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Guess that President:
This President helped make it illegal for citizens that had their 4th Amendment Rights violated sue the telecoms that eavesdropped on their telephone conversations.
This President made it illegal for those same citizens to sue the government that authorized the eavesdropping.
This President no longer allows the public to know who visits the White House. Which is, essentially, our house!
This President's idea of a stimulus package was to bail out the CEOs and Companies that helped get us into the financial meltdown, refusing to regulate and make meaningful changes.
This President is pushing to have CIA interrogations no longer recorded and also refused to release detainee abuse photos despite Freedom of Information requests.
Which President was it?
Most people probably read these things, got all foamed up at the mouth, and answered "BUSH!" And in many cases you'd be correct, but you'd be even more correct if you answered, "Obama". Obamapologists please start your long list of kowtowing and back flips as to why he did these things or HAD to do these things, but also how you forgive him or how they make us/him/the country stronger, blah blah blah... no, seriously, I'm listening.
Look, people that criticizism Obama tend to do so in a sloppy, ham-handed, "he don't throw dem baseballs no good" or "he probably be one of dem dere fer-reigners" kind of way. Or worse, in ways involving guns. It makes criticizing him dicey because one does not want to be thrown into the same boat as the Republican noise machine or just plain crazy people. So let me just say everything bad about Obama was bad about Bush, and though the conversion is not true, certainly there are a lot of things that Bush was big on with which Obama agrees whole heatedly. We have less of a 4th Amendment now than we did during Bush, and that is scary. Dick Cheney did not allow us to know who was in his meetings, but Obama doesn't even want us to know who is in our house. So why aren't liberals spitting mad? Why don't we hear the kind of rhetoric about Obama as we did about Bush, even as Obama is (clearly) going beyond even Bushian levels of the Imperial Presidency? The sad truth is this, neither Democrats or Republicans have a problem with the Imperial Presidency; they have a problem with the other side having it. As long as your "guy" is the king it is great to have a king, and the way things are going it looks like we are going to have 2 kings in a row, lucky us.
I humbly submit the following solution to the conundrum as to why people can berate Bush but give Obama the pass for the exact same (if not more conservative) policies: Liberals want to have a glass of wine with President Obama. Just like Conservatives nodded along as Bush said he was conservative and used all the right buzz words, only to then watch W wspit in their ideological faces (running up big debts, more intrusive government programs, weakening of States' rights, expansion of the government, etc.), they stood with Bush because they liked him - they could have a beer with him. So too are liberals gleeful at the thought of popping a bottle of wine with Obama and shooting the breeze. They don't care that he was listening in on our phonecalls, because gosh darnit you could have a beer, err, glass of wine with him! "He seems so real!" "He's such an intellectual!" "What a compelling life story!" "I just want to have a glass of wine with him!"
Being a teetotaler, I am immune to the charms of imbibing desire. It allows me to look at the issues, and under both Bush and Obama the issues are pretty scary. It's okay to like Obama. It's okay to want to have a glass of wine with him, but for crying out loud you are being just as stupid as those rednecks that liked Bush Administration because you could have a beer with him regardless of his policies. You can like someone personally but hate their politics. I think Ron Paul is a pretty cool guy, but an absolute psycho when it comes to what he thinks the government should do. I like Ron Paul but I would vote against him everyday of the week.
Much was made by liberals this last election that, "you can't pick a President on if you can have a beer with him". Exactly! Yet, as liberal sources remain relatively quiet about the horrid expansion of many of the most egregious Bush administration programs, I fear that mantra was never learned. Sure liberals substituted some hooty-tooty alcoholic beverage for beer or maybe we were thinking it'd be okay if the beer was an import, regardless, many liberals like the Obama administration because they like Obama. That is bad for our nation. If you like not having a 4th Amendment Obama is your man. If you like not knowing who is going to the White House, Obama is your man. If you like a strategy of rewarding the wealthiest people in this country and not properly regulating or punishing their recklessness, then Obama is your man. If you like an Imperial Presidency, then Obama is your man. But if any of these things don't quite sit right with you, than maybe you don't really like the Obama Administration, and it is time you say so, publicly.
