You can have your Jurassic Park, sir, and may you take much joy from it.
I am going to fill my island with cloned Vikings.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Do you see this?
Do you want to know where absolutism leads? Do you want to know what it looks like to have the mindset that anything is permissible so long as you believe your cause is just? Take a look. Look and see how we arrived at the current state of affairs, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding and the looming specter of war with Iran and all of the damned mess.
The only thing worse than the hopelessly naive "My country, right or wrong," is the blind and vicious "My country is always right."
Do you want to know where absolutism leads? Do you want to know what it looks like to have the mindset that anything is permissible so long as you believe your cause is just? Take a look. Look and see how we arrived at the current state of affairs, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding and the looming specter of war with Iran and all of the damned mess.
The only thing worse than the hopelessly naive "My country, right or wrong," is the blind and vicious "My country is always right."
Where's William H. Taft when you need him?
It appears that the Communications Trust is preparing to strike again with another plan to screw consumers who simply don't have any other realistic options.
Time Warner has plans to being testing a new metered bandwidth plan in Texas. I can tell you firsthand that there really aren't any other good options for broadband connection in Texas, so it's not surprising they'd choose that location to roll out this latest outrage.
Initially, the plan might not seem like a bad idea on its face. Other utilities are metered, right? So why not bandwidth? Well, the weaker but still relevant objection is the philosophical: it's wrong force people to pay for information. There are a hundred ways around this objection, most of which involve charging for the medium on which the information is distributed or for the effort of the distribution. This is just the latest bite taken out of Net Neutrality and the egalitarianism of the internet.
But like I said, that's the weaker objection. The stronger is this: Time Warner (and Comcast, which is guilty of its own anti-consumer sins) constitutes a strong regional monopoly, and when they suddenly change not only their own service offerings in this way, but the entire paradigm of the service offered, they essentially blackmail customers into accepting it - customers who did not seek out or sign up for this type of limited service. In most parts of the nation, you will find one cable broadband provider - almost always Time Warner or Comcast - and, if you're lucky, one DSL provider, and that's it if you want more than dial-up. Since these communications giants, along with the few other holders of major network brands, effectively run the FCC with careful lobbying and lots of lawyers, no one can be bothered to rein them in.
I really don't know what to tell you to do about it, I'm afraid. Support the EFF, maybe, or write your legislators. It's hard to oppose these kinds of forces, but give it a try any way you can.
Update: Apparently, Comcast is getting in on the game as well, not by charging more for bandwidth, but by deliberately slowing connections. Comcast's fight with P2P networks is old news, but it's new to me that they're instituting such a general crackdown on bandwidth use. It seems to me to be even more egregious to deliberately deny your customers what they're paying for than to ask more for your service. Both of them taking these actions recently and fairly suddenly, however, cannot help but reinforce the impression of collusion and price-fixing. It is to be hoped that the next U.S. administration lives up to its promise to be the polar opposite of both W. Bush and John McCain, and thus approves of and engages in vigorous trust-busting. I see little hope otherwise given the general apathy of the American public (whom I adamantly refuse to refer to in the general as "consumers," as there is much, much more to life than consumption).
Time Warner has plans to being testing a new metered bandwidth plan in Texas. I can tell you firsthand that there really aren't any other good options for broadband connection in Texas, so it's not surprising they'd choose that location to roll out this latest outrage.
Initially, the plan might not seem like a bad idea on its face. Other utilities are metered, right? So why not bandwidth? Well, the weaker but still relevant objection is the philosophical: it's wrong force people to pay for information. There are a hundred ways around this objection, most of which involve charging for the medium on which the information is distributed or for the effort of the distribution. This is just the latest bite taken out of Net Neutrality and the egalitarianism of the internet.
But like I said, that's the weaker objection. The stronger is this: Time Warner (and Comcast, which is guilty of its own anti-consumer sins) constitutes a strong regional monopoly, and when they suddenly change not only their own service offerings in this way, but the entire paradigm of the service offered, they essentially blackmail customers into accepting it - customers who did not seek out or sign up for this type of limited service. In most parts of the nation, you will find one cable broadband provider - almost always Time Warner or Comcast - and, if you're lucky, one DSL provider, and that's it if you want more than dial-up. Since these communications giants, along with the few other holders of major network brands, effectively run the FCC with careful lobbying and lots of lawyers, no one can be bothered to rein them in.
