AMBUSHED!

Fuck you

I woke up at 1am (CST) and started getting ready for our trip. Due to circumstances beyond my control, it was almost 7pm before our plane was in the air. I slept for about six or seven hours of the 9 hour plane ride. Upon landing, we began the process of figuring out the next leg of our journey. One of the men we were traveling with kindly offered to drive us there. We accepted and drove to an airport where my sister-in-law picked us up, at around 11:30am, 34 hours after our journey started.

We hung out with them, had lunch, the kids (mine and her four cousins) went to the park with my sister-in-law while I scoured the internet for bargain tickets for the next part of our journey and then we had supper. The kids finally went to bed and my brother-in-law and his wife and I sat up and talked. It was about 9:30 and I was starting to yawn and was moments from heading to bed when my sister-in-law leans forward and asks, “So, Ivana, I have to ask. How’re you with the Lord?”

What. The. Fuck.

I’ve been traveling for the last 44 hours, during which I’ve gotten six, maybe seven hours of sleep on a cargo plane, laying across seats, dealt with an airsick child, dealt with the heartbreak of turning around and landing where we started once before trying again, dealt with traveling “on the fly” and you are going to spring this on me now?

I answered as well as I could but I honestly can’t remember exactly what I said. Then they proceeded to attack me. I’m sure that they don’t see it that way but they asked me questions and when I said, “I don’t know” (because that’s nicer than “I don’t really give a fuck” and I didn’t want them to kick me out at 10 o’clock at night), said, “You have to have an answer.”

My husband is in the process of “talking” to his brother about these things and they grilled me about what he meant when he said this or that. His brother seemed to think that Sterling is purposely hiding things from him. They kept asking, “How do you explain your daughter’s imagination and her ability to communicate so clearly?”

I didn’t think of this at the time, because I was fucking exhausted, but now I think, “Because we worked our asses off for it, you idiot!” We put up with constant questions, long winded stories that we don’t interrupt, and regularly realizing that we don’t know the answers to very many things. We try really hard to answer every question that our daughter asks us, even when it’s inconvenient or awkward (Daddy, what’s sex?). She is the way she is because WE WORKED FOR IT! Not, as they implied, because of a god that made her that way. Their kids are freak-automatons with no imagination because their parents are unimaginative and so stuck in tradition that they wouldn’t know an imagination if it kicked them in their teeth.

I, in hindsight, am so incredibly pissed off. WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK THEY ARE?

We sat in on their “devotions,” which consisted of the mom asking a question, such as “Who made you?” The kids would then answer in, I kid you not, robotic voices, “God. Made. Me.” “Who made the world?” “God. Made. Everything. In. The. World.” and so on and so on. It was creepy as hell.

And then they have the audacity to suggest that my daughter’s imagination is the result of a god who wants his “children” to robotically recite “truths.” Fuck that.

Anyway, my lovely husband is in the process of telling his brother to take a flying leap and leave us alone. We will NOT be staying with them again. I don’t care if we have to fly across the world the other way, my daughter will not stay another night in the house of a man that thinks god gives imaginations but also thinks that the right way to raise kids is to have them recite rote memorizations. Duh.

The devil’s leaf

On the back of my cigar case is written “Tobacco Smoke Increases the risk of Lung Cancer and heart Disease, Even in Nonsmokers.”  However, this warning gives no indication of effective radius.  So…I can only assume that the mere existence of the smoke of this cigar is damning you all to cancerous rot.   Sorry.

Things a revolutionary change candidate would actually do.

1. Standardize the military requirements. No special rules for girls, special rules for boys, and special rules against gays.  One standard, for all.

2. Initiate a constitutional congress to rewrite the constitution.

3. Initiate a rewrite of the US Legal Code (all 5oK words) to actually have something to do with the new (or hell, the old) constitution.

4. Convert the US to the metric system.

5. Agree with Europe, China, and Africa…     on a universal 2nd language, probably Esperanto.

6. on a universal trade currency

7. on a universal data protocol for the exchange of information, including TV and video

8. on a universal housing standard for the various regions

9. a universal standard for sundry items like dimensional lumber, electric connections, etc.

10. convert the US to 50 hz power like the rest of the world.

11.  build a bridge over the Bering Strait

12. Help Russia convert to standard gauge rail.

13. Build an evacuated tube transport system on the eastern seaboard.

14.  Change school funding from local to federal.

15.  Reform the alphabet soup of various federal agencies.

This is 15 random things, I just thought of in about 5 minutes.

What Ann Coulter and Nancy Pelosi have in Common.

