Nerf-Coated World

February 28, 2003

I think I'll be spending

I think I'll be spending my Friday night programming.

Posted by Matt at 8:03 PM

February 27, 2003

Up for a little game

Up for a little game of Pac-Man?

Posted by Matt at 7:49 PM

Great cartoon from cartoonist Michael

Great cartoon from cartoonist Michael Ramirez.

I've actually met Michael Ramirez -- in, of all places, the lobby of One World Trade Center. We talked right up through the elevator ride to Windows on the World. He struck me as a thoughtful, intelligent guy; in fact, his quiet demeanor was quite the contrast to the outgoing, gregarious types that a lot of cartoonists seem to be. He remarked at the time that his type of humor wasn't always appreciated at his workplace -- the L.A. Times -- and I, not as politically aware as I am now, didn't know exactly what that meant. I appreciate his work a lot more now that I get it.

Posted by Matt at 7:48 PM

From the Silly Mistakes Department:

From the Silly Mistakes Department:

I spent fifteen minutes last night searching for the album that contains the classic 80's song "Steppin' Out." I must have searched through all of Jackson Browne's thirty albums three times before I realized that it was not, in fact, Jackson Browne who sang this upbeat ditty, but Joe Jackson.

Posted by Matt at 3:35 PM

Grrr. Arrgh. We are as

Grrr. Arrgh. We are as gods.

I've been having serious trouble getting my Windows 2000 PC to come online in the little home network here. This is a big problem because I'm migrating all my old files from the laptop (the W2K PC) to the new desktop, and it isn't that easy to transfer files over via HTTP. You can't do multiple-file trasfers, for instance. I've been working on getting the network set up for about 6 hours.

And of course, as soon as I write this, I think "Why not try to set up an FTP server...?" I'm giving it a shot now.

And if you got the reference from the first line of this post, you are a god.

UPDATE: The FTP server worked. I had to reboot the computer because there was some sort of DHCP problem -- my PC had two IP addresses... not as controversial as, say, having two daddies, but still, it wouldn't work. Okay, all you tech-savvy people are saying, "Yeah, FTP should have worked. Why didn't you try that in the first hour, instead of the sixth?" Well. That's a problem. The PERENNIAL problem. I'm NOT a tech geek. I don't know this stuff. I don't care to know this stuff. I just want the fricking thing to work. Without having to spend six hours tinkering.

Sigh. I hate my life.

Posted by Matt at 3:08 PM

My conversation with Bryan is

My conversation with Bryan is posted. It's an interesting read (to me, at least -- but then, I'm half the story; thus, I'm biased).

Read. Enjoy.

And Happy Birthday, Bryan.

Posted by Matt at 12:52 AM

February 26, 2003

Bush's plan post-Iraq? Democracy for

Bush's plan post-Iraq? Democracy for the whole region.

The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder; they encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of the desire for freedom in the Middle East -- And from Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward political reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom to other nations of the region.

I'm not going to conclude that the speech was a mistake; Bush is a man who knows the impact of his words (the occassional misspoken word and mention of concepts such as "crusade" notwithstanding). I can only guess that there's an important reason Bush made this speech before the war -- especially when his opponents would love to use a statement like this as evidence that the US has wide-ranging conquest in mind for the whole region. I'd like to believe that it's an example of moral leadership, aimed at the people who need it most -- the opposition groups in the Middle East who need all the moral support to take action on their own. We need to have them do the work from the inside; we can't -- and shouldn't -- do it for them.

It sure is interesting though.

Posted by Matt at 8:13 PM

Bombs were detonated at the

Bombs were detonated at the Colmbian and Spanish Embassies in Venezuela yesterday. No word on who's behind the attacks, but:

We know how Hugo Chavez treats Venezuelans who criticize him: He shoots them.

How does Chavez respond to criticism from abroad? Well, it looks as if we found out the other day.

On Monday, Columbia and Spain both issued strong statements critical of Chavez.

Early on Tuesday, large explosions occurred at both the Columbian and Spanish embassies in Venezuela.