I really don't know what to tell you to do about it, I'm afraid. Support the EFF, maybe, or write your legislators. It's hard to oppose these kinds of forces, but give it a try any way you can.
Update: Apparently, Comcast is getting in on the game as well, not by charging more for bandwidth, but by deliberately slowing connections. Comcast's fight with P2P networks is old news, but it's new to me that they're instituting such a general crackdown on bandwidth use. It seems to me to be even more egregious to deliberately deny your customers what they're paying for than to ask more for your service. Both of them taking these actions recently and fairly suddenly, however, cannot help but reinforce the impression of collusion and price-fixing. It is to be hoped that the next U.S. administration lives up to its promise to be the polar opposite of both W. Bush and John McCain, and thus approves of and engages in vigorous trust-busting. I see little hope otherwise given the general apathy of the American public (whom I adamantly refuse to refer to in the general as "consumers," as there is much, much more to life than consumption).
Monday, June 2, 2008
Thoughts on brewcraft
I'm sitting here at my "desk" - the end of the living room table, in point of fact, since we're having trouble procuring furniture that meets our standards of both green and responsible, and not an aesthetic disaster - sipping one of the last half-dozen bottles of an ale I brewed a couple months ago. It wasn't a successful batch, in some ways; for one thing, it's a dark brown, but I don't think I'd really call it a stout or a porter since it's not very dry or toasty, so it's a bit of a bastard beer when it comes to style. For another, I really underhopped it, since I was improvising on the recipe and I didn't have a good feel for the hops I used. To top it all off, I also used the irish moss - a flocculant - and priming sugar wrong, so it's cloudy and supercarbonated. When I opened the first bottle and tried it, it reminded me strongly of really crappy albeit unsweetened root beer: brown, explosively bubbly, and, well, crappy.
It's matured for a couple of months now, however, and I have to say that at this point in time, it's really... not bad. I don't know if I would buy more of it from the store, but I'm happy to drink what I have left. It developed real character, and as the maltiness came out, the insufficient hops really seemed to matter less. The excess carbonation also seemed to bleed off a bit over time, perhaps owing to the flip-top bottles I used, so right now it's a nice, balanced, malty brew, and I don't even think I can really call it a failure in any fairness.
So what's the moral of this story? Well, first off, it's that beer is pretty good, even when it's bad.
More importantly, though, the moral is this: if you use decent ingredients, it's hard to make bad beer, even if you don't really know what you're doing. Really hard. You practically have to try to fail, since yeast is a prolific little organism that really likes sugar, and it doesn't like to allow any other organisms to share, so bacterial infections in the wort rarely prosper. Understand, then, that when you experience bad beer, you are being subjected to direct malfeasance. Good beer is pretty easy, so you'd better believe that when a major brewery releases a bad beer, they know what they're doing. They are insulting your taste and judgment as a consumer in order to make more money by using inferior ingredients.
Are you just going to take that? Thank goodness for the microbrew revolution.
For additional relevance, the megabreweries also promote deeply unsound industrial practices. You'd better believe they don't care where their grain comes from so long as it's homogeneous, which feeds a lot of money into irresponsible, fertilizer-heavy agriculture. They also, as anyone who is over the age of three and not blind and deaf must be acutely aware, voraciously exploit the American schizophrenic relationship with sex for their own profit in their marketing. In addition to simply being a bad cultural influence, there is no way that this practice could fail to increase the incidence of poor judgment in relation to consumption of alcohol and sexual behavior.
Drink good beer.
It's matured for a couple of months now, however, and I have to say that at this point in time, it's really... not bad. I don't know if I would buy more of it from the store, but I'm happy to drink what I have left. It developed real character, and as the maltiness came out, the insufficient hops really seemed to matter less. The excess carbonation also seemed to bleed off a bit over time, perhaps owing to the flip-top bottles I used, so right now it's a nice, balanced, malty brew, and I don't even think I can really call it a failure in any fairness.
