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June 17, 2004
Just Wow
This
person does not know very much about photography, digital or
otherwise. In fact, they seem to be a poseur, judging by lines like
this.
The idea of using the zone system with an un-automated
camera is very alluring, though intimidating. I've relied on the
automatics in my Canon and bracketing for ages since I shoot slides. Now
that won't be possible with the Mamiya. I will need to learn how to
create photographs. I might actually become a photographer in the
process. Better to practice on my usual fare
(travel/landscapes/cityscapes) and wait till I make a move to female
nudes and some artsy stuff I've dreamed of for a while. And just the
thought of being one of the few medium format photographers who are
still left in the world is enticing. It will also be interesting to see
how people react when I take a 30-year-old TLR to shoot the light trails
at an intersection.
Yep, definitely a poseur. The mark of a good photographer is that he
or she can take a good to great photo with any camera.
Photography has very little to do with the camera, and so very much to
do with who is wielding it. This can be easily demonstrated by this
photo taken by Rankin, a widely-proclaimed British fashion
photographer. It was taken using a camera-equipped cell phone. (Here
is my favorite of that series, by the way.)
I won't bother to pick apart the entire piece. It does a good enough
job of making itself look bad without my help.
Strange that I've seen 20x24 images from the very camera I own that
were absolutely indistinguishable from medium format shots, and the
author asserts that most digital cameras in any class are barely capable
of 8x10.
The guy seems convinced that masturbatory longing for a medium format
camera and its subsequent attainment will make him a "photographer."
It won't.
Here's what makes a photographer. Using what equipment you have to
make your own unique vision of the world as you see it. Every single
moment of existence has something interesting about it -- something that
no one has ever seen before, and never will again. Every blink of time
is absolutely unique. The job of the photographer is to stop time, to
capture the fleeting essence of that moment, to imprint it to
permanence, using the unique vision possessed of experience, talent, and
his or her own prism of the world. That's the definition of a
photographer.
Not a medium format camera. Not a fancy lens, or a really great
darkroom.
And not showing samples of his work on the web? Don't get me started.
Here's my policy: Take whatever you want. It's changed to
such low resolution and size for the web, that it only looks decent on a
computer screen. What a weasel.
And that's my rant for the night. I am not sure why I go back to
Kuro5hin, really. It always contains articles like the one I just
excoriated.
Posted by Mike at 08:39
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Martian Blueberries
Martian 'blueberries' point
to the previous existence of liquid water on the planet.
Posted by Mike at 10:54
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Midol
The unkown
effects of Midol.
I never knew.
Posted by Mike at 09:21
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Soul Made Circuits
This
article got me thinking, as I am wont to do, about consciousness,
self-perception, the mind and soul, and the odd beliefs people have
about all of these items.
But here is an original idea, at least one I have never seen before
-- in the future, we may create a "soul," where one does not now exist.
We may do this by what amounts to a system state backup of a person at
certain times in their life, and either blending these together, or
having them as discrete snapshots, and refer to this as a "soul."
The soul may be the best thing science ever gave us.
Posted by Mike at 12:51
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June 15, 2004
Moore Bush
I will be watching Fahrenheit
9/11 in theaters, as it appears to be more intellectually
honest than Bowling for Columbine.
Interesting that Fox News gave a Michael Moore movie a favorable
mention, eh? The tide has truly turned against Bush.
Releae date: 6/25/2004. Right now, Moore, et. al, are beseeching the
MPAA for an emergency appeal of the R rating the movie received.
Posted by Mike at 10:47
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Johnny A
John Ashcroft, the
worst attorney general in history.
I am inclined to agree.
Posted by Mike at 06:41
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You fool!
In Matthews 5:22, Jesus says, "But whosoever shall say, Thou fool,
shall be in danger of hell fire."
This is why villains throughout literary and cinematic history have
exclaimed "You fool!" at their subordinates -- it signifies their status
as hellbound, and it's intended (as in the passage) to reflect more on
the speaker, than the recipient.
Even the devil can quote scripture for his purposes, indeed.
Posted by Mike at 04:20
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Uniformity
Impressive. Alias got the Uzbek Army uniforms correct, down to
the t-shirt they wear beneath the uniform. At least some network shows
do actual research.
