Saturday September 16, 2006 - 8:22AM EDT
Recently there has been a quite some concern over e. coli contaminated bagged spinach. Although some look upon it as being something worse than an actually is I think it does show something. We can see that food safety still needs work but we can also be kind of assured that the government took such quick widespread action to protect the people. Not only that but private companies heeded government suggestion. It is almost amazing in its only little way that within days of a recall most supermarkets removed all the product and investigators had narrowed it down to the farm it originated from. It almost seems like it was effecient. Obviously the dirty details of the story are not known to me but from what is known right now this whole thing couldn't have progressed any better. If they could somehow be this effecient in detecting and stopping terrorism those damn airport scares where everyone overreacts would be a figment of my imagination. I suppose something like food safety is probably of importance so tantamount that we, especially in the US, have come to expect ultra high standards without a second thought. I just couldn't help but think wow damn good job while the evening news was projecting this thing as some kind of terrible scare.
Thursday September 14, 2006 - 8:12PM EDT
This is a hilarious quote
The U.S. Justice Department's antitrust chief Thomas Barnett cited recent foreign proposals to impose restrictions on Apple's iTunes service as an example of strict regulation which could discourage innovation and hurt consumers. - full article
This clown has the nerve to use the words "discourage innovation". What he is refering to is countries trying to force Apple to remove their DRM crapola. Damn losers haven't got a fucking clue.
Tuesday September 5, 2006 - 4:38PM EDT
one of those issues I suppose. What I am referring to is global warming. I can't even remember when it came up again. The funny part is that it is not a new issue and this has been known for quite a while. There are probably and amalgam of reasons why it is so popular now. What is particularly annoying is how Al Gore suddenly became a champion of this recently. Yet during his 8 years and President Jr. he didn't speak nearly as loud as he is now about it. I am pretty such not much has changed. In the past 8 years global warming didn't suddenly become more provable or real to most scientests. Typcial reactionary behavior I suppose. I guess it is true that scientests have gathered more data but 8 years of data in something like global warming isn't going to push any reputable scientests too far in any direction. When Gore maybe had some real influence you heard very little about warming. But that is what happened to his evironmentalist speak when he became VP. All the pre-election talk didn't materialize into action and not even anymore talk. It was a littel weird. I don't know.
Tuesday September 5, 2006 - 4:26PM EDT
there was that saying about sticks and stones breaking shit and names never hurting. Then sometime in the not to distant past it changed to names do hurt. Well my point is that it was obvious that names hurt but the message was that you can and should rise above that. Then it changed to were it became almost acceptable as a cultural standard to allow words to invite serious action. It was never absolute anyway but the message of rising above the words of simpletons is something that I don't hear as much anymore.
On another note I lament the de-education of America. It is truly sad. I have almost no doubt that America's standing as tops in so many things will be not only lost but obliterated by the trend. Unless something weird happens.
Thursday August 31, 2006 - 12:43AM EDT
but this shit on ABC right now about the possibility of machines taking over is pissing me off. Holy fucking shit I am watching people who call themselves scientests tell me that more powerful computers mean more intelligent computers. What a fucking morons dream. Then ABC had the nerve to show IBM Deep Blue beating Kasparov as if it is some great milestone in artificial intelligence. Look people, chess is a game of this, probability and combinations. A computer is really good and playing with numbers, much better than any human. All you do to beat a human is simply calculate the probabilities of certain moves and take the one with the best chance. Couple that with reams of data of your human opponent's tendencies you can build another probability table to compare that against and you can beat virtually any fucking grandmaster there is more times than not. That is probability. Deep blue didn't learn a damn thing on its own. Its programers simply keep updating the probability table of Kasparovs tendencies. Computers don't forget or get psyched out so mind games aren't going to work.