I like Barack Obama. He's better than McCain would be. But "better" is not logically equivalent to "good" or even "adequate". I may really like Obama, I think he is an intellectual, I think he does have a compelling life story, but none of those things mean that I like the Obama Administration. I'd love to have a cup of tea with Barack, but I don't think my wanting to have a tasty warm beverage with Obama makes him a good president, and neither should you. There's more to this than likability. What makes a president good or bad is his/her policies and actions. If you didn't like the Bush Administration because of its secrecy, than you cannot like the Obama Administration for the same reasons. It is that simple. |
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Today was Nikola Tesla's birthday. Tesla holds a special place in my heart. He was one of those people that I find absolutely captivating. When I was in middle school, I believed that he was the scientist par excellence. I didn't really understand that he objected to most forms of science, rejected Conservation (come on how do you reject Conservation!?). In short, I didn't really know what science was back then. So Tesla became my model of science. Though I have moved away from many of Tesla's notions of the order of the natural universe,there is something about him. Something compelling and tragic. Not just because he was BFF with Mark Twain, or a the inventor of alternating current. He was whole and broken all at the same time. He was eccentric and brilliant, but also possibly quite insane. That's what I like about him. He's been to the mountain top and had a chat with the God of Thunder, and came back somehow both more and less than human because of the encounter.
In his autobiography, Tesla recounts that as a very young child he was swimming and swept down stream. He ended up holding onto a concrete dam. With the water running against his chest he knew he would not be able to hold on long. Suddenly, in a flash, he saw the fluid dynamic equation for water pressure materialize before his eyes. He realized if he swung himself sideways and wrapped an arm around the dam, rather than holding on by his fingers, he would reduce his surface area to the oncoming water; thus, reducing drag and lessening the amount of force required to hold on. He was able to stay in that position for hours until the search party found him.
That has always stuck with me. Over all of his other eccentricities (fear of hair, claims of building death rays and earthquake machines, and ability to build machinery in his mind) that story somehow is Tesla to me. I don't know why. Perhaps, its simply because we have all had those moments of brilliance or it reminds me of the time I dreamed the solution to a particularly difficult math problem I had been working on. Maybe it's because that is (in many ways) the only thing I have in common with Tesla. I don't know.
“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.” |
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Uhh...
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May. 29th, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
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I have pinkeye, because, apparently, I'm seven years old. |
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I was mucking about in the backyard tonight and Ursa Major was particularly beautiful so I tried my hand at taking a few pictures of it. Ursa Major contains the asterism The Big Dipper. I attempted to take pictures of both the handle and the cup, and combined them in the second picture. A neat feature is that the camera saw what I cannot. The second star of the handle is actually a two stars, Alcor and Mizar. If you can see both stars you have good eyesight and would traditionally be allowed to go into the crow's nest on ships as well as special night watchman perks. I can't see Alcor and Mizar, but my camera clearly captures both.
Tree in my backyard and the Big Dipper
Combined Dipper and tree, notice Alcor and Mizar are clearly visible in the handle:
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I used to be a PC. I used to love PCs and was an ardent defender of Windows. Then when Macs went intel chips and could run Windows I decided to give them a try.
Forget all the nonsense spin about how Mac OS and programs are more intuitive than windows programs. They aren't. They have their own set of quirks and things you need to learn -- just like windows. Certain things could be better different ways. But here's what Macs do do, THEY WORK! Which is more than I can say for PCs.
It should be noted that I do things right. I am careful to maintain my computers and not do stupid things with them. My Alienware recently underwent the usual Windows update and suddenly getting stuck on a driver and would not boot at all. Not into Safe Mode, not nothing. I had to jump through hoop after hoop to disable the driver. Then the video driver doesn't work anymore. Got that fixed and find out that my machine no longer sees my additional hard drives. I can't get it to recognize them. I suppose I'll have to open the thing up unplug them and plug them back in. B.S. Windows is such crap.
