D. Herbert

Relative vs. Objective Truth in Trial Outcomes

2005-10-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

Beldar's whole-hearted embrace of the lay jury trial process seems to be a kind of relatism: truth and fiction are defined by 12 men and women. Objective things don't matter.

Statistics that can't show any link between Vioxx and the heart health problem it's alleged to cause don't matter. Mathematical concepts like statistical significance are insignificant. Scientific understanding is irrelevant (Besides, said one juror afterward, the medical evidence was confusing: "We didn't know what the heck they were talking about.").

The jury system is important for maintaining a fair criminal justice system, especially given the murkiness surrounding the facts in some of those cases. It's valuable towards settling civil disputes that laypeople can understand.

But issues involving heavy mathematics or sciences (I mean issues far beyond car crash physics) should not be left up to a jury of laypeople--especially because plaintiffs lawyers deliberately weed out people of intelligence and mathematical/scientific sophistication during the voir dire process.

Congress should shield high tech industries from dangerously biased backwater state courts by using Commerce Clause power to limit all suits against them to federal court (perhaps even to a special circuit that hears science-heavy cases, staffed with people who know what they are doing, and perhaps even cut out lay juries entirely). The Supreme Court should not hesitate to step in against bad science (and because these cases will all be federal, under federal law, the Supreme Court will have the authority to step in).

For drug cases, there should be a high bar that plaintiffs must meet to show a potential connection between the drug and the malady, or the cases should be thrown out in summary judgment. Illegitimate cases should never go to trial.

These high-tech/pharmaceutical/etc. industries are amazing and wonderful and are producing some of the most awesome innovation the world has ever seen. We need to protect them from greedy lawyers. If there is actual culpability on their part, they should be held accountable. But they should not have to pay a cent if they are not at fault. Even if they are guilty of profiting from the creation of such wonders.

The truth matters. At least, it should. That's what justice is supposed to be all about.

Dawn of the Dead Remake

2005-09-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

What a let down. It can't hold a candle to the original.

Sure, it's got better effects (everything does these days, except for "DragonWhatever" starring Dean Cain showing on the SciFi channel). And it's got more "action."

It's also got lots of cliches, half of it is entirely, ploddingly predictable, and the other half is absurdly illogical. It's entirely missing the themes that made the originals (Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead) so great. It's completely hollow and worthless and utterly commercialized, which is ironic because the original was a critique of commercialism. There is actually a scene in which a actor takes a sip of brand-name water. That is so not Dawn of the Dead! It's a horrible parody from Bizarro World!

And it has a scene in which a SPAS-12 semi-automatic shotgun is pumped. Every stupid action movie has to have a SPAS-12 being pumped. Even though it's semi-automatic and the pump function is only there in case it misfeeds or so police can use lower-powered riot loads. You don't use riot loads (bean bags and rubber bullets) against zombies!

And enough gratuitous slaps at private gun-owners. Get a clue, Hollywood. If a zombie invasion/uprising took place, private ownership of firearms would be our best hope.

Did I mention the stupid cliches? It's lame. Avoid it and rent the original. Fast-moving zombies are lame. If you see fast-moving zombies, run.

On Promises

2005-09-12T23:05:00.000-07:00

Suspect Device at DailyKos writes:

FEMA promised more than they could deliver. They cut off deeper, perhaps more meaningful discussion and planning by handing out empty promises.

So who is to blame? Brown for failing to deliver on FEMA's promises, or his predecessor who made those promises?

(or did Michael Brown make those promises?)

Stupid, Shameless S.F. Chron

2005-09-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Californians overwhelmingly passed a statewide ban on gay marriage in 2000, barring the state of California from recognizing non-heterosexual marriages performed in or outside of the state: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The state legislature sent a bill to Governor Schwarzenegger that would have recognized gay marriages. This bill was unconstitutional because voter initiatives cannot be overturned by normal laws. The governor properly vetoed that bill, showing respect for our state constitution and the rule of law in general.

(non-stupid) News analysis from the S.F. Chron:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision Wednesday to veto a historic same-sex marriage bill was based on the plain language of a ballot measure that Californians passed 5 1/2 years ago.

Proposition 22, approved by 61 percent of the voters in March 2000, declared, in full: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.'' Because it was passed by initiative, it can't be amended without another public vote, under state constitutional rules that protect the public's right to make laws at the ballot box.