It's interesting to study the kinds of people who become dictators. Some have wondered why we don't have that kind of person here in America -- but we do. We haven't seen crazy all-out thugs like Chavez or Hitler or Hussein or Stalin because our institution has held a relatively strong stance against any one individual seeking too much power. Our Founding Fathers recognized that you had to divide up the power in government -- because that division works as a check against the tyrant.

Dictators aren't an overnight phenomenon. It generally takes a few years for one to acquire enough power to do whatever he wants. He can't do it in one fell swoop, of course, because the people would rise up and stop the guy. You have to slowly accrue power, slowly turn up the heat. Chavez has been doing just that in Venezuela over the past year.

You could probably say that FDR had a similar agenda in America in 1933. It wasn't until he tried to go WAY over the top (adding six additional Supreme Court justices, appointed by him, of course) that people started to wonder if maybe he wasn't in it for the people, but himself. It's hard to make the case that FDR was a would-be tyrant, but still -- had he succeeded in some of his efforts, we might be a dictatorial socialist country today. Everything he did, he did in the name of "the people", and the people were willing to allow him the power because of the fear and uncertainty they felt about their own lives and futures. In a benevolent dictatorship, it's all about whether you trust the guy in power. There's no concern over what happens afterwards.

The problem is you can't get the power back after you grant it. Government doesn't like to give power back. (You ever wonder why Democrats so passionately fight against any tax cut -- and why the Republicans don't fight strongly enough for them?) That's why it's so important that our institution -- with all its checks and balances -- is preserved, in its original form. We have to have faith in how it works so that when we go through a rough patch (such as post-9/11), we don't end up ceding more power to the next potential dictator. Thus, we have to understand it and how it works; we have to understand the history behind it and the thought processes of those who created it.

That's why, as much as I like Bush and trust the man himself, I don't want to see an expansion of federal power under his watch. Because I know that a more powerful justice department today coule be used tomorrow for gathering more information on political enemies (remember the FBI files ordered by the Clinton white house?) or for throwing people in jail indefinitely because they might be labelled (falsely) as a terrorist. We have to be very careful about setting up secret courts to handle this kind of thing because they have a power over us that we would never, as individuals, grant to another individual. But ultimately, that's what we're doing, through the proxy of what we deem to be a generally benign government.

The point is, we've got to watch out for this sort of thing whenever it occurs, and we've got to keep taking back whatever power we can. And watch out especially when you hear them say that they're doing it for your own good.

But back to Chavez: yeah, that guy's insane. Of course, you'd have to be insane to blow up the embassy of a foreign power because you don't like what they have to say about you.

Posted by Matt at 2:29 PM

February 25, 2003

Is this sick, or what?

Is this sick, or what?

I'm seriously considering whether it would be feasable to start a low-cost private school network, with larger class sizes, but competent, intelligent teachers, who have the freedom to run their classes responsibly and with one goal in mind: to provide students with the knowledge and analytical capability to navigate this world -- and none of the other garbage that the public schools seem to be overflowing with.

Posted by Matt at 5:15 PM

Another reason for the lack

Another reason for the lack of posting lately is that I've been doing a helluva lot of writing to Bryan Baskin. A handful of multiple-page e-mails back and forth, on all sorts of issues, mostly the war and the extent to which war might help to bring about a more capitalist Iraq. Bryan's going to post the exchange on his site, which is 100% fine by me. It's one of the best debates I've had in a long time, primarily due to the facts that 1) Bryan is one of the most intelligent guys I've ever known; 2) when we disagree, we both make a genuine effort to understand the other side; and 3) we started from some of the same premises about human nature and the ideal nature of the State in regards to individual liberty. It's refreshing.

Speaking of debates, I had an interesting one with Ross (no blog available), which began as a political discussion about the legitimate functions of government and ended up being about whether or not we exist. I've done a few of these debates before; the basic conclusion most of these guys seem to draw is that since we can't ever be sure of the truth -- after all, we might be living in The Matrix -- we can't ever make any judgments on right and wrong. Living in a dorm with Plan II people, I've heard this line of reasoning more than a few times. What made this discussion fun for me this time, though, was that I was finally able to articulate, definitively why their conclusion is, well, wrong. More on that some other time, though. Fingers gotta program now.