Posted by Mike at 03:41
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Pop-Ups?
This
article is about newspapers requiring registration in order to visit
their sites. My opinion is that they can do whatever they like -- I just
won't visit them, unless they are very good, like the New York Times
and the L.A. Times -- but that isn't really what caught my eye.
2. Don't get greedy: Popups or registration? Maybe. But
I've nearly quit reading the Los Angeles Times because of its unholy
combination of slow-loading pop-ups (by the dozens, it sometimes seems)
and registration. It's not worth it. The Internet is a big place.
Pop-ups? What dat? I've got one word for you, or several hyphenated
words interspersed with a random expletive: Firefox.
Fire-motherfucking-fox. I haven't seen a pop-up since I started using Firefox,
a browser which a surprising number of people seem to know very little
about. It's fully standards-compliant, supports Java, Flash, CSS, etc.,
and it spanks IE in every category you care to name -- speed, security,
stability and on and on. No adware or spyware will ever infest your
machine again, either.
There are very, very few software products that have ever gotten me
excited. In fact, Photoshop and iTunes are the only other ones I can
recall, excepting Firefox.
Download it. Use it. It will make you wonder why you ever bothered
with the nightmare that is Internet Explorer for so long.
Posted by Mike at 01:49
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June 14, 2004
Spitfire
Eliot Spitzer as
Vice-president? Damn fine idea.
Posted by Mike at 06:01
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June 13, 2004
Speciation
Scientists very likely
observe speciation for the first time.
Scientists at the University of Arizona may have
witnessed the birth of a new species for the first time.
Biologists Laura Reed and Prof Therese Markow made the discovery by
observing breeding patterns of fruit flies that live on rotting cacti in
deserts.
The work could help scientists identify the genetic changes that lead
one species to evolve into two species.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences.
More on this later, but it's no great surprise to me that speciation
was not observed till now, as it is a very slow process as compared to
the span of a human life, and many of the changes involved are often not
cosmetic -- the creature may look exactly the same -- but be
genetically quite different.
What's remarkable about science in human endeavors is that it always
hedges its bets. Notice the scientists make no grand pronouncements
about this discovery being absolutely true. The evidence merely points
that way. If other evidence is found, the conclusion will be refuted.
That why every -- every -- framework of thought in
science is described as a "theory." No matter how correctly the lattice
of thought seems to be assembled, there could be some future fact that
refutes it or expands upon it. This is why you have the "theory" of
relativity and the "theory" of quantum mechanics, and not the "gospel"
of relativity and "gospel" of quantum mechanics.
Despite the fact that every piece of evidence has pointed to the
correctness of these theories (in the case of quantum mechanics, to 10
decimal places), there is still a chance that in the future some fact
could upend the theory, or refine it, or even improve on it without
doing either.
The "theory" of evolution is no different.
There is a vast gulf between how scientists use the word "theory" and
how the average person uses the term.
To a scientist, "theory" means a framework of ideas that have been
rigorously tested, that every bit of evidence ever gathered points to
being correct, that thousands (or sometimes millions) of researchers
have tested, and that, most importantly, scientists can use to make
predictions about the real world. The theory of evolution meets all
of these qualifications.
But if there is even one single bit of evidence, no matter how minor,
that shows a theory wrong, or where it's predictions fail in the real
world, then that one tiny piece of evidence, no matter how miniscule,
damns that theory to irrelevance. All it takes is one invalidation, once
confirmed by other scientists, to put a theory on the trash heap.
To the average person, however, the word "theory" describes
(incorrectly) something quite different. To most, it means "some things I
(or others) have made random guesses about." And that's about it. This
is not anywhere close to the meaning of the word "theory" as any
educated person uses it -- and a lot of times, in the case of
creationists, that misuse is deliberate.
But the science mentioned in the story looks to put yet another nail
in the coffin of creationist dogma by observing speciation occurring in
the natural world in real time.
Good.
Posted by Mike at 05:58
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June 12, 2004
Prithee Please
The folks at Christian
Exodus are attempting to make all my dreams come true by having all
the fundies move to another state. Take South Carolina -- please!
