Monday, April 30, 2007

Poor thinking skills

Poor thinking - a result of, or cause of heroin addiction?
Morgan laughed in bitter agreement with that. He's 42 and looks 72 – gaunt and toothless after a lifetime of heroin addiction. "They think you can take it or leave it, but it's just the opposite. It takes you," he said.

"It's the biggest mistake in my life," he went on. "If I got three wishes, I wouldn't wish for a million dollars. It would be that I never tried heroin that first time."
Not to belabor the obvious, Morgan, but you've got three wishes.

One for a million dollars.
Two that you'd never tried heroin the first time.
Three to wish for a tree house.

Via.



Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Derision

TJIC cites an article in the paper about death by a case of the dumbs, comments on it as is his way
So, not only do we have some idiot teenager driver wreck a house and a car in the neighborhood, but now we’ve got one of them embarrassingly tawdry “memorials” made of a pile of crap.

Spare a moment to think of the callous negligence that these two displayed rocketing through a residential area in a multi-ton weapon, drunk, and doing likely double the speed limit.

Happily, most of the negative effects of their behavior were internalized, but if another driver, a kid, or dog had been out in the road, an externalities-tragedy could have occurred.
and receives hostile incoming.
brilliant.a black mark on your family name?what happened with not getting the license until 22? special ed?you obviously didnt hang out with the popular crowd.not that you care im sure but lots of popular kids make poor decisions and die in ACCIDENTS and its really sad that someone like you seems to get off on blogging it.
and
ivy league college? name it. you are an ass with no life that is here to make people feel worse about an already tragic event.let it alone. i hope your kids ( if you and your partner have adopted) are safe and nothing terrible ever happens to them.and if something ever does i hope there are no other lonely old queens out there with nothing but a laptop and internal anger about who they are looking to make you feel worse about your family’s loss.

I've said this before, I'll say it again: if I die from doing something dumb, y'all are welcome to mock and belittle me. I'll deserve it.

He walked away

Ka-BOOM.
A gasoline tanker crashed and burst into flames near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Sunday, creating such intense heat that a stretch of highway melted and collapsed.

Flames shot 200 feet in the air, but the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns.
I predict with some confidence that when they say 'walked away' they mean 'ran like the dickens'.

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Dogs

YouTube'ey goodness: Chow time!

What was television, grandpa?

Google brings authors to Google Worldwide Headquarters for informal talks. Are they sharing? Is the Pope German?
We invite you to check out all the extraordinary people who've taken part in the Authors@Google program so far, and enjoy one of our videos today.
John Scalzi

Strobe Talbott

More.

I've still got a television but more and more I wonder when I'll wake up and realize it's been weeks .. or months .. since I've turned it on.

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Pi to 1,000 Places: Piano Solo

Assign piano keys values 0-9, start hard at PI to 1000 places and play. It's got no rhythm by definition and you can't dance to it but it is still pretty darn interesting.

Via
Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Zero-G

Stephen Hawking is going .. well not to orbit but he's going to experience zero-g.

What a marvelous experience for a guy bound by gravity and circumstance to a chair. He may get to orbit yet - Sir Richard Branson is going to give him a seat on VirginGalactic.

I'm humbled that other people have framed this in a far more entertaining manner than I can manage - I won't even try.
Space is to humans what Beethoven is to dogs. I don’t think we have the slightest idea what we don’t yet understand.

Just thought of something: What holds the paraplegic in their chairs? What keeps them from shooting around the room, stopping their progress with a finger, floating from desk to desk?

Gravity.

And gravity isn’t a big issue . . . where?

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Carnival of Space

The first Carnival of Space is up. Huzzah!

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief

If life hands you lemons

Look in the dictionary under 'sucking lemons'



and you'll find this picture of Senator Harry Reid.

To be fair anyone can be made to look bad by publishing a photo taken at an innoprtune moment but .. still. Lemons.

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

It's only a model

AA said in his del.icio.us notes on this post

"The self-referential nature of this border fence spawn all around the world is so intriguing in part because of the rapidity at which they are being proposed, built and contested." One word for you - burbclaves.

Six words for AA: 'Snow Crash' was just a story.

Now all I need is the epithat

I'm liking number '16 ATHEIST' for my headstone.

ATHEIST

Not because I am an atheist but because it is one fine looking emblem. Plus it will cause enormous confusion (wait - he's got the Atheist emblem but he's not ... was he?) for my heirs.

Via.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Comment of the Day

Referring to a comment in the article linked here Noah D writes at TJICistan

This one blows my mind:

“Why architects and planners do so much to remove our living area from the natural experience we instinctively long to experience, has long baffled me”

Uh, because commercial space is poorly used by filling it with trees?

And then there’s the even broader mistake; all these people are talking about are cities, urban areas. Sure, that may be their focus of study and work. But, as they like to say, think outside the box!

I’ll show you a living space where there’s more green than you can shake a stick at, communal areas with trees and ponds and wildlife, places where a group of people can ‘nest’ away, or open up their living spaces and welcome in those who live nearby. Creativity in the arrangement and style of natural features is encouraged, and responsible care of facilities and life is rewarded.

They’re called suburbs.

Haw.

Henry Rollins

Henry Rollins Twitters or was 11 days ago. What is the world coming to? At least it's good for some one-liners.
There is nothing like going to a Euro music festival and hanging out with these super-self-important guys who carry suitcases of records. What are you? "I'm a musician, man. I'm a D.J." You're a fucking thief of music. You're a record player player.

Do you see now that your self-righteousness was nothing more than breeding and years of privilege.

Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.

Hey - that last one is pretty good.

Busheviks Great Leap Forward

So what's going on over in Maine?
I spent six hours on the street yesterday handing out leaflets letting the public know how our congressman just voted on the latest Iraq occupation supplemental.
Enjoying your right to free speech, I see. Excellent. I may disagree with what you say but I fully support ... etc.
A young boy about 4 years old, there in the park with his dad, also asked if he could speak and he declared into the microphone that "George Bush needs to stop this war." The shortest and best speech of the day I told the assembled.
Of course he's making a fully informed choice there and not parroting what his parents believe.

Oh - the graphic. Yes that is unfortunate.



It needs to be noted that for the crime of dissing the regime Bruce Gagnon will not
Have his property confiscated by Party functionaries for being a class traitor.
Have a cage full of starved rates tied to his belly.
Have the flesh boiled from his hands.
Be sentenced to hard labor to dig up gold at Dalstroi.
Be drafted as heroic labor to dig the Belomar Canal.

