Number 2 - comments(2)
Tuesday November 22, 2005 - 1:40AM EDT
For the second day/night in a row I can focus and... fuck just read the previous post.
For the second day/night in a row I can focus and... fuck just read the previous post.
days, nights where I can't focus on anything and I dart back and forth between extreme frustration, hopelessness, euphoria and confusion. Been reading a book about human intelligence. Taking notes at the same time. After I finish it I am going to read more abot the brain, particularly the neocortex. Also I need to learn about how the ear works. Then I need to learn how current methods of electronic sound processining works. Also need to learn about sound itself.
I can't focus, I can't sleep. I can do nothing constructive. I hate this shit.
After reading an article on Vitamin C and thinking about my 9th biology class I began to think about diet. More specifically I think about all the various claims about certain aspects of food having this or that benefit or detriment. Such claims outside the context of being knowledgable of how the human body works can be misleading. Particularly disturbing is the disconnect between mainstram dieting and detailed human biochemisty. Ther are a lot of various diets out there all part of fads that do certain things. I don't want to discount these diets but I want them to be enhanched with knowledge of the underlying mechanisms that they operate on. The general public that has little knowledge of the detailed inner workings of the human body and are presented with these diets are bound to come to incorrect conclusions about the diets and themselves. The lack of understanding or drive to understand the underlying science behind some things is really disappointing.
I hear this talk of a boycott of Aruba because of the way the Aruban government handled the Natalee Holloway dissappearance. Is it me or is that the stupidest idea you've ever heard of. I'll let the mother off the hook for supporting it. But anyone else with any sense should she how much sense it makes. The fact that they are boycotting because of how a few law officers handled a single case is retarded. I don't see how a boycott, even indirectly does anything for this case or future cases. Besides take money away from the economy and makes things worse. Other than those directly involved how does anyone else know if they really "bungled" things. We got more information on the OJ case than this one. It just seems a little extreme for such a small and regular occurance. Things like this happen all the time.
This movie doesn't get 5 stars for one simple reason. It should have been two movies. Screw it, I give it 5. That was supposesedly one of the options in making this movie. They went with one. Harry Potter movies are awesome and this was no exception. This movie was a far deeper character study than gripping plot. Although the plot was great too. Problem was that there were so many characters and not enough time in the movie to explore them all in enough depth. Awesome special effects and great action. Been waiting for another Potter movie for a while now. 4 straight great movies in a franchise. That is impressive. The quality of each movie has never dropped off. Prisoner of Azkaban is still the best movie in the series I think but all of them were very good. Now that I have seen this one I can't wait for the next which is slated for 2007. They keep saying that they will have to recast everyone for the last two movies. I don't think they will. The actors may be a few years older but they can play kids who are a few years younger. I think keeping the entire cast for all 7 movies would be best for maintaining continuity. If not, ah well. Good thing about Potter movies is that you don't have to read the books or be a fan to like them. They are solid movies in their own right. I've never read the books though. Go see this movie.
Trotter is saying that he would like to have TO back. And a whole lot of other players are saying the same thing. Damn skippy. Now there is mutiny in the locker-room. Wohoo! I want more. This season is in the shitter already let's at least keep it interesting.
I'm waiting for the return of TO to the eagles to partner with Mike McMahon to lead the eagles to superbowl victory. Ha, yeah right. I'm dreading the Broncos picking up TO and the marching to superbowl victory with the game breaking receiver they need. Fucking eagles, ruining my year with their salary cap arrogance. How in the hell do you justify not paying the top receiver in football top receiver money. That is crazy. The eagles have never spent money on wide receivers. TO put his career on the line and he was called selfish. He wanted to play and help the team and he was villified for it. That is disgusting.