A friend, who shall remain nameless as s(he) does not greet
assassination attempts with h(is)er moring coffee as fondly as I do, has
already taken the liberty of creating the flag of the new nation.
That about sums it up.
Posted by Mike at 07:58
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Bushido: The Way of the Armchair Warrior
In my post about the draft, I struck a glancing blow on the mindset this
piece digs its comedic claws into so well.
The unenlightened speak of failures of intelligence.
But the armchair warrior knows that intelligence the effort of the
mind to observe facts, apply reason, and reach conclusions about what is
true and what ought to be done is a delusion, making the mind turn in
circles like an ass hitched to a mill. The armchair warrior feels in his
hara, or gut, what ought to be done. He is like a warhorse that races
into battle, pulling behind him the chariot of logic and evidence. When
the people see the magnificent heedlessness of his charge, they cannot
help but be carried along.
The warrior spirit resides in the hara. It is this spirit, and not
any deed, that is the mark of the true warrior. Thus, a man who has
avoided military service may be a greater and braver warrior than a man
who has served his country in battle, sustained grave wounds, performed
heroic deeds, and been honored with clanking, showy medals pinned to
his garment.
Because human beings are prone to illusion, the sounds and sights of
battle the groans of the wounded, the maimed bodies of one's
comrades may remain in the mind for many years, like a cloud that
confuses judgment. Hence, a man who has fought on the battlefield and
has later risen to high office may be fearful of leading his people to
war. Such weakness does not afflict the armchair warrior, who at all
times is firm in his resolve.
One of the reasons I now support the draft, despite possible
deleterious effects on the military, is that it would eliminate a great
number of these "armchair warriors" from the pool of ideas -- a good
thing, in my estimation.
Posted by Mike at 07:02
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Women Are Teh Evil
Here
is an insightful article in the L.A. Times about the practice of
gender separation in Saudi society.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia There is no heavenly sentry
outside the Ladies' Kingdom, only a listless pair of khaki-clad
policemen ready to run off any errant men. The women make their way past
the gatekeepers, disappear behind frosted glass and step into a
shopping center all their own.
The white floors glisten like pearl; the ceilings stretch high and
airy. A hatcheck clerk collects abayas, the heavy black shrouds that
women must wear in public. Unsheathed women saunter among the lingerie
displays in plunging baby T-shirts and thigh-hugging pants. Philippine
and Indian nannies trail with strollers.
"I prefer to shop in Rome or Beirut," says Aziza Abdel Aziz, a
30-year-old Saudi banker who has sunk herself into a bench with a small
mountain of newly purchased shoes at her feet. "But at least here we can
remove the cover, take a coffee and just" she grasps for a word
"relax."
In a land where women are kept under wraps by packs of cane-wielding
religious police, the Ladies' Kingdom is a rare liberated zone. Some
call it a scrap of progress for women who enjoy few liberties. Others
see yet another monument to gender segregation a reminder that Saudi
society will endure any complication and cost to keep the "ladies" far
from men.
A society that schizophrenic is bound to implode at some point or
other -- as pointed out in this
post on Gene Expression, such non-standard arrangements are
profoundly unnatural (just as celibacy is), given the evolutionary
history of humans and primates in general.
I think you could do some pretty interesting sociology detailing the
sexual availability of men to women (and vice versa), versus the
proclivitiy of the society itself to violence.
Posted by Mike at 09:13
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June 10, 2004
Words
I scored 164
on this, and I rushed through it without thinking about roots and
such. Not bad.
Posted by Mike at 10:33
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Not Blockbuster
If you haven't been able to tell from reading my site for a while,
misuse of words grates on me. So, lately, I've been noticing a lot of
examples, one of the more exasperating being what I've excerpted below from
this article.
Berry plays the leather-clad lead Patience Prince in the
forthcoming blockbuster....
Let's see. The word "forthcoming" means "about to take place," while
the word "blockbuster" now means "Something, such as a film or book,
that sustains widespread popularity and achieves enormous sales."
Since the movie is not out yet, how in the world is it a
"blockbuster?" Being that the entire world could end before its release,
or that it could make as much money as Cool as Ice in theaters,
how can this be explained?