I've worked on 3 Macs now (mine, and my parents have 2) and the only problem we have ever had is the learning curve of getting to know a new OS. That's it. No random network bridges (whatever the hell those are), no random drivers rejecting the motherboard (my current problem), no random blue screens of death (my beloved IBM), no random slowdowns. I plug macs in and they work. I tell them to connect to the internet and they connect. No network adapter configurations, no random spyware and viruses. They just work.
Don't believe all the hype about Macs being more logical or intuitive. But believe me when I tell you that they WORK, they just WORK. So you have the time to learn that "return" does not open a program but instead toggles the rename feature. You can learn such idiosyncrasy because you are not busy fixing the latest bullshit random problem that has popped up because you are running a windows machine.
My name is Andrew, and I used to be a PC. |
| » Operation: GPDT |
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School is done for the semester! Hurray!
Now I start my summer project, Operation Get Published or Die Trying. I really need to beef up my publishing cred. I wrote somethings for the JET Program that it was indicated would be published in some form, but who knows what they ended up doing with the things I wrote. So my goal is to get some things published and be able to wave it in potential employers/grad school people's faces yelling, "See, see, give me money!"
To accomplish this I've decided to shotgun this. I have diverse interests and my potential publishing list reflects that.
Here's what I've got cooking:
I. Sci-fi Short Stories
1) "Trogger's Tale" -- The distopic future about consumerism, voyeurism, and lack of objective reality.
2) "You Can't Stir a Superfluid" -- two scientists discuss science and end up monkeying around with the Lunar Partial Accelerator.
3) "The Mute" -- A man is found as the sole survivor of his planet but no one can speak his language. A look at the role of history and the historian.
4) "The Green Belt" -- Parallel to the Iraq War in which a soldier wonders what they are doing trying to put down a Martian insurgency as the planet continues to be terraformed.
5) Just an idea: "Moving Day" -- a family packs and prepares to move to the next city in a circular ring on Mercury as the current city begins to exit twilight and enter the Sunside.
II. My fantasy book and its sequel as well as 1/4 to 1/3 of the finale.
Book 1 "The Light of the Learned" -- what is the role of science and philosophy in an immoral world? How do the mortals interact with their parasitic gods?
Book 2 "The Twilight of Faith" -- the fallout from book 1 and continuation of themes of book 1 as some mortals begin to fight back against the gods, and the characters struggle to find meaning in their science, their friendships/loves, and their philosophies.
Book 3 "The Starless Patch of Night" -- conclusion to the trilogy and still in progress.
III. Writing Center Theory
1) "An Empiricist Goes to the Writing Laboratory" -- a scholarly article about how "audience" is not as important a consideration as it is traditionally thought. A look at Bertrand Russell's notions of knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description to create a better way to help clients.
IV. Philosophy (these I haven't written at all just kind of have some ideas)
1) A look at Descartes' notions of absolute skepticism, and the proper conclusion that we can draw from it. I will show that the only thing we can conclude in such a situation is not that we exist (Descartes conclusion), or that we are experiencing sense data (Husserl and Russell's conclusion), but the true conclusion is that an external world exists.
2) A refinement of Russell's knowledge by description whereby we treat everything as equipment with margins of error when judging if it should be believed.
V. Book about Japan
1) I really want to write a book about my time in Japan and think that large portions of this blog can be converted without too much hassle.
If anyone wants to read any of my stuff let me know. I'm always happy to hear comments, but the goal is to get published so act now or you will have to pay for it when it is in a magazine :P
May. 13th, 2009 @ 06:32 pm
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| » Getting There |
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Job is done until Summer Term starts up in June. Hurray!
Two finals to go until school is over. Have to read some about aesthetics and finish my paper about Henri Bergson and Bertrand Russell, you are so going down Bergson.
I have discovered that Rudolf Carnap may be my philosophy co-pilot, but Bertrand Russell is in the back seat reading us fun stories if there is nothing on the radio. We occasionally give W.V.O. Quine a ride because he is an Obie and because I respect his essay Two Dogmas of Empiricism even if I think it is ultimately wrong. I don't know where we are driving, but that's who's in the car... a car that's made out of philosophy.
