Adventures in My Mind
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Sep 28, 2001
Spam Mimic is a fun site that'll encode short messages within fake spam that you can send to your friends.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 11:59 AM
Sep 26, 2001
In The Nation, Christopher Hitchens makes the case Against Rationalization.
See also his Of Sin, the Left & Islamic Facism.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 3:56 PM
In Defense of Freedom
Already it's happening. Myriad incrimental changes are mounting to create wholesale infringements of our freedoms. Endorse the In Defense of Freedom declaration. This is not the trial of Abraham. Freedom does not have to be sacrificed to achieve safety.
Read my post of 9.17.01
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 3:19 PM
Sep 25, 2001
The biggest problem we have in waging a war against terrorism is the chasm between Western, i.e., American, culture and Islamic culture. We are not fighting a war of politics and ideologies. We are fighting a war of culture, and cultural wars can only be won when one meme is replaced with another. This is a task that is much harder than any millitary campaign. How do we possibly convince those of a terrorist bent that the U.S. is not the Great Satan? Even if we were to support the Palestinians, and not the Israelis, and eliminate our millitary presence in the Middle East, we would still be anathema to a large portion of the Islamic world.
Our meme is that of capitalism and free markets; theirs is of religion and tradition. Our decisions are made from a cost/benefit ratio; theirs from duty derived from their sacred texts. Even without the unfortunate hijinks of our foreign policy, our lifestyle is a threat. We represent change. We represent transition. We abandon the comfort of the old knowns for the excitement of the new unknowns.
We have been very careful to show that we are waging war on those who would pervert Islam and not Islam itself, but this may be a bit disingenuous - even to ourselves. Consider this passage from Michael Wilson's Memetic Engineering PsyOps and Viruses for the Wetware:
Culture is, in fact, simply a statistical aggregate of the reinforced signals available in a body of people. European and Asian cultures, with considerable tradition and what could be termed 'cultural inertia,' are harder to manipulate 'against the grain.' Aberrations such as Nazism are not influences that run contrary to a cultural bias--they are, in fact, a tight feedback loop of the primitive cultural identity symbols transmitted back into the culture continually, much like feedback in a sound system.
Replace Nazism in the previous paragraph with Radical Islam and we see that the enemy is, indeed, Islam itself. Therefore, to win this war, we must declare war on the culture itself. A war, however, that is not based on the perceivable gains and losses of a millitary campaign, but a war fought in the "hearts and minds" of the so-called enemy. We must replace one meme with another. Even if we can never be their freinds, we must attempt to not be their enemy. Success in this type of war means fewer and fewer devout adherents to the Islamic faith, even though these casualties will not and should not be counted in body bags.
The harder we drop the hammer on them, the more isolated and devoted they will become. We must bridge the gap between radicalism and capitalism. This is the new warfare.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 2:38 PM
Sep 23, 2001
Banned Books Week, September 22-29
Twenty years ago, the American Library Association and the American Booksellers Association created Banned Books Week to bring challenged books to the public's attention.
The threat to speech is constant and demands constant attention. A free society is only free in so long that it has a right to free speech. Church groups, parents group, and other so-called promoters of morality and standards of decency do us all a disservice when they ban Tom Sawyer, Harry Potter, and To Kill a Mocking Bird from our libraries.
Try these links for more information on how you can help promote the fight against censorship:
The ALA's Banned Book Week Press Kit
The Ameican Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
The Banned Books Week Project
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 10:31 AM
Sep 21, 2001
William Saletan, writing for Slate.com and MSNBC, makes the perfect case for refuting consequentialism in the aftermath of last week's tragedies.
Superficially, it’s empowering to analyze every situation in terms of the consequences of our own acts. Understanding how we can change the enemy’s behavior by changing our own appears to put control in our hands. It also gratifies our egos by preserving our sense of free will while interpreting the enemy’s conduct as causally determined. We’re the subjects; they’re the objects. But the empowerment and the ego gratification are illusory. By accepting as a mechanical fact the enemy’s aggressive response to our offending behavior, we surrender control of the most important part of the sequence.Whether you agree with U.S. foreign policy or not, the planners and organizers, including foreign governments who harbor and sponsor them, of last week's terror attack must be punished. To ignore that fact and take their violence as a sign for the U.S. to change its ways creates a power dynamic that implies that the 6,000 dead are deserved victims. Making apologies for ruthless thugs and perverters of Islam gives creedance to their dispicable acts.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 10:36 AM
Sep 20, 2001
Fareed Zakaria @MSNBC writes about the new great political fights and the end of the free ride. Is it possible that the current globalism; defined by profits, market domination, and exploitation will be replaced by the new globalism; defined by communal interests, shared responsibilities, and rationality? I don't know. But it would be nice. Wouldn't it?
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 2:50 PM
Sep 17, 2001
"History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure."
--Thurgood Marshall.
Do not allow the events of last Tuesday to usurp your freedoms and liberties. Security gained at the cost of freedom is a hollow achievement. It is only through the constant and unabridged practice of individual liberty that the intruding fears of last week can be mitigated. Every restriction, every regulation, every supposedley necessary safeguard will be a constant reminder of those tragic events.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
--Benjamin Franklin
True safety cannot be found at the sacrificial alter of liberty. And I'm not talking about the lack of curb-side check-in or any of the other lame attempts to make us feel safe over the last six days. I'm talking about the fevered dreams of reactionaries and so-called progressives alike who are threatened by an unfettered populace; those whose world view can only be fostered through control of thought, speech, and action; those who will pounce on this tragedy as an opportunity to rob us of essential freedoms.
