strangecell

This bears repeating

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:01:56 GMT

From Andrew Sullivan, quoting Henry Fairlie at the rise of Reaganism back in the early 1980's. I wish I had been more aware of such thinking back then:

No democracy has fallen to communism, without an army; many democracies have fallen to fascism, from within.

A Beautiful Idea

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:53:42 GMT

I really will soon start posting lots more stuff on my recent technical projects, but I've got one more political thought that I want share, because it just occurred to me and seems so simple, obvious and good. In retrospect, I'm just real surprised it hasn't been put out there already. Maybe it has and I've missed it. Anyway, here it is: we simply need to impose a 99.XXX% tax rate on lobbying by for-profit corporations. That's it.

Deciding how many 9's are in the XXX part will require additional consideration, but the basic idea is to impose a large enough tax on lobbying by powerful for-profit corporate interests so that they are relegated to the back of the line (behind individual human beings) in the arena of political influence and representation.

Of course this idea will be rabidly discouraged by many rich and powerful corporations and individuals (and their boot-licking servants), so the way forward will be to inspire a populist movement to vote out all politicians who oppose this '99plus' campaign.

I will be working on this in the long term. Political rant off.

A Vimcremental Vimprovement

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:16:55 GMT

Warning: this post has a nerd-level of 1011

The lameness of vim puns is exceeded only by the vimcredibleness of vim. Today I will share my latest revimlation: more effective use of the vim command line.

Command-mode editing is of course one of the best things about vim. Compared to other editors, like as NetBeans for example (which I use frequently and is quite nice in its own way), command-mode editing in vim is just vastly more efficient. You simply can do more with fewer keys strokes, and do it faster and with less effort.

But for a long time there was one part of vim where I could not do command-mode editing: on Vim's own command-line! I could only use the cursor keys there, for history and moving around, but with long command-line strings like deep file names or complicated commands, I really missed being able to move around and change things the Vim-way.

Finally, today, I said to myself, there must be a way to do this, because all things are possible in vim. I'd already discovered some other wonderful command-line features like ctrl-k and ctrl-r, and figured there was some other ctrl-sequence to edit the command-line. Sure enough, there is, ctrl-f (which stands for control-F**k-yeah). To my surprise it opened up an entire new little window called the [Command Line] window. It was surprising because I'd actually run into this window plenty of times before, but accidentally.

On these previous occasions the unexpected appearance of this window had always induced great confusion and annoyance in me. This was because 1) I didn't know what the hell it was, and 2) I didn't know how to get rid of it. Consequently, every single time it appeared, I would engage in a flurry of keystrokes of ESC ESC ESC :clo ENTER CTRL-C CTRL-C Q CTRL-Q... etc., until the damn thing disappeared. For some reason it is just my nature to react in this way, rather than calmly try to figure out and learn about this strange new thing.

Now that I realize what the thing is, I love and worship it. I am dimly aware that this is probably a more general and important truth about people and the world, but right now I am having too much fun working on a class-based parser project to think about that.

"This Taibbi guy is on the right road..."

Sat, 09 May 2009 19:18:49 GMT

Matt Taibbi has a hilarious post about reason, religion and grumpy literary theorist Terry Eagleton, as discussed in a recent NY Times article by Stanley Fish.

I had read the Fish article already myself and came away with a quick impression that the arguments by Eagleton were rather windy and wayward. He basically asserts that because science is limited in its scope then the only alternative is traditional religious belief, which is rather daft.

But Taibbi just eviscerates the whole thing like the Samurai journalist he his. I first took note of him during the 2008 campaign in an article about Sarah Palin. More recently I saw his takedown of pathetic capitalist tool Michael Hiltzik.

This Taibbi guy looks like he has the makings of a real journalist, I will be keeping a closer eye on him.

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:00:46 GMT

Fuck Bipartisanship

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:38:14 GMT

The 246-183 roll call Friday by which the House passed a $787 billion economic stimulus bill.
A "yes" vote is a vote to pass the measure.
Voting yes were 246 Democrats and no Republicans.
Voting no were seven Democrats and 176 Republicans

Republicans are a fucking toxic plague on this nation. The sooner we can flush that vile shit out of our political system, the better.

The End of the War

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:54:45 GMT

Back a week or so ago, I read an interesting comment by someone (whom I forget, unfortunately) that in a symbolic and rather profound way, the election of Barack Obama might be considered the final closing chapter of the US Civil War.

