Category Archives: Daily Post
The spirit of letters
So there I was, looking for something to write about, and coming up empty. And as happens so often in both my blogging and my daily life, Wil Wheaton saved the day. He shared a post from Tim O’Reilly which included a link to this on Google+ and some good commentary.
Quoth Tim:
We must remember that the patent system was supposed to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts,” not to enrich people who know how to work the legal system.
I haven’t read the Wired link there because what caught my interest wasn’t patent trolls, but the strange duality we have between the letter and the spirit of the law. I suppose to a degree this is unavoidable, simply the price of working with words, but it really is a strange thing to me that we see arguments over what a law says versus what it means.
I’ve been told that at least one country includes, after the actual text of a law, an essay explaining the spirit in which that particular law was intended. Can’t remember which one that was, and I don’t even know how I could verify that anyways. But it’s a neat idea.
I was thinking maybe every constitution needs a sort of mission statement, a statement of principles that are the guidelines for interpreting laws when there’s any ambiguity or uncertainty. Which is a nice idea, but I don’t see a realistic way to make it work in a free society. I mean, unless you basically had it dictated by a… I’m going to say “monarch”, you’re going to wind up with a huge document filled with loopholes and things. Which makes the whole concept redundant at best, and probably just more legal chaff clogging things up.
So perhaps what really needs to be kept in mind is that laws are about people, and should be to serve people. That seems to be surprisingly easy to forget, at least for some people.
I’m not really happy with this post, I’d like to think some more and rewrite it. But my deadline approaches, and I’m tired.
No regrets?
I often hear people speak about living with no regrets, and when I actually stop to think about it, I wonder what they mean by that. See, from my point of view I can only see three ways to live without regrets, all of which result in a life I wouldn’t want to live in the first place.
First, I could live totally alone and never interact with people. Why bother? Even at my most reclusive times, I can only bear to be alone for so long.
Second, I could never seriously consider the long-term effects of my actions on other people. Never ponder the ripples I leave in my wake as I move through the world. As some famous dead guy once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Third, I could just not care. Just live without empathy or compassion. Perhaps I could enjoy a life such as that, certainly many people seem to enjoy it. But appearances often deceive, and I suspect many of them are neither as callous nor as happy as they appear. While there are certainly simple pleasures to be had, all the greatest joys of my life come from the warmth and love I share with those closest to me.
If you interact with people, you will occasionally hurt them. If you consider your life and your actions, you will notice this. If you care about the pain of others, sooner or later you will pick up some regrets. And really, that’s ok. We’re imperfect beings in an imperfect world, doing the best we can with what we have.
See the thing is, I don’t think most people who speak of living without regrets mean the same thing the phrase brings to my mind. I see a thousand little regrets everywhere, swimming around the great big leviathan regrets like pilot fish around a shark. I think to most, the phrase means not to never have regrets, but not to dwell on them. Not to let them weigh you down until you drown in that sea. There’s certainly something sensible about that.
What does “no regrets” mean to you?
Tiring day
It’s been a very long day for me. Spent much of it traveling from one city I’ve never been in to another city I’ve never been in, by way of a city I’ve only briefly visited, and the last time nearly eight years ago. Only got mildly lost twice, not bad for being out of practice at the travel thing. I’d like to thank the bus driver who let me on with my too large suitcase with only a scolding.
I’ve caught myself writing the wrong word a couple times in here already, it wouldn’t surprise me if I missed a few. Sorry about that.
Some of you got a sneak peak at my post a day safety net. I remember when I made it there was some weirdness, I didn’t realize that I’d made it a page instead of a post. That’s fixed. If all goes well, it will never be public again.
Not much more to say tonight, I’m exhausted. Take care everybody.
Prop 8 struck down again
As far as I can tell, it only has two chances left, at best. The full 9th circuit 11-judge panel appeal, and the Supremes. Well the Supreme Court, not the Supremes.
Prop 8 Trial Tracker has all the details, and the text of the decision, in case you want to read it or read about it from people who are better journalists than I am. But there’s one bit I really want to highlight. From page 5 of the decision:
All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation of ‘marriage,’ which symbolizes state legitimization and societal recognition of their committed relationships. Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.
(Scribd didn’t want to let me copy & paste, btw, so that was typed out by hand. Assume any errors are my fault. Sorry about that.)
I guess I shouldn’t feel bad that a panel of judges who spend a lot more time & effort putting their thoughts and decisions into clear words than I do said it so much better than I’ve managed. I don’t really know what else to say about this that I haven’t said already.
The decision is going to be appealed, of course. It sounds unlikely that the 9th will do a full panel appeal, and the Supreme Court generally takes about 1% of the cases offered. It’s not clear to me what’s going to happen from here.
Oh, and in case you were wondering the stay is still in effect. No new marriages just yet.
What do you want out of life?
I’ve never known what I wanted out of life, in fact the question never really made sense to me. Life isn’t something I chose to get into for some sort of goal, or purpose, it was thrust upon me unasked-for before I knew anything about anything. Literally.