Incidentally, the word "blockbuster" itself is an odd one. It comes
from the heavy bombs dropped by the German Luftwaffe during the bombing
of London that destroyed an entire city block -- hence, "blockbuster."
Strange that there is a whole movie chain named after a bomb. Has
anyone alerted Homeland Security?
Posted by Mike at 04:07
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The Oracle Of Mike
A bit less than a year ago, I predicted this.
But, back to my point. I predict that within a
year-and-a-half, a major manufacturer will offer a consumer-level home
computer that includes a very durable, idiot-proof watercooling system.
This manufacturer will most likely be Dell. I predict that within three
years, most OEMs will offer pre-built computers that come with
watercooling, standard.
You read it here first.
I was wrong about the manufacturer. It was Apple
to first offer watercooling to the masses. But I was dead-on about its
inevitability. Expect other manufacturers to follow suit soon.
Cringely, what you got? Bring it on, bitch!
Posted by Mike at 03:26
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June 09, 2004
Oh, That Liberal Media
I promised I wouldn't write anything about Reagan, but I couldn't
resist after reading this
article -- only because the article is good, and I hate when good
articles stoop to misleading rhetorical tactics and out-of-context
statistics.
This hasn't stopped recent contemporary conservative
biographers from claiming otherwise. "He said he would cut the budget,
and he did," declares Peggy Noonan in When Character Was King. In fact,
the budget grew significantly under Reagan. All he managed to do was
moderately slow its rate of growth. What's more, the number of workers
on the federal payroll rose by 61,000 under Reagan. (By comparison,
under Clinton, the number fell by 373,000.)
Could you have a more misleading comparison? Not easily.
During the Clinton administration, military personnel was reduced
significantly. The cutbacks actually started during the Bush Sr.
administration, but under Clinton, the military was cut to the bone
(correctly or not).
This explains the loss of 373,000 in federal employ. Under Reagan,
the overall number of federal employees increased due to a massive
increase in the size of the military.
Under Clinton, the military experienced its greatest cuts since the
end of WWII.
Those sets of facts, used in that context, are more than a bit
misleading.
Posted by Mike at 03:17
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The Religion Of Stupid
Some more people who should just
get up and leave.
CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) -- A federal appeals court
has upheld a ruling that argued weekly Bible classes are
unconstitutional in the public schools of Rhea County, the same county
where the "Scopes Monkey Trial" pitted creationists against
evolutionists 79 years ago.
A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati agreed Monday with a February 2002 ruling by U.S. District
Judge R. Allan Edgar of Chattanooga.
If I seem more anti-religion of late -- I am. Religion as practiced
by most is an excuse to wear the blinders, to ignore comfortable truths,
to make my life worse.
Go somewhere else and make your own life worse.
Posted by Mike at 12:08
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Of the roughly 25 major reasons I can think of not to vote for Bush
off the top of my head, this
is probably the most important over the long term.
The Union of Concerned Scientists in a February report
pointed out something the science press has known for years: The Bush
administration has no respect for science. Ideologues prefer to make up
the laws of nature as they go.
Presidential science adviser John Marburger complained that the UCS's
account sounded like a "conspiracy theory report." That's because it is
one. As the report amply documents, the Bush administration has
systematically manipulated scientific inquiry into climate change,
forest management, lead and mercury contamination, and a host of other
issues. Even as Marburger addressed his critics, the administration
purged two advocates of stem-cell research from the President's Council
on Bioethics.
When politicians dictate science, government becomes entangled in its
own deceptions, and eventually the social order decays in a compost of
lies. Society, having abandoned the scientific method, loses its
empirical referent, and truth becomes relative. This is a serious
affliction known as Lysenkoism.
If Bush wins the election, this country will be a much worse place to
live in a very short time, for so many reasons. The perversion of
science and science education by religious nutjobs, though, because they
do not like what has been discovered is arguably the gravest threat to
the nation.
At times I wish the anti-evolutionists/creationists/science-haters
would, as they have been talking about for years, just seize their own
state and declare independence. I'd be glad to see them go. They can
even have one of the good states, like Oregon. Just get the hell out and
let rational people do rational things.
Posted by Mike at 07:17
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Likeliness
I think there's a good chance that useful, general AI will come from
the implementation of spam filters.