These fucking bastards also had the nerve to use Stephen Hawking to somewhat support their crazy statements about machines taking over. All hawking said was "in principle" machines could be more intelligent than humans in 100 years. The key words there are "in principle" and "intelligent". We really can't definitively define intelligence. We can give characteristics of it but the question of what is real intelligence is the problem. Some fucking AI scientests think it is the ability to crunch numbers. Wrong. Human intelligence is probably closer to what Jeff Hawkin describes in his book On Intelligence. No computer comes even close to human intelligence. We can duplicate some characterestics of it but the combination of ability and more importantly learning that humans posses outstrip computers. Not to mention the whole self-awareness thing which we can't even figure out for ourselves let alone program a computer to be self-aware. Enough of this.
Wednesday August 30, 2006 - 12:02PM EDT
I was just readinng an article saying that gas prices will be heading lower because of a number a reason. One of them was an end to some federal regulations that make refining cheaper. I fucking hate that shit. I hate it because I wonder whether certain federal regulation costs were meant to be passed on to the consumer. It bullplop. With oil and refining companies making record profits there seems to be no reason to pass every little change in their balance sheets on to consumer prices. This is one thing that is disturbing about companies. While our federal government is houded for even thinking about taking more money away from the people through raises taxes to meet funding needs fucking companies do that shit all the time. Another example is a federal communications tax that was paid by the telcos which was essentially passed on to the consumer. When that tax was found to be uncounstitutional or something like that and was repealed telcos found it conviennient to raise fees on their services essentially equally what they collected for the tax. Now if that was a government tax that was repealed why didn't the consumer stop having to lose that money. Of course the telcos excuse is that it is a normal price raise. Bullshit. Unless you were making money from that tax (which you were not suppose to, then again with fancy accounting you probably could) there is no reason to raise cost as soon as it is gone. This weak-ass president we have now is a great supporter of these big businesses but he is lowering taxes. It is almost like the government is giving tax revenue to companies instead of reinvesting back in the people. Not quite, but it is not a good thing to have certain corporations that control resources that are essential needs to be making a ton of money becuase their interest is themselves and not the welfare of the populous. No matter how many of the fucking ethanol or "we are making green vehicle and alternative fuels for a better tomorrow" comercials you see. No corporation has ever proven that they are established for the betterment of the populous as a whole, none. Except for non-profits, which in some cases can be just as unscrupulous and detrimental.
Tuesday August 29, 2006 - 8:00PM EDT
I love how Jesse Jackson has become the man to get hostages. I just read a headline that he says the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah are alive. International hostage situations should always involve Jesse Jackson.
Monday August 28, 2006 - 2:32AM EDT
For some odd reason every once in a while I read werid articles about controversy over HPV vaccine. Why in the hell do some morons have problems with giving a cancer preventing vaccine to people merely because it even touches on the issue of sex. Besides if you think that you have no chance of getting HPV until you get married to have sex your an idiot. The second you have sex you are going to be at risk. Sure the risk will probably be lower with fewer partners but if people think they are immune to STD's because you only have sex with one person they have much to learn. That's it for my rant for now.
Wednesday August 23, 2006 - 3:16PM EDT
I am watching the history channel and it is going over Bible tech. Basically technology from the ancient Middle Eastern world. It makes me think. That area of the world which is generally known as the begining of advanced human civilization with Mesopotamia and the others that followed is one that contains so much information about mankind. Yet there is so much garbage going on there that we may never be able to study that history. It is just apalling to think of all the archeological sites yet to be uncovered or already destroyed because of the various crappy things men do.
Wednesday August 23, 2006 - 3:02PM EDT
I was just watching a thing on synesthesia and one guy made a comment that I never really thought about. He said bascially that what people with synesthesia have is extreme crosstalk between brain areas and that even people with synesthesia have some crosstalk. The reason I thought about that right now is because I was just drinking a blueberry apple juice and when I tasted it I thought this tastes awfully round. Then I thought about how everyone usually has some words that invoke some kind of visual image or other feeling.
Friday August 18, 2006 - 6:52PM EDT
This movie has everything, snakes included. Basically it is a setup for Samuel L. Jackson tough guy one liners. Thrown in with some gratiutous gore and every possible ridiculous situation you can think of with snakes. This is possibly the greatest collection of horror movie sight gags, take no bullshit one-liners and I can't believe they actually did that acts in one movie. In terms of plot the movie ranks up there with Delta Force, Rambo and just about every action flick made in the 80's or starring these action movie titans (Stallone, Arnold, VanDamme,Billy Blanks and Chuck Norris). You better believe there will be a sequel.