Look, I know that there is a universe outside of my personal perception, vast beyond proper imagining, next to which I am infinitely small. But in a very real way, at least from my point of view, my life is literally everything. You might as well ask what I want out of the whole universe.
To consider the grand scale of existence, the countless wonders it contains, and ask only what someone wants out of it seems petty, narrow minded and missing the point. It puts me to mind of a person having inherited a vast collection of beautiful works of art and journals containing first-hand accounts of major historical events and their complete family tree for the last thousand years, and only wanting to know “How much can I sell it for?”
I suppose that provides a simple, but woefully incomplete, answer for what I want more of in my life: knowledge and beauty. Not necessarily in that order, and mingled together as much as possible.
Sorry, I suck today.
Busy day and network issues, so you don’t get anything interesting. Sorry about that, but I’m sure glad I wrote the rules to accommodate days like this.
Something more substantial when I get a chance to catch up to the world, until then you get crap like this. Yeah, I’m not happy about it either.
Written on a train while easily distracted.
There’s a strange exhilaration to travel. I don’t mean the excitement of traveling itself, I’m talking about the tendency to see even the very familiar in a slightly different way when you’re racing past and will only see it for a moment.
Heavens help me as we left town I actually thought I might miss the place.
We’ve been chugging along for almost two hours now, and I keep finding interesting things to look at out the window. I shot a little video, but then realized that what’s interesting as you go by it probably isn’t interesting from the camera’s point of view, so I’m just going to relax and enjoy the trip for now.
Train is by far my favorite way to travel, although I still haven’t tried travel by dirigible yet. I seem to recall hearing that Zeppelins were the height of luxury in their day, and maybe someday lighter than air vehicles will make enough of a comeback that I can ride one cross-country.
Hey, there’s a goal worth reaching for! Travel around the world by airship! Land on every continent and see the world. Well, I guess I could skip Antarctica.
Who wants to help design my world tour dirigible? Would you like to come along?
Traveling
At this time tomorrow I should be on a train approaching misty San Francisco Bay. Since I have lots to do to get ready for that, I’m not going to post much right now. I’ll try to have something more substantial up tonight if I can get everything done early enough. If not, well I’m sorry but this will just have to do for today. I’ll probably write tomorrow’s post on the train.
It’s a little sad that I’m so excited about this short trip. In days gone by I more than once left for other time zones on an hour’s notice, sometimes with no clue how I would get home. Once I called a friend who I heard was visiting a nearby area to ask for a ride back.
That’s all for now, though. Too many things to do to spend time reminiscing. Have a great day everyone.
Winter Comforts
In my impromptu facebook poll of “What should I write about?” the winner seemed to be creature comforts during winter. Which sounds kind of dull to me, but hey I asked!
My number one comfortable thing in winter is hot drinks. Tea, mostly, but also cider & chocolate and sake. I’ve always wanted to drink hot sake while it was snowing, and hold my steaming cup out to catch a snowflake like they do in every Japanese story I’ve ever encountered where characters were drinking in the snow. Read the rest of this entry
Climate change, and checking the facts.
I had just finished reading this post about climate change at Bad Astronomy and was skimming the comments when I saw an exchange that I thought was worth writing about. The part I want to discuss can be summed up as a scientist rhetorically asking how hard checking the the facts can be and a layman answering “Very”.
Maybe most scientists don’t appreciate how hard something as simple as checking the facts really is for the rest of us. It’s not a matter of stupid or lazy, it’s a matter of time and skills. Read the rest of this entry
Susan G. Komen Abandons Women
As you’ve probably heard by now, breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure is ending all grants and funding to Planned Parenthood. Here‘s Greg Laden on it, and here‘s NPR. I don’t really have anything to say that you can’t get from them.
I read someone cheering this decision, claiming it was the right choice because “life matters”. What life? Women are going to die because of this, not blastocysts that could potentially become women, but real whole living breathing women. You have the audacity to say that’s good because “life matters”? Fuck you.
Could someone please explain to me why so many people have such a fucking hard on for screwing Planned Parenthood, and all the women who depend on them for their health?
Post a Day update
I got this in my email yesterday, telling me that site badges for the Post A Day challenge are now available for 2012. I’ve decided not to put such a badge on my blog, since that would be tempting fate and I’d probably never post again.
They also announced that the official Post A Day tag is now postaday, which surprised me. When I started posting again after the new year, I started using postaday2012 without a second thought. Having considered it, I’ve decided not to change that, though I will tag this post with the new approved tag. Partly this is ’cause I’m too lazy to go back and change the last thirty posts, but mostly it’s because having to check the year when I tag a post forces me to think about how I’m tagging it. Let’s face it, my poor mind needs the exercise.
Yeah, I’m phoning it in today. They can’t all be winners.
Fucking hell, Tennesee!
