Archive for January, 2006

The problem with politics

Jan 27

Posted by Craig in Personal | No Comments

I found this report, from the ‘Live Science‘ website rather telling.

I like most people, try and keep abreast with the major political issues of our times. On any given issue, I will listen to the arguments that both (or all) sides make. After listening to the various viewpoints, I will then go out and research the claims made by these sides. Basically I am looking for evidence to support their statements. In particular, I am very sensitive to anything being stated as a fact. I’m very leery of arguments worded to sound as fact, when in the vast majority of cases, they are not ‘fact’, but rather opinion, or personal belief.

People who know me well, also know that I do not tend to ‘talk politics’. The primary reason, is that most poltical discussion I have witnessed or took part in has precious little to do with facts, and a whole lot to do with emotion and personal belief. This agravates me to no end, and really just makes me throw my arms up in the air and walk away.

The study I linked to at the beginning of this post further stengthens my belief that modern politics has little to do with finding the best course of action based on research, evidence, and critical reasoning, and everything to do with pushing personal belief and allowing emotion to chart a course of action.

Personal belief is a wonderful thing. We all have personal beliefs, but we forget the word ‘personal’ all too often when discussing them. We try to push these beliefs onto others and then feel offended or enraged if they are not accepted. Why? The wonderful thing about personal beliefs is they are are built up entirely through personal experience. They are essential truths for each person. They are gained, formed, and evolve based on one’s own life, experiences and thoughts. We as individuals need these personal truths, for without each person having their own unique beliefs and truths, we cease to be individuals…being rather, a bland, sterile, collective. Nothing more than a world of clones.

It is natural then that people with similair or ‘compatable’ personal belief should be drawn to each other. The mistake that is made though, is the idea that just because many people share a personal belief, that alone gives justification to elevate that belief into the realm of fact or as ‘universal truth’.

What we need to realize is that these ‘individual truths’ are internal truths. They work for each of us individually as a personal belief, but they are not universal truths, that is they may not work for others, and more importantly they cannot be taken as ‘fact’ which exists externally to ones self without empirical or observable evidence.

All too often political debate today is based on these personal beliefs. If one makes an argument based soley on these beliefs as a matter of politcal action or policy they are doing a great disservice to humanity in general. Every major advance we have achieved in our history, has come through ideas or actions that have measurable, demonstratable, and observable qualities which when looked at say, ‘Yes, this is the right course of action. This is a better way.’ Every step back we have taken has been the result of forcing personal belief onto others in spite of evidence which is measurable, observable, and empiracal which when viewed rationally and without bias from personal belief says this course is wrong.

It saddens me to see the results of the study seem to lend credence to the idea that our politcal leaders value personal belief and emotion over evidence and logic. I wonder what goal they see in the end? That someday everyone will share a single set of common beliefs, and all the troubles of the world will vanish? What kind of would would that be if this was even possible? Where individuallity has been snuffed out in the name of conformity.

In the end, we must each and everyone of us, realize that our personal beliefs are just that, personal. We do not have to agree with actions that go against these beliefs, but we should be wise enough to know that when it comes to making choices that affect others we use our minds and not our emotions. And should evidence be provided which shows that a course of action is prudent even if it goes against our personal belief, that we bite the bullet, and admit, that perhaps, in this case, for this reason, and for this circumstance, my personal belief isn’t the best solution. Well, that’s my personal belief anyways.

The source of cynicism

Jan 27

Posted by Craig in Personal, Soapbox | No Comments

I have a new theory. I think there is a single source of all the cynicism that exists in the world today, and that this source is Disney. I can’t remember the last original idea this company has had. They continually leech and recycle ideas from other sources (i.e. snow white, beauty and the beast, etc), and then turn around and claim these ideas as their own and protect them with draconian copyright lobbying and policies.

I can’t imagine ANYONE over the age of 30 walking away from this with the feeling there is actually good left in this world. Sad. Very very sad.