Posted by Mike at 06:52
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June 08, 2004
Ozone
Lightning struck ~50 feet away from me when I was walking to my car
through a massive storm today.
Cool.
Posted by Mike at 08:48
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Double Trouble -- Stevie Ray Vaughn, Suck It
The song "Double Trouble" in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of
Azkaban is perhaps the best musical adaptation of verse I've ever
heard. Of course, John Williams is a master.
For those who don't know, the piece comes from Macbeth and the
original text is here,
though not even close to all the original lines are used,
understandably.
Update: There is one instrument I cannot identify in this
piece. I hear the harpsichord, but what is the instrument that plays
three prominent minor chords at the beginning, and that can be heard
playing lower later on in the song? Is that a piano? It doesn't sound
like a piano.
Posted by Mike at 02:50
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I've Been Shot
I'd like to expand on these
tips I found linked from Slashdot.
The main reason I'd like to expand on them is that they were not
digital photography tips, but more general photography tips.
Here are a mixture of tips for both from my experience:
Underexpose Of course, try for the perfect exposure,
but if you slightly underexpose every image, you will capture all the
detail of your image, and not have the bane of all digital
photographers: blown highlights. This is a great digital photo tip, as
digicams have typically poorer contrast ratios than film. Which leads
right into the next tip.
Bracket Take multiple exposures of the same
subject using different settings -- whether you change the exposure time
(shutter speed) or the aperture, it's a great idea to take a variety of
exposures using different settings, if at all possible. My camera has
an auto-bracketing feature, and I can also program custom exposure
modes. Many have this feature, but many do not. Still, bracketing is
easy enough to do manually.
Shoot in Raw This is called different things on
different cameras -- on my main camera, it is called Raw mode, but be
sure to shoot on whatever setting your camera has that uses lossless (as
opposed to lossy) compression. Your images will look better in the end,
and be much easier to edit.
Mind the Light Digital cameras, as already
mentioned, do not have the contrast ratio that most are used to with
film -- if you have portions that are very bright and very dark in the
same image, you will lose some detail no matter your
skill. Be aware of the light levels of your image, or it will look
atrocious. Remember, your eyes have a contrast ratio several hundred
times better than your digital camera.
Fill Flash: Not Just for Pros It's quite easy to
set most cameras to use the flash to "fill" areas that are dark in an
otherwise properly-exposed shot. This makes the shot much more
aesthetically pleasing, and on a digital camera, can make the difference
between a shot with lots of lost detail, and a shot with attractive,
even lighting.
RTFM Read the manual of your camera. I know this
sounds obvious, but many digital cameras have features that simply
cannot be found on film cameras, that can be a great tool for amateur
shooters who do not wish to delve too deeply into the basics of
photography, but still wish to produce good images. Among these are
portrait mode, auto-preview, a fill flash mode, a setting for taking
images in darker conditions, etc. Each camera is different. Explore
yours.
Manual Shooting Even if you do not wish to shoot
manual mode all the time, practice manual shooting. It will give you a
much better understanding of what your camera actually sees, and what
each auto mode does. You will become a better photographer.
Experiment! Think about this: All of us with
digital cameras are pioneers. They have only been around in consumer
form a very short while. They are the "Brownies" of the new paradigm of
photography. In 100 years, our descendants will look back on the photos
and creations -- even the mediocre ones -- of ours as the progenitors of
a much-expanded field. We are making history now with our photos. Get
out there and shoot. You never know what your camera will find.
Always Think Photographically I am constantly
framing the world as a photo. Everything I see, everything I observe,
every person, place, plant, building -- whatever -- I imagine how it
would look captured as an image. I even imagine how different cameras
would capture each image. My mind has become a camera emulator, and
though it is not perfect (I produce a lot of images I never want to see
again when I do actually shoot), learning to think photographically
means you are practicing all the time, even when you do not have a
camera in your hand. It will make you a better photographer.
This list is by no means comprehensive. I could go on for pages. But
these tips will help the average shooter produce better images, and to
begin to explore more advanced techniques.
Posted by Mike at 12:22
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June 07, 2004
Pacifism
The only situation where pacificism makes sense is if everyone else
is a pacifist, too.