In announcing his planned veto through a spokeswoman, Schwarzenegger said any attempt by the Legislature to legalize same-sex marriage would conflict with Prop. 22.

The San Francisco Chronicle, of course, overwhelmingly supports the bill, our constitution and the will of the voters be damned. You see, they claim, Prop 22 only affects out-of-state gay marriages, and thus has no bearing on marriages performed inside the state. They base this extremely dubious claim on the location at which Prop 22's critical text was inserted. Debra Saunders writes:

What's more, AB849 is dishonest in that it pretends to exist outside of Proposition 22. Leno has long argued that Proposition 22 only addresses out-of-state marriages because the measure's authors inserted their language into Section 308.5 of the state's family law code, which addresses out-of-state marriages.

Baloney. And Leno knows that is not the way California voters saw it. Prop. 22 stated, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Voters didn't care which statute it amended; they wanted to send a clear message about their opposition to same-sex marriage.

She didn't just make this up, there are actually people publicly putting their name to it. Where is this claim made? In the text of the bill itself! (At (3)(k) via PhoBlogger)

The Chron editorializes:

The question should not be whether the public supports a marriage law that enshrines discrimination against gays and lesbians in myriad ways -- including the deprivation of about 1,000 federal rights and responsibilities. The question is whether the state's leaders have the fortitude to risk their standing for the cause of equality -- by challenging discrimination with all available political and legal tools.

Note the spin: upholding our constitution is conflated with pandering to the majority. Pathetic. Any question of whether the measure itself is unconstitional is deliberately avoided (except to relay Schwarzenegger's spokesperson's comments).

In case there is any doubt, I rounded up a few contemporary quotes from the SF Chron. They show that no reasonable person thought that prop 22 was only about out-of-state marriages:

Bay Area Defiant In Its Support For Gay Marriage
State polls show region's voters stand alone in opposing Prop. 22
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
Wednesday, March 1, 2000
"That March 7 ballot measure seeks to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

Christian Right Ready for Push To the Polls
Impetus is McCain, marriage measure
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
Saturday, March 4, 2000
"Proposition 22, the ballot measure designed to prevent gay marriage"

Lots of Reasons For State's Voters To Head for Polls
Greg Lucas, Sacramento Bureau Chief
Tuesday, March 7, 2000
"Proposition 22, a measure intended to prevent California from recognizing same-sex marriages."

Californians OK Gay-Marriage Ban -- Casinos Approved on Indian Land
Greg Lucas, Lynda Gledhill, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Wednesday, March 8, 2000
"Sacramento -- Voters yesterday overwhelmingly approved an emotionally charged initiative that bans recognition of same-sex marriage in California.
"Proposition 22 led by a wide margin even though opponents said it was an unnecessary wedge issue because no state allows same-sex marriages."

EDITORIAL
PUSHING AHEAD ON GAY RIGHTS
Thursday, March 9, 2000
"THE OVERWHELMING approval of Proposition 22, the ban on gay marriage, makes it plain how the public feels on the narrow topic."

Gay Marriage Ban Pleases Leader of Mormon Church
But opponents of measure say passage isn't all bad news
Elaine Herscher, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, March 9, 2000
"Voters in Tuesday's election approved Proposition 22 by 61 to 39 percent, a lopsided victory for those seeking to reinforce the law that makes civil marriage legal only between a man and a woman."

Bay Area Voters Are State's Contrarians
Some winning measures lost big here
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, March 10, 2000
"Proposition 22, the initiative that defined marriage"

Getting Right On Knight
JON CARROLL
Monday, March 13, 2000
"Most propositions seek to change something; this one sought to keep things precisely as they are."
"The proponents of Prop. 22 were careful to say that they were not against giving gay people in loving partnerships legal and contractual protection."

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING
Sunday, March 19, 2000
"EQUITY FOR GAYS NEEDED MORE THAN EVER
"Voters in California last week overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative banning gay marriage, joining some 30 other states in declaring that, to be recognized legally, a ``marriage'' must be a union between a man and a woman"
(SF Chron quoting the Boston Globe)

Gay-Marriage Battle Was Lost, But the War Is Far From Over
DON LATTIN
Sunday, March 19, 2000
"CALIFORNIA VOTERS may have rejected gay marriage"

EDITORIAL
The Vermont Solution
Monday, March 20, 2000
"California's Proposition 22, which reaffirmed the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman"

Domestic Partner Rights OKd by Assembly Panel
Greg Lucas, Sacramento Bureau Chief
Wednesday, March 29, 2000
"...voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 22, which prevents California from legally recognizing same-sex marriages."

