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Monday, June 7th, 2004
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5:08 pm
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| Saturday, June 5th, 2004
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4:18 am
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In to-day's New York Times:
One finds more evidence of criminal and sadistic behavior by our guards and of treason by our officers in “Beating Specialist Baker” by Nicholas Kristof. Think of what we would have been spared had the officers done their duties in response, instead of betraying our nation?
Some remarks on tribalism in American politics are found in “Circling the Wagons” by David Brooks. Actually, there's a lot more to be seen and said than Brooks manages, but at least he's seen and said something.
Meanwhile, buried in the bowels of “Kissinger Accused of Blocking Scholar” by Diana Jean Schemo one finds a crucial paragraph:Mr. Maxwell agreed he had said he wouldn't need to respond as long as there were no personal attacks, but he changed his mind after seeing the actual letter. So the whole controversy actually turns on Maxwell wanting the agreed rules of discourse changed ex post, because under those agreed rules he lost. I happen to despise Kissinger (whom I regard as both evil and otherwise incompetent), but if the Times weren't allowing its own biases to run away with it, then it would see that the only story here is that a leftist intellectual is trying to cheat, and that's perhaps no more a story than “Dog Bites Man”.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 2nd, 2004
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9:51 pm - Help-Less Utility
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Version 0.9.0 β1 of my little Java utility is now available for download.
It is designated “0.9.0” because the Help item of the Help menu is impotent. I've not decided how I want to implement its functionality.
The utility comes bundled with an HTML file that explains its use. And which is as big as the d_mn'd .jar containing the executable! It's probably best to just play with the program to figure out how it works.
The program is implicitly internationalized. If anyone wants a properties file for French or somesuch, then let me know.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, May 30th, 2004
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4:37 am
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I have written a happy little utility for Java programmers.
( screenshot )
To me, the interface is highly intuïtive, pretty much what one would expect from the simple appearance of the app (except, perhaps, in that it can handle casts, sign changes, and hierarchial parentheses in the JAVA field).
(This utility is a “stand-alone” version of a piece of the classfile editor upon which I'm working.)
But I find that it is taking me a considerable amount of time to write a proper explanation of how to use the app, and the chore is tedious.
Next, I have to write a license. (It's going to be freeware, but it won't be open-source, and it's going to be under copyright.)
Bleh!
(At this stage, gaal posts some comment about a perl utility that examines Java programs, and then generates lucid documentation on their use, as well as generating perfect licenses based on a small amount of biometric data from their copyright holders.)
current mood:  aggravated
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Thursday, May 27th, 2004
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4:43 pm
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| Monday, May 24th, 2004
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5:06 pm
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4:48 pm
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| Saturday, May 22nd, 2004
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2:56 pm
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The newest and possibly nicest member of my collection of these:
( moonrider pendant )
The diameter of the moon is about that of an American nickel five-cent coin.
This one is 14kt gold. Most of the moonriders that I have are .925 silver, but two others are 14kt gold, one has a 14kt gold figurine on a brass or bronze moon, one is golden though not gold, and two are something made to look like antiqued gold.
(Most of these were given to my ex-girlfriend, but she chose to leave them behind.)
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, May 9th, 2004
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11:45 pm
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Found in the journal of unicornjump:
Blender's Alleged Top 50 Worst Pop Songs” — Make bold those songs that you actually like!!!- “We Built This City”[1] — Starship
- “Achy Breaky Heart” — Billy Ray Cyrus (At the time, I liked it. So what?)
- “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” — Wang Chung
- “Rollin'” — Limp Bizkit
- “Ice Ice Baby” — Vanilla Ice
- “The Heart of Rock” & Roll — Huey Lewis and the News
- “Don't Worry, Be Happy” — Bobby McFerrin
- “Party All the Time” — Eddie Murphy
- “American Life” — Madonna
- “Ebony and Ivory” — Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
- “Invisible” — Clay Aiken
- “Kokomo” — The Beach Boys
- “Illegal Alien” — Genesis
- “From a Distance” — Bette Midler
- “I'll Be There for You” — The Rembrandts
- “What's Up?” — 4 Non Blondes
- “Pumps and a Bump” — Hammer
- “You're the Inspiration” — Chicago
- “Broken Wings” — Mr. Mister
- “Dancing on the Ceiling” — Lionel Richie
- “Two Princes” — Spin Doctors
- “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” — Toby Keith
- “Sunglasses at Night” — Corey Hart
- “Superman” — Five for Fighting
- “I'll Be Missing You” — Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112
- “The End” — The Doors
- “The Final Countdown” — Europe
- “Your Body Is a Wonderland” — John Mayer
- “Breakfast at Tiffany's” — Deep Blue Something
- “Greatest Love of All” — Whitney Houston
- “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” — Crash Test Dummies
- “Will 2K” — Will Smith
- “Barbie Girl” — Aqua
- “Longer” — Dan Fogelberg
- “Shiny Happy People” — R.E.M.
- “Make Em Say Uhh!” — Master P featuring Silkk, Fiend, Mia-X and Mystikal
- “Rico Suave” — Gerardo
- “Cotton Eyed Joe” — Rednex
- “She Bangs” — Ricky Martin
- “I Wanna Sex You Up” — Color Me Badd
- “We Didn't Start the Fire” — Billy Joel
- “The Sounds of Silence” — Simon & Garfunkel
- “Follow Me” — Uncle Kracker
- “I'll Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)” — Meat Loaf
- “Mesmerize” — Ja Rule featuring Ashanti
- “Hangin' Tough” — New Kids on the Block
- “The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You” — Bryan Adams
- “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” — The Beatles
- “I'm Too Sexy” — Right Said Fred
- “My Heart Will Go On” — Celine Dion
[1] Although I always found this song annoying, Blender's criticism misunderstood the lyrics. The reference to “corporation games” and “corporation names” is an attack on Marty Balin and in reference to the fight over who owned Jefferson Starship and the trademark “Jefferson Starship”.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Friday, May 7th, 2004
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7:44 am
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| Thursday, May 6th, 2004
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7:17 pm - Michael Moore Admits Pants on Fire
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1:22 pm
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In conversation yesterday evening, a friend drew attention to two aspects of the torture and torment of Iraqi prisoners by American and British soldiers that are getting little or no attention in the media.