This whole suspended for the year thing is weird. I'd want to know how many healthy players who were starters for their team were suspended for the year. Essentially the eagles are taking advantage of a loophole in the 4 game suspension rule the union worked out. They call it deactivation which is within the bounds of the rules. But what team has done that to a player that has tried to overturn it. I don't think it has been done. Regardless of the disturbances, how in the hell do you skirt the 4 game penalty with this deactivation nonsense. It such a sinister bueracratic trick. I hope the arbitrator sees it for what it is and not what these crazy legal analysts are saying. If you don't want someone on the team you cut him. I don't get why they wouldn't cut him. It makes no sense except for the fact that they feel like they need to punish him beyond the 4 games allowed by a team. They may also feel that him going to another team damages they're own competitive chances. I just think the NFLPA can't let an organization get away with railroading a player like this. The proponents of the eagles decision will argue that it is all acceptable within the rules set forth. The crux of that arguement is that the 4 game rule is soley tied to monetary compensation. It is meant to prevent teams from damaging a players monetary compensation too much. That is all you can hope for legally. But the essense of the rule is much more than monetary compensation. It is to prevent a single team from inflicting overbearing punishment to a single player without the league getting involved. The essence I think is more like a player has to do something extraordinarly terrible to warrant massive punishment and that is something the league needs to be involved in. That a player did something so utterly horrible that the league cannot deal with is preposterous. This is a case of eagles orginzation and their own massive egos comming into conflict with TO. It is a bitter hurt feelings spat and has nothing to do with following rules. Eagles are just using loopholes to skirt the essence of league rules. I think you can argue essence in this case because there is no precendent set for the kind of game the eagles are playing. Allowing to eagles to get away with this would set a bad standard. It would mean any team could simply deactivate a player who they didn't like for whatever reason (the catch all is conduct detrimental to the team). The standard in the NFL has been for teams to cut players they don't want or who offend the organization. That is where I get confused. Besides all the rules and whatnot. Why do they hold a player that they have voiced their displeasure with? I'd maybe speculate that they want him back or they want to punish him more than they are allowed. It has to be one of the two.
I wonder how much there is in lost federal income tax revenue from the destruction of New Orleans and other areas. Does it dwarf the amount spent on cleanup or even the amount that could have been spent to upgrade the levee system? I continue to lament the lack of vision when it comes to the interconnection of human society. Everything is issue focused. There is a council of this or an organization for that. The unifing vision should be the job of world leaders. I've yet to see a world leader take action or even open discourse on ideas that take into consideration as many global interconnections as possible. They'd probably laugh that person out of leadership for being some kind of dellusional dreamer. All of these so called problems the world has just seem so obviously simple to me sometimes. I'm baffled by the entrenched ideology that people have come to take as intelligent analysis. Once an ideaology rises it spawns hoards of followers who are under the impression they are reasoning to a better future when all they are doing is following rigid idea structures. The ideaology of intelligent analysis is what needs to rise because there is very little of that.
I guess it's a clue to the inner conflict of the human psyche.
I often think about the excess wealth that people have. I think about when and why did humans start to gather excess wealth. I think about the raving criticism of those who have excess wealth for whatever reason. Is it the boon that the world society has trumped it up to be. How many people work for the wealth itself? Is it a trap as miserable as being poor. Think about an struggling actor who likes acting and makes it big. Now he is getting a lot of money for doing movies. Did he specifically ask for this money or did he just want to act and this is what was there. Not everyone makes it big, only some. What does this person do? They want to act and because of their particular sitation they get a lot of money. Now they are forced to conform to the mold or be ridiculed. They can't possibly be themselves completely because they are held to a different standard due to their wealth. A ridiculous standard imposed on them by those without wealth. The cry is, having money equals don't complain. Having anything beyond the basic needs equals don't complain. But that is modern human life. No one lives just within basic needs. Unless you are still foraging in the jungle than you are living beyond basic needs. The condemnation of the rich is puzzling when I think about it. They get their money from the lower rungs. They don't neccessarily steal it (mayabe some). But the structure of society facilitates this heirachy. Furthermore only a few are born rich the majority rise from the lower rungs. That is the truly disturbing part. There is a psychological gap between this rich poor thing. One that really shouldn't be there because rich were previously the poor. Do they forget when they rise?
Economics has become a huge force in shaping human society. Today's economics are driven by money. Just seems like that we are unable to exorcise money from everything in our lives. I think about my own student loans as an example. Just paying for school. This may sound like a dumb question but it isn't. Why do I have to pay to go to the college of my choice? Talking about money is taboo for some reason. This is exactly what needs to be examined but we have removed it from everyday discourse. All you are allowed to talk about is general terms of not having any or having too much. Seems to me that economics has grown from simple trading of goods to the monetary transactions of today. The system needs to grow more. We are moving from physical representations of money to simple electronics records. Some like to extrapolate that into the peverse future soceity in which individuals are governed and tracked by credit accounts. Your whole life becomes spending and consumption to maintain the system of electronic records. I guess some would say that is already the case.