There are two unfortunate outcomes here: one is that respect for our constitution is tarnished. Even though it has been upheld by Arnold, a greater number of Democrats than before were willing to ignore it. That's major.

The second is that gay marriage opponents will use this issue to bring yet another intitiative to the polls--this time aiming to enshrine a ban on gay marriage in the constitution itself, which will be even harder for gay marriage proponents to overturn. Do I think they are wrong to do this? Insofar as I think gay marriage should be legal, yes. Insofar as to whether their fears of a legislative/judicial end-run around prop 22 are justified, no, they are not wrong. I hope this initiative appears on the ballot and is defeated, creating the momentum for an initiative to overturn 22.

If we didn't have a Republican governor today, I might be blogging about "post-constitutional California politics," without hyperbole.

Upholding the Constitution is Extremist?

2005-09-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

The SF Chron reveals its true colors today, with its all-out attack on Arnold's decision to uphold our state constitution.

Signing an unconstitutional bill into law--even if it would otherwise be the right thing to do--is an attack on our system of law. In some extreme cases, it might be right to move against a constitution. This is not one of those cases.

The proper way to enact gay marriage in California is not to push it through the state legislature or find a judge willing to invent a new legal principle. The proper way is to take it to the voters with another referendum. If that fails, try again.

Why did so many people vote for Prop. 22? I didn't, so I can't speak for them. But I think in large part it was out of fear that if they didn't act, someone would try to sneak it through against their wishes. Using underhanded tactics now is only going to encourage conservative voters to be more suspicious of the liberal agenda and take more precautionary measures in the future that will only impede liberal reformers.

Total War on the DLC

2005-08-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

Kos declares war on the DLC: (via LGF)

Two more weeks, folks, before we take them on, head on.

No calls for a truce will be brooked. The DLC has used those pauses in the past to bide their time between offensives. Appeals to party unity will fall on deaf ears (it's summer of a non-election year, the perfect time to sort out internal disagreements).

We need to make the DLC radioactive. And we will. With everyone's help, we really can. Stay tuned.

Total war ("[no] truce will be brooked") against a political entity? I am curious as to what this will look like.

Is it just going to be a conventional whiner campaign (criticize every aspect of the DLC, loudly and repeatedly) magnified by the sheer number of Kos's followers? It would be surprising if this wasn't part of the campaign.

But the real question is, what else is there?

Does Kos have some sort of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" style attack campaign planned, driven by people who have firsthand knowledge of the DLC?

In a similar vein, does Kos have some sort of insider information/scandal that he can use draw the DLC out and then expose them?

Both of those seem doubtful, because they would require people to be organized and secrets to be kept...

So what does Kos have? What can he possibly do to convince ordinary Democrats to abandon the DLC? Whatever it is, he is doing a good job of keeping it secret.

I like Charles' countdown idea, because these "secret plans" have a way of never materializing, but to be fair, Kos said two weeks, not "14 days." So I'll give him 17 days...

Windows Vista, HWR, and Spam

2005-08-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

Most of the turing tests used to distinguish between humans and spambots involve reading characters (numbers or letters) from an image that has been distorted.

They work on the principle that computer programs cannot easily recognize distorted characters. OCR (optical character recognition) software is good at reading Times New Roman text off a print page, but isn't so good at recognizing distorted characters (so far as I know).

The upcoming OS Windows Vista will have a Tablet Edition, and this will sport advanced HWR (handwriting recognition software that interprets "ink" drawn on the screen as characters). I think these ink characters are generally more deformed than the printed characters most OCR schemes are designed to identify.

Not only will Vista be better at recognizing characters, but it will make it easier to integrate HWR into applications.

Will it be possible to take advantage of Vista's HWR to automate the process of recognizing the distorted characters from an image? If so, this would go a long way towards defeating that form of turing test. I don't know what sort of test we could use to replace that, if any.

If we can't come up with a new test, we'll have to give up on anonymous comments and instead rely on registration schemes like Blogger's or TypeKey (which are of course already infiltrated by spambots, but they could be taken a step further, for instance by requiring a member in good standing to hand out new registrations, such as with G-Mail)

Google gets Blogging

2005-08-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

It wasn't always clear that Google knew what it was doing with blogs. But there's good news:

1) Google uses its blog to correct a mistaken impression in the news. (A more cynical person might say to "spin" the news, but it looks to me like Google is being entirely earnest.) (via THG)

2) Turing tests to comment on blogs. Someone's been generating fake comment spam to draw people to their adwords pages. Google put a stop to that. (A more cynical person might note that Google benefited from the spam because it generated money through Google's own adwords program.)

