Rick Rolled

Posted Date: December 30, 2007

Has anybody noticed the eighties coming back?

hahaha!

Beatboxing Classic: Rahzel

If your mother only knew.

Yes, he is doing it all with just his voice.

Here’s the longer version.

The Definition of Unlimited

Posted Date: December 18, 2007 – Tuesday – 10:46 AM

Earlier this year I was hooked up with Verizon’s “BroadbandAccess” EVDO wireless internet.  It was pretty cool…unlimited access at DSL speeds through a wireless card; no 811.g hub required.  That is, it WAS cool until my  internet got cut off.

I called them up to find out what the problem was, and I was informed that my contract had been cancelled due to “overuse”.  Well, I tried to explain that this was a mistake, as I had the unlimited package, not one of the cheaper limited ones.  The guy explained that by “unlimited”, they actually  meant limited.  And the limit was super low…5 gigs.  Basically half a DVD per month.  I tried to explain to the guy that no amount of asteriks could change the word “unlimited” to mean “unreasonably limited”.  I’m an IT professional, for Christ’s sake!  (Yeah, I was a little heated, kind of embarassing, actually.)

Of course this pissed him off, so he adruptly said that I wasn’t allowed to download, and I clearly was.  Seriously, that’s what the guy said…”you can’t download files”.  I tried to explain to him that he wasn’t making sense, as it is impossible to use the HTTP protocol without “downloading” files.  When you “browse” the internet, all you are doing is downloading files to your local computer, and then viewing them through your browser.   MAYBE you could argue that “streaming” media wasn’t downloaded…he cuts me off…”No…you can’t stream either.”.   !*$(%!!

OK…deap breathe, and let it go.  So whatever, I got Comcast and a wireless hub.  If Verizon didn’t want my money they can stuff if.

So instead, today I got a check from Verizon.  They were sued by the NYOAG for the false advertising of their EVDO service, and chose to settle.  And I get money.  Sweet.  Telecommunication companies suck!

R.I.P Crocodile Cafe

Posted Date: December 19, 2007 – Wednesday – 2:22 AM

Grunge is not only long dead, now it is history.  The ultra-cool Crocodile Cafe in Belltown has just closed its doors.  I feel like a friend died, or maybe he was a cool acquaintance.

And they closed the Sit and Spin a while ago; now it’s a yuppie BBQ joint.  Remember when the 211 (Billiard Club) burned down?  I watched that fire from a block away, felt like crying then, too.

The 211 was in the same building as the Speakeasy Cafe, which has come back…but as a yuppie coffee shop and a rather large ISP provider.   Sigh.  At least they still have cool art on the walls.  Belltown has changed so much!

I remember seeing Moe’s (Mo’ Rockin’) last show; that must have been ’97 or so.  Pearl Jam showed up and played, even though they were already a megaband.  And the slow death of The Off-Ramp space…one failure after another.

Then the RKCNDY, that was really sad.  My favorite show there was…crap, I can’t even remember the band’s name!  Oh yeah, and the The Velvet Elvis; another great all ages place.  Ahhh…the good ol’ Teen Dance Ordinance…not.

The times, they are a-changin.

Definitions Define and the Defined They Love

Posted Date: December 23, 2007

Not really having a favorite dictionary site,  I went to google the definition of a word.  I accidentally typed in only “definition” without a keyword, and noticed that the wikipedia article “definition of terrorist” was ranked second.  Weird.

No denying “terrorist” as an extremely hard word to define.

I was mulling that very thing over while watching “Charlie Wilson’s War”, depicting American officials lauding the Afghani “freedom fighters”, equipping them with SAMs, and geving them special training on how to fight in a “guerrila” war.  The irony is hard to stomach, knowing these skills have been turned against us in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

I like what Wikipedia has to say on it:
“Among these definitions, not all recognize the possibility of the legitimate use of violence by civilians against an invader in an occupied country, and would thus label all resistance movements as terrorist groups. Others make a distinction between lawful and unlawful use of violence. Ultimately, the distinction is a political judgment.”

I would add, by current US definition, our founding fathers were “insurgents“.  At the time they were certainly considered “religious extremists“.  Just like many of those fighting in Iraq.  Wikipedia is right, differentiation is political; like “one group is religious extremists advocating secular government and the other is religious extremists advocating a theocracy.” One advocates the equality of all white men, the other the equality of all true believers.