We now return you to your regular tomfoolery, and thanks for your indulgence.

Joke Misfire

Aw - she was kidding about the one square of toilet paper thing.

And by the way guys, the toilet paper thing...it was a JOKE!!

Too late! Many people have the impression firmly fixed that Ms. Crow is slower than a road lizard and dumber than a box of hammers.

Memo to myself: Humor is tough. Text can't convey nuance or the way you set your face when you a funny. Use it with caution.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Fred Reed / Camille Paglia

Fred Reed and Camille Paglia - seperated at birth?
Young men have enormous energy. There was a time when they could run away, hop on a freighter, go to a factory and earn money, do something with their hands. Now there is this snobbery of the upper-middle-class professional. Everyone has to be a lawyer or paper pusher.

and

It is not what men are wired to do. We just do not domesticate well. While male behavior is perhaps no more inherently absurd than female, it has little application to the suburbs and bureaucratic salt mines.

The world today, the modern parts anyway, is very much a woman’s world. It will become more so. The economy values orderliness, routine, and avoidance of waves. It needs patient people who will do the assembly-line work of huge offices whirring with air-conditioning. Women are better at this. I’m not sure that they really like it, but they handle it well.

Funny how the two graphs can sorta meld together.

Deserved Mockery

Ah, the internets Where any upper primate can push keys and pound out their thoughts
I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming. Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of conserving trees which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares (sp) of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting.

I have designed a clothing line that has what's called a "dining sleeve". The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve," after usage.
so the rest of us can gather round and mock them.

Defense of Duffer's Drift

Defense of Duffer's Drift - online.
A classic in small unit tactics in the British and U.S. Army, this book is recommended, without qualification, for the modern professional soldier.

What would you do?

Lieutnant Backsight Forethought (BF to his friends) has been left in command of a 50-man reinforced platoon to hold Dufffer's Drift, the only ford on the Silliassvogel River available to whelled traffic. Here is his chance for fame and glory. He has passed his officer courses and special qualifications.

"Now if they had given me a job," says like fighting the Battle of Waterloo, of Gettysburg, or Bull Run, I knew all about that, as I had crammed it up...."

While BF's task appears simple enough the Boer enemy causes a multitude of problems, but you, astute reader, with a sharp mind and quick intellect, will no doubt, solve the problem before the first shot is fired.

The Martian Child

David Gerrold is back from wherever he has been and updating his blog.
The trailer for The Martian Child movie has started showing up in theaters, as well as on YouTube, MartianChild.com, and IMDB. Other sites also have links to it. If you haven't seen it yet, the Apple site has it in multiple resolutions. Here's the link:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/martianchild/
I don't tear up easily but were I more in touch with my feelings that would have gotten me a bit misty about the eyes. It's based on Gerrold's excellent book of the same name
On the day he moved in—officially moved in—Kathy told me she’d never seen him so happy. I asked her to remind him of that conversation he’d had with the counselor. “Remember when he said, ‘I don’t think God listens to my prayers.’ Tell him that sometimes it takes God a little while to make a miracle happen.”

Dennis moved in with a small battered suitcase, half full of worn-out hand-me-downs; and a large cardboard box, less than half full of pieces of broken toys. His entire life could be carried in one trip.

Unpacking his few belongings was painful. Everything was tattered. Everything was precious. A too-small T-shirt autographed by Luc Robitaille and Wayne Gretsky. A sad and faded, dirty-with-age, stuffed gingerbread man named Eric. A few photographs of a long-ago trip to the Los Angeles County Fair. The only evidence of a past. Not much evidence of a life though.

He had only a few pairs of underpants. Three of them had pockets sewn onto the front. “What’s this?” I asked.

“That’s for the buzzer. If I wet the bed, it buzzes and wakes me up.”

“We’re not going to do that here,” I said, tossing the underwear aside. “You won’t be wearing those again.” We put the T-shirts in one drawer, the shorts in another, and we were through unpacking.

“We can throw this out,” I said, holding up his small battered suitcase. It was pretty much falling apart.

“No,” he said firmly. “I’ll need it when I move out.”

“No, you won’t. You’re not moving out. This is it.”

“When I have to go back to Mars,” he said. He took the suitcase from me and put it into the closet.
Elsewhere on his blog
Writing is a celebration of our mutual humanity. A great story is almost always about that recognition of Self that exists in all of us. A great story tells the reader, "You are not alone." A great story gets you out of your head and into the world. A great story makes you think a little bit differently. A great story changes you.

If an author succeeds in doing that -- like Kurt Vonnegut and Theodore Sturgeon and Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo -- then thank him for doing that, because he got his job done.

Thanks David.

From an Angry Soldier

From an Angry Soldier.
I am SICK of all this bullshit people are writing about the Iraq war. I
am abso-fucking-lutely sick to death of it. What the fuck do most of
you know about it? You watch it on TV and read the commentaries in the
newspaper or Newsweek or whatever god damn yuppie news rag you
subscribe to and think you're all such fucking experts that you can
scream at each other like five year old about whether you're right or
not. Let me tell you something: unless you've been there, you don't
know a god damn thing about it. It you haven't been shot at in that
fucking hell hole, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Except she's a Marine. Funny that - most Marines will go out of their way to avoid describing themselves with the S-word. I'm not saying the poster is full of sh*t but it sure smells funny.

If the lady is legit she has my apologies and gratitude for her service and her husband's sacrifice on our behalf.

via

Don't Be Like Us

You know that 'learn from your mistakes' thing? Even better if you can learn from someone else's mistakes. From Stake Ventures ..

I taped this great talk by Blaine Cook about scaling Twitter at Silicon Valley Ruby Conference.

I like slide 13: "Don't Be Like Us"

Unclear on the concept

Unclear on the concept.

About a year ago I started working on an article about the use of vertical space in cities, confused over why, beyond the ground floor, most buildings are totally inaccessible except to their occupants.

Well - possibly because most buildings are private property?

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Europe - home of the sophisticated

Manal Omar goes for a swim in Oxford and finds bigotry. Singled out by a lout, stereotyped by the Oxford Mail ...
Having spent my entire life in the United States, as a veiled Muslim woman I am no stranger to discrimination. In fact, as a child, I grew up in the hardcore territories of the south in the US, known as the Bible belt. Although I faced comments and questions, my personal lifestyle and space never felt invaded. In fact, the churchgoing community I lived in as a child welcomed me, and after my experience in the UK I want to go back to the local priest and kiss him on the forehead for not only preaching about respect but putting it into practice.