Neither is novel or of great importance, but they are both positive developments given that Google is running our blogging platform.

Who Will Frame Roger Rabbit?

2005-08-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

First, calling the villain "Judge Doom" gives him far too much respect. From here on out, we have to start calling him "Dipper Doom."

We have to relate this story to the city at large, not to any one particular 'toon. We shouldn't even use the rabbit's name.

The big story is not about the rabbit, or Jessica's infidelity, or even Dipper Doom--it's about the turpentine and the freeways. Toxic chemicals, anti-'toon violence, industrial development! Dipper Doom out of 'Toontown!

We can incorporate all of this into the short and simple title: "Who Dipped TrolleyGate?", which conveys and emphasizes the important information. Once we frame this issue properly, there's no way we can lose.

Steve Jobs' Diabolical Scheme

2005-08-12T23:08:00.000-07:00

Jobs has done the impossible: he has convinced x86 computer geeks from around the world that running Mac OS X is the coolest thing they could possibly do.

Marijuana: Gateway to the Black Market

2005-08-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

Drug warriors often repeat the claim that marijuana is a "gateway drug." While that term has fallen somewhat out of favor (due to overuse?) the logic remains the same: stop kids from using marijuana, and you reduce the chance they will use hard drugs later in life.

But why does early drug use often lead to more serious drug use? Or, to restate: what is it about kids who have used marijuana that makes them different from kids who have not used marijuana, such that they will be more likely use harder drugs?

Is it that the experience of getting high had such an effect on them, or is it that their experience with the black market made them more comfortable making more dangerous purchases?

As the ONDCP notes, most drug dealers are not the stereotypical "pushers." So who is selling drugs? Other kids. They learn how to participate in the black market: the culture, the norms of behavior, what a good deal looks like, how to avoid being ripped off, how to avoid being a victim of violence, etc. Those are all of the things they will need to know in order to participate in the trade of harder drugs--except mistakes there are less forgiving.

They build trust relationships from the ground up around the sale of marijuana (where the stakes are low, because of smaller criminal penalties if something goes wrong), and from there move on to harder forms of criminal activity. Marijuana may or may not be a gateway drug, but it's certainly a gateway to the black market.

I won't claim that legalizing marijuana will fix this, because presumably, like cigarettes and alcohol, marijuana would still be illegal for minors. Which means illegal sales would still take place. I don't think there is any good solution to this problem.

Thoughts on Sitzkrieg

2005-08-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

Donklephant has a good post about how the new war is in some ways more dangerous than the cold war--because there is less restraining our enemies (via Instapundit). That got me thinking: if the USSR was still going strong, would there be a conflict between Americans and Muslim extremists, and if so, how would it be different?

The positive:

Hopefully the USSR would be engaged in bloody wars with Muslims in Chechnya and Afghanistan such that the combination of America and the USSR would keep Islamic extremism from becoming a major problem (this sentence is a bit garbled; what I meant was the combined threat from the US and USSR if Muslims attacked us; I know we were helping the Muslims in Afghanistan--ed). I can’t really see China helping Muslim extremists, given its stance towards religion in general and the Uighur people. India is basically at war with the extremists over Kashmir. So all of the major powers in the world would be united against radical Islam (except Europeans and Brazil, which would be happy to sit this fight out).

However, it was the Soviet war in Afghanistan that gave Islamic extremists a place to congregate. So if there were many Muslim-Infidel conflicts around the world, that would mean Muslims everywhere would be pressured to radicalize and there would be many opportunities to network and train for jihad.

The Negative:

MAD without Islamic Terrorists might be preferrable to Islamic Terrorists without MAD, but both are better than Islamic Terrorists and MAD.

What if Muslim extremists exploited MAD? One nuclear explosion could start a nuclear war. With a nuclear bomb in place, they could fake a missile strike:

Fire an empty missile at the site where the nuke is already located so the American military would shoot down the missile; when the nuclear explosion happened anyway we would think it must have been a multiple-warhead missile or something likewise very advanced to survive an anti-missile. We would think only the Soviets were capable of that.