I’ve got to remind myself that reason doesn’t matter.  To me personally, it might, but every person has their own little kingdom in between their ears.  Just because its legal tender in my head, doesn’t mean it is for everyone.  I say it like a mantra to myself when I have to deal with bullshit: We aren’t a rational animal, we are a relational one.

To my knowledge, Carl Sagan never went out of his way to hug a person who was wearing rags and sitting in a puddle of their own shit.  Mother Theresa did.  Carl Sagan fought the social situations that created such misery, and Mother Theresa didn’t. Its quit possible that the lectures of Carl Sagan did more to solve the root problems then the hugs of Mother Theresa.

In a rational world, both would be heroes to many. In this one, only one is, because few aspire to be like a scientist, and many aspire to be like a Saint. One is in a community of people we distrust, the other in a community that gives us warm fuzzies.   There’s no point in arguing with someone who thinks good vibes change the world, because in the end you are saying

“To agree with me is to join a community of snarky rationalists who spoil everyone’s fun, and also you must realize all of your heroes are liars and fools.”  People are relational.  They don’t see agreeing with your ideas, they see the community that agreeing with you puts them in.  On both sides of the spectrum, they see wealthy, famous, attractive, powerful, accomplished people agreeing with them, and tiny minority of cranky skeptics arguing.   The choice is clear: Fuck truth and belong the community you find aspirational.

Intel/Microsoft vs the OLPC XO

1. A man says “I can make a laptop for $100.”
2. Two of the most powerful corporations on earth start a massive thrust to (1.) make the laptop cost more (2.) saturate the market with their own equipment.

Huh? Why in the world would those things happen? There are so many people out there, some very famous, intelligent and well connected, spewing out total BS, that we even have special names for them: cranks, crackpots, mad scientists, even Scientologists.  Why should anyone care that some guy said he could make a laptop for a hundred bucks?

Secondly, why would said companies try to compete with a nonprofit agency? That makes no sense at all.  Hotels don’t lower their rates to “compete” with homeless shelters.   Grocery stores don’t lower their prices to “compete” with food pantries. Why would Intel/Microsoft try to compete with a nonprofit agency’s product?

Well for starters, Nicholas Negroponte is not “some guy”.  He’s a guy who knows what he is talking about.  If my buddy Jason (a bit of hacker) said he could make new laptops for $100 if he could make 1M units, there would be no reason to listen.  Jason might know about chips and software, but he can’t call the CEO of AMD and talk production numbers, Mr. Negroponte can.  While both Jenna Jameson and Nicholas Negroponte are famous people who say crazy things, Jenna Jameson is just making shit up, and Mr. Negroponte is telling the truth.  Hence, the pharmaceutical industry generally treats Jenna Jameson’s opinion with the apathetic contempt it riches deserves, and the computer industry largely takes Mr. Negroponte’s opinion very seriously.

So, why did Intel/Microsoft freak out?  Every corporation has one job: to make money for the owners this quarter.  That’s it. Everything else takes a back seat to that single minded focus, or should.  What possible interest could a for-profit company have in competing with a nonprofit agency?  Well, at first I thought companies are managed by people (mostly men, actually) and not robots, so there is a little issue, that ancient and famous feller of the powerful…hubris.  In theory, modern management techniques rule this out, but the fact is, hubris remains a problem. Companies compete in markets where they shouldn’t, hang onto losing assets too long, and don’t invest in good ideas which upper level people don’t relate to emotionally.  I think hubris plays a part in Microsoft’s actions.

I don’t think mismanagement (regardless of whatever cool greek word it is labeled as) alone tells the story, thought. It seems unlikely that Intel/Microsoft would successfully navigate a difficult, complicated business successfully for decades and then just drop the ball on this one, particular issue.  Let’s (reasonably) assume that the CEOs are good at their job.  Then we have to find a profit incentive for trying to kill the XO in infancy as well and further trying to saturate the market with their products at a very reduced profit margin.

I can come up with only one. OLPC is right, you really can make good laptop for $100, and Intel/Microsoft, who understand the costs of volume manufacture of computers better then anyone on earth, knew it.  Their seemingly non-profitable actions were to protect a trade secret: that they are selling overpriced crap.  Oh sure, it had been hinted at before.  I’ve been saying it for years, but there is a huge a difference between Stirling Rage beating his monitor until his knuckles bleed and screaming “DIE YOU PEICE OF SHIT, DIE!” versus the existence of a nice, $100 laptop.

Words are open to interpretation.  Existence is not.  The existence of a useful $100 laptop reveals the trade secret that most laptops are overpriced by 1000%.  Intel/Microsoft fought to protect a this profitable trade secret.  They did this till the cost exceeded the benefit.