May. 8th, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
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| » Pirates, Logical Proof, & Flickr |
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I updated my flickr page. It contains some great pictures of the garden and two of a kimono exhibit we went to in Canton. Finally there are pictures from the Good Year Blimp. My parents got to ride it while I was at school T_T
And as an added bonus, please enjoy this logical proof:
I’m not a fan of pirates (I’ve always been pro-ninja) but what really gets my goat is how these Somali criminals are being called pirates, when they logically cannot be. Here is the proof:
1. ∀x(Px→Gx)
2. ∀x(Mx→~Gx)
3. Ms // ~Ps
4. Ps→Gs U.I. 1
5. Ms→~Gs U.I. 2
6. ~Gs M.P. 3,5
7. ~Ps M.T. 4,6
Such that:
Px is “x is a pirate”
Gx is “x drinks grog”
Mx is “x is Muslim”
s is “Somali”
The argument written in English is as follows:
1. All Pirates drink Grog.
2. All Muslims do not drink Grog.
3. The Somalis are Muslim.
4. If the Somalis are Pirates, then they would drink Grog.
5. If the Somalis are Muslims, then they do not drink Grog.
6. Since the Somalis ARE Muslims they do not drink Grog.
7. Therefore, since the Somalis do not drink Grog, they cannot be Pirates.
Apr. 24th, 2009 @ 11:26 pm
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| » Awesome |
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This is quite possibly the coolest idea in the history of cool ideas. It is made out of awesome:
Apr. 16th, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
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| » Short Story |
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So, I am currently in the process of cleaning up a short story to try and get published. As I go along I realize that some publishing credentials would really help me out.
I would love to hear your, my loyal readers and only friends, opinions on the story. Unlike my book (which was like 700 pages long), this is only about 14 pages double spaced. It really is a SHORT story, I promise.
Come on, you know you want to read a fun filled romp into a dystopic future ruled by corporations, driven by Randian Objectivism, and featuring unlimited voyeurism because everyone's life is broadcast completely online! Ohhh the fun never stops!
If you want to read it and give me your opinions, let me know. You'd be doing me a solid.
Apr. 10th, 2009 @ 08:48 pm
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| » Are You Listening? |
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The Obama Administration did something remarkable recently, not only did they defend and uphold the NSA Wiretapping policy (the one that means the government can listen in to any conversation, anytime, without a warrant) but they one-uped the Bush Administration!
The Bush Administration always claimed that even if you couldn't sue the Telecomms (a bill Obama voted for even when he said he wouldn't) you could at least sue the government. Now the Obama Administration says that you can't sue the government either. You had no 4th Amendment rights under Bush, and you have even fewer under the Obama government.
So let's review, you can't sue the government that took your rights away, and you can't sue the machinery that they are using to take your rights away.
Just because the new king is better than the old king, doesn't mean he isn't a king, and it certainly doesn't mean that you are free.
Apr. 8th, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
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| » Kodo |
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I've gotten pretty busy again at school and work, but I had to take a few minutes to tell everyone about the awesomeness that happened to me a few days ago. Two weeks ago on Tuesday at Playhouse Square the amazing Japanese taiko group Kodo played. It was a one night only engagement, and I had to throw everything together at the last moment. I just happened to catch an ad for them on "Around Noon" on NPR the previous Thursday. Since my first taiko experience I have made a solemn oath to myself, never pass up the experience to see more taiko.
For those who do not know, taiko is traditional Japanese drumming. In fact, taiko (太鼓) literally translates, tai (太) big around/plump and ko (鼓) drum. Taiko is simply the greatest thing ever. It is pump up music to the extreme. If I ever become rich I will hire a group of taiko players to follow me around and whenever I am feeling blue or need a pick me up, I will have them play. Listening to intense taiko really can't be described except it is like being stabbed in the tympanic membrane with an icepick made out awesome.