That idea came back to me tonight as I looked at the final polls for Virginia:

I turn in tonight filled with great hope and optimism for our future.

Sarah Palin’s Scientific Judgement

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 05:49:19 GMT

From Sarah Palin's first policy speech:

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? [...] You've heard about some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

video here

Sarah Palin's judgement on scientific matters appears to be right up there with John McCain's judgement on the free market and government regulation. Except that she really outdoes McCain in tone as she tries to mock and ridicule government funding of such projects.

Her misunderstanding and ignorance are quite staggering on two points:

First, she obviously has no clue that fruit flies (Drosophila) are one of the main model organisms in developmental biology and genetics. Research on them has been massively beneficial in science and medicine.

Now one could argue that not knowing about the importance of fruit flies in scientific research is not too big a deal, as it supposes some degree of scientific education, which she obviously does not have. But the second part of her statement is much more disturbing - namely her snide little remark about the research taking place in Paris, France. Naturally, trying to use France for ridicule is a typical Republican tactic.

But her remarks clearly show that she simply doesn't comprehend or appreciate the degree to which science is an international effort, conducted across political boundaries. Collaboration and cooperation between scientists all over the world is a vital and necessary requirement for scientific progress. To disparage or diminish scientific research because it is done in France is truly disgusting. Some of the smartest and most talented people I have known in science are from France or have done research there. I have been to a number of conferences in RNA and computational biology, attended by brilliant pioneers and leaders in the field including people like Eric Westhof from France.

It's one thing to be largely ignorant about specific areas of scientific research (even if you go out of your way to make a point about them in your first policy speech). But to actively mock the international nature of scientific research reveals a kind of malignant small-mindedness that is utterly toxic to the welfare of our nation and the rest of the world.

There are a lot of disturbing things about Sarah Palin and what she represents, but this particular one really hit home with me.

Sarah Palin: Apologist for Terrorists

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:45:10 GMT

Brian Williams: Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist under this definition?

Sarah Palin: (Exasperated sigh.) There’s no question that Bill Ayers by his own admittance was one who thought to destroy our U.S. Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist. There is no question there. Now others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that it would be unacceptable to, I don’t know if you’re gonna use the word "terrorist" there.

Abortion clinic bombers are terrorists. Sarah Palin very clearly refused to acknowledge that.

She is utterly despicable.

A break from the politics already!

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:08:24 GMT

I just wrote a late post to Slashdot which probably won't get read or replied to, so I will reprise it here, just to update this blog without more manic raving about politics. Here is the Slashdot story that motivated my post - about the Drake Equation, one of my favorite subjects for scientific ranting and raving:

http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/10/20/1230207.shtml

Here is my response:

If the purpose of the Drake Equation is to stimulate conversation, I wish more people would pay attention to the middle factor, fl, because it's the most significant one. The reason is that the value of the middle factor is the biggest unknown, by far.

Here is why: each of the other factors, even those that are based on singular events like the origin of life, are conceptually more extrapolatable (if that is a word):

1) Rate of star creation - multiple events
2) Stars with planets - multiple
3) Number of Earth-like planets - inferred from just a few factors (size, distance, temp, composition, etc)
5) Fraction of life that is intelligent - extrapolate from multiple events (humans, chimps, dolphins, elephants, etc)
6) Fraction able and willing to communicate - this seems almost to follow naturally from 5)
7) Persist long enough for long transmissions through space - trickier, but not too hard to imagine emergence of mature, stable societies.

4) is the big unknown. Really big. TOTALLY unknown at this point. Because once you dig a little into the chemistry and molecular biology, you realize that currently we do not have ANY comprehensive, detailed hypotheses to estimate how non-living molecular systems made the transition to self-replicating living ones.

Note the emphasis is on comprehensive AND detailed, because there are many very interesting and detailed speculations on parts of the process, such as Wachtershauser's Iron-Sulfur theories, and Szostak's ideas about the emergence of RNA replicators.

However, the huge number of parts and complex interactions involved in creating the simplest living organisms places the estimation of probability of origin of life in a whole other category of difficult, compared to the other factors.