So what's the moral of this story? Well, first off, it's that beer is pretty good, even when it's bad.
More importantly, though, the moral is this: if you use decent ingredients, it's hard to make bad beer, even if you don't really know what you're doing. Really hard. You practically have to try to fail, since yeast is a prolific little organism that really likes sugar, and it doesn't like to allow any other organisms to share, so bacterial infections in the wort rarely prosper. Understand, then, that when you experience bad beer, you are being subjected to direct malfeasance. Good beer is pretty easy, so you'd better believe that when a major brewery releases a bad beer, they know what they're doing. They are insulting your taste and judgment as a consumer in order to make more money by using inferior ingredients.
Are you just going to take that? Thank goodness for the microbrew revolution.
For additional relevance, the megabreweries also promote deeply unsound industrial practices. You'd better believe they don't care where their grain comes from so long as it's homogeneous, which feeds a lot of money into irresponsible, fertilizer-heavy agriculture. They also, as anyone who is over the age of three and not blind and deaf must be acutely aware, voraciously exploit the American schizophrenic relationship with sex for their own profit in their marketing. In addition to simply being a bad cultural influence, there is no way that this practice could fail to increase the incidence of poor judgment in relation to consumption of alcohol and sexual behavior.
Drink good beer.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Thumbing a ride
Excuse me, but I'd like to get back on the writing wagon. Which way are you headed, driver? If you're not going all the way to Self-Realization City, that's okay; you can let me off at Maturityville or even Enjoyment Cove and I can find the rest of the way myself. Mind if I hop on?
I imagine it would be strange for him to hear it - in fact, having met him briefly and established that he's a nice, down-to-earth guy with a history of underestimating himself, I'm sure it would be - but I feel like I owe a lot to Wil Wheaton. I've been reading Just a Geek, and I don't think I've ever encountered a more excruciatingly sympathetic account of an internal struggle between real identity and expectation. Like Wil, I'm a writer by nature, and like Wil, I have spent years fruitlessly telling myself that I'm something else. In my case, the "something else" is a scientist, not an actor; all the same, I find the internal struggle deeply resonant. In the bargain, I've neglected my writing to the point where I've lost my edge, and I've spent many semesters kicking myself for fitting inadequately into a role I'm just not made to fill. There are differences, sure; I can probably continue to work in science since it's not as cutthroat as Hollywood, and I do love it. I'm a passionate generalist.
Those of you who only know Wil as Wesley Crusher need to give him another look. You might be surprised to know just how much you have in common - just like every other insecure teenage boy, Wil hated Wesley too. The grown man Wil tells a heck of a story, and the story he tells is personal, familiar, and pretty damn funny.
Anyway, thanks, Wil.
I imagine it would be strange for him to hear it - in fact, having met him briefly and established that he's a nice, down-to-earth guy with a history of underestimating himself, I'm sure it would be - but I feel like I owe a lot to Wil Wheaton. I've been reading Just a Geek, and I don't think I've ever encountered a more excruciatingly sympathetic account of an internal struggle between real identity and expectation. Like Wil, I'm a writer by nature, and like Wil, I have spent years fruitlessly telling myself that I'm something else. In my case, the "something else" is a scientist, not an actor; all the same, I find the internal struggle deeply resonant. In the bargain, I've neglected my writing to the point where I've lost my edge, and I've spent many semesters kicking myself for fitting inadequately into a role I'm just not made to fill. There are differences, sure; I can probably continue to work in science since it's not as cutthroat as Hollywood, and I do love it. I'm a passionate generalist.
Those of you who only know Wil as Wesley Crusher need to give him another look. You might be surprised to know just how much you have in common - just like every other insecure teenage boy, Wil hated Wesley too. The grown man Wil tells a heck of a story, and the story he tells is personal, familiar, and pretty damn funny.
Anyway, thanks, Wil.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Finding a place
I can't think of a way to say this that won't be at least a little trite, but I need to say it, so I'll just get it out of the way: I haven't been blogging because I haven't liked who I am and I haven't been able to figure out where I belong or where I'm going, so I've been trying to find myself.