Like a lot of aspects of traditional Japanese culture, taiko really demonstrates the poverty of ancient Japan and the sheer minimalism of their aesthetics. Songs can be grandiose and feature lots of drums, or can be as minimal as a single drum, a hand cymbal, and a flute. You really get the sense that the music evolved from what a village had on hand. Unlike a lot of Western Classical music that presupposes an orchestra or a set group of instruments, you really get the feeling that taiko is all about "run with what you brung" and it makes the music incredibly versatile.
I like music that collapses into noise. My favorite aspect of Beethoven is when he has everybody playing all at once and the melodic line completely falls apart only to reemerge from the train wreck. Taiko does this as well on such an amazing scale. Sometimes it literally sounds like cacophony on stage with everyone wailing away on their drums and then SUDDENLY the melody surges out of the noise within a single beat. It makes for some amazingly powerful and breathtaking transitions.
Another aspect of taiko is the theater of it. It must be seen to be understood. The players moves are deliberate and purposeful. There is something to the way a player moves that makes the performance hypnotic and visually stunning.
Kodo is far and away the best taiko group I have ever seen. They were fantastic. They were quirky and funny in a very Japanese way for certain songs, but also brought their A-game and tore the place down when things needed to get real serious. These guys and gals know how to play! Mom and Dad were going nuts the whole time. Kodo played this one song with drums about the size of a snare. At first, it was soft and distant like rain. It built your tension as each person tapped out a little drum roll; each getting just a little bigger, until they were all playing and it was exploding off the stage. Then it changed from rain into something very VERY different. It sounded terrifying and creepy, like the whispers of demons in a graveyard. It was intense.
I want to see them again so bad!
Here is a vid that vaguely does them justice, but taiko really has to be seen live to be truly understood and enjoyed:
Kodo was AMAZING!
Apr. 4th, 2009 @ 09:39 pm
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| » The Science (un)Fair |
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Today I was a judge at the Regional Science Fair. I really enjoyed aspects of it. Yet, it also reminded me of all the critiques I had about the science fair when I was in school, and also why my friend and I were going to do a project our Junior year entitled, "The Science Fair is Neither Science Nor Fair" sadly this projected was rejected by higher ups.
For today, I judged physics (obviously). My team judged four projects total. Each team of judges consisted of two people: a school teacher and a professional. I was considered the school teacher, which was a bit silly considering I was paired with an electrical engineer. Nothing against EEs but I knew more pure physics than he did, and he had been working science fairs for several years, so the idea that I was going to understand the kids "level" and he would understand the "technical" stuff didn't really work out so hot.
What really shocked and saddened me was a lack of understanding of the basic idea of how physics is done. In science, data is all important, but this is particularly true of the physical sciences. In the biological sciences you might "see" something happen. But more often than not in physics you see nothing -- everything is taking place in the belly of some machine -- ALL THERE IS IS THE DATA. Your only link to the experiment is usually a volt meter or something converting volts into something else. Many of the kids did not get that. They did not have their raw data at all, not even in their notebooks! In physics you have to have the raw data.
I don't blame the kids for that. They don't know what science is, or the methodologies behind science. They don't know that you need to be able to present your raw data in raw (written), table, and graph forms. That is the teacher's fault. I hate to pick on biology (well, sometimes I don't hate to do it, but usually that is just for fun) but looking at these kids grade levels they were not old enough to have taken a physics course, so the only science they had under their belts was biology or possibly chemistry, and that did not prepare them for the rigors of physics.
In all four projects, the only type of graph the kids had was a bar graph. Which was shocking. The type of data they were presenting would much better suit itself to a scatter point or line graph. I am again blown away by the basic lack of understanding shown by their teachers. Bar graphs are the lay person's graph. They are for Newsweek, not Scientific America. A student does not have the experience to know that -- in all likelihood they have only been exposed to powerful graphs in a pure mathematics course. A science teacher is needed to understand the data and understand how to present it, that was lacking in 4 out of 4 projects. The fact that science advisers let bar graphs slip through is a scary thought.