Dorodango – Making polished balls out of mud

Jan 23

Posted by Craig in Personal | 2 Comments

Well, leave it to the japanese to come up with yet another wierd activity. Here is a web page that shows you how to make shiney, polished spheres out of mud.

Paula Abdul Dropped From ‘American Idol’ Cast After Simon Cowell Hears ‘Straight Up’ Played At Party.

Jan 19

Posted by Craig in Satire | 1 Comment

Hollywood – In a turn of events that has sent shockwaves through the FOX network and set most of the Hollywood gossip channels tittering, it was announced this morning that Paula Abdul would be dropped from the judging panel of the hit show ‘American Idol’ due to demands by co-judge Simon Cowell.

Rumors indicate that Cowell made these demands after hearing Abdul’s 1988 hit ‘Straight Up’ for the first time at a party this weekend. The cantankerous Cowell was reported to have been shocked to find out that the ‘hideous banshee-song being played’ was in fact being sung by one of his co-judges.

Sources at the party report that when Cowell arrived the DJ made an announcement indicating the next song was in honor of Cowell’s presence. When the song ‘Straight Up’ started playing sources indicated that Cowell looked confused, at first believing the song was actually a demo tape from a friend of the DJ. After being told it was one of his co-judges best known songs, Cowell appeared stunned for a few moments and then walked out.

Vanessa Pevera, a friend of Cowell, after being asked how it was possible that Cowell had never heard the song before answered, ‘Well you have to remember that Simon was in England back in the 80’s and a lot of the musical influence back then was coming from Europe, not America. Paula Abdul’s music never really registered overseas. Also, Simon was quite the partier back then. I doubt he remembers much from that entire decade.’

Inside sources at the FOX network state that Cowell was furious, and felt mislead by the network since they had ensured him before the show’s first year that Paula deserved to be on the panel and was a great singer. Cowell had been pushing for more well known female names to be on the panel.

Simon Fuller, the shows Executive Producer indicated that while they would like to keep Paula on the show, their hands are tied.

‘Our numbers indicate that the female audience is by far our largest demographic and that this audience is being drawn almost exclusively by Simon’s presence. He’s arrogant, cute, and British. The ladies can’t resist that.

During the initial scoping we had hoped that Paula would lend some credibility to the judging panel due to her being a singer and we also hoped she would draw in some of the male viewers out there. This just hasn’t happened.

While we’re sorry to have to let Paula go, we do wish her the best. We also see this as an opportunity to tweak the panel and find a person to draw the 25-40 year old male audience we’ve never been able to get.’

When asked if this meant a change in direction for the show, Fuller replied, ‘No, I wouldn’t say a change of direction for the show…just in the requirements one has to have to be a judge. We feel the panel is legitimate right now with Simon and Randy, as they both have ties to the industry. What we’re going to do is look to the male dominated market of sports for the third judge. In fact, we’re pretty sure we have our guy. We’ve been talking to John Madden’s agent the last couple days, and he says John will do it. His only condition was that we needed to provide a telestrator for him to use on the show.’

Battlestar Galactica Review

Jan 16

Posted by Craig in TV/Movies | No Comments

Most people know there is a new Battlestar Galactica, its been out for two years now and was recently named by Time Magazine as the best TV show of the year. I’ve mentioned this to people who have not seen the show and they generally react with disbelief. A remake of Battlestar Galactica is the best show on TV? Yeah right. Of course, they usually then ask me, ‘Well is it?’

Before I answer that, I’d like to give a brief personal history.

I, like many who were kids back in the late 70′s, was a huge fan of the original series. I loved most sci-fi and would also watch Buck Rogers, Lost in Space reruns, and Space 1999 each week. Looking back, all these shows (though some more than others) seem simplistic now, nothing more than black and white pseudo-drama’s with a lot of action elements. They were plot driven and relied heavily on action sequences and cliche two-dimesional characters to carry them. As a kid I loved them, but as an adult I see little worth in them other than the warm fuzzy nostalgia they invoke.