Then the terrorists could launch a few more empty missiles and we would think a full-on nuclear barrage was incoming. It wouldn’t take many missiles to pull off. Would we wait for those missiles to impact before we launched our counter-attack?

(of course they could target the USSR just as easily as they could target us with that scheme)

A nuclear exchange between America and the USSR would be great for Islamic extremists. They would be working very hard to make it happen. They would surprise us with their savage creativity, like they did on 9/11 and at Beslan.

The Boston Globe Reminds You...

2005-08-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

That you might have a transsexual baby.

No, really:

...is as misguided as the Gender Mentor Kit's mistaking sex for gender

Thanks, BG, I'll send off emails right now to remind all of the pregnant women I know of this possibility.

Some prochoice advocates argue, as Rutgers law professor Kimberly Mutcherson told Newhouse News Service, ''if you believe women have the right to choose, [selecting sex] is a perfectly legitimate reason."

Under our current law, women can have abortions for any reason, up until the baby is born (limits to cases of "medical necessity" are easily bypassed). So killing babies of a certain sex is perfectly legal. In fact, it's legal to get pregnant just so you can have an abortion.

The right to choose neither includes nor implies a right to design; Roe secures a woman's decision to ''bear and beget a child," not a right to configure its human attributes.

I don't think this is correct. The right to abortion can be used to kill off defective babies (mental retardation, cleft palate, etc.). To that extent, women are allowed to take attributes of their baby into account when making the decision to abort. Since women are allowed to get abortions for any reason, the Boston Globe can't claim that some reasons are not protected by law. Or can they? They're just making up the Constitution as they go along.

Does the Boston Globe want an increased government role in limiting abortion? Do they want a Motives Police to make sure women are pure of heart when they seek their abortions?

Some thoughts on Discussing Evolution

2005-08-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

Don't. It's just not worth it.

A person's beliefs in a particular subject, whether they are anti-evolution, pro-racism, pro-homosexual, anti-communist, Catholic, atheist, etc. don't have any bearing on whether or not that person is educated or intelligent. There are brilliant racists and stupid anti-Communists and everything in between. Someone's religious beliefs don't make them any smarter or dumber.

And intelligence has nothing to do with whether someone is a decent person.

"Ignorance" is a more complicated subject, and one I'm not so quick to concede. I don't think that everyone who believes in ID or creationism is "ignorant." But I do believe people who post thoughtlessly against evolution without even having read the rebuttals at TalkDesign.org are candidates for being considered "ignorant." If you want to discuss challenges to evolution online, you should at the very least read the main rebuttal to your claims. At the same time, anyone who wants to attack ID should understand it (so a pro-evolution person could be "ignorant" if he attacked ID based on a strawman misrepresentation of what ID theorists are saying--this is the reason I took the time to actually understand Behe's "Irreducible Complexity" argument, by reading the critiques and his writing).

I do believe that trying to teach ID instead of or alongside evolution is to be pushing ignorance, because ID is wrong. Teaching something that is wrong, for bad reasons, is to spread ignorance.

There are a few problems with trying to have a discussion about this controversial subject online, with strangers:

The most obvious is that this is a touchy subject and some people will be more easily offended. This includes people who really were offended, and people who use "offended" a a PC club to beat you with. (I think there's a lot more of the former than the latter.)

Others will deliberately offend. I don't just mean being rough-edged or less than polite, I mean being offensive for the sole point of trolling.

And then there are the hit-and-run posters: they show up, make one opening argument, and then run away. They're not interested in hearing answers, because they can't stand and fight. This by no means includes all persons skeptical of evolution. It doesn't even include all people who show up and then leave. Only the ones who make arrogant assertions before running off.

None of them think, "Gee, I don't know much about this. Maybe I should just ask my question politely instead of asserting that it proves that evolution is a lie."

The "points" they make generally look like "Evolution can't be true because it can't explain X!!!" Aside from the fact that they obviously aren't creative enough to come up with their own explanation (or just don't want to), when you reply with a simple explanation of how X might in fact be possible and fit into the grand scheme of things, they've already moved on. What the Hell do they care? They're not interested in an answer. They just like asking the question.

The other "point" they make is to cite an expert like Behe or Dembski. Then they run away. Again, they're not interested in the answer. Fact is, Behe/Dembski/etc. have been discussed and rebutted over at TalkDesign.org. They won't follow the links back to that page to read about our side of the argument, because they aren't interested in understanding anything.