Then there is the fact that the science fair is not fair. Often times science is not being judged. The kids with the most resources wins. Have a parent that is a professor/professional and can open up his/her lab for you? You are going to State. That's not to say that the kids didn't do the work or learn something, but mass spectrometers can't be rented out of the local library, and there is a big difference between sitting down and looking up and wading through encyclopedias to learn what an LED is, compared to going, "Hey, Dad, what's an LED and how does it work?" and having him sit down and walk you through it step-by-step until you really get it. When a kid has a lab and a parent that knows how to use it they will always have a better end result than the kid that doesn't have parents that can help either with knowledge or resources. I fully admit that my science fair projects would not have been as good as they were had my parents not helped me layout the board, put some money to buying supplies, help me build things, and let me watch hours and hours of the Discovery Channel all my life. I had a team, I was lucky, and I went far. That's not to say I didn't bust my ass and put in the time, but it is also absurd to think that having parents that helped had no affect. And it is really absurd to think that having parents that are experts in the same field you are researching and have a laboratory at their disposal has no affect. Sadly Big Science has even come to the science fair.
To me that is the grand flaw of the science fair. When in high school I saw projects that did better science with an ice cube tray and a refrigerator than someone with a lab at their back. But the deck is stacked against the dark horse. Looking at the way the fair is scored it is geared towards the kids that already have the built in advantages. I tried my best to judge against this ingrained leg up, but I ended up giving highest marks to the girl that had a lab at her back. She busted her ass, she knew her stuff, she had a good board and presentation, had lots of input from her father and his lab, and in the end all of that mathematically was forced to carry more weight than the kid that liked to swim and obviously setup his own board and experiment with all the bells and whistles of a stopwatch, the local Y's pool, and his grandfather. And, truth be told, she probably deserved to beat him, because she understood science better than he did. Because she had an engineer walk her through what science is and what it is supposed to do, and she absorbed that data, and he didn't have anyone in his life to walk him through what science was or how it worked. As I walked way from both projects I was forced to ask myself, "I know where her father was, but where was his science teacher?"
Mar. 28th, 2009 @ 04:29 pm
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| » BSG: The End |
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I know everyone is interested in my take on the Battlestar Galactica Finale (yeah I know you are, admit it, go ahead).
At first I was sort of indifferent. It didn't work but it didn't fall apart either, but given time to swish it around in my mouth a big, I dig it. I think it ended well. I had to take a step back, if I think too much about the plot details there are things I can't seem to get passed, but if I pull back and look at the whole thing it worked. It focused on the characters rather than the details of the plot, which is in many ways what BSG is about and why I have been disappointing with parts of the last section of this season.
WARNING: Spoilers to follow
My favorite characters were Boomer and the Chief. I often feel the Chief has been sacrificed on the altar of plot device. I found his ending the most disappointing and disjointed. It is the only one I can't quite swallow. The Chief was traditionally the optimist, and I'd like to think that even after all that happened he was still a person that believed in something. I can understand why he'd want to go live by himself, but it was so sad and if anyone deserved a happy ending it was the Tyrol. I also don't quite buy it. It just didn't work for me with him going off to die by himself.
Boomer's ending was more acceptable, but I would have preferred a happy ending for her. I doubted there could be one for Boomer (though I really wanted her and Tyrol to end up together again). I was glad she was given some measure of redemption, but I wish they had explored the notion that we "like" Baltar who has betrayed the human race countless times, yet it's "okay" to kill Boomer. Okay, yeah I just wanted Boomer and the Chief together again!
I really really thought the Opera House sequence was so slickly woven into the narrative. For the entirety of the series you thought that Baltar and Caprica were stealing Hara, so for them to actually be protecting her was a very convincing and great twist, particularly when incorporated into the general dreamy and metaphorical nature of the BSG narrative. So much of the show is told via metaphor, the flashes between reality and dream was fantastic.
I am also very happy with Starbuck's ending. A lot of people were annoyed by it, but I thought it was great. The thing that works about BSG is that it doesn't always work. The ship doesn't work, the characters don't work, the plot doesn't work, and yet the whole thing works. So much of the show is dysfunctional, disjointed, and disturbing. So for Starbuck to just vanish, really did it for me. How did she get there? How did she get the new viper? When you really think about it, it is frustrating that these loose ends are not at all tied up, but take a step back and look at her as a character and it all makes sense and is beautiful. I don't know, someone her just vanishing really worked for me.
