal conduct wasn't limited to a single squad.

"Did you observe with some frequency this ... practice which is taking someone who was seemingly not guilty of a crime and laying the drugs on them?" Justice Gustin Reichbach asked Anderson.

"Yes, multiple times," he replied.

Optimism will kill you

Or something.

In a study published today in Nature Neuroscience, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) show that people who are very optimistic about the outcome of events tend to learn only from information that reinforces their rose-tinted view of the world...

The researchers found that people did, in fact, update their estimates based on the information given, but only if the information was better than expected. For example if they had predicted that their likelihood of suffering from cancer was 40%, but the average likelihood was 30%, they might adjust their estimate to 32%. If the information was worse than expected – for example, if they had estimated 10% – then they tended to adjust their estimate much less, as if ignoring the data.

This is because Optimism is Stupid.  The second law of thermodynamics is pretty clear on this, and yet people are stupid and mostly they should die. 

No, thermodynamics isn't meant to be used as a philosophy, but I've always thought that if something explains the way the world works, it must also be a better philosophy than anything else running around out there. Here are the three laws in plain language, see if you know a better way to view the world:

1. You can't get out more than you put in.
2. Entropy Always increases.
3. You cannot stop change.

And those are the rose-colored versions of the laws.  My Physics teacher read them, as I do, thus:

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't stop playing the game.

So, suck it Happypeople (tm).  You're wrong, I'm right, nana-nana boo boo, stick your head in a car door and slam it shut repeatedly.

On the one hand, I'd like to see the whole thing collapse faster...

... on the other hand, if this did happen and the economy cratered, they'd just do more bullshit just like it.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has offered his own $804 billion jobs plan that calls on the federal government to hire the nation’s 15 million unemployed Americans for jobs paying roughly $40,000 each, and bail out all the states and cities facing budget crises.

On the gripping hand, though, it'll hasn't got a chance in hell of passing.  We're not quite THAT far down the path to outright communism. 



It's this kind of party, but for the economy.



Remus vs. voters

Something like this has been my answer every time someone says "if you don't vote, you can't complain":

Ask most so-called conservatives if they're willing to go back to pre-New Deal America. The answer, shorn of its Clintonesque waffling, will be no. Therefore they are New Deal collectivists. No patriotic citizen of conscience will lend legitimacy to this farce by participating in their, formerly our, national elections. Punching the New Deal's ticket every couple of years has no upside. Stay home on election day, spend it immersed in some guilty pleasure or another, vote for "None of the Above" and luxuriate in unblemished righteousness thereafter. - 'Ol Remus and the Woodpile Report

George Carlin (who decidedly did not share Remus' politics) said something along the same lines, and both of them have often reminded me of something the Grand-Master once wrote: "Relaxing to the inevitable is not the same thing as stooling for the guards."

Voting only means you're part of the problem.



A cop posted this.  Really think about that for a minute.  A federal cop.



Happy? Probably a sign of brain damage.

Scientists say optimism is the result of a faulty brain.  The glass was half empty all along:

Scientists have discovered that people who are very optimistic about the outcome of events could in fact have a "faulty" brain.

The study, which was published in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that the brain is very good at processing information, whereas some people ignore anything negative, leading them with a positive outlook.

This is the lowest rung on the ladder of response to the terminally happy.  Step two is genital mutilation.

Hear that, you happy shit heads?  You are wrong.  Not just in the way you think, but in the way you were made.  Wronger than any wrong person could wrongly believe they could be wrong.  Built incorrectly.  Less perfect than your brethren.  By destroying your happiness and self-esteem I am helping to fix you.  Because you need fixing, you lousy sacks of happy-clappy shit.



Also, please die.



Dwarf Tossing

I didn't know that this was something that was illegal.  I kind of get the reasoning behind the banning, though I don't agree with it.  It's like prostitution;  if you assume that the people (dwarfs/women) participating in an activity you don't like (dwarf tossing/prostitution) are incapable of making choices on their own, then you ban the activity which obviously will stop the activity.