I'd bet that few people who cite Dembski's "Complex Specified Information" (CSI) theory have any idea whatsoever what it is. Or are there just thousands of math majors floating around the interweb dropping in on random sites to voice their support for CSI anonymously?

Just challenge these people to explain CSI in their own words and watch their heads explode.

I'm taking the time to learn it now, and it's not very impressive. TalkOrigins points out some serious flaws, and I'm reading his paper now.

They like the theory so much because it is backed by A Scientist--they are the ones blindly following authority and waving credentials around. The pro-evolution side of the debate doesn't want to wow people with the weight of their credentials (which is indeed massive), it just wants people to understand evolution as part of a balanced liberal arts education.

Of course, that alone doesn't prove it's wrong. Just because most people don't understand quantum physics (I sure don't!) doesn't make it false. No. To see why it's wrong, you'd have to go to TalkDesign.org. They lay it all out for anyone interested in reading it themselves.

Why would anyone try to understand the evolution vs. ID debate in a chat room, forum, or comment thread, when there are such powerful resources available? People wrote them just for you.

Thoughts on the Submarine Rescue

2005-08-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

1)
This sort of thing is dramatic (high stakes, not much time) and inspiring (highly-skilled individuals and diverse government agencies cooperating to meet the challenge). It's one of the better examples of what humans can accomplish when we work together.

2)
If they do survive, it will be because the sailors on the Kursk did not.

If it were not for the Kursk disaster/tragedy, Putin would not have been so quick to ask for foreign help, especially given the sensitive nature of the underwater detection equipment involved.

Novak Calls It

2005-08-05T01:27:00.000-07:00

Carville taunts him as a wuss with something to prove.

What can Novak do?

Shrink back and let Carville talk? If he does this, not only does he get cut off, but it makes Carville "right" that he's a wuss.

Get mad and try to yell over Carville? If he does this, Carville still stops Novak from making his point (because no one will hear anything coherent in the shouting), and Carville's still "right" that Novak has something to prove.

Sock Carville in the Face (for obvious reasons, this is a bad idea, not least of which is that Carville can probably take him)

Walk away.

Note that in none of these options does Novak actually get to make his point. In all of them, he is belittled by Carville. So yes, it was BS, and it's natural for someone to react with anger when confronted with such choices (especially if they were not expecting to hit a dead end like that on national TV). Not that Novak's outburst helped anything any.

Or was Novak just looking for an excuse to book?

Update 8/5 9:45pm: I should add that, like Glenn Reynolds, I was never a fan of Novak, and that I think his outburst was really stupid and juvenile. Also, there is a difference between walking off the set as a guest who is being insulted and as one of the hosts. Sometimes you should just suck it up and accept an insult (especially if you may have (in)advertently exposed a CIA operative's identity... in that case, a bit of humility might be in order)

Childhood Immunity

2005-08-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

My generation, along with my parents', grew up bombarded by advertisements. This did not damage us in any way--in fact, it made us more savvy consumers.

So I wonder what the next generation of kids is going to be like, given what they're exposed to: Political Correctness 24/7 on all of their TV shows.

I caught a snippet of the PBS show Arthur the other day. One kid was telling another how he hoped he didn't have to give his presentation last, because that's the hardest. Everyone knows the first is the hardest. Sure, there are reasons to go first--ego reasons, or because the teacher takes into account the difficulty and grades it more easily--but that doesn't make it any less hard. And of course that's not the only example of the heavy-handed political correctness from that show and others like it.

And kids know this. They're not stupid. They're going to know that their TV is lying to them sometimes in order to encourage them to be more politically correct, civic-minded, anti-racist, anti-sexist, academic-oriented, team players, etc. Not that those are bad things. I'm just worried the kids will build up immunity to those ideas.

Are they going to get the idea that all of the do-gooder messages they get from the TV (and society in general) are inherently suspect? And would that be a bad thing?

Why this Matters

2005-08-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

John Bolton is going to hurt America's image at the U.N., by offending all of these people:

Kofi Annan will be fuming mad, as soon as he gets done counting his money (which could take a while, because while no one is sure just how much he made off with, we are sure there is a lot of it).

Russia and China will be offended that Bush decided to cheapen the U.N. by making a naked power move in our national interest, instead of doing what's right for the world.

France will find a way to slight us in revenge for this, but we won't know it at the time, because they will disguise it as a slight for something else. And we will feel very slighted. France will continue to gun down unarmed protesters as France is wont to do.