There are some things that I have trouble getting over, I really hated the whole
Lee: Let's abandon all technology including our medical technology, and die from basic things like the common cold again!
Everyone else: YEAH! Great idea!
Ummm... no. That was dumb. That was dumb on a stick. I really didn't like that.
At first I did not like the tie in to modern Earth, but as I thought about it I thought it really lent itself to the "all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again" theme of the show. It also made what they did far more meaningful in that all that happened on the show, led to modern society. I liked that (when I thought about it a few times). As an aside I have seen every robot that they showed at the end, and that's fun.
I also really liked Hara's ending, that she is Eve. That was slick and brought her meaning. Everyone said she was super important and until that last scene she just didn't seem that important. She got them to "Earth II" sort of, but other than that she was just some girl. The fact that she IS the human race was a great way to make her important.
I was also disappointing that they all went their separate ways. It seems silly to me that Adama would leave Lee, and Tigh would leave Adama. I guess a big complaint of the final run down is that things jumped too much. The last 10 episodes pushed too hard at times and characters got sacrificed for plot. I feel like the final 10 would have been better played out over a season rather than half a season. Still BSG remains probably one of if not the best show ever on TV.
Questions. So here are some of my lingering questions,
1) Was Anders the dying leader? He literally "led" the fleet, and was the clear Cylon leader? The Pres made it to the surface, she "saw" the promised land, where Anders did not.
2) What happened to Dianna (Number Three) she was the defacto Cylon leader and then disappeared! That was annoying and part of my complaint about the final season being too rushed.
3) An interesting theory is that Head Six and Head Baltar (the versions seen only in character's minds) were agents not of god but the devil. It stems from Six's red dress Baltar's black suit and the line that one of them talks about God and the other says, "You know he hates it when you call him that." It would also partially explain why they were interested in saving humanity so that the cycle of violence could be started again, but it is equally explainable that God hates to be called "God" because it is beyond names and all the really crappy ideas man has hung on the word "God". I'm torn on the idea.
What are your thoughts my loyal readers (and only friends)?
Mar. 23rd, 2009 @ 09:46 pm
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| » Quandaries |
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Even though I've been back in the States for a year and a half, I still find America confusing sometimes.
For example:
What the hell is "Twilight" and why is it so popular?
What the hell are "burger shots"?
And if Larry the Cable Guy is your favorite comedian, don't breed.
Mar. 22nd, 2009 @ 10:43 pm
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| » A Rare Critique of Battlestar Galactica |
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I love BSG. I probably love BSG more than I should, but the last two episodes really kind of disappointed me. I'll tell you why after the link to prevent spoilers. I'm hoping I get some comments on this entry as well, so I suggest if you haven't watched the episodes/season you not read the comments either because plot is being discussed.
( Spoilers Follow )
Feb. 28th, 2009 @ 09:40 am
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| » I Break For Nothing... Apparently |
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On the way home today I stepped on my breaks and they felt normal and then very suddenly went all "spongy". For the rest of the ride home from Canton my breaks kept getting spongier and spongier. It was not very fun. I had to pump the breaks to really get them to work. Somewhere along the way the "ABS" and "Break" lights came on on my dash and I started to get a synthetic smell in my cab. By the time I turned onto my street I was just inching along because the breaks were so non-responsive. I pulled into my spot and slammed on the emergency break to hold me on the hill. Dad and I put some break fluid into the nearly empty reservoir, and when I pumped the breaks apparently it dripped like crazy under the body.
Monday we'll take it to get looked at. Yuck.
Feb. 27th, 2009 @ 04:27 pm
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| » Tax Cuts, Argumentum ad Populam, and Argumentum ad Consequentiam |
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My problem with "unity" is that just because the majority of people like something does not make it right. In logic that is called the argumentum ad populam fallacy (argument from the popular). Just because lots of non-experts believe/like something doesn't make it true. Also, there are shades of the Argumentum ad Consequentiam Fallacy (appeal to consequences of a belief) in a lot of political thinking these days. This fallacy boils down to if there exists a desirable result the premise is assumed to be true simply because the result is desirable. Let's consider these fallacies in regards to... hmmm... tax cuts.