The truth of the matter is that as a Muslim woman living in the US - and I was in Washington DC on September 11 2001 - I never felt so isolated and discriminated against as I have these past few weeks in Oxford. Given that this is supposed to be one of the great seats of western civilisation, that should give British citizens something to chat about.
Here is the thing - I can't see this happening at the local Y in Wisconsin, either.

You gotta think that we're doing something right over here.

Via.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Socialization

What Henry said
I recognize that it is easier for a teacher to control a class of sheep. I've taught Sunday School classes of energetic children. I've been in situations when I wished my own children weren't so head strong.

But this is short sited. In the long run we want our daughters to be capable individuals who can make up their own minds and have the will to make things happen.

One of the reasons we homeschool is to help our daughters be independent. This is the kind of socialization we want to give them.

Monkey

Home at lunch. Youngest monkey has last summer's jean shorts on. Inside out. Zipped. Buttoned. I point this out.

Oh.

Isn't that uncomfortable?

Well it was hard to put on.

I'll bet.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Who is sick

Interesting - an overlay of symptoms across the US world. Who Is Sick?

What is it good for? Imagine this thing filters for the symptoms of a pandemic ... hey look real time data! Granted it's self-reporting data so you shouldn't make life or death choices. But hey - this is what the internet is for.

Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Homeschool from Toast

Home schooling - it's not for everyone.

Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Homeschool

Reason 1) You believe that socializing is the most important job of public school.
Since this is always the first question “inquiring minds" want to know, I can only assume this is important. No one asks me how I’m going to teach the kids to read, conjugate verbs, or dissect frogs, so presumably they trust in my ability to convey those important skills. I would like to point out, however, that what public school socializes your children to do is spend six hours sitting in a room with twenty-nine other people the same age during which they must pee and eat at the same time as well as line up to move from room to room. If you know of any place but public school where this would be a useful skill, you let me know.

Reason 2) You send email to a complete stranger on the Internet asking which curriculum you should use.
Not to discourage the fan mail… I LOVE it! I thrill to receiving email from all of you – particularly those that I don’t know and who do not share my last name. However, I’ve received questions like: “Do you think I should use Sonlight or Abeka?” First, I have no clue. I don’t know what your kids are like. Second, I’m not a Christian. Don’t ask me to differentiate between books that teach the world is either 3,000 or 6,000 years old. It’s like asking a teetotaler to discuss the relative merits of gin versus vodka.

Reason 3) You have an obsessive need for one or more of the following: Cleanliness, peace, or privacy.
Actually, you probably shouldn’t even have had children. But if the barn door has already swung open on that one, don’t compound your initial error by bringing all that cacophony into your home 24/7.

Reason 4) You don't like your children.
See Reason 3.

Reason 5) You want to watch movies and play Sudoku all day.
Believe it or not, “Homeschool Parent” is a full time job. You may think that once you settle in with the kids at home you won’t be “working” and therefore you’ll have all the time in the world to write a novel, knit a sweater, or get a master’s degree in existential thought in the 21st century. I am here to assure you that you will have less time to yourself and your own pursuits as a homeschool teacher than you did back in your software development days when you routinely clocked 65 hours a week and synchronized your laptop in the delivery room.

Reason 6) You have impulse control problems.
The opportunities for disaster are endless.

Reason 7) You have only one child.
The world already revolves around your child. Take him home and focus your full attention on him all day, every day, until this transient impression becomes a reality. Go ahead.

Reason 8) The world revolves around either you or your child.
A corollary to Reason 7, though, this can happen in families with more than one child. In any case, it does not pay to let anyone believe for more than a few minutes that he or she is the most important person in the world. From such lapses of reality, monomaniacal world leaders are created.






Reason 9) You are a perfectionist. Your spouse is a perfectionist. Your child is a perfectionist. Your parents are perfectionists.
Inevitably, you will disappoint someone.

And, last but not least…

Reason 10) …
Never mind. We don’t have a reason ten. About two weeks into it, you’ll come up with your own reason ten.

Cheng Ho - done right this time?

Dave Jones spent two weeks in China, talked with his co-workers about their space program and has this to say

Bottom line: the Chinese are going to the moon, going soon, and staying there.

You gotta learn from your mistakes - has China decided that recalling Cheng Ho's fleet was a mistake?  I so .. I wonder if they're going to see  there should be an economic rationale for their progam as well as a flags and footprints one.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Jeffery Harrell

Just to make him feel better.

Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell Jeffery Harrell

Wifi

Craig is having his gall bladder out and feelng impending internet disconnect syndrom (IDS).
Well, I'm caught up now, but later on, I'll be having my gall bladder removed. Also, my liver will be sampled to study the genomics of low cholesterol production.

I'm hoping that the recovery room has good wifi reception, but doubt it.
I know exactly how he feels.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Monday

I was going to sum up this evening's conference call but Seth did it so much better so I'll let him say it ..

As many of you know, I work for LiftPort. I’ve worked for them since the start. I’ve known Michael Laine through the thick and thin, and I know enough to realize that this won’t stop him.

I just got done with an hour long emergency conference call in response to the above issue(s). What is going to happen? Not especially clear yet, but we’ll be talking about it in the blog very soon. Essentially the LiftPort as we know it, built it, poured sweat into it, and are so passionate for… failed. It’s a grim reality.

That being said, we’re not going away. We’ve got some ideas to pull our proverbial rears out of the fire. Of course, if you happen to have $300,000 for a dream and a better world, a better future, let us know.

We’re still aspiring to the stars and we won’t give up. Not that easily.

I have my own thoughts - but I'll need a day or two to process. Michael is going to be emailing or blogging on this tomorrow.  It's been a busy weekend and while we need to step lively we need to step with care.

Respectfully Submitted,

Brian Dunbar





.. for the purposes of obscurity

Chrysler Dealership Training Video.



"The customer should be told that the burping is normal and is caused by too much gas in the fuel system."



The world isn't ending, life goes on, I've got a good woman, great kids and dogs at my feet, spring is coming, and you can still find funny crap stuff on the internets.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

.... aspire to the stars

Even when you're standing in sh*t, you can still look up and aspire to the stars.
~ David Gerrold

Pardon the swears. We're all still getting our heads into Transparency and a 24/7 attention cycle. Read something about a company on Friday and if there is nothing on their blog by Saturday you wonder if they've got a clue. Call this a place holder then; we are operating on 24/7 attention cycle but people need sleep, time to digest bad news, make plans, coordinate.

If you follow space elevator news you will have already read this, or will soon read it.