I'd argue that most that attain great monetary wealth aren't exactly reaching for that goal. It is simply the intrisic structure of society that brings them there.
The advancement of technology is eliminating the mundane tasks that humans had to do before which should leave us to do more creative things. We shouldn't have to worry about things like finding shelter or getting sick. But we still do. I think about the rampant inefficiences in companies. Just think of the type of society we lived in if they were corrected.
I just read a BBC news story by Jo Twist. A so-called technology reporter. I've never seen such gross technical errors and misstatement of facts about the internet in my life. This clown clearly has not a single clue about the inner workings of the internet because he writes that ICANN manages how email and web browsers direct traffic. This is the kind of shipshod reporting that leads people to distorted views. How in the FUCK DID THEY LET THIS STORY GET PAST REVIEW! You can barely trust anybody writing mainstream technology articles. There are probably only a handful of competent tech reporters out there. The only other people who could properly explain technical issues aren't writing articles but fixing technical issues. I am disgusted daily at the sewage that reporters spew. Its awful. Another issue is that when there are competent tech people some of them are so biased to a single technology that they skew the facts of the situation so terribly that you get a false picture of things. There is a lot of that shit going on.
There are a lot of proud fuckers patting themselves on the back for coming up with the sub $100 laptop for poor people. That is a goddam shame. They are going in the wrong direction and are lauding themselves for it. Has any fighting for equality just given up and made concessions to lower standards. I can't believe these fools are touting this as some kind of boon or step in the right direction. All it does is reinforce the rigid class breaks that affect innovation in modern society.
GM is in debt a quarter trillion dollars. That is govermental type debt. And they are assuring people they won't file for bankruptcy. The actual debt number really doesn't mean as much as it sounds. Because I don't understand the economics of their situation not all of that debt could be bad. They do run a very large loan agency anyway. No they are issuing earnings restatements for previous years in which cooking the books was panache and of course they lose billions every month.
I also keep hearing about this internet governance rigamarole. How in the hell did a bunch of moronic diplomats get their hands on a technical matter they have no business probing. I wonder what the real techies think in other countries like China and Iran of ceeding some "control" of the internet to them. They are probably shitting their pants at the prospect of someone fucking with the internet for political reasons. The funny part about all these commentators on the subject is that they have no clue. They go straight to things like "governance" and jump into the fray with political polemicy. No one governs the internet. That is a ludicrous statement. Here is what internet governance is. A few well placed severs around the world that have a list of names matched to numbers. That is it. That is all ICANN does keep those names and numbers matched up, nothing else. This hubbub over domain names is assinine. It is a political power play and nothing more. Some losers will argue over imagined technical issues but fail to realize that ICANN really doesn't "control" or "govern" the internet. I can't stand some commentators ridiculous arguments. They are so contrived. They give reasons based on priciple and other ephemeral arguements that have no place in a technical arguement. I don't know how these losers got it into their head that the US has control. The US has control over nothing except a list of names. A list of names that anyone on the planet can modify in less than 10 minutes. This thought that the US mantains ultimate control of the Internet is a psycotic dellusion. These asswipes should be talking about how China censors the hell out of the internet, that is control. They seem to miss the whole point of the internet and its functionality. All these commentators like to use reasoning like the "internet is a global resource" and it is so important to "global commerce". I read some loser's analogy about the US demanding all financial transactions be made in dollars to be akin to US internet "control". US has never controled functionality on the internet and that is what global commerce is about. Not domain names. I don't think they realize that the US government probably couldn't control the internet in the way these pundits have in their heads if they wanted to. I want these commentators to define what US control is of the internet and what affect it has on global commerce. They couldn't because the US has no "control" of the internet that effects global commerce. Then these guys completely ignore the fact the government is spending more money creating a faster version of the internet for the world to use. All this control nonsense is in their heads.
The whole season so far has been about how TO has disrupted the team. What a load of malarky in the first place. The rampant media coverage disrupted the team. All that talk about TO takes away from the fact that McNabb although posting impressive numbers has played like complete garbage when it counts all season. Because of TO he is getting a free pass on his crappy play. He is playing crappy because he is injured I will give him that. He probably should sit for the season and just have the surgery now.