At this time, fl is TOTALLY unknown, and so any use of the Drake Equation for computing a final result is likewise totally unknown.

mhack

Sarah Palin, Pal of those who Hate America

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:19:24 GMT

In a video message, Sarah Palin said this in an address to the Alaskan Independence Party convention:

I'm Governor Sarah Palin and I am delighted to welcome you to the 2008 Alaskan Independence Party Convention in the golden heart city of Fairbanks. Your party plays an important role in our state's politics.

Here's what Joe Vogler, founder of that party said:

The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government...and I won't be buried under their damn flag...
I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions.

So, Sarah Palin likes to pal around with political parties founded by people who burn with hatred for our American institutions.

Sarah Palin, Friend of Animal Torture

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 07:27:05 GMT

I was reading this story about Sarah Palin today and couldn't help thinking about Sarah Palin as someone who would pal around with torturers of defenseless animals. Yeah, you betcha.

It's the judgement, stupid

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:25:28 GMT

That should be the new slogan of this election. For those Americans whose memories just can't quite extend back to McCain's hugely mistaken judgements about Iraq in 2003, consider this: we're talking about a guy who can't even make a correct judgement call two days in advance about whether or not he'll be attending his own presidential debate!

If this guy gets control of the US military, y'all better be ready for some extremely ugly new wars.

Half of Americans totally clueless

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:45:17 GMT

A huge core of the people in the US (I'm referring to Republicans of course) simply have no clue about the scale of the disaster they will bring about by electing John McCain. With all the failures of the previous 8 years, they remain in total denial about the simple fact that John McCain has been a long-time advocate of failed conservative policies, in both economics AND foreign affairs. For example, the following article from April 2008 is about one of McCain's main economic advisors, Phil Gramm (full article here):

"More to the point may be Gramm's aggressive efforts when he was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee to deregulate the banking and financial services industry. That culminated in passage in 1999 of a sweeping financial services law that tore down the Depression-era Glass-Steagall wall separating regulated commercial banks from largely unregulated investment banks. And little regulation was put in to replace it.

"We are here today to repeal Glass-Steagall, because we have learned that government is not the answer," Gramm declared at the time. "We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom."

To many liberal economists, Gramm's efforts set the stage for the current crisis. Lending by noncommercial banks has soared, to about 70 percent of total lending. Investment banks, including Bear Stearns, grew too large to be allowed to fail. And, said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist, investment banks helped create the exotic financial instruments that turned subprime mortgages into tradable securities.

"Phil Gramm's career was as the most aggressive advocate of every predatory and rapacious element that the financial sector has," Galbraith said. "He's a sorcerer's apprentice of instability and disaster in the financial system."

(emphasis mine). However this election turns out, I have become saddened by the realization that such a large part of our nation is flatly incapable of responding wisely to an increasingly complex and challenging world.

Writer's Block: Checklist for Eternity

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:20:28 GMT

If you could live forever how would you spend your time?

View 501 Answers

I would spend lots of time genetically re-engineering my brain

William's weekly software surprise

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:20:27 GMT

To my great delight, I just discovered that Wings 3D is written in Erlang.

These are two very different things that are interesting to me, and to see them combined is the sexy.

George Bush shifts his laser-like focus back to domestic issues...

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:22:24 GMT

New York, March 14:

"Government policy is like a person trying to drive a car on a rough patch," he told the Economic Club of New York in a lunchtime speech just hours after the bailout of Bear Stearns rocked Wall Street. "If you ever get stuck in a situation like that, you know full well it's important not to overcorrect -- because when you overcorrect, you end up in the ditch."

When we first met, she hassled ME about being on the computer...

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:20:30 GMT

William: Loryn, step away from the MySpace!

Loryn: No, it's Friday night!

Game Graphics by John Carmack

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:12:17 GMT

1992	2005

Wiring up the global brain

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:02:52 GMT

From a recent article in New York Times:

“Part of the idea of Paris is being in Paris,” Ms. Turkle said. But during an afternoon stroll, her daughter received several calls and text messages on her cellphone from friends back in Boston. Her daughter, she said, felt compelled to return every one.

When Ms. Turkle asked why she didn’t turn off her cellphone and enjoy the city, she said her daughter replied, “I feel more comfortable talking with my friends.” But her daughter’s friends didn’t even really want to talk. “They just want to know where you are,” Ms. Turkle said. “It’s a new sensibility.”