The members of the Commission on Human Rights will be very offended, as soon as they stop committing human rights abuses against people in their own countries, and funding terrorism abroad.

The U.N. peacekeepers will have to take a break from raping children and from taking a break defending safe zones to contemplate how Bush has insulted them.

The U.N. General Assembly will be offended as soon as it gets done issuing a new condemnation of Israel.

Won't Be Missed

2005-08-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is dead.

Standby to recieve wisdom from LittleGreenFootballs: I'll bet Charles Johnson will remind us all why the dead guy Fahd won't be missed and his son Abdullah won't be an improvement.

Defining Draconian Down

2005-08-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

Pedantic Word Excercise #2

The S.F. Chron. shows poor judgment when it includes this in a straight news article:

But the rush to Israel has many Muslim groups concerned that U.S. law enforcement agents will begin using draconian measures, including religious and ethnic profiling.

Draconian is defined by Dictionary.com to mean:

Exceedingly harsh; very severe

Ethnic profiling might not be pleasant, but how is it "exceedingly harsh" or "very severe"? Using perjorative words like that to describe American and Israeli law enforcement measures is fine--on the editorial page. Not in the news pages. It would be nice if the Chron would separate the two.

From Thesaurus.com, here is the complete list of synonyms for "Draconian":

acrimonious
acute
authoritarian
austere
binding
brick wall
callous
compelling
confining
convincing
cruel
dead set
demanding
disciplinary
dour
drastic
drawing
exacting
extreme
firm
forbidding
forceful
grim
hard
hard-boiled
hard-nosed
harsh
in line
intemperate
intense
iron-fisted
keen
merciless
no-nonsense
oppressive
persnickety
picky
pitiless
poignant
powerful
prudish
punctilious
puritanical
rigid
rigorous
rough
ruthless
savage
scrupulous
set
severe
sharp
square
stern
stickler
stiff
staight
strait-laced
strict
stringent
stuffy
tight
tough
tyrannical
unfeeling
unkind
unmerciful
unpermissive
unsparing
uptight
valid

That's what I mean by "perjorative." The word has intensely negative connotations.

Build-to-Order Computer: Insane Components Prices

2005-07-29T20:26:00.001-07:00

Why would it cost $750 to upgrade your laptop from 256MB of DDR RAM to 2GB of DDR RAM, when 2x1GB laptop DDR modules will only set you back less than $230 from NewEgg? Why does IBM charge $320 for a single 1GB DDR module, when a similar one can be had at NewEgg for just $115? Those are some of the most egregious examples I've found, but all manufacturers I've looked at have done that.

Mind you, this upgrade can be installed in minutes using over the counter parts. You don't have to be a high priest of computerology to pull this off. For the other laptop manufacturers, why persist in overcharging for simple memory upgrades? I can do it myself (and most everyone who buys a laptop and wants high memory
does exactly that, and posts it on their blog). And it's not just memory, this overcharging applies to pretty much any sort of over the counter part.

I also know that before the sale takes place is often when a company is most pleasant to the buyer. Why should I expect quality tech support from the laptop manufacturer if they're trying to screw me during the buying process? They're not even going to wait until the laptop breaks and
the customer needs them?

Why? Because they figure most people who buy laptops don't want to open them up and fiddle with them? They're taking advantage of their position as mailing out a closed case that buyers won't want to open?

Is there some other conceivable reason? It looks to me like they just hate their customers.

Are there any manufacturers who don't do this? I'd rather buy from one of those.

Video Game Tool for the Blind

2005-07-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

Quite a few blogs have linked to the blind gaming wizard story (via jkOnTheRun), which leads me to ask the question, how can existing games be made more accessible to the blind and visually impaired?

The obvious answer is to include audio cues. For a 2D fighting game like Street Fighter, this would probably mean some sort of buzzing noise that would change based on the distance between the two fighters. For a 3D fighting game like the new version of Mortal Kombat, the sound might change differently based on the direction of the enemy and such--although this would probably best be sent only to one player, rather than to both (so each player could get their directional cues separately if both were blind).

So I came up with a tentative solution:

It should come in three separate parts:

1) the actual device that would be used by the blind player. This could be a pair of headphones worn near the ears that would provide an extra buzzing noise to send information to the player, while the player still hears all of the normal game audio, or it could be a vibrating arm bracelet, or pretty much anything else.