So the most recent rumblings in the White House is that they didn't mislead people in the run up to the war. Furthermore there are people in government who support this mad reasoning. What in the hell constitutes misleading then? This shit is just freaky. How in the hell do they continue to lie to themselves and everyone else. Where are the emperor's clothes.
Well those Dover design trashbags got outsted. All 8 memebers up for election got canned in favor of people with some sense. When the media would interview people from Dover they always showed both sides equally. Showing that there were people who supported the intelligent design statements as well as those who didn't. They sort of portrayed the town as a split set of country bumpkins. Well that they hell happened to that. Maybe the media was just skewing the story and more people than not wanted that intelligent design bullplop out of the classroom. Then that loony toon Pat Robertson runs his mouth again. Never watched 700 club but was this man always this crazy.
TO coverage completely obliterated any mention of the attempted murder charges on Urbina. I've only seen one story on Urbina that he is in jail now awaiting trial and that is it. TO even got mention on national nightly news shows over Urbina. In which Brian Williams read a commentary thoroughly bashing TO. I'd have to read Venezuelan newspapers to find anything about Urbina now.
I went to Taco Bell for lunch. Got two soft tacos and a cup of water for $1.89. As I was standing in line I was looking into the kitchen. It was so grimy and dirty. The employess seemed so unspirited and they just kept doing the same things over and over again. I thought, what a horrible job, who wants to do that? At this point two things run through my head. One is that I think some would probably say or think that you should be thankful for the cushy office job you have and that you don't have to do that. The other thing was why in the hell do humans have to continue doing such crappy work. Where are the fucking robots?
San Fran voted to ban the possesion and sale of handguns and ammo in the city. Nice job. Now here comes the NRA on its stallion to restore rights to people who don't want them. What the fuck is it with the NRA chapioning guns rights in every situation there is. I wish someone championed voting rights as much as they did gun rights. The people voted by a 57.9 margin.
Eagles are becoming devious in their dealing with the TO situation. They want it both ways. They don't want him to play for the team but they also don't want him to play anywhere else. That is fucked up. If you don't want him, cut him, release him, whatever. Don't stop him from playing anywhere else. I hope the players union wins their battle to get him to at least have the option to play somwhere else this year. The eagles are really trying to fuck him over. TO not on the field is not good for the league. He is not the sole reason that they suck this year. An arbitrator is going to rule on the situation. TO messed up big time but the eagles are trying to get away with nonsense. They put themselves in this place. They have two choices. Cut him or let him come to the facility and raise a ruckus. They can suspend him for maximum 4 games. However after that since he is still technically part of the team he would be allowed to practice with them and come to the facility. They don't have to play him but they can't kick him out of practice and the facility. There would have to be some kind of understanding where he doesn't come to the facility but they still pay him. Like with Keyshawn last year. Keyshawn agreed to stay away he didn't have to. I say eagles should just bite the fucking bullet and bring him back. Ignore whatever the fuck he says and just use him on the field where he gives 100%. People talk about this being professional sports and players having to submit to the team concept. Well why does the organization get to act like a baby and want to feel bad when they get their feelings hurt. What about all the other players on the team who get pissed because someone said something naughty. No one calls them whiners. When a player is that good you learn to deal with it and reap the benefits. I just don't understand how this man attracts so much attention. As if good teams didn't have their whiners.
I want to know who made the final decision. I am slow to attack Reid on the situation because I don't think this came down to him. I think he was probably one of the few willing to work it out. Lurie seems like a hands of guy willing to let his staff deal with things so I don't think he was instrumental. I just can't fathom benching a player for something he said and a locker room fight. Are the eagles that shallow. Ok suspend him one game for the fight that is acceptable maybe 2. But it is not like baseball or basketball there aren't that many football games in a season. Worse things had to have been said by a player and not face as harsh consequences he had.
I don't get the feeling that the whole team is against him either. Westbrook comments are one indication and no one on the team has come out to lambast him as much as certain media members. There is hurt feelings, but what the fuck man, we are trying to win a superbowl. Who in that orginzation made this decision to get rid of TO and then try to keep him from playing anywhere. I was listening to Dan Patrick on espn radio yesterday and he was strong in his indicment of TO but didn't leave the eagles completely off the hook. He still sounding like he was buying into the hype that TO was some kind of monsterous person. I can live with someone agreeing that TO should go. But I can't live with someone not calling out the eagles for trying to prevent him to play somewhere else.