The article briefly discusses the pervasive text-messaging of teens these days, and potential consequences, good and bad. Jack, Loryn and I all got cell-phones for the first time last year, when the price became affordable, and Jack strongly requested the text-messaging option, which he got. Our subsequent experience reflects a lot of what is mentioned in the article - Loryn and I have sensed the emergence of a social network around Jack and his friends, as well as some distancing in communication between us and him.

On the whole, I think the positives have outweighed the negatives in his case. He seems to have a good group of friends (as well as a girlfriend) with whom he appears to be sharing fun times, going to plays, getting together to practice and create music, and doing various goofy things on the internet. Given our somewhat remote location outside of town, I think the electronic links (both cell-phone and internet) enabled him to reach out of a potentially isolating pre-driving period of his life.

Of course, isolation can have its own important consequences, both good and bad. I was pretty introverted as a teenager and spent a lot of time reading and doing things on my own. I suspect that had a large influence on my subsequent desire to pursue careers in engineering, computer programming and science.

I'm curious to see what the world will look like 20 years from now, as people get further wired together and into the global net.

Yet another fascinating scientific realm to explore

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:11:14 GMT

Just read a amazing article in the January 2008 edition of Scientific American (subscription required). It presented a fascinating biological process that I had no idea even existed: microchimerism.

Microchimerism refers to the long-term existence of foreign cells in a person's body, most-notably arising from two particular situations: 1) maternal cells that cross the placental barrier to live with the fetus and 2) fetal cells that cross the other way to live in the body of the mother.

While reading a book on stem cells, I had only recently learned that human immune systems can learn to tolerate foreign cells under certain conditions, but it had never occurred to me that this could happen frequently under normal conditions. But evidence is growing that this is indeed the case, and all of us may contain small amounts of cells from our mothers, and child-bearing women may also have additional populations of cells from their children!

This opens up a whole new realm of questions and possibilities. As discussed in the article by J. Lee Nelson, who has been doing research in this area for some time, there may be both beneficial and harmful consequences from these biological immigrants. Harmful consequences can include attacks by immune cells (foreign on host or vice versa), which may explain diseases that were previously thought to be autoimmune in nature. Beneficial consequences could also result from immune responses in the foreign population that supplement those of the host.

A lot remains to be understood about what exactly is going on here, but like epigenetics, another recently discovered process, microchimerism promises to simultaneously complicate and enrich the increasingly fascinating and bewildering world of cell biology.

Less than 11 months left...

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:16:55 GMT

of these clowns at the helm, if all goes well. Hopefully we can skate by the edge till then, not-withstanding various stupid and provocative moves.

Please make it stop

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:01:44 GMT

To the friends of the guy singing in the UC right now: friends don't let friends who sing like Bob Dylan perform David Bowie songs. They just don't.

Listen carefully, Republicans

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:17:14 GMT

Backack Obama speaking in Cleveland, Ohio:

I am not naïve. There is a hard core of jihadist fundamentalists who we can't negotiate with. We have to hunt them down and knock them out. Incapacitate them....And that is where military action and intelligence has to be directed. So all the things I've talked about in the past — improving our intelligence capacity, improving our alliances, rolling up financial support, improving our homeland security, making sure that we have strike forces that are effective — that's all the military, intelligence, police work that's required.

The question then is what do we do with the 1.3 billion Muslims, who are along a spectrum of belief. Some extraordinarily moderate, some very pious but not violent. How do we reach out to them? And it is my strong belief that that is the battlefield that we have to worry about, and that is where we have been losing badly over the last 7 years. That is where Iraq has been a disaster. That is where the lack of effective public diplomacy has been a disaster. That is where our failure to challenge seriously human rights violations by countries like Saudi Arabia that are our allies has been a disaster.

And so what we have to do is to speak to that broader Muslim world in a way that says we will consistently support human rights, women's rights. We will consistently invest in the kinds of educational opportunities for children in these communities, so that madrasas are not their only source of learning. We will consistently operate in ways that lead by example, so that we have no tolerance for a Guantanamo or renditions or torture. Those all contribute to people at least being open to our values and our ideas and a recognition that we are not the enemy and that the Clash of Civilizations is not inevitable.

Barack Obama understands the problem we are facing (emphasis mine) and knows how to deal with it. The Republican leadership doesn't. The US voting majority have 8 months left to figure that out.

Want some candy, little one?

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:45:20 GMT

Here is some candy... heh heh heh...