The media is already awash in talk of giving up liberty in the face of our newest national tragedy. We cannot let this happen. We must demand that our government more successfully discharge its most important duty: protecting us from our enemies. The intelligence community should be chided for its utter lack of preparedness. Our president and legislators should be held accountable for not heeding level-headed warnings. The airline industry should be taken to task for not designing and building impenetrable cockpits. These are the things that must be done. The erosion of personal liberty will be the easiest step for government officials who make distinguished careers out avarice, inactivity, and an almost preternatural ability to avoid the hard choices. We must demand that they work harder.
If this is indeed a time of war, then let us view those who died on Tuesday as heroes. Let us see them in the same congratulatory light that we view our veterans of foreign war. Let us place 5000 new names on the roster of those who gave their lives in pursuit of freedom and liberty. And above all, let us not dim their memories by giving in to fear.
Ask your government what they mean when they talk about "reduced freedoms."
The Whitehouse
The Senate
The House of Representatives
And don't forget your state, county, and local goverments either!
P.S. Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 3:35 PM
Sep 12, 2001
What does all of this mean? Where do we go from here? Two questions which beg for answers that no one can provide in the face of this unimaginable tragedy. The hawks are thumping their tables and rattling their sabres. Retaliate with strength and swiftness they say. They alternate between declarations of war and assurances that those responsible will be brought to justice. They fail to remember that one has precious little to do with the other. We are either killers like our enemies or we play by the rules, rules that do not guarantee our ultimate victory. What then? More war? More terror? I vote NO!
The doves call for love, compassion, and understanding. These are honourable goals to be sure. If you live your life with any one of these three as a guiding principal, you make the world a better place. But these principals have nothing to do with fanatacism, with extreme radicalism, with hate. You mention them to one who is willing to pilot a plane full of passengers into a building bustling with thousands of people and you might as well be speaking in another tongue. It is foreign. It is not part of someone who has been indoctrinated with extremism and hate since childhood. Turning one cheek will assuredly get the other smacked. For that, I also vote NO!
To defeat an enemy, you either destroy them utterly or you get them to admit defeat. We can achieve neither with those who are willing to perpetrate yesterday's sickening events.
To give love and compassion, you must first have a willing recipient. Clearly we lack that also.
I have no answers for our dilema. I have only pecimism. Pecimism that our government lacks the strength and wisdom to react appropriately. Pecimism that our actions will spark a true war. And pecimism that we will never be the same, ever.
I am afraid, and I don't know what to do.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 11:08 PM
Sep 11, 2001
I have no words to speak about today's atrocities in Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The scale of it is beyond my descriptive capabilities. I only hope that the victims and their families are remembered in our hearts and prayers. May our gods pass blessings unto us all.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 9:57 PM
Sep 10, 2001
Since last year's election brouhaha, I've made it a point to steer clear of most arguements about who actually "won." "The Accidental President" is a book about the real impact of the Supreme Court's hearing of Gore vs. Bush. MSNBC has an exlusive excerpt of the book that really hammers home the significance of the Court's decision to first hear the case and then to ultimately decide the 2000 Presidential election.
For the record, I'm truly disappointed in this self-inflicted wound upon the integrity of the Court. All indications were that if they had refused the case that the Florida Legislature and the U.S. Congress, if necessary, would've decided in Bush's favor anyway.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 11:19 AM
Sep 6, 2001
As a user experience consultant, information architecture plays a big part in my professional life. Classifications, schema, taxonomies, hierarchies, et al, are terms that are bandied about on a regular basis. The biggest players in the information architecture field right now are metadata and it's primary programming delivery vehicle XML. Many in the tech industry have decided that metadata and XML will revolutionize the Internet, finally taiming the chaotic, multi-headed beast and bringing it to heal. They ask us to imagine a time when search results are clear and concise, when product databases across different sites are structured identically, when comparison shopping is made easy.
"Sounds great," you say? Well, me, too! But before we all put on our rose colored glasses on and march hand-in-hand over the horizon toward Utopia let's remember that this type of "irrational exuberence" brought us the Tech Bubble and it's subesequent bursting. The tech industry is often handicapped by putting all of its eggs in one basket. It boldly, and often blindly, charges from one latest/greatest thing to the next. Specifics go undefined, and varibles aren't accounted for. Much time and even more money is wasted on this type of fickleness of thought. The same is now occurring with metadata.
Cory Doctorow of Craphound and Boing Boing Blog has written this article, Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia, on the dangers and drawbacks of looking at metadata as a panacea for the woes of disorganization. It's excellent and well worth a read.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 10:09 AM
Sep 5, 2001
Man: What do you want for Christmas this year?
Woman: A divorce.
Man: Hell, I really wasn't planning on spending that much.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 3:08 PM
I can truthfully say that I would rather be doing just about anything other than working right now.
Blue skies. 70 Degrees. 49% Humidity. It is a beautiful day!
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 2:39 PM
Sep 4, 2001
I am a writer who doesn't write nearly enough. That's part of the reason for this blog. The others all have something to do with a slavish desire to feed my ego.
I've read a few books on writing over the years, and they all have a common thread: write every day. It doesn't matter how much or how long. Just write ... every day!
Here's an experiment that you can try. Write 100 words every day for 30 days. You could be pleasantly surprised by the results.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 10:18 AM