Complicated stuff.  The very question of “definitions” has fallen to crowdsourcing tools like wikis.  It seems self-evident NOW, but just five years ago the big question was whether blogs would overtake mainstream news as primary sources of information.  Instead it seems that Blogs are going mainstream, and mainstream news portals are citing blogs every day.  And even more unexpectedly, the winner is now “non of the above” Wikipedia!  Search google for “Global Warming”, “Iraq War”, “peak oil”, “Christianity”, and wikipedia will be at the top, ranked number one.

Search for anything interesting, and if Wikipedia isn’t in the top ranked links…then, well…it probably isn’t at interesting as you think it is.

To understand why isn’t actually that hard.  (“run away, run away!”) Imagine that you are on your blog, and you want to include a hyperlink; say…to the wikipedia article on “Cats”.  There is actually a lot of data in that link, and can be extracted.  The major parts are the sight being linked FROM, the site being linked TO, metadata like “wikipedia article on Cats”, and the words close by the link on the page, like these ones.

Analyse millions of these and they start to reinforce each other, with the metadata in tow.  If lots of people link to my site, then my sight is ranked high for that metadata.  And at the next level…if lots of people link to me, then the people that I LINK TO also get ranked higher.  And the people THEY link to.

Each new link changes these ranks…like a recursive whuffie hug of network cognition.  AI blinking in its sleep, stirring after a long dream.

It’s like the ghostly way a picture forms when gravestone rubbing.  Combine/Aggregate something less than a google of these links in a simple and logical way, and you get a rough picture of the multidimensional dataset that is “the web”.  It’s like following a trajectory around a strange attractor; the system first develops in a seemingly random way, but eventually a high amount structure becomes evident.

What new structures will we see when we have more datapoints?

Because thousands of people like me linked to the wikipedia article with the word “cat” in or around that link, the system now “knows” that the link “wikipedia.org/wiki/cats” is authoritative on the subject.  One might question what sort of authority this is, and one could answer that it is the only natural kind.  To be blunt, your brain probably works like a search engine spider, using some form of the process just described.

We should be very thankful for this; that definitions can be formed by crowds and algorithms instead of cabals.  I understand the lure of certainty, lulled by credentials and expertice.  And no denying we should listen to the trusted few!  Many time they know better than the crowds do. But many times they don’t, or they disagree, and so alone they cannot be in charge of what words mean.

(Languages form through our shared reality, like software loaded onto our brains hardware.)

So, let’s face it, the more points of view represented the better…

PS:  See “The Host”, it monster movie rocks.  This is THE breakout Korean movie, the world is finally starting to notice their filmmakers.

Harold and Kumar go to Guatanamo

Posted Date: December 28, 2007

Nope, it’s no joke…it’s a real movie, coming out in April.  And NPH makes another cameo…awesome.

Speaking of movies, I saw Terry Gilliam’s “Tideland”, and I’m still digesting it.  On one hand, I think it’s a masterpiece.  It’s unconventional, surreal, and has an amazing lead and perfect supporting characters.  On the other hand, it’s creepy and feels exploitative, even though objectively it is not.  I see a lot of parallels between this movie and “Oasis”, which is one of my top 10 favorite films.  Whether that counts for or against “Tideland”, I can’t decide.  At this point I would I rate it a very VERY interesting failure, and a fine addition to the Gilliam canon.

Regarding the “I Stole Jesus” story, did anybody notice that the doll is WHITE and has BLONDE hair?  Does anybody care?  The anti-Semitism in Christianity comes out in both subtle and not so subtle ways.

Yipes….I think I’ve watched too many movies set in distopian futures, because these billboards really bothers me.

Impeach the fourthbranch!

RIP, Benazi Bhutto!

Uh…yeah, OJ Did It.

Posted Date: November 30, 2007

Oh yeah, he definitely did, <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_amnesia&#8221; target=”_self”>retrograde amnesia</a> or not.&nbsp; <br><br><a href=”http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gwXXBU9-InHgXXvu-dN7FNTkDe_gD8T7RRNG0&#8243; target=”_self”>PDF is still available on piratesbay.org</a>, or at your local bookseller.<br><br>”It was like part of my life was missing—like there was some weird gap in my existence. But how could that be? I was standing right there. That was me, right?&nbsp; I again looked down at myself, at my blood-soaked clothes, and noticed the knife in my hand. The knife was covered in blood, as were my hand and wrist and half of my right forearm.”<br><br>”I guess people remember what they want to remember.”<br><br><br>

Question Authora-tayeh!

“There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the ‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”
Paulo Freire

Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!

Subject Without Provocation 2

Posted Date: December 4, 2007

As a follow up to a previous blog:, I’d like to update “3)”.