But today, roughly two hours before the panel, an obstacle was placed in Michael and Liftport’s path. Zealot that he is, even his belief and passion could not hold against this reality of finance. They lost their office space. The money ran out. And on Monday they will announce this fact.

I almost cried in sympathy as Michael described how this would impact not only Liftport but his personal life. He had no home, no place for his animals, no job, no source of income, and no place for his staff. A three million dollar building that held the hopes and dreams of more than just a few space crazies was taken away from a project that for better or worse is attempting to bring about a future I was weaned on. And a future I don’t often get to remember in a day to day way and now perhaps will not see even in dreams anymore.

A condensed transcript is here.

Our thanks to Julie Fredrickson and Erik of Pikamac for their kind words.

So what is going on? See above. What are we going to do about it? We don't know enough at this point to lay out a plan - information gathering lags behind the event like thunder lags behind lightning. We'll let you know as soon as we can.

Respectfully Submitted,

Brian Dunbar

Quote of the Day

“Even when you’re standing in shit, you can still look up and aspire to the stars.”

- David Gerrold

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

"I will consider myself rich when I'm standing on the moon with the sunlight reflecting off my visor as I'm looking at my initials carved into the soil. They will be big enough and deep enough that when people on the earth look up they can see I was there."

- Eric Engstrom

Friday, April 13, 2007

Humor

From the same email thread - humor.

Pi:

The physicist goes on at some length about the cosmic forces involved in
establishing the roundness of things, and finally says that pi is just an
expression of the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference.

"Well, sure," responds the mathematician, "but it's more convenient to
express it as a number.  3.14159, say."

Replies the engineer, "Yep.  Pi's about three."

--------------------------

Fire in the room:

A physicist and engineer and a mathematician were sleeping in a hotel room
when a fire broke out in one corner of the room.

Only the engineer woke up he saw the fire, grabbed a bucket of water and
threw it on the fire and the fire went out, then he filled up the bucket
again and threw that bucketfull on the ashes as a safety factor, and he
went back to sleep.

A little later, another fire broke out in a different corner of the room
and only the physicist woke up. He went over measured the intensity of the
fire, saw what material was burning and went over and carefully measured
out exactly 2/3 of a bucket of water and poured it on, putting out the
fire perfectly; the physicist went back to sleep.

A little later another fire broke out in a different corner of the room.
Only the mathematician woke up. He went over looked at the fire, he saw
that there was a bucket and he noticed that it had no holes in it; he
turned on the faucet and saw that there was water available. He, thus,
concluded that there was a solution to the fire problem and he went back
to sleep.

--------------------------

The Difference Joke

A sociologist was studying the differences between the ways in which
mathematicians and engineers think.  He persuaded two colleagues to take
part in an experiment, telling them when to be at his lab.  When they
arrived, he sent the engineer first into a test room with instructions
to boil water.  Entering the room, the engineer found a stove, a sink, a
table, and an empty put upside-down on the floor.  He picked up the pot,
took it to the sink, filled it with water, placed it on the stove,
turned on the stove, and waited for the water to boil.

The sociologist next reset the room and sent in the mathematician, who
did exactly the same thing.

Next, the sociologist reset the room again and sent the engineer back
in.  The engineer looked around the room again, this time finding the
pot sitting on the table, already full of water, and the stove already
on.  He picked up the pot, transferred it to the stove, and waited for
the water to boil.

The sociologist reset the room once more, and sent the mathematician
back in.  The mathematician surveyed the room, turned the stove off,
emptied the pot down the sink, dropped the pot upside-down on the floor,
and announced "I have now reduced this problem to the previous case."

...
...

Some months later, the same sociologist is still studying the same two
colleagues, and has cracked under the strain.  One night, he kidnaps
both of them (along with a physicist who just happened to walk down the
wrong hallway at the wrong time).  He drives them all fifty miles out
into the desert to a disused bunker, where he locks them up securely,
each in a separate cell out of sight and sound of the others, each with
a plastic spoon and a plentiful supply of food, water, Sterno and other
essentials, all in cans, but with no can opener.  A month or so later,
after the hue and cry over the disappearances has died down, he comes
back to check on their progress.

The engineer is long gone, having constructed a can-opener out of pocket
trash, opened the cans with it, compounded a plastic explosive from
sugar, fat, Sterno and soap, fabricated a shaped charge using empty
cans, blasted open the door of his cell, and escaped to somewhere far
away from the deranged sociologist.

The physicist has calculated the precise angle and velocity to throw the
cans against a corner of her cell wall in order to break the tops open
without spilling the contents, and is happily developing a new quantum
theory and a good pitching arm.

The mathematician's desiccated body lies half-sprawled against one wall
of his cell, with all the cans, unopened, haphazardly piled against the
opposite wall.  Neatly scratched in the middle of his cell floor with
the edge of a can is the following text:


    THEOREM:
    If I do not open these cans, I will die.

    PROOF:
    Assume the opposite....

Wide Load

WSDOT installed a GPS on a truck carrying an expansion joint for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Why the fuss? It's a really BIG expansion joint.


That's 100 tons of expansion joint, lugged around in a 16x200 load.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Do your own research

Via Jeff Harrell, an interesting blog called Violent Acres. I like a woman who writes
A lot of us know that what may seem magical and beautiful to us is, in reality, just another ordinary, humdrum day. So we keep mum because, well, who wants to hear that shit?

I want to hear that shit. In fact, this entire website is (in a nutshell) that kind of shit. I get tired of reading about people who do nothing but parrot information they’ve read in books or on billboards or watched on the goddamn television. I grow weary of dull, impassioned arguments that were gift wrapped by some higher authority with an agenda and crammed down our throats until our minds turned to mush and started leaking out of our ears. I want to tell people to quit fucking quoting me statistics about global warming that they read on MSN. Instead, look around the world and tell me what you think is happening. Form your own hypothesis. Do your own research. Quit depending on a society to tell you what is real! When did we all lose faith in our individual ability to learn anyway? And when did learning become synonymous with memorization? You can’t teach a conscience. It comes strictly from personal experiences; those mundane moments I wrote about earlier.

I can relate to that. We get this once in a while, at LiftPort; "Why should I believe you?"

Please, don't believe us - that's the last thing I'd want on my conscience. The subjects at hand - technology, economics, business, politics - are not so complicated that they can not be grasped by adults of reasonable intelligence.