Rep. Richard Floyd, R-Chattanooga needs to understand one thing: Threats of violence are a crime in this country. They are not protected by free speech.
I don’t expect this asshole to face any real consequences for that. He’s white and in politics, and his intended victims are few and largely ignored at best. Of course, when it’s not best they’re generally getting stomped on, like the good Rep plans to do.
Make sure you check that second link, where he claims he “never said anything about violence”. I’m guessing this is that shithead logic where he never said the word “violence”, and therefore claiming he would “stomp a mudhole” in trans people was not a threat of violence. Sort of like how the phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the constitution, therefore we’re all ruled by Jesus, the totalitarian dictator of aryan love/beatings.
Apparently the way this works now is that the less someone is like me, the less I’m expected to care about their suffering. It’s not clear to me at what point we’re different enough that I should start to enjoy their suffering. Maybe it’s the point where they’re no longer capable of empathy or compassion, or basic human decency to not violently assault people.
When your world surprises you
I’ve been world-building for my space opera setting today, and I had one of those strange moments where an unexpected consequence of the society I was making up caught me by surprise.
I’d decided that most interstellar travel is done by hyperspace lanes that work sort of like freeways. There are big space-gates that work like on/off ramps. You can’t get off one lane and go to another, you have to pass through the gate back to normal space and enter another one. So you have crossroads with maybe three of these hyperspace gates and a big space station where you can get fuel, supplies, repairs, etc. I imagine them being truck stops crossed with little port cities, with all the necessities and lots of ways to painlessly separate travelers from their money. Many of these crossroads would be extremely remote, the only permanent habitat in the system.
It occurred to me that I was building this as a world where spaceships aren’t terribly expensive, and you might have someone traveling in a secondhand capsule with a shoestring budget. What would happen to them if their vehicle had a mechanical problem? If they’re on the lanes, they can probably get help getting as far as the nearest station, but what if they can’t afford to repair it?
As the fees for storing their broken ship build up, their situation gets increasingly desperate. Perhaps the best move would be to recognize it and sell the vehicle straightaway. Otherwise you’re going to have to find an income very fast, in a place that probably doesn’t have a lot of job openings. If the mechanic puts a lien on your ship for non-payment, and successfully seizes it, you’re really in a bad spot.
It reminds me of Downbelow from Babylon 5. I could imagine many of those crossroad stations having populations like that. Since my setting includes an aggressive military power with imperialistic plans, there will probably be a lot of displaced refugees traveling in desperate situations. There could easily be really big populations of homeless people trying not to starve on the larger space stations.
It’s a chilling thought for a setting that I’d originally planned to be about as serious as your average Doctor Who episode.
LGBT advocacy groups to blame for bullying & suicides
Sounds like a headline from the Onion, doesn’t it? Yeah, sorry, except for maybe a little gallows humor, there’s nothing funny here. It’s a paraphrase of Barb Anderson, spokes-person for the Parents Action League, which is apparently a group of conservative Christians who want to use the law to force public school students to be just like them.
Here’s the story. The short of it is that Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota, an area with many recent teen suicides, is being presented with a list of demands by this PAL group. The demands are presented in this ridiculous “whereas, whereas, whereas, therefore be it resolved” format, something I’ve only ever seen in bullshit resolutions that generally seem to do nothing but waste time. (Are there any legitimate uses of that? In this century, I mean?) Anyways, the demands seem to boil down to putting Jesus in schools, adding “ex-gay”… I’m not going to call it “therapy”, let’s go with “harmful Pavlovian conditioning” to the schools’ staff training, and outright lying about various health issues, in particular AIDS, calling it “gay-related immune deficiencies” a name that hasn’t been used since the early 80s when the only known patients were a handful of gay men.
It’s difficult for me to write about this, because it makes me so angry it’s hard to think straight. “Hypocrisy” is too mild a word for this, this is like punching someone repeatedly in the face until a cop stops you, then telling the cop to arrest them for battery because your knuckles are bruised, and when your victim complains that their nose is broken and their face swollen you insist that those injuries are the cop’s fault. Except there aren’t any actual cops in this story, and the general behavior of the PAL is less overtly violent but far more asinine and dishonest. Read the rest of this entry
Changing my mind
For a long time I’ve had the impression that the Girl Scouts were another organization that taught girls that they shouldn’t think much about anything but cooking & cleaning & having babies.
Clearly, I was wrong. Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen the Girl Scouts in the news several times and it seems more and more that they’re a much better organization than I thought. What’s really interesting is that part of the reason this came to my attention is people calling for a cookie boycott because their view of the GS is changing… in exactly the same way mine is.
One persons virtue is another’s vice. How interesting.
Anyways, in part to apologize for my misconception, but mostly because it’s a fine idea on its own merits, I’m going to promote one scout’s project, Rani’s Roses Against Racism.
You didn’t expect a long post after that 1100 word novel I posted yesterday, did you?
The Adventures of Leo Tarvi 