Wintel and Negroponte, David 1, Goliath 0

When I was a little kid, I wanted to save the world. For some reason I could never turn my back on that dream. I actually wasted a lot of years oscillating between throwing away months of work establishing a normal life to try and save the world, and throwing away months of work trying to save the world to establish a normal life. It’s not a good way to live, and eventually, I joined the military because I knew that unless I faced jail time for not putting up with the same thing for 6 years, I was never going to do it.

It’s been good for me, driving from my little house in the suburbs to the place I work – like a real adult. During this time, I’ve also converted from a magical thinker to a realist. Realism has sort of shot down a lot of my dreams of changing the world, which I guess is good, but it’s also kind of depressing. Inside, when the tedium of what normal people relish gets to me, I’d entertain fantasies about saving the world. This tension of realism with a innate need to want to make the world better place has led me to serious think about the question “How does one man change the world?” It’s an especially challenging question for a rationalist, naturalistic, fellow.

Well, let me tell you. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4472654.ece Nicolas Negroponte is just one man. He had an idea: that if school children from Argentina to Zimbabwe could get on the internet, they would meet new people and perspectives that could make the world a better place.

He figured for these countries’ schools to be able to afford computers for their kids, the computer would have to be pretty special. It would need to be battery powered and portable, because the grids are pretty patchy in some places. That meant a laptop, but nothing available would work. The available laptops were, in his opinion, mispowered (rather than over or underpowered) because their electronic dazzling was mostly used up in running unnecessarily complicated, resource demanding software which added no real functionality to the user experience. It was his further opinion that they cost far more then necessary.

Mr. Negroponte’s opinion about computer technology is not be discounted. He ran MIT’s media lab, as well as simultaneous and various part time professorships at other schools, such as UC Berkley and Yale for 20 years. He is also a major investor in numerous (and profitable) computer related businesses. He ran the costs and figured with development and a run of million units, he could make a laptop which would sell for $100. So he began a nonprofit agency to develop, prototype, produce, and distribute $100 laptops. He had the kind of connections and history to be taken seriously.

The core issue was the CPU. The laptop needed a small, efficient CPU. Would Intel, the largest chip maker on earth be interested? Intel replied “Maybe…if you promise not to call it a laptop.” Rebuffed, he turned to Intel’s arch nemesis, AMD. AMD was more then happy to provide a chip they designed for embedded systems, which sipped a paltry 1.3 watts (by comparison, the iMac I am writing this on pulls around 20 watts). OLPC designed a fantastic and cheap screen as well as a very effective networking system in which every laptop in a room can network with each other directly, without an internet provider (wireless intranet) and if one single laptop picks up a wifi signal, it relays it to all others. Honestly, every laptop should have that. OLPC called it the XO.

So, what happened? Well, Intel developed the Atom processor. Rather then being an old design that was only small because new ones are bigger by comparison (Like the AMD Geode) the Atom was both small and highly advanced. Microsoft began sending letters to heads of state telling them what an underpowered piece of junk the XO was, and how their nation’s children would so much better off with the newly announced Microsoft/Intel Classmate.

Intel called press conferences to say the XO a meaningless gadget, and began to market the Classmate most heavily in the countries which the OLPC foundation had publicly announced as being highly interested in the XO. The XO, now totally unable to meet its minimum production of one million units, was unable to be sold for $100 and had to sell for $200. Even this was only possible because Microsoft agreed to aid the project on the condition that Windows (and not the specially developed open source software OLPC was working on) would be offered. *Writer’s note: see third comment.

So did Negroponte win or lose? It’s easy to say that he lost. The laptop is selling for twice what the plan was, and orders are down. But at the same time, let’s look at this another way. The informal arrangement between two heavyweights like Microsoft and Intel would make them formidable enough regardless of what they sold, but being they sell the tools to access information, Wintel is a dangerous juggernaut. In many ways, Negroponte didn’t create a particularly successful laptop. In fact, all he did was stand behind a podium and say publicly…

“I think a useful computer, new, could cost $100,” and then put in motion things to make it happen. Wintel was so truly terrified of people everywhere realizing that he was right, that they sold Windows to the poor for $4 a copy, developed the perfect chipset for his vision, and developed their own OPLC-type computer (the Classmate). The technology this created spawned not only another student laptop, but trickled into the consumer market and created a new market segment of $300 to $400 dollar tiny laptops. Many of these ran Limpus Lite (a Linux distro), introducing open source to new consumers who might have never heard of open source without it.