Posted by Matt at 4:33 PM

Sorry for the lack o'

Sorry for the lack o' posting lately. (If you read this blog enough to notice, then you definitely deserve the apology.) Been working on a few things around the house and elsewhere; things will probably be light the next few days too.

Posted by Matt at 3:52 AM

February 21, 2003

Why I am not a

Why I am not a Libertarian

Friend-in-exile Bob wrote me up today in his blog. He brought up an interesting point that I ought to clarify, just for the record.

For a long time, I identified myself as a Libertarian, being that I fully support its basic principles for government in a free society. Unlike most Republicans and Democrats, Libertarians don't believe that the government has any right to be a father-figure. It shouldn't be in the business of outlawing drugs or prostitution; it shouldn't be in the business of redistributing property from one individual to another. Rather, it should be an institution that protects the right of individuals to function freely in society, each according to his own rational self-interest.

I used to subscribe to the Libertarian foreign-policy plank, too. It allows for a very strict interpretation of when the US should get involved in military action overseas. But their stance on 9/11 exposed a problem for me. They said that we should listen to the terrorists to understand why they attacked us. Al Qaeda wanted our troops out of the Middle East. They wanted us to stop supporting Israel. They wanted us to leave Saddam Hussein alone.

And that's where the analysis end for most Libertarians. But consider the context of Al Qaeda's demands. They have had one long-term goal in mind with everything they do: to establish a worldside Islamic state, ruled by Islamic clerics, under Islamic Sharia law (worldwide, of course, includes this continent too). What baffles me is the schitoma the Libertarians have developed to this overarching goal of these people; they assume that Al Qaeda can be pacified, that they can take the Arabian peninsula and never bother the US again. Libertarians believe, implicitly, that Al Qaeda can be reasoned with. The sad part is that they refuse to acknowledge that Al Qaeda's stated goal is to establish a worldwide institution based on mysticism -- which is utter anathema to reason.

Like Libertarians, though, I know that the long-term solution to many of the world's problems is free trade and the rule of law by a government that respects the primacy of the individual. When the dictators and mullahocracies of the Islamic world release their hold on power and allow their people to be free, the influence of the religious zealots will become ever more marginalized. This certainly happened in Western society; with the rise of capitalism during the Renaissance and its flourishment during the Age of Reason, the Church had to resign itself to merely being a spiritual force in people's lives, and not the head of state. There is no reason to think it would be impossible in the Muslim world.

The vast majority of people, left to their own devices, are capitalists at heart. It is human to interact and trade with each other; we do so voluntarily, each trading value for value, each person acting in his own rational self-interest. As is everywhere, the greatest obstacle to achieving such a society in the Muslim world is the intrusion of government into the process.

Which brings me, finally, to the point. I support anything we can do to bring about freedom and capitalism in any part of the world. And unlike the 15th Century in Europe, the powers that be are far more powerful and harder to take down. I have no problem with the United States acting on behalf of the people in these countries, so long as the action is taken with the clear moral goal in mind, to bring about freedom and a capitalist society in these places. I don't believe, as many Libertarians do, that the people of these countries should just be "allowed to decide for themselves" what kind of government they should have. If the clerics and dictators retain control, and if they succeed in their plans for nuclear and biological weapons, the point will be, miserably, moot. For everyone involved.

So that is why I am no longer a Libertarian. I believe it is far more rational to be what I am now -- a Capitalist.

Posted by Matt at 1:49 PM

February 17, 2003

From Neal Boortz (who has

From Neal Boortz (who has no permalinks): Will the Real Tom Daschle Please Speak Up?

Tom Daschle as the Senate Majority Leader, in October of 2002:

"We do know that Iraq has weaponized thousands of gallons of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. We know that Iraq maintains stockpiles of some of the world's deadliest chemical weapons, including VX, sarin and mustard gas. We know that Iraq is developing deadlier ways to deliver these horrible weapons, including unmanned drones and long-range ballistic missiles. And we know that Saddam Hussein is committed to one day possessing nuclear weapons. If that should happen, instead of simply bullying the Gulf region, he could dominate it. Instead of threatening only his neighbors, he would become a grave threat to U.S. security and to global security. The threat posed by Saddam Hussein may not be imminent. But it is real. It is growing. And it cannot be ignored."

