The Crue

Jesus Christ all mighty today was sure some slim pickings.
First was a technology blog.
Like a serious technology blog.
On Dreamwidth.
Going on and on about Intel's new quick start technology or something--
I don't know.
No one reading Dreamwidth knows what that shit is.
I don't even know what that shit is.
Then a huge post on AMD versus Intel-- I just bought my processor based on what Girls' Generation was shilling at the time.
Hey they say it's good so it must be.
I trust a bunch of Korean bimbos on technology matters.
Uhhh, Seoul is the most technologically advanced city on earth, okay.
I think they'd know.
And by sheer coincidence it is the best processor I've ever owned.
The amazing thing about this to me is I know people who trust my opinion and read this blog.
Have you not seen how I reach my conclusions? It's based on the most fucked up, irrational criteria imaginable. Don't listen to me.
Anyway speaking of bizarro world where Dreamwidh isn't whining and is trying to be informative here is someone who is calling Snowden evil.

I just bought a new Nook HD. B&N is getting out of the tablet business -- they'll sell tablets, but not their own -- so they're selling off their inventory. This is essentially a nice Android tablet for $129.

I have a first-gen Nook Color. It's ok, but it has quirks. Sometimes the page I'm reading goes blank. Or I'll see the same page over and over again. The new one behaves better and looks better, with higher resolution.

I like to read with white lettering on a dark background. You need the color tablet for that. The little readers are strictly black on white. I've got an iPad, but it's too big for reading in bed. The HD is just right. 

Fucking Americans.
I have one technological marvel but it's too big to read in bed so I bought another!
I've seen an iPad. I own books both larger and heavier than it and I manage.

Daughter Elizabeth, a Kindle fan, will think I'm crazy. She thinks B&N will go under, or will at least get out of the ebook business. If they do, I'll get a Kindle app. In fact I'll do that anyway.

You do realize Nook uses an open source file format that you can just download?
In fact I'm sure Amazon offers books in that format.

Throughout my career I was required to protect classified information, something I took, we all took, very seriously. So it infuriates me when some highly-placed guy gives away secrets on a huge scale. 

He didn't do it for shits and giggles though, retard. He did it because he thought (quite rightly) the government was maybe a little bit evil.
Someone even dug up an old forum post of Snowden saying people who leak secrets should be put to death from like 7 years ago. Clearly the man underwent what we in the literary business call a character arc.
That shit isn't easy.

Having said that, I think we have to look a little more closely at Edward Snowden.  Is espionage the right charge?

There's this thing that intelligent adults can do: it's called cognitive dissonance.
Holding two seemingly contradictory opinions at the same time.
Yes, he is provably guilty of espionage--
but it was for a good reason.
What should happen to him? I don't know.
On one hand justice demands he pay for his crime but then again the US government is clearly guilty of the exact same crime so--
Now you start getting into murky territory that people can't easily handle because it's not like the TV show 24 and there isn't an obviously good guy to root for.

Espionage is the clandestine channeling of information to a foreign power. Snowden was hardly clandestine, and he released information to the general public, the American public. You have to look at his intentions. His intentions were good. 

None of that shit matters.
Everyone knows your end result is the only thing that matters. If he manages to enact a great change in America (har har not likely when a new season of American Idol is starting) then he'll be considered a hero.
If the collective ADHD of America starts itching and the shows on TV are really, really good he'll be remembered as a spy that betrayed America.

You have to look at the potential damage, too. The NSA was keeping track of who was calling whom. Who is talking to the bad guys, who is talking to who is talking to the bad guys, and so forth. This doesn't surprise me, it shouldn't surprise you, and it doesn't surprise the bad guys, who have known for decades that telephone communications are chancy. What alternatives do they have? Email? No way. Coded messages? NSA cracks codes like peanut shells. Couriers? They've used couriers for years, but a messenger who gets caught or turned can give away a lot. Nothing is changed. 

Were you even paying attention to the problems with what the NSA was doing?
It's not like they're just wire taping people they suspect are guilty of shit. They're literally storing every single communication on the planet.
If they get the shits of you they can dig through your records--
like this blog where I call Americans pigs--
and then they can throw you in jail because clearly you're plotting against America because only a guilty man would call his fellow countrymen animals.
As I said last blog the fact most Americans even give a shit about their privacy when they're posting pictures of their last bowel movement on Tumblr and cross-posting it on Facebook is hilarious to me but that doesn't make it not a serious concern for the 1% of us who haven't divorced our senses.
There's a very serious field of study that mostly exists in fiction: ethical speculation.
The future ethical ramifications of technology that doesn't yet exist.
Most people think it's gay and stupid but I devote a lot of time to shit like this because if someone in the 1940s had actually listened to people like George Orwell we'd have a course of action to follow when shit like this happens.
The problem is philosophy has moved from the serious study of shit like this to "ooooooo this novel is too postmodern".
I guess it's easier to be a douchebag feminist than figure out ethics.

Oh, and we're spying on our friends? One of the largest spy operation in the US is run by Israel. They want to know what we would do in various situations. (Google Jonathan Pollard). And we want to know what they might do, so we spy on them, too.  Yeah, and we spy on Germany. And they spy on us. Ain't nothing new here.