Carnival of Space

I blogged here about a Carnival of Space Enthusiasts. On April 9 Henry Cate emailed me
Brian, I don't mean to pester you, but are you going to start up a Carnival of space?

http://space4commerce.blogspot.com/2007/03/blog-carnival.html

If you want to start it up, that would be great. If you don't want to start one up, I'll do it.
To which I replied, in effect, go for it. And he has.

Announcement here.
Submissions for the Carnival of Space.
Expectations for participants in the Carnival of Space.
Guidelines for hosting the Carnival of Space.

Good stuff.

Constructive Criticism

From an email thread
Me: It certainly feels like they had a larger vocabulary in the old days.

Him: Well, for one thing, they knew the difference between "like" and "as"
In the interests of self-improvement please feel free to taunt and tease me if you see me utilizing 'like' when I should write 'as'.

Quote of the Freakin' Milennium

Or so says Bryan from New Jersey
And in slightly-related, Quote-Awesomeness News, the Quote of the Freakin' Milennium goes to LiftPort's Michael Laine, with his closing sentiments on that story.
What story? This one.

The Quote?
“Frankly, it's a little frustrating getting sued, you know.”
If nothing else this provides plenty o' fodder for ribbing, teasing and t-shirts.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Don't send that cease and desist letter, Br'er Rabbit

I am no lawyer - but if you're going to sick a lawyer on a woman with a blog I do know that

a) you had had better be right and not just upset over someone's opinion.
b) you must be prepared to have everyone but everyone in the world having an opinion about you.
c) that opinion will be negative.

For the blogger involved it's a very upsetting situation. For everyone else it's like throwing meat to a pack of dogs.

For Sale

Psst - buddy. Want to buy a car company? We're talking bargain prices here ..
Trying to placate restive shareholders, DaimlerChrysler confirmed for the first time that it was in negotiations with a number of bidders about a deal for the troubled American unit, which lost $1.5 billion last year.

Chrysler, with some $20 billion in health care obligations for retired workers, will not be easy to sell, according to analysts. Some estimate it may fetch no more than $5 billion to $7 billion, or even nothing at all — a humbling comedown for a merger originally valued at $36 billion.
$5 billion is one heckuva bargain. Of course for the money you've bought Chrysler so maybe not so much.

Among problems that the company has is that the Mercedes engineers had nothing culturally in common with the Chrysler guys. The latter used to worrying about pennies while making choices the former saying "Meh - so the car costs $55,500 and not $55,000 - who is going to quibble - it's a Mercedes." Imagine that with an Ahnold accent, it works better. Imagine Ahnold as an engineer for that matter ..

Also a bone of contention? Mercedes would not let Chrysler use Mercedes parts in their low-end automobiles for fear of devaluing the brand. Buh-bye economics of integration.

Culture .. economics .. didn't anyone in the board room ask for a sanity check before proceeding with the merger in 1998? Okay, yes, hindsight but the problems they're having seem so .. obvious.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Beyond Earth: Ethical and Political Choices in Space

Interesting series in Denver, Colorado. Can't make it? Sign up for the webcast.

"Beyond Earth: Ethical and Political Choices in Space" Series

What ethical choices and responsibilities face us as we extend the human
presence in space? Should we worry about polluting or disturbing
lifeless worlds? Is there a danger of contaminating other planets, or
contaminating Earth with alien microbes? Who owns other worlds? What
are the laws out there? Should weapons be allowed in space? Will space
exploration help humanity to survive, or hasten our doom? In this
four-evening discussion moderated by David Grinspoon, PhD,
the Museum invites you to consider with scientists, astronauts,
ethicists, and policy makers the ethical and political implications of
human space activities.

Speakers:

  • Russell “Rusty” Schweickart, retired astronaut and chairman of the
    B612 Foundation, which is devoted to protecting the Earth from future
    asteroid impacts
  • Patty Limerick, PhD, historian and chair of the Center of
    the American West at University of Colorado, author, and MacArthur
    Fellow
  • Kim Stanley Robinson, award-winning author, whose literary
    science fiction explores themes of ecology, sociology, and economic and
    social justice
  • Robert Frodeman, philosopher specializing in environmental
    ethics, chair Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, University
    of North Texas

Tuesday, April 10; 7:00 p.m.
Phipps IMAX Theater; use IMAX Evening Entrance
$12 member $15 nonmember
Series: $40 member $48 nonmember
Reservations: 303.322.7009 or 1.800.925.2250

Awesome world we live in where we can devote even a small measure of thought to the topics like this.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Yuri's Night

It's almost that time of year ..

2 Days left!

Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into space on April 12th,
1961. The US Space Shuttle first launched on April 12th, 1981. Yuri's
Night is like the St Patricks Day or Cinco de Mayo for space. It is one
day when all the world can come together and celebrate the power and
beauty of space and what it means for each of us. Join us!

"Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty
of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this
beauty — not destroy it!"

Yuri Gagarin
Myself I won't be going anywhere but I'll toast the past and the future.

Surprise!

Haw.
Dear Soviets: We've just invented something that will increase our economy a bajillion fold. At the same time, if you try to implement it, it will destroy you. Surprise!
"DARPA's mission is ''to prevent technological surprise to the U.S., but also to create technological surprise for our enemies,' " (Source: DARPA: Bridging the Gap; Powered by Ideas, Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, Feb. 2005, p. 1." found here on page 17)

Best comment?

Actually, Capitalism has been around for a while.

I twitter

I was on the fence about Twitter. What could it be good for? And then I realized - it's SMS for Americans. We don't get cheap SMS on our cell phones - so this is a hack for the web that extends the concept of SMS.

http://twitter.com/bdunbar

You're not stuck using their web page. There are mac clients and you can twitter using your chat client via jabber. Embraced and extended - the idea has been hacked. How cool.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor

' For each stop—each timbre, or type of sound, that the organ could make (viz. blockflöte, trumpet, piccolo)—there was a separate row of pipes, arranged in a line from long to short. Long pipes made low notes, short high. The tops of the pipes defined a graph: not a straight line but an upward-tending curve. The organist/math teacher sat down with a few loose pipes, a pencil, and paper, and helped Lawrence figure out why. When Lawrence understood, it was as if the math teacher had suddenly played the good part of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor on a pipe organ the size of the Spiral Nebula in Andromeda—the part where Uncle Johann dissects the architecture of the Universe in one merciless descending ever-mutating chord, as if his foot is thrusting through skidding layers of garbage until it finally strikes bedrock. In particular, the final steps of the organist’s explanation were like a falcon’s dive through layer after layer of pretense and illusion, thrilling or sickening or confusing depending on what you were. The heavens were riven open. Lawrence glimpsed choirs of angels ranking off into geometrical infinity.'

From Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

If I've ever heard 'Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor' I have no recollection of it - except now I have, courtesy of the very interesting site 'Johann Sebastian Bach'.

And yes, it is good.

U.S. Billionaire Heads to Space Station

U.S. Billionaire Heads to Space Station
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) -- A Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan Saturday, sending Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station.
Righteous indignation in 5 .. 4 .. Countdown Hold for systems check

Homeless? Go, Flight.
AIDS? Roger, Flight.
Hurricane Katrina victims? Go, Flight.
Carbon footprint? Go, Flight.
Musing about the super-rich and moral responsibility? Roger.

We're go for launch, resume countdown. 3 ... 2 .. 1
Is there a more perfect symbol of the excesses of global capitalism than Charles Simonyi's 13-day joyride into outer space? Simonyi, a Hungarian-American software programmer who made his fortune at Xerox and Microsoft before launching his own start-up, paid $20 million to be escorted to the Kazakh steppes, packed into a Russian Soyuz rocket and blasted towards the international space station. En route, he'll enjoy a meal of roasted quail, duck breast confit with capers, shredded chicken parmentier and rice pudding with candied fruit -- all carefully selected by his girlfriend, Martha Stewart.
Richard Kim hit all the highpoints - way to go!

Saturday, April 07, 2007

I hate Illinois Zealots

Blogger KuiperCliff wrote about flying electric generators, aerostats, and space elevators - the hook being that all three are tethered systems.
I love the Space Elevator. I love everything about it. What a start to making life in orbit. It’s a bit empty up there at the moment (yeah, right) and I always think of it as ending in a kind of urine-smelling bus-stop, with an old woman knitting cardigans and supping tea from a Thermos. An untethered version has also been patented by Lockheed Martin. Buy your tickets now.
I replied in the comments to his post to a point he raised, he replied, I answered ending with what could be LiftPort's manta: "it’s all subject to change of course".

To which he replied with the nicest thing I've seen written in a while
And therein lies the beauty of it all. The story thus far of the Space
Elevator has lacked certain aspects usually found in other areas of new
technology: dogma and hyperbole to name but two. Coupled with an
obvious enthusiasm for the task, the parties involved actually seem to
want to learn and experiment, rather than sidestep the scientific side
of this endeavour.
Yay for 'lack of dogma'. No, really; zealots make for boring dinner guests and they're touchy and inflexible about getting stuff done in a particular way. If you can't get it done to the party line well then it's just wrong, comrade.

Like this guy

Let’s get one thing straight: government does not belong in space.
In our excitement over the promiseof private spaceflight, we often
choose to ignore this fact when the government appears to be helping
our beloved industry.

Spaceport America, which was just backed by a public vote in New
Mexico, has no need to exist. Not only do private companies not need
the help of government in building a spaceport infrastructure, but they
will also be better off in the long run without it. By subsidizing the
industry, the government can exercise more control over it. It is easy
to rejoice over free handouts; it is hard to reject them as poison
apples. This, though, is what our community must do if it wishes to
maintain its autonomy and ultimately, vitality.

Spaceport America, you are a welfare whore.

Yow. Don't mince words - how do you really feel?

Not to pick on the guy especially - his blog just came up in my RSS feeder at the right time. But it's a pretty good example of that attitude. There is how things ought to be and then there is the real world with a payroll to meet, shareholders to make happy and work to be done.

We will aspire to better but it's more fitting to put your nose to the grindstone and get stuff done, don't you think?

Back to God with Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia on Radio Open Source.



Now that was a good hour of radio.

ISR and the space elevator

After thinking about this post for a few minutes I recalled that the Institute for Scientific Research, Inc. (ISR) had hosted the Space Elevator conferences in 2003 and 2004, and had in fact posted the presentation papers online. Now .. ISR has never really pushed the idea - it was never mentioned on their home page and you had to really dig around to find the content but it was there ..
Institute for Scientific Research, Inc. (ISR) has combined its operations with those of the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation (WVHTC Foundation).

ISR’s programs and supporting research staff have been fully integrated into the WVHTC Foundation portfolio. Please visit the WVHTC Foundation website to learn more about its dynamic programs designed to diversify and re-invigorate the economy of North Central West Virginia.

If you are not redirected within 5 seconds, please click here www.wvhtf.org.
WVHTC's tag line is 'beyond expectations'. I'd say so.

A search of the WVHTF site shows nada for space elevators. Happily ISR's space elevator home page is still in existence, as is the content, including the papers from the 2003 and 2004 conferences. The question might be 'for how much longer' given that WVHTC doesn't seem to be focused on aerospace or launch systems.

More happily - while the ISR pages are copyright (which transfers to WVHTC) the conference papers are not. If I don't have them posted to the LiftPort files section in the next week, hassle me.

the lives of men by kelly zen-yie tsai

the lives of men
by kelly zen-yie tsai

britney spears
had a break-down
at the age of 25

dave chapelle dropped
his $50 million deal
and flew to Africa

the only ballers who seem
to be able to hang onto
their loot are the donald,
oprah, russell, jay-z, diddy

what happens in the
life of man?

dave chapelle said
for martin lawrence
to be waving his gun in
the street or mariah
carey to be taking
her clothes off in public

these people are strong, he said

a sick system
a sick system

while anna nicole smith's
photographs live on
forever plastered onto
glossy magazine pages
how long does it take for the ink
to smear off?

tabloid cover stories on $4000.00
cell-plumping facials,
$19,000.00 rehab clinics
placed right next to
paparazzi pics that
cry out captioned:
"they're just like us!"

winona ryder reaches
for a box of cereal
on the top shelf of
a grocery store

i wrote to a high school
student in florida this week
"never settle for success."

"there is a higher calling
for you and your work
than to be the hotness
wherever you are. never
fall short of your call
to impact the globe and
all of human history just
to satisfy your own ego."

i'm sure it was more
than he wanted to know.

it was probably
just my ego:

to want to be known
to want to be acknowledged
to want to be remembered
to be seen
to be heard
to be recognized

who knew that the flip side of this
is crucifixion so very early?

Farewell to a cost center

It is premature to say that directory assistance is dead but .. great galloping ghosts Google Voice Local Search is slick.

I was able to in quick succession find a business in Menasha, Wisconsin, Neenah, Wisconsin and Detroit Oregon.

Hey Alltel - why am I paying $1.50 per directory assistance call? Or rather why was I ...