Wouldn't that be awesome, especially since then I'd become a
non-pacifist, kick everyone's ass, and take all their shit?
Wow, what a wonderful world. I'm all for pacifism.
Posted by Mike at 05:00
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Throng-cleaver
This
shows how tall Liv Tyler is, by how small Hadhafang makes the woman in
the picture look. Compared to this.
Damn, Hadhafang is a bad-ass sword.
If you have no clue what I am talking about, don't worry about it.
Posted by Mike at 04:39
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It's Drafty In Here
I have pondered this question for many years, and today I have come
to a conclusion. I do support the draft for both men and
women, and I believe that though there are many, many drawbacks to the
draft, that the civic (and some military) benefits outweigh the
negatives.
I will not wholly (or even partially, really) outline my logic here,
as I have been thinking about this question for at least a decade, and
the exegesis of that thought process would span to book length or
greater.
However, I believe that there is an enormous disconnect between the
people who fight wars and the people who wage them, and more
importantly, between the people who reap the benefits of a strong and
vital armed forces, who have no idea of the sacrifices made to, in
principal, ensure their safety, and those who actually go out and spill
their blood while inane people back home enjoy the freedom to call
military personnel "baby-killers" and "losers who couldn't get a better
job after high school." (I and others who have served have been called
both.)
It's partially out of a sense of future schadenfraude for the whiny
babies who are so eager to dictate military policy (on both the Right
and the Left -- both are equally bad)and catalog the mistakes of the
armed forces, while having absolutely no experience with service,
combat, training, and the multiple differences between civilian and
military life. Please note that I am not asserting that
only those who have served have a valid opinion on going to war and its
conduct, merely that a lot of the astoundingly wrong ideas about the
military and warfighting would be exorcised if a lot of the ninnies
making grand pronouncements about the mistakes of the armed forces,
etc., were forced to serve themselves. Note also that I am not
excusing what happened at Abu Ghraib or saying those weren't crimes --
they were. I merely mention these things because I know how my opponents
will mischaracterize my arguments.
Civic virtue and understanding of the value of civilization itself
springs from service, and the sacrifice made by serving. Those who
believe that the vast edifice of Western Civilization exists outside the
threat of implied force to preserve it, or that there is no ideology or
military in the world who could endanger it, are living in a dream
castle constructed within the safety of that very bailiwick of implied
force, all the while denying the need for its existence.
And the rich and the privileged are the worst among us for assuming
that their sense of entitlement comes without cost, that their own sons
and daughters should not have to spill their blood for preservation of
this domain of safety we've managed to create. It would force them, and
their sons and daughters, to value this fragile thing called
civilization more, and it would also make them less likely to expend
life needlessly. (I doubt the Iraq invasion would've occurred if we'd
had the draft, but I am certain Afghanistan still would have.)
Moreover, though I don't feel women are fit for every job in the
armed forces, there are many they can fill quite well, and even some,
such as fighter pilot and linguist, that they can likely on average
perform significantly better than men -- therefore I see no compelling
reason to have women exempted from the draft.
This is not a plan for how the draft should work. I have no idea how
it should be implemented, or how it could be made completely fair.
However, I absolutely support the idea that a draft should be
implemented as soon as possible for anyone under the age of 30.
Posted by Mike at 12:19
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Panic
Like many things, the offshore outsourcing brouhaha is one part
genuinely valid concerns, and five
parts hysteria.
Posted by Mike at 11:59
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June 06, 2004
Well
Apparently, the new
trend in graduation photos.
I don't know whether to laugh or set random things on fire. I think I
shall do both.
Posted by Mike at 10:33
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Zend In Za Prizoner
The Zen
Screen Garden.
Ahhh, I feel better already.
Posted by Mike at 10:21
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June 05, 2004
Public Shakedown
Having almost been arrested several times for taking perfectly legal
photos in public places, I wish I could participate in
this.
It's amazing how little many police officers know of the actual law.
Posted by Mike at 11:42
PM
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Nancy Wake
Fascinating story
of the most-decorated woman of WWII. The existence of people like her
give me heart for the human race during the times I lose it.