After all, there are no more hookers or dwarfs, right?

Right?

Gibbon, not the monkey...

"The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it subsisted for so long."

Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 4,

Is the past better than the present?

John Derbyshire essentially says, "not really, but in some ways it was pretty neat." Also, he quotes Heinlein, which makes any op-ed into something approaching divinely inspired writing.

You have to exercise some historical imagination. There is no possibility of you or I being transported back to 1660, nor even 1960. It can’t be done. The past belonged to the people who lived in it. We know about their lives but they did not know about ours; that asymmetry vexes the argument.

What he should ask though, is "is the past better than the future?"  Since there is no robopocalypse in the past, I would have to answer, "yes."

Willpower and Sugar

Apparently acts of will-power deplete glucose.

Acts of self-control deplete relatively large amounts of glucose. Self-control failures are more likely when glucose is low or cannot be mobilized effectively to the brain (i.e., when insulin is low or insensitive). Restoring glucose to a sufficient level typically improves self-control. Numerous self-control behaviors fit this pattern, including controlling attention, regulating emotions, quitting smoking, coping with stress, resisting impulsivity, and refraining from criminal and aggressive behavior. Alcohol reduces glucose throughout the brain and body and likewise impairs many forms of self-control. Furthermore, self-control failure is most likely during times of the day when glucose is used least effectively. Self-control thus appears highly susceptible to glucose. Self-control benefits numerous social and interpersonal processes. Glucose might therefore be related to a broad range of social behavior.

Is will-power then inversely related to insulin sensitivity?  It would explain why fat people keep getting fatter, and why it's easier for me to work out after work than before.  It would also explain why taking creatine or even plain old lemonade before a workout is so damned effective.

Gettin' all kinds of explainy up in this bitch!

Fear the... present.

Frankly, I'm really surprised this hasn't already happened a million times.    I mean, why wouldn't it? 

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

Stuxnet showed that a virus can be an effective tool in war, and we've pissed off (and pissed on) all the countries to whom we're exporting computer-y type jobs.  Why hasn't this happened before and to a much larger extent?

And you're going to like it, too!

So, do we need to look for predator drones cruising our airspace?  I'd place money on it.

HAHAHA... what the hell, Japan?

Seriously, you guys are kidding, right?  Playing some sort of really deep philosophical joke on the round-eyes, right?  RIGHT?

Author Junji Hotta has blessed the world with “Tsundere, Heidegger, and Me”, a tour de force of European philosophy… in a world where all the philosophers are self-conscious anime girls. The books went on sale September 14.
The table of contents includes: “Chapter 1, Descartes: proving the existence of God”; “Chapter 2, Spinoza: man is the greatest for man”, “Chapter 3, Berkeley and Hume: to exist is to be aware”, “Chapter 4, Kant: the starry heaven above me and morality within me”, “Chapter 5, Hegel: the world is an infinite progression towards wisdom”, “Chapter 6, Nietzsche: God is dead, but nothing has changed”, “Chapter 7, Heidegger: without a world, we do not exist, without us, the world does not exist, we are not alone”.

Hegel apparently had huge tits.  Maybe Japan is onto something...

Fuck all you guys. Right in the head.

I'm getting one of these, and not made out of Legos.

Robots, Zombies, yankees... it works for anything!

Fear the Future (yes, again... shut up.)

Apparently no one has ever heard of the blue screen of death.  Either that, or they wanted to see what it was like to witness a "literalized metaphor."

Cities could soon be looking after their citizens all by themselves thanks to an operating system designed for the metropolis.

The Urban OS works just like a PC operating system but keeps buildings, traffic and services running smoothly.
The software takes in data from sensors dotted around the city to keep an eye on what is happening.

So, you fucking morons are working to create the sort of thing that makes normal people lie awake in terror?  What could go wrong?