2) The middle layer would be the same regardless of what game was being played or what output device was being used. It would constantly be receiving very simple input from the game (probably just a short list of integers and/or floats) and passing it along to whatever device software is chosen by the user. For a game like Street Fighter, there might be only 1 variable worth sending, namely the X-distance to the other player. There are already audio cues for things like jumping and firing projectiles ("ha-dou-ken!").

3) the video game would send that simple output to the middle program. The video game would never have to communicate directly with a special device, only implement a very simple interface to send info to the middle program (with separate info for each player if it is a multiplayer game). This means support for blind/visually-impaired players could be added as an afterthought to new and existing games--and would probably be very easy to add to old games like Street Fighter. (would the relative simplicity of Street Fighter, as compared to 3D games, make it easier for blind people to play?)

What do you think? Somewhere out there, there's probably a patent for this that's gathering dust...

Blast-to-Kill

2005-07-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

Pedantic Word Exercise #1

Normblog discusses the latest from Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (via Glenn Reynolds).

In it, Alibhai-Brown uses what is to my ears a very strange term: she calls the British anti-suicide bomber shoot-to-kill policy "this blast-to-kill policy."

On Google: the phrase "blast to kill" appears quite a bit, but it's usually in the form of "use a laser blast to kill the video game boss on level 3." Blast-to-kill is used in the rapper C-Bo's song "spray yourself" (explicit lyrics), but that's the only mention of the term I could find to mean gunshot blasts.

In my mind, I associate "blast" more with explosive devices than with gunshots. "Gun blast" on Google generally refers to the flame/noise produced at the end of the gun's barrel, not to the bullet itself. It makes sense to separate the gunshot blast from the bullet itself (referring to them as separate things) because they can be separated: use of a suppressor can greatly reduce the muzzle blast at the end of the barrel while still firing a shot, and one can create a gun "blast" without actually launching a bullet by using blanks.

It does not make sense to disassociate the actual damage done by the bomb from the bomb blast, because the blast is what creates much of the damage --and the rest of the damage is caused by the shrapnel, which travels with the blast, whereas a bullet is launched by the blast but does not travel with it.

What I'm getting at with all this is, did Alibhai-Brown consciously choose the term "blast" in order to imply some sort of equivalence between the bomb blasts and the police gunshots?

Failure of the Imagination

2005-07-29T00:24:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's S.F. Chron. Letters to the Editor, there is a particularly bad entry:

The other thing that struck me was the failure of the Israeli to see beyond the violence to try to understand what caused it. His solution was the separation barrier, which simply enrages the Palestinians even more: the barrier is being mostly built on Palestinian land, separating Palestinians from each other and their sources of livelihood. The Israelis are truncating their territorial ambitions, but the Palestinians are expected to simply give in.

The obvious: it is perverse to blame the barrier for the bomb attacks that it actually thwarts. There were bomb attacks before the barrier and there will continue to be bomb attacks with the barrier in place--but they will be fewer in number. Would there really be fewer bomb attempts if the fence was entirely inside the green line as opposed to cutting into Palestinian territory in certain places? Would the Palestinians accept that fence, and stop trying to blow up Israel? If that were the case, why would Israel have needed to build the fence in the first place?

Less obvious: Does the anti-Israel crowd really care about whether Palestinians are free to enter into Israel to work for Israeli companies, supporting the Israeli economy? If they think Israel is such an evil, capitalist, colonialist enterprise, why are they so eager to have Palestinians work there?

Less obvious: What's really offensive about this (and the only reason I decided to blog it) is the idea that the Israelis have failed to comprehend the Palestinian viewpoint. The main newspaper in Israel is Ha'aretz, which is to the left of the S.F. Chron. Every day Israelis have been exposed to the left-wing viewpoint. Why do you think they went through with the Oslo Accords, and then gave the Road Map a chance?

The only failure of imagination here is of peaceniks who can't comprehend that the Israelis have given peace a chance and that the Palestinians are indoctrinating children from a young age to believe the most horrible lies.

Welcome to the Dherb-Log

2005-07-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Dherb-Log. I'm new here myself.

Purpose:

I'm not quite sure yet. I don't have the experience, knowledge, expertise, or insight to do what Glenn Reynolds or Tom Maguire or Powerline or Beldar (get well) do, so I won't try.

But maybe I will notice a few interesting things and add something to the conversation. I will try to keep it short and not waste anyone's time by saying obvious things or beating up easy targets or starting flame wars with other blogs just to get noticed.