This is a must-read. If I'd only done a 1/10 of the things in my life
she'd done in hers....
In late April 1944, Nancy Wake and another SOE
operative, Major John Farmer, were parachuted into the Auvergne region
in central France with orders to locate and organise the bands of
Maquis, establish ammunition and arms caches from the nightly parachute
drops, and arrange wireless communication with England. Their mission
was to organise the Resistance in preparation for the D-Day invasion.
The Resistance movement's principal objective was to weaken the German
army for a major attack by allied troops. Their targets were German
installations, convoys and troops.
Yes, she was one of the few female paratroopers of WWII, and those
are British paratrooper wings on her uniform in the studio photo (which I
was never succesful in getting, dammit).
No sector gave the Reich more cause for fury than
Nancy's the Auvergne, the Fortress of France. Methodically the SS laid
its plans and prepared to obliterate the group, whose stronghold was
the plateau above Chaudes-Aiguwes. Troops were massed in towns all
around the plateau, with artillery, mortars, aircraft and mobile guns.
In June 1944 22,000 SS troops made their move on the 7,000 Maquis.
Through bitter battle and escape, Nancy and her army had cause to be
satisfied: 1,400 German troops lay dead on the plateau, 100 of their own
men.
Nancy continued her war: she personally led a raid on Gestapo
headquarters in Montucon, and killed a sentry with her bare hands to
keep him from alerting the guard during a raid on a German gun factory.
She had to shoot her way out roadblocks; and execute a German female
spy.
I don't find war to be a glorious thing. But the actions of certain
people in war are certainly preferable to inaction, and though many will
choose to deny it, martial virtue does carry over into civic virtue.
Nancy Wake's comrade Henri Tardivat perhaps best
characterised the guerrilla chieftain: "She is the most feminine woman I
know, until the fighting starts. Then, she is like five men."
Right on.
Posted by Mike at 10:44
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Taken 20 minutes ago.
Posted by Mike at 11:58
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June 04, 2004
Workin' With One Hand On The Keyboard
Awesome tale
of corporate revenge.
Porn-surfing bank supremo Michael Soden was caught with
his browser down last week by the very same staff he outsourced to HP at
the start of his reign at the Bank of Ireland.
Soden hit the headlines last year in Ireland when staff took
industrial action in protest of the department's shift to Hewlett
Packard. Staff were unhappy about the prospect of becoming HP employees,
as they had enjoyed considerable perks at the Bank of Ireland:
favourable mortgage and loan deals for instance. Now it seems that he
has been forced to resign thanks to the very department which he sent
merrily on its way.
At work, about once a month I discover a computer with loads of porn
on the hard drive. I have no problem with porn -- quite the opposite --
but why anyone would want to look at it work, I have absolutely no idea.
Posted by Mike at 03:50
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June 03, 2004
Victory
As the 60th anniversary of D-Day approaches, history seems set. The
victory of the Allies over fascism seems a foregone conclusion; good
triumphing over evil, as it rightly should, and exuberant V-E and V-J
day celebrations filling the streets with war-weary women sweeping up
any sailor or soldier for a victory kiss.
But the victory was not sure -- many at the time thought it not even
likely. Most intelligentsia of the day believed it best to cede Europe
to Hitler, that Britain, even, would eventually fall to the Nazis. I am
vastly oversimplifying the situation, but the general point is correct:
WWII was a squeaker, and was not at all the pat victory people now
envision in their minds.
In the gloomy days of mid-1940, with America's war machine twenty
years behind technologically, with Britain seemingly beaten, with all of
Europe at Hitler's easy command, with Japan having taken most of Asia
with scant little resistance, it looked as if democracy was done. It
looked like it would be a world with only one or two functioning
democracies, with most of the world covered in clouds of fascism -- and
the best possible solution would be to contain it, endure it, until it
exhausted itself, if ever it did.
Against Hitler's and Japan's military might, no nation could even
offer a tenth of the strength necessary to vie with either.
Of course, four years later, Allied forces stormed the beach of
Fortress Europe, as it was then known, to attempt to wrest it back from
Hitler's control.