When I first heard about the plan to remake the original Battlestar Galactica I was somewhat excited. The premise of the show always intrigued me, humanities’ last chance. So I started doing some research and my initial excitement soon turned to disbelief and cynicism. I had seen some really terrible clunkers from the Sci-Fi channel, ‘The Wizard of Earthsea’ being one that really stands out, and after reading the plans the writers had for the new Galactica, all interest and excitement in the new show left me.

Starbuck and Boomer as girls!? – Typical hollywood PC mucking.
The Cylons now look Human? – A sad transparent trick to deal with the low budget of a TV series.
The Cylons were created by man? – Needless change and also cliche. Terminator all over again.

In short I wrote it off and predicted it would turn out to be complete drivel. I was wrong. Astonishingly wrong. The new Battlestar is the best sci-fi series to come out in the last decade. While I don’t watch enough network TV to judge whether Battlestar is the best show on TV, I can say with complete honesty it is the best TV show I’ve watched the last year.

The new Battlestar is not so much a true sci-fi show as much as a human drama set in a science fiction setting. Instead of being driven by plot and action, the new series is very much character driven.

This show does not depict life or the choices one faces living it in neat little packages, where the right course of action is readily apparent, where the characters see things in black and white, and where choices do not have consequences. The characters have very real flaws. They make mistakes. Their choices have long running consequences and the show does not attempt to pull any punches.

The pilot mini-series, depicts the near destruction of the human race with a darkness and grittiness that is sobering. At no time do you feel anything but tension. You do not leave the mini-series with the feeling of hope. You leave it with fear, and a very tangible sense of tradegy.

The regular season episodes only continue this trend. To say it is darker than most sci-fi shows is an understatement. The show, unlike so many other sci-fi shows does not preach to you. It does not have an overall message or agenda, and does not try to favor one side or the other. Instead it presents questions. Real question that we face in the world today.

What is evil? Asking what is the definition and nature of evil, as well as how each side in a conflict perceives the other as being evil, and then dares to ask are they? It asks if there is a god, or gods? It asks if theocracy is good or bad, is it neither? Does spirituality matter? Does it make us human? Are we, and thereore our cultures, tied so tightly to our inherent traits, so closely to our DNA or biology that we are doomed to repeat violence, greed, war, and depravity forever…that we shall be forever a flawed species? What does it mean to be human? At which point does a machine truely become alive?

The fact that it doesn’t try to answer these issues itself is what makes it special. It doesn’t push an agenda…it simply shows us viewpoints and asks us to determine why, and find our own answers to what is right or wrong.

The cast is well chosen and the acting top notch through out.

It may seem that I feel it is a perfect show, without flaws. This is not true, Battlestar has flaws, but they are so minor in comparison to what it does right as to not matter. Most of the problems relate to pacing on certain episodes. This is due partly to story arcs that often span several episodes. This means some episodes may feel lacking resolution or certain character actions left hanging. Ultimately the series answers these problems and this is not so much a failure of the show as it is a limitation of the 1 hour weekly format.

Another problem I have is with the Cylons. The cylons have created new models which look and feel human..some believe they are human (i.e. like the Bladerunner replicants). In fact they are so human that DNA tests or any type of simple test cannot tell them apart from humans. Only by looking at their makeup at a molecular level and then only by observing how those molecules react to radiation, can one detect a cylon. This raises a logic problem in my mind. If they are so close to us as humans, that their DNA looks like ours, they have blood, and tissues and no metal or wires, how can they do some of the things they do? For instance, they have super-human (or at least enhanced) strength and endurace. They can download their memories and it is hinted at that they can communicate in some basic manner with other cylons in the local (galactic) area. In one episode a cylon cuts her wrist and slides a fiber optic cable up her arm and uses it to communicate with a computer system. This was really a problem for my suspension of disbelief. Thankfully, these types of ‘plausibility’ problems are few and far between.