Quit being stupid, assholes.  They will straight up kill us.

Fear the Future

This is how it will come to an end. 

This is Zwischenräume, a mechanical art installation that features a bunch of autonomous robots hiding behind a living room and beating it down at random intervals, stopping only to peer at the gawkers outside.

The germans, again, are goinig to try to end the world.  Awesome.  Good looking out, assholes.

Fear the Future

More specifically, fear your elected leaders.

File this in the random-things-politicians-say file. Speaking to a Cary Rotary Club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.

"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that," Perdue said. "You want people who don't worry about the next election."

So, was she joking as she later said, or was this more like sending up a balloon to see how it would be received?

Also, how was it received?  Not much mention of that, and THAT scares the hell out of me.

Although, I guess it won't be a problem for much longer.  The "elected leader" part, that is.

“The cost of the attack that you’re going to see was $10.50 in retail quantities,” explains Warner in the video. “If you want to use the RF [radio frequency] remote control to stop and start the attacks, that’s another $15. So the total cost would be $26.”



Yay! Democracy!



RAH RAH RAH!

Maybe we should put away the pom-poms and pick up a book or two.

If I were to speechify to a conclave of Tea Partyers, “America is the free-est...the most democratic...the best educated and most dynamic country the world has ever known, an example to all mankind,” the assembled would hoot and hooroar and applaud in dizzy exaltation. Here is the soul of the American approach to existence, bottomless self-admiration devoid of knowledge or curiosity, wrapped like a psychic burrito in the patriotism of overwrought middle-schoolers. And there are many, many of them.

We face rule by pajama party. Saints preserve us, someone with the foregoing understanding may become the president of the (for a few moments more) most powerful, erratic, and ignorant country on the planet. Among presidential possibilities we now have Rick Perry, Michele Bachman, Sarah Palin and, in the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avenue, Precedent Obama—political epiphytes all, fantasists, tent-revival Christians, provincial governors, inward-looking certitudinous naifs. The difference between Americans and Mohammed Ali is that when he said, “I am the greatest!” he was.

Fred is quite brilliant about many things.  Also, he's Grumpy, which grants about 10 bonus IQ points.

It's a strange world

Someone ought to sell tickets.

More fun than a surprise enema, I'll bet.

This is obviously not a scam of any sort

Let's put this in the list of "jobs I wish I had, but never will, because life kinda sucks that way."

Learning the wrong lesson

So a study came out that said that men cooperate with each other better than women do.

• there was no statistical difference between the sexes when it came to cooperating when faced with a social dilemma,
• however men cooperated better with other men than women cooperate with each other; and,
• women cooperated more than men when interacting with the opposite-sex.

The lead author of the study goes explains it thus:

“The argument is that throughout human evolutionary history, male coalitions have been an effective strategy for men to acquire resources, such as food and property,” said Balliet. “Both hunting and warfare are social dilemmas in that they firmly pit individual and group interests against each other. Yet, if everyone acts upon their immediate self-interest, then no food will be provided, and wars will be lost. To overcome such social dilemmas requires strategies to cooperate with each other.”
Evolutionary theory may also explain why women are less cooperative with other women when faced with a social dilemma, according to Balliet. “Ancestral women usually migrated between groups and they would have been interacting mostly with women who tended not to be relatives, and many were co-wives,” he said. “Social dynamics among women would have been rife with sexual competition.”

She's cooperative.

 So the Forbes "contributor" Victoria Pynchon concludes that since this is a result of a biological drive, women not only can, but should change it:

There you have it, ladies. Proof that we are more competitive with one another than we are with men. This explains so much, including the bitter complaints of women in business and the professions about the lack of support they feel from their female colleagues.
This is something we can change. It is completely within our control. And if you say, I’m cooperative but she’s a bitch, then you have some conflict resolution work to do.

Who want's to take bets on how well this will work?  And also on whether or not this will somehow be blamed on big mean men?  No one?  Kind of thought so.