Should I have put quotation marks around "find myself"? Would that have been suitably ironic? Does it count that I just did, albeit a sentence too late?
Anyway, yes. I found myself, not long ago, subject to more and more violent mood swings - admittedly most of them from "normal" into "crushing depression" - and I realized I had to, essentially, change or die. Reducing the amount of time each day I spent listening to the news helped immensely; I already know how the Presidential election is going to turn out, for example, so stressing out constantly about the petty details and Hillary's latest offense against basic integrity and decency was just causing my blood pressure to spike with unhealthy frequency. One news program per day is quite sufficient. I still enjoy the local features of our NPR station and the in-depth programs, but I had to relax and let the world take its course.
Once I stopped raging, though, I started to realize that a large part of the reason I was getting so pissed off about the ways the world needs to change is because I'm quite unhappy with my place in it. I don't really know who I am. Rather than ranting about this as I ordinarily would, however, I'll just say that I've been avoiding updating here because I just haven't known what to say. I don't know what direction I want to take. This is true both in life and in this blogspace.
Diverting all my energy away from pointless rage has allowed me to channel it into introspection and creativity, and I have realized that in the last six or eight years I really haven't made much progress on the "What do I want to do?" question. I'm currently working a more or less dead-end job, which I took only in order to lead to more jobs that actually involve bench science and might help me get into grad school. Unfortunately, I don't really know what grad school program I want to go into, or how to best go about it. I do, at least, know that I want to get into grad school in some sort of PhD program, because even if I don't stay in professional science, I want to experience it. I want that background, because a couple of the things I know I might do are science education and science journalism.
I can't help, sometimes, but to picture myself as a high school teacher. We'll see if that's how it ends up. I know that would be a good place to make a real difference, but it does have its obvious drawbacks as well.
Anyway, that's the story. Once I've got things figured out a little better, have no doubt I'll talk about it to no end; meantime, I'll try to find interesting things to talk about that are compelling in their own right and don't focus on me.
I want to know if people know who George is in "A Talk with George." (Yes, you can listen to it for free.) No fair just Wikiing the song.
Should I have put quotation marks around "find myself"? Would that have been suitably ironic? Does it count that I just did, albeit a sentence too late?
Anyway, yes. I found myself, not long ago, subject to more and more violent mood swings - admittedly most of them from "normal" into "crushing depression" - and I realized I had to, essentially, change or die. Reducing the amount of time each day I spent listening to the news helped immensely; I already know how the Presidential election is going to turn out, for example, so stressing out constantly about the petty details and Hillary's latest offense against basic integrity and decency was just causing my blood pressure to spike with unhealthy frequency. One news program per day is quite sufficient. I still enjoy the local features of our NPR station and the in-depth programs, but I had to relax and let the world take its course.
Once I stopped raging, though, I started to realize that a large part of the reason I was getting so pissed off about the ways the world needs to change is because I'm quite unhappy with my place in it. I don't really know who I am. Rather than ranting about this as I ordinarily would, however, I'll just say that I've been avoiding updating here because I just haven't known what to say. I don't know what direction I want to take. This is true both in life and in this blogspace.
Diverting all my energy away from pointless rage has allowed me to channel it into introspection and creativity, and I have realized that in the last six or eight years I really haven't made much progress on the "What do I want to do?" question. I'm currently working a more or less dead-end job, which I took only in order to lead to more jobs that actually involve bench science and might help me get into grad school. Unfortunately, I don't really know what grad school program I want to go into, or how to best go about it. I do, at least, know that I want to get into grad school in some sort of PhD program, because even if I don't stay in professional science, I want to experience it. I want that background, because a couple of the things I know I might do are science education and science journalism.
I can't help, sometimes, but to picture myself as a high school teacher. We'll see if that's how it ends up. I know that would be a good place to make a real difference, but it does have its obvious drawbacks as well.
Anyway, that's the story. Once I've got things figured out a little better, have no doubt I'll talk about it to no end; meantime, I'll try to find interesting things to talk about that are compelling in their own right and don't focus on me.
I want to know if people know who George is in "A Talk with George." (Yes, you can listen to it for free.) No fair just Wikiing the song.
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