You know what I love about this is that they keep writing that Owens said eagles would be better off with favre as quarterback. However they never write it with quotation marks because he never actually said those exact words. He was asked that question and in his round about way said yes he agreed. He didn't hold some press conference or some radio show were he declared without prodding that the eagles would be better with Favre. I like how Westbrook said get some things ironed out with the organization when talking about TO. He was declaring that he had no problem with him. We get this feeling that TO dismissals was a players influenced decision. Did the playes vote? Ha, who knows. TO needs to stop giving any and all interviews and say nothing to nobody. I also like how you read now about how Owens "forced" a trade. Yeah he forced a trade but the caveat to that was that he was supposed to be a free agent except his agent didn't file paperwork on time. To keep saying he "forced" a trade to insinuate a history of obnouxious behavior is ludicrous. His agent fucked up and the 49ers tried to take advantage. So don't categorize his "forced" trade as something else. I wonder how good he could be if someone just let him be.
I read this one clown calling TO direspectful to the game. Fuck that shit. You better call Bill Romonoski disrespectful to the game before you lambast TO. I don't know how that fucker got off so easily. Admitted steriod user during his career and he ended the career of another player with a punch to the face. Chris Carter was the only player I saw go off on Bill Romonowski and said he was a jerk and hated playing against him because he was dirty.
I was just thinking how everything on the planet that people use can be recyled with today's technology. It really could. Lets take a look see. Organic waste easy. Electronics, already being done on a small scale but possible for all electronics, easy. Packaging, little more difficult, but there are biodegradable plastics out there and they could probably be feasably used in all the packaging we use, done. Clothing, little more difficult again but there are promising things on the biodegradable fibre front. New socks in coming out in Japan prove this. Just take a look around whereever you are at right now. I dare you to find someting that can't be recycled. Nothing should ever have to go in a landfill because there is no use for it. All paper, metal and plastics can be recycled. Unless you have plutonium laying around you can recylce everything you come into contact with. Even household chemicals can be neutralized and recycled. The mentality amoung humans is not of recycling. Which is funny because everything else on planet is built around that. This could be changed so fast. This is something that could begin to happen today. If I had a few billion lying around I'd buy BFI or one of those trash companies and turn it into a total recycling company. It could be done if anyone had any gumption. I look into my trash sometimes and think, holy shit how in the hell can all this not be recycled somehow. The whole concept of seperate recycling programs is damaging to my concept. You need one garbage collection program. And that program recycles everything.
I am particularly peeved by the lack of electronics recycling. How is it that every town in the country doesn't have a day to pickup and recycle electronics. There is no sane reason that all electronics are not recylced in america. Talk about job creation. We want to bring back manufacturing jobs so bad. Fuck that shit we have enough stuff coming in from China. Switch those manufacturing jobs into demanufacturing jobs until we invent robots that can do it.
TO's indiscretions has given McNabb golden boy status almost greater than that of Brett Favre. At least Favre has won a Superbowl. McNabb on the other hand likes to choke at every inopportune moment he gets. McNabb threw 3 picks in the superbowl. That shit doesn't win you games. The eagles live and die by how McNabb plays and he fucked up in the superbowl. He throws no picks we win by a comfortable margin. Tom Brady didn't throw any picks. I don't even want to talk about the NFC championship games that McNabb blew all by himself. Carolina, Tampa Bay. Even in St. Louis he threw a pick to end the game, although we weren't suppose to win that one. I give no credence to layman who want to criticize TO's so called 49 million contract as being rich enough. That is bullplop. Seems like people don't understand football economics. Drew Bledsoe didn't see that whole 100 million once the Patriots cut him. Randal Cunnningham got cut one year after an MVP season and signing a huge contract. The list goes on and on of players who signed big deals only to get cut after seeing a small fraction of what was in their contracts. TO's contract sucked. He is the best reciever in the league and the eagles were trying to get away with paying him like a chump. And now those fuckers got burned. I bleed green but somehow this year I'd like to see the eagles lose every single game left in the season. This is just the same shit in a long pattern of no comittment to winning. What is it with the eagles not spending on skill positions. This is going to become like the Randall years all over again. Awesome QB with no one to throw too. Reggie Brown better become a fucking superstar. Then when he demands a contract they will probably cut him too. Maybe not, I just think TO gets a bad rap over stupid things. Fucking Jamal Lewis goes to prison and his contract isn't affected one bit.