(As a caveat, as a Prof of mine was fond of saying, "Economics is at best 10% Calculus, and 90% Entrail Reading." Economics is not a "science" by any reasonable definition, but even that being said, that 10% calculus can actually prove things occasionally. One of those things that is likely provable and thus agreed upon by most economists (recent Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and the majority of the guests on the Diane Rehm show likely loudest among them) is that tax cuts do not work to stimulate the economy or, at most, are not as effective as other means.)
According to many economists, Obama allocated an inappropriately large amount of the stimulus package to tax cuts (upwards of 40%). This was recorded quite publicly to "appease Republicans". And I say to that, ARGUMENTUM AD POPULAM! I don't give a crap whether the stimulus package passes by 1 vote or is passed unanimously (accompanied by gum drop rain and puppy dog kisses), the point of the stimulus package is to stimulate the failing economy -- it is NOT to bring Congress together. We don't need "unity" we need an "economy", if the best damn economy possible can only be accomplished with a one vote majority, so be it. The Dems control both houses of Congress - force the best bill through (which is to say "best" as defined not by politics but as the highest probability of success). Yes, it would be nice if everyone got on board and wanted to fix the economy in a way that has the highest chance of success, but fixing MUST take priority to unity.
I know a lot of Obama Apologists read my blog and will be quick to say, "that's not how Obama works" EXACTLY AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM! Obama would rather water down (according to experts) a bill to get Republicans on board than pass a better bill to better fix the economy. He would rather Washington play nice together than fix problems as effectively as possible. That is (in many ways) just as psychotic and condemnable as how the voting on the bill went down...
This is likely also shades of an Argumentum ad Consequentiam Fallacy. That fallacy is, essentially, an appeal to emotion. This fallacy arises when one states that something is true or false based solely on the belief that the conclusion is desirable; or, to put it another way, if we believe something is true, good things will happen because of that belief. Obama Apologists are arguing along this line when they say that it is true that Obama is doing the right thing here becasue unity is favorable and he is trying to unify.
And now we come to the hilarious and wonderful Act V Finale of the Post-Partisan play... how many of the Republicans that Obama weakened the stimulus bill for (ie screwed over the populous for, bent over backwards to accommodate people that did not have the best interests of the nation in mind) voted FOR that very same bill...
None of them.
These guys must have had their gallbladders removed becasue they have unmitigated gall (read that out loud if you don't get the joke).
Welcome to the post-partisan world! Where these little gems of logical fallacy will rule the day:
Argumentum ad Consequentiam
If P, then Q.
Q is a desirable outcome.
Therefore, P.
Argumentum ad Populam
P is believed by a lot of people.
Therefore, P.
Down with Data, up with Unity!
Jan. 30th, 2009 @ 08:40 pm
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| » You were the forty-third |
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Comedian D. L. Hughley a few nights ago said something akin to the following:
[Paraphrased] With Bush leaving office, I wanted to say something true, but not something cruel to hit him on the way out. I wanted to honor his presidency as it draws to an end, and this is what I came up with, "President Bush, of all the presidents the United States has ever had, you were the forty-third."
Jan. 19th, 2009 @ 09:18 pm
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| » BSG is Back! |
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Battlestar Galactica returned tonight, and man am I a happy camper right now. I also recently picked up Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. It is a really fun read thus far, a lot about the morality and complex ethical universe presented in Galactica. I have a crazy coworker that watches Dr. Who but not Battlestar Galactica. I don't understand how you can tune into the sci-fi channel and watch Dr. Who but pass on BSG. That's like watching Earth Final Conflict but not bothering with Star Trek: The Next Generation. GAAAAAAAGGHHHHH: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA IS SOOOOO GOOD.
Jan. 16th, 2009 @ 11:28 pm
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