Europe and America

Interesting post from Marginal Revolution.
Europe is better at producing (many) public goods through the public sector. Europe has more homogeneous nations with more urbanization, higher levels of social cohesion, and a more even distribution of ability. America is better at resource mobility, private sector innovation and catering to elites.

Because European government works better, Europeans demand more of it and get more of it. American liberals look at Europe and see (sometimes) better results per dollar spent. They then conclude that America should be more like Europe, whereas in reality America would end up spending more to get more bad American government. They also conclude that defenders of the American market-based order simply ignore the evidence before their eyes, evidence which supposedly shows the superiority of social democracy.
I don't think one system of government is better than another - what we've got works for who we are.

Still .. does anyone really believe that Burt Rutan could have built SS1 in France or Germany? That Scaled could have sent three private astronauts to space if they were based in Boscombe Down?

I'm as blinded by my own context as anyone but I like a system where that kind of thing is possible.

Via.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Transparent

Tom writes on transparency and the recent space elevator workshop and the wishes of 'the group' not to publish their preliminary notes
I don’t know if people will agree with me or not about my desire for openness. People have stopped laughing at the idea of a space elevator in general, but that doesn’t mean the idea is widely accepted. People have stopped laughing because of communication, and I think publishing some notes on a community workshop, even if they are preliminary, won’t cause damage to the development of the SE. I think, overall, it can only help.
Which is not to say business transparency is easy or feels comfortable. It's tough showing people the good and bad - it's natural to want to show your best face and sweep the messy crap under the carpet.

But it works - at the end of the day that is all that matters.

This might be the lesson of the new century - the way to bet is cheap, open and transparent.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Rotate 90 degrees

Taking a fresh look at the second monitor.


This new monitor configuration keeps popping up the engineering team and after walking into enough offices thinking, "Useful or flashy?", I decided to give it a whirl.

The basic usage pattern is unchanged. The left screen is for the active workspace whereas the right screen is the palette screen -- utility windows like calendar, Twitter, instant messaging, and stickies which require a glance now and then, but aren't playing in the primary workspace.


The little things will make me stop and go 'duhhhh'; it's so obviously a keen idea. Of course having two monitors is useful - and of course rotating it 90 degrees makes a lot of sense.

As mentioned in The Grapes of Wrath

TMOMP's continuing series of new, funner(tm) state slogans has reached my home state of Oklahoma. Sa-lute.*

Samples

We’re like the Canada of Texas!
No, I’m not from Muskogee. No one is
We wish God would hurry up and call Oral Roberts home already
The Forcible Resettlement State
Five Displaced Civilized Tribes, plus Rednecks
Where storm sirens are the signal to get lawn chairs, video camera.


*Yes, a Hee Haw reference.

Howl


choke "I wanted a" gasp "sandwich man" dragety drag "hey get that thing offa my neck"

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Interplanetary Supply Chain Management and Logistics Architecture

I am such a sucker over things like this. Infrastructure, logistics .. those are magic words. The stalwart explorer, the brave warrior - they're going nowhere fast without a solid means to deliver beans bullets and band-aids.

Interplanetary Supply Chain Management and Logistics Architecture
Sustainable space exploration will require appropriate interplanetary supply-chain management. Unlike Apollo, where everything was carried along, future exploration will have to rely on a complex supply-chain network on the ground and in space. The primary goal of the Interplanetary Supply Chain Management and Logistics Architectures (IPSCM&LA) project is to develop a comprehensive SCM framework and planning tool for space logistics.

The overall objective of this project is to develop an integrated capability for guiding the development of the interplanetary supply chain that will be required to enable sustainable space exploration of the Earth-Moon-Mars system and beyond.

Coffee

I discovered this tonight;

Evangelical Lutherans do not know how to make a decent pot of coffee in the Parish Hall. I don't know how a church survives without 'okay' coffee and pastry in the Parish Hall. Of course the Evangelical Lutherans don't call it a Parish Hall; which in itself is just wrong.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism

From the Spring 2007 issue of Paramters

Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism
DALE C. EIKMEIER
From Parameters, Spring 2007, pp. 85-98.

The recently published National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism (NMSP-WOT) is to be commended for identifying “ideology” as al Qaeda’s center of gravity.1 The identification of an ideology as the center of gravity rather than an individual or group is a significant shift from a “capture and kill” philosophy to a strategy focused on defeating the root cause of Islamic terrorism. Accordingly, the plan’s principal focus is on attacking and countering an ideology that fuels Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, the NMSP-WOT fails to identify the ideology or suggest ways to counter it. The plan merely describes the ideology as “extremist.” This description contributes little to the public’s understanding of the threat or to the capabilities of the strategist who ultimately must attack and defeat it. The intent of this article is to identify the ideology of the Islamic terrorists and recommend how to successfully counter it.

Sun Tzu wisely said, “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.”2 Our success in the War on Terrorism depends on knowing who the enemy is and understanding his ideology. While characterizing and labeling an enemy may serve such a purpose, it is only useful if the labels are clearly defined and understood. Otherwise, overly broad characterizations obscure our ability to truly “know the enemy,” they diffuse efforts, and place potential allies and neutrals in the enemy’s camp. Unfortunately, the War on Terrorism’s use of labels contributes a great deal to the misunderstandings associated with the latter. The fact is, five years after 9/11 the NMSP-WOT provides little specific guidance, other than labeling the enemy as extremist.3 This inability to focus on the specific threat and its supporting philosophy reflects our own rigid adherence to political correctness and is being exploited by militant Islamists portraying these overly broad descriptions

More at the link.

Yours needs to be skinnier

Design advice from Ennesby via Howard Tayler. Story here.

http://www.liftport.com/progress/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/20070330_schlock-ennesby_thumb.png

Embarrassing lack of graphic content

How embarrassing - no pretty pictures to look at for days and days. Here ...


Shane. Best Western Ever.

Random Wisconsin City Name Generator

Behold! The Random Wisconsin City Name Generator!

"Weyeoshbutteowoc"
Say it with me... Weye-osh-butte-owoc

"Applewashasau"
Say it with me... Apple-washa-sau

"Prairie du Crosse"
Say it with me... Prairie du Crosse

FreeBSD pkgsrc news

Good news! FreeBSD is outsourcing pkgsrc to NetBSD.

Partner-sourcing the ports tree is a large project and will take some time to complete. First, to our loyal customers. You will see no noticeable change in our product. We are still committed to providing high quality third party applications to meet your computing needs. You should feel no apprehension in the continued use of FreeBSD within your own organization. In fact, we feel this move will lead to a FreeBSD 7 which will finally be the improvement over FreeBSD 4 that you have been looking for.