Thursday August 17, 2006 - 2:00AM EDT
I like watching those shows on medical conditions. Especially the rare ones or the ones without any cures yet.
Saturday August 5, 2006 - 10:14PM EDT
It is funny when you read a news story about a bunch of people getting together to come to a preliminary agreement to stop fighting and no one involved in the agreement are the people actually fighting.
Saturday August 5, 2006 - 6:13PM EDT
At first steroid use was associated with big bulky guys looking to gain strength and size in competition where that was the most important. Then roids became associated with any kind of athelete looking for an edge in virtually every single sport. But there are some sports that don't seem to be affected by it. The NBA is one example. What is different about the NBA that it doesn't have that problem? If cycling and track can be affected by roids then surely basketball. Maybe they do have a problem and it is not being caught? I don't know. There might be more of a drug problem in the league than roids. Which even saying that those who get caught with drugs are dealt with harshly. Hockkey is another sports where it doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. I think a little more so than the NBA but still it is weird how it doesn't affect some sports. Maybe I am looking at this wrong.
Saturday August 5, 2006 - 6:13PM EDT
At first steroid use was associated with big bulky guys looking to gain strength and size in competition where that was the most important. Then roids became associated with any kind of athelete looking for an edge in virtually every single sport. But there are some sports that don't seem to be affected by it. The NBA is one example. What is different about the NBA that it doesn't have that problem? If cycling and track can be affected by roids then surely basketball. Maybe they do have a problem and it is not being caught? I don't know. There might be more of a drug problem in the league than roids. Which even saying that those who get caught with drugs are dealt with harshly. Hockkey is another sports where it doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. I think a little more so than the NBA but still it is weird how it doesn't affect some sports. Maybe I am looking at this wrong.
Tuesday July 25, 2006 - 5:41PM EDT
I just saw the mayor of San Francisco (Gavin Newsom) on TV talk about their new Universal Healthcare plan for the city. The thing that I liked about the interveiw was that he seemed like a straight shooter. No games or tricks in his speech. He told it like it is. This is an experiment that is going to try and solve a huge problem. What I liked most was his emphasis on the point that although people like to harp on how much this is going to cost, the economic advantages of enacting such a plan will outweigh fiscal bellyaching in the begining. He wanted to emphasize that the system we have now is horrifically ineffecient and that this is an attempt to eliminate that ineffeciency and the waste that comes with it. That anyone harping on the cost right now are being shortsighted. We will see how this experiment works out. Hopefully it will and other cities around the country will follow the example, maybe even the national government. This goes back to that program I saw on healthcare where someone said that there is a solution there just needs to be someone willing to trying and figure it out. This is at least an attempt. Which is more than you can saw for the non-action of the federal government.
Tuesday July 25, 2006 - 2:45AM EDT
It has been hot recently. I am tired. Time for sleep.
Monday July 17, 2006 - 3:11PM EDT
A few things today. First off, it is so freaking pathetic that there are news stories with headlines that Bush used an expletive during casual dinner conversation with other world leaders. Everything focuses on the expletive. That shit is stupid. What should be focused on is his other words, which they only seem to give tidbits of which is even more annoying.
More middle east flare up. Damn shit, I wonder if the world would be a calmer place without all the senseless nonsense that goes on over there or would people just find another thing to act the fool over.
Damn it is really hot today. Have an ultimate game today. Hopefully it will have cooled down some by the time we start playing.
Thursday July 13, 2006 - 8:37PM EDT
I think about whether I will be alive if humans ever were to make contact with complex lifeforms from other planets. I feel like if it would happen it would maybe cause a paradigm shift in the small minded human thinking we know now. Probably not, idiots are idiots regardless.Thursday July 13, 2006 - 7:31PM EDT
The blog software was down due to a webserver move. I never got around to making the config changes until now. I have nothing to say.