Wintel was so terrified that children might grow up thinking that “computer” meant something besides “Intel running Windows” that it changed the way it did business. Those changes will ultimately make computing affordable for more of the world and will decrease Wintel’s profit margin, which will make their monopoly harder for them to enforce. Even though it didn’t work out how he planned at all, the poor will compute and a major contribution to the dethroning of an evil king was made. Nicolas Negroponte changed the world.

All it took was one man, standing up and saying “I don’t think this the best way; let me show you another.” One man can make a difference.

Fundementalists have no imagination.

So, I found this cool thing on overpopulation. http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/density.html

I’m not a real “population bomb” advocate.  I think the earth will support far more people then most realize, at a far higher standard then most people realize.  At the same time, its common sense there is a optimal ratio of person/stuff and with too many people, everybody gets a smaller piece of the pie and quality of life goes down.

Overpopulation is something my dad is very passionate about so, and he’s mentioned the “Texas Theory” many times, so I thought he would be interested in the article.  I sent him the link, looking forward to hearing his logical attack on it, because other then being Bible toting fundy, ol’ dad’s actually a pretty sharp cookie…but unfortunately, his Fundysense started tingling and the only response I got back was BS.   He managed to miss the whole point of the article: it takes more land for you to have a good life then the square footage of your house.

This is because this modern life requires a lot of ancillary support.  To get through your day, you don’t just need your share of space to live, you also need share of the power plant, the steel mill, the lumber mill, the glass factory, the plastic factory, the sugar mill, the oil refinery, the coal mine, the hospital, the airport, the farms, the meat processing plant, the landfill, etc.   But Dad, and the other Fundies don’t see that, not because they are stupid.  Statistically, most are of average intelligence.  Because they have no imagination.

You would think that Fundies would just be oozing imagination.  I mean, they think the universe was sneezed into existence out of the nostrils of an old dude with crazy hair, his son who is mysteriously as old and eternal as he is, and a nebulous, genderless “Spirit”.    I mean that’s straight Tolkien.  You’d think people who believe that would be the most creative, zany, imaginative people on earth.  Instead, what I find is that fundies are the dullest, most unimaginative people on earth, and the more fundamental they are, the worse it is.

Take my own experience with Pentecostals.  To an rational naturalist, a health problem is brimming with mystery and intrigue. Your neck hurts? Why it could be a tumor, a sprained muscle, a sore lymph node, a bruise, whiplash!  Let’s imagine what it could be. Let’s think about how if it was one thing we could test our theory one way, and something else, then another!  To the radical pentacostal however its very simple. Neck hurts? Demons.  Tired? Demons. Lonely? Demons. Angry? Demons. Cancer? Demons. Fat? Demons. Bitchy? Demons.  Depressed? Demons. Horny? Demons.With really crazy fundamentalists, its even worse.  Agree I and my friends are absolutely right about absolutely everything, or alternately,  die.

The ‘Tiger Woods Story’ is a waste of pixels

So, let me understand this.

A man I have not met, nor am likely to ever meet, who is famous for doing something pointless which, I might add, I hate doing, whose is married to a woman I have not met, nor am likely to ever meet is having troubles I have not experienced nor am I likely to ever experience because he had an undefined relationship with a another woman I have not met, nor am likely to ever meet.

Forgive me if my give a shit is busted.

It seems feminist, but its not.

By Stirling.

I take this steaming pile of shit from Yahoo itself, http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/10-things-husbands-should-never-do-552285/

Men should never…

1. Offer to “babysit” your own kids. When your 16-year-old neighbor does it, it’s called babysitting. When a parent does it, it’s called child care, and it lasts for at least 18 years. Get it?

I can see this one, but it still bothers me. When I need childcare is so I can go do something unnecessary its baby sitting.  When Ivana needs to go the store and I stay home with the kid, thats childcare. When she wants to go out for cocktails with her friends, then I’m babysiting.  Same for me.  When she needs to stay home so I can go to work that’s child care.  When she needs to stay home so I can hit up the bar….that’s babysitting.

2. Imply that office work is harder than housework. At the end of a hard day, there may be smoke coming out of your ears, but let’s face it: You’ve basically been sitting on your butt. That same smoke is coming out of our ears too—but we’ve cleaned the house, shuttled the kids around, run errands all over town and lugged grocery bags besides. When we say we’re exhausted, we are exhausted.

“we’ve cleaned the house, shuttled the kids around, run errands all over town and lugged grocery bags besides”  My wife does all of those things. And she can afford to all of those things because I work full time.  One is not more important that the other. It’s impossible for the breadwinner (me) to go to work if these things aren’t done.  It’s impossible to do these things if the breadwinner doesn’t go to work.  Both jobs are equally important, it’s called PARTNERSHIP.