Just about everybody seems happy to have this information be public. Everybody seems glad that Snowden released it, even though everybody seems to think he should be hung by his thumbs for it. Let's not be hypocritical. Let him come home to face charges related to mishandling classified information. He'll go to prison, but not forever. I think he'd rather do that than hole up in Bolivia for the rest of his life.  Drop the espionage charge. It probably won't stick anyway. 

How naive are you?
Jesus.
I thought age made you wise.
Guess it's not the years but what you do with them.

We saw Star Trek last weekend, in 3D. It was good entertainment, although I thought it got too Star-Warsy at times. Too much video-game-like fighting. Star Trek wasn't about gunfights. It was about strategy and diplomacy.  

You know you're right.
It was still a great movie, though.
Can't make a movie about strategy and diplomacy because people can't pay attention that long.
Too confusing.
Why do you think EVE Online is probably the most complicated video game ever made in terms of diplomacy and yet for most people it's boiled down to "go here and kill people"?
There's always that undercurrent of plebeians.

Small point, but a lifeless planet would not have an oxygen atmosphere. Oxygen in a planet's atmosphere is generated by carbon-dioxide-eating organisms (ie plants). No life, no O2.

As far as you know.
There's also a moon made of diamonds a few light years away. I think it's possible for there to be O2 other ways.
Maybe there was life and it all died. As I recall that planet had a lot of ruins and shit so clearly there was life but the Klingons killed it.
God step it up.

OK, let's talk about assault weapons. They are the weapon of choice for kids like Lanza and Klebold. These disaffected, outsider kids grow a couple days worth of fuzzy beard and grab their assault rifles and picture themselves as freedom fighters, righting the wrongs of the world for any kid who has ever been yelled at by a teacher or bullied on the way home from school. The assault rifle is important -- dad's hunting rifle just doesn't have the same vibe.

The Bushmaster rifle that Lanza used is essentially a civilian version of the M16 I learned to use in the Army. It is about as accurate as a slingshot at long range, but the unstable bullet it fires rips and shreds and kills anything it hits at close range. It can kill or maim a lot of nearby people in a short time. That's what it's designed for. It's an instrument of war. 

So what do you guys think the best squad weapon for a terminator squad is?
Heavy flamer?
Assault cannon?
I gave him a plasma cannon because I prefer plasma weaponry but there aren't rules for terminators with plasma cannons for regular space marines so I can have it count as either.
I'm leaning towards assault cannon just because flame weapons are kinda piddly against armored targets but then again they do better against targets in cover and I think that's a good use for terminators--
having them dig guys out of cover--
but I don't know.

For self defense? If somebody is trying to get into your house in the middle of the night, you have the right to shoot. If you hit him in the shoulder with your handgun, he'll have a hole in his shoulder and he'll be out of commission until the cops arrive. If you shoot him in the shoulder with with your assault rifle, you'll blow his fucking arm off and he may bleed out in front of you. When the cops arrive and find a dead guy on your porch and you holding the weapon, you've got some explaining to do.

And who did you just kill? Maybe a bad guy who intends to harm you. Or maybe your neighbor's teen-age kid looking for a thrill or for drug money.

Shouldn't have broken in.
I'm sorry but if you break into someone's house
and he kills you
that is your fault.
You know I don't want to get killed by a hillbilly with an assault rifle so I try to avoid breaking into peoples' houses whenever possible.

Lanza's mother kept her guns locked, but Adam knew how to get to them and their ammunition. That mistake cost her her life, and allowed her boy to become a mass murderer of little children. He was unstable, but you know what? All teen-agers are a potentially unstable. 

Everyone is potentially unstable. What the fuck does that mean?
My problem with this is if I have to ban everything you idiots can potentially use to maim each other I have to ban everything including cars.
Some might argue you don't need an assault rifle, which is true, but by that logic you don't need a car.
So I don't know what to do. My gut reaction is to outlaw them because you morons can't be trusted but then where do I stop?
Best not get involved.

When I was in high school we were required to have four years of phy ed. No exemptions for being in band, or being on the basketball team, or anything else. And your grade counted in your GPA. 

Lol gym thinks it's a real class.
Gym teachers always have the biggest chip on their shoulder-- I suspect because they know they don't teach a real subject.

The Jello museum in Western New York has a stuffed giraffe head. It has nothing to do with Jello, actually. The circus came to town and their giraffe died. The local taxidermist, who had been limited to fish and deer, asked for the corpse. He stuffed the head and 3 or 4 feet of neck. Eventually the giraffe head ended up in the Jello museum, where people from all over the world could come to see it.

... You know how people say sometimes it's more about the journey than the destination?
I think that's one of those kinda trips.

I did it. I am officially retired.

I don't feel like I'm old enough. Retirement used to be for old people.

Don't worry mate: your generation saw to that.
Retirement is only for the dead now.
Man this blog.
I gotta stop reviewing blogs written by men.
I know I said women are the worst but really blogs written by men are just stultifying.
It may seem like I'm misogynist in this blog but I can assure you I'm just anti-my fellow man and on this blog that just happens to translate into being anti-woman because that's what's in front of me most of the time.
I think that's why I like EVE Online so much. I like crafting in video games but it always feels like it's going nowhere.
But in EVE Online I can make Mjolnir citadel cruise missiles (giant nukes), look at the 110,000 I've made and say "man, those are going to ruin someone's day."
It's the kind of crafting that really makes you feel like you're part of something.
But that's not important right now.
What is important is the freighter I'm making.
Anyway fuck this blog
fuck the police
fuck this gay earth.