Even the invasion itself was almost scrapped in its initial hours,
though through history's distorting lens, it appears this way to us: A
march up the beach with some characters without speaking parts lost to
stray gunfire, a stroll through Europe, Paris falls, and then Berlin.
And that's that.
But the future had promised no victory to the men on the beach that
day.
"By mid-morning, initial reports painted such a bleak portrait of
beachhead conditions that Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, United States First
Army commander, considered pulling off the beach and landing troops
elsewhere along the coast. However, during these dark hours, bravery and
initiative came to the fore. As soldiers struggled, one leader told his
men that two types of people would stay on the beach--the dead and
those going to die--so they'd better get the hell out of there, and they
did."
By the standards of today, the invasion was a horrible failure; of
the three airborne divisions dropped (the ones, of course, nearest and
dearest to my heart), not one was dropped close to its destination. The
Germans defended the beach tenaciously, and had not been softened in the
least by aerial bombardment. The weather, which helped to conceal the
invasion, also helped to send many men to their graves.
2500 men died in brutal combat that day. 2500 men with speaking parts
-- brothers and sons and fathers and fathers-to-be, all undertaking a
thing that no one had every attempted before in history, doing something
so mad that anyone hearing of it merely three years before would have
seen it as a suicide mission.
If the invasion were to occur right now, it would have been recorded
by history as a failure. Few units were positioned correctly. 2500
people died. 10,000 people were wounded, some so grievously they would
never recover. The Germans did not seem to be weakening. Vital
objectives were not taken. Mistakes were made.
Mistakes were made. Thousands of mistakes. And yet the Allies
pressed the attack, consolidated units, paratroopers trapped far behind
enemy lines formed small bands and began a campaign of sabotage and
hit-and-run attacks, units so decimated on the beaches that only a few
suriving members could be found formed into new makeshift units so the
invasion could go on.
By modern standards, the D-Day invasion was a defeat. If it
had in fact occurred just yesterday, the papers this morning would blaze
in 112-point type, "ALLIES DRIVEN BACK FROM NAZI BEACHES" and "2500
DEAD IN ILL-FATED ATTACK." But defeat was not an option, because
everyone fighting on the beaches and in the fields that day knew what
was at stake, and knew that victory, though bloody and painful and
desolate, was the only path to make the world a place worth living in
again.
But none of that, not victory, not even living another minute, was
clear for a rifleman, M-1 in hand, cowering behind a rock on Omaha Beach
that day, the sea flushing crimson behind him from the blood of his
comrades. He, and people like him, millions of them all over the world,
made that into a victory by the belief that a better world would come of
it.
But it was not a sure thing. It was not foreordained. Nothing
guaranteed the Allies would win that day, that month, that year -- or
ever.
Looking back, it seems so easy. The forces of democracy against the
forces of tyranny and fascism, the noble Allies carving up Hitler's
forces, rescuing Europe from the madman and saving the world and all
that.
It just as easily could have gone the other way, though, and many
thought it would. Hitler would have become the Castro of Europe, and the
world would have endured a 40-year empire that stalled the history of
half of civilization.
Victory was not set. It was made, forged in death and blood, treasure
and guts. It's important to remember that, especially now, where it's
all too easy to believe that what's right naturally triumphs over what
is not.
Nothing is certain till you make it certain.
Posted by Mike at 06:42
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June 02, 2004
Posted by Mike at 02:19
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June 01, 2004
No Point
Another minor example
of freedom being lost with the false hope of achieving greater
security.
PHILADELPHIA - Tight security and cellular phones have
changed the way Americans pick people up at the airport, but some air
terminals around the country are having trouble adapting.
On any given evening at Philadelphia International Airport, scores of
drivers trying to avoid the hassle and cost of parking in a garage prowl
the access roads looking for an out-of-the-way place to pull over and
wait for a call from deplaning friends and relatives.
With terminal curbsides off-limits since the Sept. 11 attacks, the
next best spot has been the shoulder of Route 291 near the airport's
outskirts, but police posted no stopping signs there when the area's
popularity surged.
So, instead we've "increased" the security by having random people
driving around all over (and off) the premises looking for places to
hide long enough to pick up their relatives, thus distracting security
officials.
See how much that increased security?
Posted by Mike at 03:36
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Posted by Mike at 03:07
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