Seymour Hersch and others have been making the claim that the perpetrators got little or no training before being assigned as prison guards, and Hersch is surely speaking what he takes to be the truth. But some of the American torturers and tormenters were, prior to enlistment, guards in American prisons, specifically in Maryland. The US military probably presumed that in non-military life these people had received training on appropriate treatment of prisoners. But, in all likelihood, this assumption was probably exactly backwards. In other words, prison guards in Maryland and in many places elsewhere within the United States are probably doing as much of the same sort of thing as they can. They may have felt that Iraq gave them even more license, of course; but their willingness to be photographed suggests that they were operating with sense neither of guilt nor of shame.
Also, we have the fact that these photographs are coming out all at once, including those from other prisons and from non-America gaolers. This almost certainly indicates that some party has been assembling these photographs and holding onto them until a preceived critical mass was achieved. And this is a problem first because it meant that the assemblers of these photos treated as acceptable that torture which occurred as the photos were being assembled into this critical mass for greater political effect; and second because the media has ignored the manipulation per se. Public opinion is being shaped by conspiracy, and the media is participating (thoughtlessly or with knowing complicity).
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 5th, 2004
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5:41 pm
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NOT MOMSAFE
( Faun/Nymph Statuette )
NOT MOMSAFE
This statuette probably has the best composition of any with this motif that I've found so far, although it appears that the original casting was neither finely detailed nor elegantly abstract, and there is a lot of corrosion on this piece.
Certainly if I had it, I would apply a partially rectified current to it to demineralize the corrosion. But, at $999.99 plus $25 s&h, I won't possess this piece unless my færie godmother gives it to me!
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, May 1st, 2004
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8:57 am - 23:5
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I watched in disgust as critic after critic derided it, with the odd exception of Leonard Maltin (who didn't sing its praises, but nonetheless gave it a moderately good rating).
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(10 comments | comment on this)
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5:14 am - Lending in the PRC
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Recently news has some banks in China claiming to have received instructions to cease further lending. The government in Beijing has denied issuing such instructions, but some bankers have documented receiving these instructions.
In most or all of Eastern Asia — certainly not just in the PRC — the decision-making of the financial sector is highly politicized. Rates of interest charged to particular borrowers (and who gets money in the face of credit rationing) are more a factor of “pull” and of policy than of market processes. This is a BAD THING, because the financial sector is one of the Commanding Heights of a market or quasi-market economy, and replacing the choices of the market with the choices of bureaucrats creates misallocations which may metaphorically be said to be proportional to the extent of the replacement.
The misallocations correspond, ultimately, to production for which demand will not pay. Factories, for example, are built that will produce goods, but only at a cost that consumers will not meet.
The collapse of the Asian “tiger” economies some years ago was largely an artefact of such misallocative lending. And Mainland China is headed towards the same sort of contraction, almost certainly within the next year or so.
I've seen two interpretations of the issuance and denial of these orders to cease lending. The first is that the government is in a state of panic, contradicting itself as it struggles to decide what it must do; the second is that these orders are a sort of warning shot, not meant to truly halt lending, but to warn all concerned that current practices must be changed.
I suggest that, instead, these orders represent bureaucrats and officials engaged in precautionary covering of their own buttocks. Those issuing the orders wish to be positioned such that they can point to the orders in the event of a collapse, and insist that they acted within their responsibilities. At the same time, they are not presently rocking the boat by truly insisting on change. If my interpretation is correct, then a major downturn of the Chinese economy is virtually inevitable.
For about the last 15 years, political stability in China has been achieved through economic growth, so we must presume that either other sources of stability will be found, or China will go through major political upheaval, very soon.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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4:35 am
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We are going back to the use of punch-card ballots here in San Diego County and in some other counties of California.
In the wake of the fiasco of the 2000 elections, there were many cries to the effect that a failure to move to electronic voting was a willful disenfranchisement of voters. When the problems with to-days's electronic voting machines became better known, there were further cries that the conversion to these machines was a willful disenfranchisment of voters. Probably some of the same people engaged in each set of denunciations.
In fact, the whole matter is better explained by the inability of monstrously large orgnizations — especially of the state — to do good even when they so desire.
And, as I was remarking to samaralynn, underlying a lot of the angst here is a irrational fetish for democracy. About 50 years ago, Kenneth Arrow provided a mathematical proof that no system of collective decision-making could meet some basic requirements of rationality, unless all participants began in basic agreement. Democracy can't be the process which recognizes what is best, because it makes claims of such form asA is better than B which is better than C which is better than A. Counting every vote would certainly create an appearance of legitimacy, and the illusion that every vote is counted creates an illusion of legitimacy; but this appearance then empowers the state. If people recognized the limitations of democracy as a decision-making process, they might perhaps both settle for a state held within more morally defendable limits and for elections in which it was tolerable when chads were dimpled or the touch screens were offline for 20 minutes.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, April 30th, 2004
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8:48 pm
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| Tuesday, April 20th, 2004
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1:36 pm
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| Tuesday, April 13th, 2004
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3:18 am
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| Wednesday, April 7th, 2004
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1:12 pm
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It is interesting to note that military intelligence and the NSA are becoming intimately familiar with my love life. :-/
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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