There are several highlights in the first season and a half. In particular I loved the fourth episode where Starbuck confesses to Adama (who is like a father to her) that she was responsible for his son’s death. The scene is rivoting. This is TV acting and drama at its best. The first years finale episode also ends with an event that if looked at objectively is cliche for a cliffhanger and is something you’d expect to learn in writing 101, yet it happens so unexpectedly, so quickly and is presented so well it literally shocks you, and I challenge anyone to tell me they saw it coming. Another episode I really liked was in the second season when they find a rough map to earth. Here, the backstory and history which the writers have been slowly revealing for the last year and a half come together beautifully in an wonderful a-ha moment. It’s the type of writing and concluding story arc one expects in a good novel, but rarely if ever sees in a TV show.

For anyone out there that avoids sci-fi shows for being too shallow, cliche, or stupid, do yourself a favor and at least give this one a chance. It is NOT a typical sci-fi show full of stupid jargon and pretty boy protagonists. It is gritty, real, and as Time Magazine proclaimed, ‘The best show on TV’

Area Cat Arrested for Keeping Too Many Old Ladies.

Jan 12

Posted by Craig in Satire | 3 Comments

Tampa – Checkers, a 7 year old male orange tabby was arrested yesterday after authorities discovered 23 ‘dishelveled and confused’ old ladies at his residence. The domicile, known to locals as ‘Sunset Retirement Home’, was raided by police after an anonymous tip was received a few days earlier.

While authorities admit the residence was fairly well kept, they found several of its inhabitants to be suffering from various mental illnesses and health concerns.

Sgt Ronald Williams of the Tampa PD stated, ‘Several of the old ladies we found inside had no idea who they were, what day it was, or how they had come under the ownership of Checkers. I’m very disturbed by this. Checkers could not produce a license for keeping this many old ladies, nor could he prove they were kept at the premesis under their own free will.’ Officer Williams also noted that while the place was clean, it had an unpleasant smell and the food was substandard at best.

It appears that Checkers made no effort to maintain the home himself, or ensure that food and health care was properly provided. These tasks instead were performed by a number of human ‘orderlies’ found at the site, most likely out of pity and compassion.

Local resident Patracia Sabain, who lived across the street from the home for several years stated, ‘I’m just disgusted by this. Everyday I would see Checkers come and go as he pleased, without a care in the world, and all this time those poor old ladies were left by themselves. What would possess a cat to think it needed that many old ladies? It’s just sad. I only wish I knew he had that aquired that many of them, perhaps something could have been done sooner then.’

‘Checkers would never let the old ladies outside’, Sabain continued, ‘so I had no idea he had that many of them in there. I think what bothers me most, is I thought he was a good and decent cat. I guess it just shows how easily it can be for a cat to deceive you.’

Checkers is being held at the local Humane Society pending formal charges and medical review of the home’s inhabitants.

When Authority is Clueless on Technology

Jan 12

Posted by Craig in Soapbox, Tech | No Comments

This story caught my attention a few days ago. In short, Michael W. Stone, a Canton high school senior, put a link to his high school’s website on his own personal webpage. He also placed instructions to try and crash the school’s server by hitting F5 once you got there.

Hitting the ‘F5′ key on a webpage causes the browser to reload the page. It forces the server to resend all the data on that page to the browser. If the webpage is being run on an extremely under-powered server and enough people do this at once, in theory the server could bog down and crash due to not being able to handle the load.

So, guess what? Yup, enough people managed to be hitting F5 on the school’s page simultaniously that the school’s server crashed. No big surprise there….well other than the fact this actually worked. Any modern server would need several thousands of people all hitting F5 repeatedly at the sametime for any chance of this crashing it. Serving webpages is what a webserver is *supposed* to do…and when you hit the F5 key, this is all that happens, your browser requests that the server serve you the page again.

Anyway, so the school server goes down, the school calls in help to figure out why, and the tech traces the traffic back to the kids website. At this point in a sane world, the kid would get suspended or reprimanded and hopefully grounded by his parents. End of story. Well this is not a sane world.