3. Give a home appliance as a gift. Forgive us if we can’t work it up for this one. A new washing machine? Really? Can we get you some new snow tires?

I have no problem with practical gift. I’m sorry for that author of this piece, that if something is useful its not loving.  Way to accept the corporate capitalist bullshit.

4. Buy us the “cougar” perfume. Under our crew-neck sweaters may beat the heart of an untamed vixen—but most of us don’t want to smell like one. (Nice try, though.)

I don’t even get this one.  WTF is “cougar” perfume.

5. Brag about your driving. This is supposed to let us know that ours isn’t so great. If my husband tells me one more time that he’s been “accident-free since 1978,” I’m going to reach over, grab the wheel and make the car swerve into something, just to shut him up.

So, wait, if I say something positive about myself, my only reason for doing it is “to let us know that ours isn’t so great”.  Grow up. The world does not revolve around you.

6. Be unimpressed by a meal that took a lot of time and trouble. I don’t know whose fault this is (Food Network? Julie and Julia?), but every so often we get the idea that it would be fun to make stock and spend the day basting. If the result is less than earth-shattering, say something nice anyway.

Ok, so wait, I can’t tell you how my job is harder, because yours is. If I say I am a good driver, its only to piss you off.  But, if I don’t lie about your cooking, you’re going to get mad?  Really? How self centered and insecure are you?

7. Buy clothes without trying them on. We know that the second you get into a department store you start to feel faint, but do us a favor and take the extra five minutes. Otherwise, you know who gets stuck with the returns?

Wait, so I have to buy clothes your way, because you are going to be the one stuck bringing them back? Again, I feel really sorry for the author of this who has this incredibly non-equatable marriage, with the inequality clearly going both ways.

8. Know it all, especially in public. Oh, honey. While you’re going on at length about whatever it is, we’re taking the temperature of the room, and we know everyone’s starting to fidget.

Wait, so now I have to pretend to be stupid? I have to pretend like I don’t know what I am talking about to protect the feelings of people who don’t?  Seriously what the hell is wrong with this woman?

9. Say anything remotely critical about our new haircut. Sometimes getting a new cut goes well; sometimes it doesn’t. Usually we know the difference. Don’t rub it in.

Yeah, cause why have honesty when you can have a man who is terrified of your emotions if he suggests anything less then perfection?  I say again, this author is the most insecure person I have ever met.

10. Expect a medal for doing a little housework. Umm…it’s your house too, right? For now, we’ll give you the bronze. Maybe someday, if you work hard enough, you can pick up a gold.

I can see this one, and yet…I make about 300 dollars a day.  If I come home and my wife has made an extra 300 dollars, I am going to freak the hell out.  In addition to everything she is already doing, she did “my” job of making money too.  That deserves some serious acclaim.
Alright, now the actual thoughts about this.  My wife and I have what many consider to be a traditional marriage.  I work full time outside the home 40 -60 hours a week.  She works inside the home pretty much constantly.  We both consider ourselves feminists.  Here’s why: because we have a partnership.  I am able to put the long hours I put in because of the hard work she does.  She is able to stay home and raise our daughter because of the income I make. It is an equitable partnership where each person gives for both what they are best at.  I don’t think what she does is “bitch work” I think because of stupid decisions on our part I have the capacity to make much more money then she does.  Therefore, I work outside, she works inside.

There are so many problems with the above article, let me look at specifically why this anti-feminist bullshit.  It paints woman as self-centered, insecure, materialistic, shrews who think that everything they do is more important then what men do, and every observation they have is more sensitive and caring the ones men have, and demand a constant stream of flattery.

And see, that’s not feminism.  Feminism isn’t about saying that woman are better then men. Its about saying women are equal.  The solution to a patriarchal society is not a matriarchal one. It’s partnership.  This paints woman as badly as it does men.  It’s this big long “humans suck” diatribe .  It reassures evil, pathetic women that they are perfectly OK, and jackass misogynist  men that woman are weak, insecure, and shallow.  Yahoo has these lies on their home page because 90% of the population eats this shit up with a spoon.   Dividing people up into little warring factions who all have to buy their own special products is the key to increasing market share.

Lord, Liar, or Lunatic

By Stirling

OMG. Some dumbass posted this on facebook. The old Lord, Liar, or Lunatic argument. “Well, Jesus had to be who he said he was, or he had to be a liar, or a crazy person.”   I could say the same thing about Harry Potter.  Either Harry Potter is who this book says he is, or he is intentionally lying because he is evil, or he is unintentionally lying because he’s mentally ill.

It only works if you assume the document is an accurate description of real events, you mindless fucking drones.