I'm sure the shareholders at FreeBSD can look forward to a better FQ3 now.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Busy Day

We'll never know why Ă–tzi was so busy but his last day on earth was sure 'nuff an exciting one.
Basically, he was in the highlands, went down to the valley, and then back up to the highlands again in a matter of hours. His last hours were both hectic and violent.
At some point he got a frickin' arrow lodged into his shoulder - trying to take that out killed him.

Via.

Advice to Young Men from an Old Man

No, I'm not the old man, nor am I bright enough .. or full of myself enough .. to think anyone can benefit from what I have to say. Bad life choices? Brother, I could fill a book.
But .. interesting enough to pass along. Disagree? See Items 8 and 30.

Via buslog

Advice to Young Men from an Old Man

1. Don’t pick on the weak. It’s immoral. Don’t antagonize the strong without cause, its stupid.

2. Don’t hate women. It’s a waste of time

3. Invest in yourself. Material things come to those that have self actualized.

4. Get in a fistfight, even if you are going to lose.

5. As a former Marine, take it from me. Don’t join the military, unless you want to risk getting your balls blown off to secure other people’s economic or political interests.

6. If something has a direct benefit to an individual or a class of people, and a theoretical, abstract, or amorphous benefit to everybody else, realize that the proponent’s intentions are to benefit the former, not the latter, no matter what bullshit they try to feed you.

7. Don’t be a Republican. They are self-dealing crooks with no sense of honor or patriotism to their fellow citizens. If you must be a Republican, don’t be a “conservative.” They are whining, bitching, complaining, simple-minded self-righteous idiots who think they’re perpetual victims. Listen to talk radio for a while, you’ll see what I mean.

8. Don’t take proffered advice without a critical analysis. 90% of all advice is intended to benefit the proponent, not the recipient. Actually, the number is probably closer to 97%, but I don’t want to come off as cynical.

9. You’ll spend your entire life listening to people tell you how much you owe them. You don’t owe the vast majority of people shit.

10. Don’t undermine your fellow young men. Mentor the young men that come after you. Society recognizes that you have the potential to be the most power force in society. It scares them. Society does not find young men sympathetic. They are afraid of you, both individually and collectively. Law enforcement’s primary purpose is to suppress you.

11. As a young man, you’re on your own. Society divides and conquers. Unlike women who have advocates looking out for them (NOW, Women’s Study Departments, government, non-profit organizations, political advocacy groups) almost no one is looking out for you.

12. Young men provide the genius and muscle by which our society thrives. Look at the Silicone Valley. By in large, it was not old men or women that created the revolution we live. Realize that society steals your contributions, secures it with our intellectual property laws, and then takes credit and the rewards where none is due.

13. Know that few people have your best interests at heart. Your mother does. Your father probably does (if he stuck around). Your siblings are on your side. Everybody else worries about themselves.

14. Don’t be afraid to tell people to “Fuck off” when need be. It is an important skill to acquire. As they say, speak your piece, even if your voice shakes.

15. Acquire empathy, good interpersonal skills, and confidence. Learn to read body language and non-verbal communication. Don’t just concentrate on your vocational or technical skills, or you’ll find your wife fucking somebody else.

16. Keep fit.

17. Don’t speak ill of your wife/girlfriend. Back her up against the world, even if she’s wrong. She should know that you have her back. When she needs your help, give it. She should know that you’ll take her part.

18. Don’t cheat on your wife/girlfriend. If you must cheat, don’t humiliate her. Don’t risk having your transgressions come back to her or her friends. Don’t do it where you live. Don’t do it with people in your social circle. Don’t shit in your own back yard.

19. If your girlfriend doesn’t make you feel good about yourself and bring joy to your life, fire her. That’s what girlfriends are for.

20. Don’t bother with “emotional affairs.” They are just a vehicle for women to flirt and have someone make them feel good about themselves. That’s the part of a relationship they want. For you it is a lot of work and investment in time. If they are having an emotional affair with you, they’re probably fucking someone else.

21. Becoming a woman’s friend and confidant is not going to get you into an intimate relationship. If you haven’t gotten the girl within a reasonably short period of time, chances are you won’t ever get her. She’ll end up confiding to you about the sexual adventures she’s having with someone else.

22. Have and nurture friendships with women.

23. Realize that love is a numbers game. Guys fall in love easily. You’re going to see some girl and feel like you’ll die if you don’t get her. If she rejects you, move on to the next one. It’s her loss.

24. Don’t be an internet troll. Got out and live life. There is not a cadre of beautiful women advertising on Craigslist to have NSA sex with you. Beautiful women don’t need to advertise. The websites that advertise with attractive women’s photos and claims of loneliness are baloney. All they want is your money and your personal information so that they can market to you. The posts on Craigslist by young “women” seeking NSA sex, and asking for a picture are just a bunch of gay troll pic collectors. This is especially true if the post uses common gay lexicon like “hole” as in “fuck my hole” or seeks “masculine” men, or uses the word cock (except in the context of “Don’t send a cock shot.”) There are women on Craigslist. They are easily recognizable by their 2-5 paragraph postings. Most are in their 30's or older.

25. When you become a man in full, know that people will get in your way. People who are attracted to you will somehow manage to step in your path. Gay guys will give you “the look.” Old people will somehow stumble in front of you at the worst time. Don’t get frustrated. Just step aside and go about your business. Know that these are passive aggressive methods to get you to acknowledge their existence.

26. Don’t gay bash. Don’t mentally or physically abuse people because of who they are, or how they present themselves. It’s none of your business to try to intimidate people into conformity.

27. If your gay, admit it to yourself, your parents, your friends and society at large. Be prepared to get harassed. See rule 14. If someone threatens you or assaults you, call the cops. Have them arrested. You have no obligation to self sacrifice because of who you are. As a gay person, you’ll have more social freedom than straight men. Use it to protect yourself. Be prepared to get out of Dodge if your orientation makes your life unbearable. Move to San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, or New Orleans. You’ll find a welcoming community there.

28. Don’t be a poser. Avoid being one of those dudes who puts a surfboard on top of their car, but never surfs, or a dude with a powder coated fixed gear bike and a messenger bag, but was never a messenger. Live the life. Earn your bona fides.

29. Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn’t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

30. Remember, 97% of all advice is worthless. Take what you can use, and trash the rest.

vicioustwist
san francisco
02-15-07

How are we doing?

If you're the straight man in a April Fool's Day news story .. does that mean you're doing something right?