In steps City Prosecutor Frank Forchione. He charges the kid with a felony for commiting a computer crime. The quote of the story: “Michael said it was a joke,” Forchione said. “We showed him how we deal with this kind of joke.”

Huh? Am I missing something? It WAS a joke. It was a STUPID joke, but a joke nonetheless, and this Prosecuter thinks the mature and proper response to this is to charge an 18 year old kid with a felony.

What ‘crime’ was commited? Is it a crime to hit F5 to refresh a browser page? Is it a crime to tell people to visit a particular website? Is it a crime to tell someone to visit a website and then refresh the page? I’d have to say ‘No’ on all three accounts.

What bothers me most is the fact that the server went down in the first place by this method. This leads me to believe it is a vastly underpowered server and the student could have achieved the same thing by simply asking everyone to visit the webpage at a particular time.

So anyway, a few hours later Slashdot picks up the story. Slashdot is an extremely popular community site for ‘nerd’ news, and by popular I mean VERY popular. Slashdot attracks 100,000′s of people per day. In the comments section after the story, several slashdot readers tracked down and posted a link to the high school’s website. This results in the website promply going down again…NOT because people are going there and hitting F5, but rather because of the sheer number of people now visiting the site, that the server can’t handle the load. This is not uncommon when a site is linked to from Slashdot. There is even a term for it: ‘Slashdotting’, or to be ‘slashdotted’. Both of which basically means, no one can reach your site because too many people are trying to view it at once. Also, once a story appears on slashdot, it inevitably get’s picked up by other major news sources and sites. This means if your server is underpowered…expect to be down awhile…because the increase in traffic to your site won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

The school’s website is still down today as I write this, a full 6 days after the story broke. I have little doubt this is due to the story now perculating throughout the internet and newly curious people still trying to get to the website.

So, why is this kid being charged with a felony? The only reason I can come up with is that the City prosecuter simply has no clue regarding computer technology.

Is what the kid did wrong? Yes. I could see the argument that he incited (or at least instructed) people to crash a server. But is it a felony level type of crime? Absolutely not. There is NO argument you can make that this should be a felony.

What is the difference between the server going down the first time with people repeatedly hit F5 and the site going down a second time when it was posted on slashdot and people started going there out of curiosity?

The only answer is intent. I not saying what the kid did was OK. But I am saying it’s not a felony. How is what this kid did any different from someone telling everyone in an apartment building to flush their toliets at the same time to see if they can cause the sewer to overflow? It might work in theory, but it shouldn’t work in practice, and if it does, shouldn’t the city be held partially responsible for negligence…for building a sewer system that couldn’t handle flushed toliets?

This is an extremely ineffecient, and frankly stupid method to try and crash a server. In the DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack world, this is most akin to my flushing toliets analogy. It shouldn’t work in 99% of the cases. Most modern servers can handle thousands of hits per second quite easily. Unless this kids website was already hugely popular, the only way this could have worked was that the school’s server was vastly underpowered, or poorly maintained. The fact that their site is still down is further evidence for this.

Finally, I wish the City Prosecuter could be charged in this as well. If he would have took the time to understand how this ‘crime’ actually worked, instead of trying to make a knee-jerk statement about ‘computer crimes’, the school’s website would probably be back up today. Now half-the world is trying to hit the site and who knows when interest will die down enough for the server to be able handle the load.

Best Blonde Joke Ever

Jan 6

Posted by Craig in Personal | 1 Comment

Ok,

Normally, I’m not really a ‘blonde’ joke type of person, but I’ve still seen many over the years. This one by far is the best I have EVER seen though.

13 things that do not make sense

Jan 3

Posted by Craig in Personal, Tech | No Comments

Very cool read. 13 things that do not make sense in science today

A rundown on some of the top ‘mysteries’ in science today.

Craig’s Crag

Views from the rock; A personal blog with semi-regular original satire.