In a recently declassified NIE, the National Intelligence Commitee has determined that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” due to international pressure and scrutiny. It has also been determined that “Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015”. As an added bonus, the report admits that we do “not know whether it (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons”

For those unfamiliar, the “National Intelligence Estimate” is produced by combining all the “intelligence” the US has available. This is not “hippy liberal bloggers”, the NIC creates reports like “Iraq’s Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction” and “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States“. I mean, these guys are paranoid, and somebody really is after them!

Sure, these reports are many times innacurate. After all, the report on Iraq’s WMDs was now clearly based on unreliable data, and can be pointed to as a key excuse for why we are in Iraq today! But at least after the fact we know that the Iraq report was very controversial within the intelligence community (Richard Clarke’s account in “Against All Enemies” is a good reference for this). According to the powers that be (or at least, Jane Harman :) this report is much more solidly founded, although history will be the final judge.

But it’s clear that a report that validates the political goals of the Bush Administration is considered infallible, while one that invalidates it is automatically considered untrustworthy. And here we see Bush doing exactly that again. Notice how differently he treated the Iraq WMD report in 2002!

I mean, this is a consistent human trait, and it’s not limited to just politics, of course. We always recognize results that support our predictions much more easily than those that don’t (see “Confimation Bias“). But this is why government has a system of checks and balances; this sort of bias is a systematic problem with the Bush Administration.

Because the fact is, BUSH WAS WRONG ABOUT IRAN!!!! The Administration’s policies have been based on Iran continuing weapons research. And they are wrong, per our own best intelligence. To oversimplify even further, Ahmadinejad was telling the truth, and Bush was not. Still, this makes me sick, we have serious problems when our enemies act more moral than we do! Who picked this fight, anyway?

It’s true that Ahmadinejad and Iran have serious issues. But if our policies are based on wishful thinking instead of fact, then it should be obvious we have our own issues to take care of! War is not the answer, and we can’t afford it anyway.

Review: Rescue Dawn

Posted Date: December 4, 2007

Prediction: Jeremy Davies is the next hot thing.

I just got done watching “Rescue Dawn”, by Werner Herzog, based on the real life story of Dieter Dengler, a U.S. pilot shot down and captured at the beginning of the Vietnam War.  The movie mainly centers on his time as a POW, planning to escape.  But you can read the plot synopsis anywhere.

I first became aware of Herzog as an actor, actually, in Harmony Korine’s “Julien Donkey-Boy”.  He played Julien’s cough-syrup addicted dad, alternately ignoring and terrorising his family.  I’ve always admired Korine, I consider him a filmmaker way ahead of his time, and Korine admires Herzog.

I vaughly remember watching “Aquirre”, and not being all that impressed.  But about the same time, Herzog started making English films and documentaries, and I started appreciating just how talented he is.  The few of you that haven’t seen “Grizzly Man”, go see it!

“Rescue Dawn” is being passed off as a “mainstream” or “studio” film, but it is really more rooted in documentary filmmaking and “cinema verite”.  Herzog’s feature films resemble documentaries, and his documentaries resemble feature films.  It’s nice to see that this esthetic has carried over to a movie containing big Hollywood actors.

Everyone survived, and nobody had to tow a boat over a mountain, at least.  But these guys are shooting in the jungle, and it’s not pretty.  My hat is off to every single actor who worked on this film, taking a chance with a notoriosly demanding director liker Herzog.

Christian Bale is the lead, and he certainly carries this film well.  Anybody remember “Swing Kids”?  lol…still, anybody who saw “Equilibrium” would realize that Bale is pure gold, as he has proved in “The Machinist” and “Batman Begins”, and now “Rescue Dawn”.

Steve Zahn is amazing in this movie, and I hope it gets him out of his “goofy guy” typecast, like in “Out Of Sight” or “Employee of the Month”.  I mean, we know this guy can act…his performance in “subUrbia” should have proven that, but “Rescue Dawn” certainly does.

For me, the real find is Jeremy Davies in a singularly creepy role as Eugene McBroom.  He acts as Bale’s nemesis, trying to make him stay instead of escape.  Usually I just hate Davies’ characters, like in “Secretary” or “Spanking the Monkey”.  Although his role is based more on story requirements than reality, Davies brings a sinister character to life, making us understand and pity him instead of hate him.

The rumour is that Davies is filming with a popular TV show, so that’s pretty cool.  OK, it’s “Lost”, and some spanish guy has pictures so it’s probably true, and I can’t wait for Lost…only a couple more months!  w00t!

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