This new wind turbine is exciting. I think the whole world is moving towards clean renewable energy resoruces. Maybe in my lifetime all energy will be gotten from these kinds of places. It won't happen fast enough for me though. What if tomorrow all of our power came from renewable resources? Like wind, solar, ocean waves. Would energy price plumet so much that we could do other things. I'm remined of the book I read called Midas World. It was precisely about that. But what happened when energy become so abundant and cheap was disatrous. The world essentially consumed itself into oblivion until the planet was uninhabitable except by the robots people built. All humans lived in space.
Rampant consumption and consumerism has to be reeled in somewhat. The primary drive of humans needs to shift from getting stuff. That is what it is now. It is not good for the planet and humans. Maybe we could survive with that mentality but I argue that we would be better off not pursuing stuff. I think about the Google founders who are sort of known for eschewing extrvagance and material things. Funny part about that is that their entire business model is based on convincing people to buy stuff. So the money they get is from people wanting stuff. Is their effect on the other side balancing? I read a quote that it is something that they consider when they buy things. Its a tough nut to crack though. They still live in a support a society in which it can't possibly be equal. So what do they do? I don't know. They could give their entire fortunes to charity and it still wouldn't make a dent in the inequity manifested from the business structure. They are still organized like any other corporation although the atmophere internally is supposed to be markedly different. It is so tough for them because their business is so tightly linked to people buying stuff. Also their we can do it all attitude may not work out. I love their scanning books idea. Which created a bunch of hoopla with publihers. They were forced to scale it back. There seems to be a we can do it all attitude coming from Google though. I don't know what to think of that yet. They've come up with nothing really revolutionary. Their search engine is still the best product they have. But everything else they have so do other companies. I don't know where Google goes from here. There is talk of them getting into wireless internet access. However it sounds like they want to import their search engine pay per click model into that space. Again I'm ambivalent on them doing that. It reeks of what every other company does; wanting to shape everything they get into based on how they make money.
This makes me think about Bill Gates' charity efforts. It is an admirable personal mission but does his 40 billion spread out make a dent? I don't know. Seems like the method of change among charitable contribution is to pick an issue or set of issues and attack it with money. It is not the attacking with money that I'm criticizing here it is picking an issue. The narrow focus of charitable contribution may be diluting their effect. Habitat for hummanity is a prime example. Besides the fact that somehow people take trips to other countries to build a few houses how much does it help. Sure a few people get homes but so many more go without. It is a pathetic last ditch effort. Charity has never come close to equaling the amount of money spent by government on social programs. Yet there is so much emphasis on giving. I'd propose a smaller but broader approach to charity. None of this large issue tackling that spreads your contribution thinly for each individual. Take a neighborhood somewhere and buttress the in place government social programs to tackle all the issues at once. Turn a neighborhood into a self sustaining entity that can then increase your charitable power when you move to the next neighborhood. Hollywood and celebrities are a hot bed of charitable contribution. Every single LA neighborhood is not exactly a paradise. What if there was a concentrated effort over 10 years by all of Hollywood to pour money and resources into some of the worst LA neighboorhods. Screw all the personal charitable efforts by various people. What if everyone gave to Compton or Englewood to build it into a community of great stature. What if they poured billions in the schoool system and summer camp like programs for kids there. What if they poured billions into city beautification and increasing local business owenership. What if they poured billions into recyling and clean enegy sources. What if someone wanted to make Compton as beautiful as Malibu. These neighborhoods are bad because of neglect and that is the bottom line. People are broke and uneducated. I can't even imagine the massive improvments in a neighborhood with a well-funded school system. You could virtually eliminate gangs because you would give kids a decent place to go. What if all schools in Compton were air conditioned and had the best technology and teachers money could buy. I dare you tell me that wouldn't have an effect on crime rates greater than thing done up until now. I have little admiration or jubilation for any celebrity charitable cause or just charity in general.