Tom Dashcle as the Senate Minority Leader, in January of 2003:

"We have yet to see any evidence that Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction.”

Posted by Matt at 9:15 AM

February 16, 2003

Runner-Up for Quote of the

Runner-Up for Quote of the Day: Evidently General Tommy Franks was trained by none other... than Jedi Master Yoda.

"At the end of the day, if called on, win we will," said Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of the United States Central Command.

Posted by Matt at 7:33 AM

Funniest Thing I Saw All

Funniest Thing I Saw All Day. You have to give it up to the CIA, or the FBI -- whichever agency it is. They're doing a fine fine job of discrediting the antiwar crowd.

Posted by Matt at 1:00 AM

Quote of the day, from

Quote of the day, from Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz:

"[Our long-range missles] should not be destroyed because they are practically within the range we are allowed to have," he said. "It would be quite unfair and unacceptable by any scientific and security standards ... Destruction should be based on a reason, a reason linked with questions of security and peace." (Emphasis mine.)

One wonders, after banned weapons keep getting discovered and Iraqi officials keep making statements like the above, when the cognitive disconnect will pop, and each of these protestors' heads will explode. It would be awfully funny if it happened at once. Pity to be the street cleaning guy, though. Although the mess would probably smell better than what you might expect, as they are most likely all vegetarians.

Posted by Matt at 12:43 AM

February 14, 2003

This quote from Best of

This quote from Best of the Web was too good not to pass along:

If you're wondering what the immoderate Republicans have to say [about France's position on Iraq], check out this Washington Post anecdote from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay:

"I was at a celebration of India's Independence Day," he told reporters, "and a Frenchman came walking up to me and started talking to me about Iraq, and it was obvious we were not going to agree. And I said, 'Wait a minute. Do you speak German?' And he looked at me kind of funny and said, 'No, I don't speak German.' And I said, 'You're welcome,' turned around and walked off."

Posted by Matt at 8:57 AM

February 13, 2003

UPDATE from the story below.

UPDATE from the story below. So I just overheated my computer. It's felling better now.

I would like very much to be upset, but it's hard to be. It's a sweet machine. 1.5G of RAM. 3.06G Intel PIV processor. 200G hard drive. I have now reached the stage of computing power where everything can be feasibly measured in gigabytes.

INTERESTING SIDENOTE: Did you ever wonder why in Back to the Future, Dr. Brown pronounced "gigawatt" with a "j" sound? Turns out, according to the producer, Bob Gale, that in doing the research for the film, they talked to the only scientist in the western hemisphere who happened to pronounce gigawatt like "jiggawatt". It made sense to them. After all, "gigantic" comes from the same root word, from the Greek, and it's obviously pronounced with a "j". So they never double-checked it with anyone, thus making it one of the most pronounced pronunciation errors in the history of film.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Turns out that MySQL got away with a runaway process when it couldn't handle a bad query I sent it. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah is probably what that means to you. But I'm going to sit here and preen because I was able to figure out exactly what was wrong, and fix the damage, thus averting another meltdown. BLBLBLBLBLBBBB!!!!! (That's the sound of me sticking out my tounge.)

Posted by Matt at 5:43 AM

Dave Barry writes that it's

Dave Barry writes that it's raining in L.A.

In the three months I lived there, it rained exactly zero times. Sources say it didn't rain for at least a month before I arrived, and it still didn't rain for at least a month after I left. Since I'm only happy when it rains, you can imagine my frustration.

Posted by Matt at 5:35 AM

How do you know you're

How do you know you're a bad-ass uber-programmer? Let me illustrate.

Type type type type type. Enter.

Flag-shaped icon at the top of the screen stops flapping. The fan on your new 3.06G starts revving.

You click. Nothing happens.

The fan revs up louder, like an Indy car accelerating and then downshifting. This happens every 5 seconds.

After 5 minutes, you press the power button. Your monitor lights up, at half-strength. After two minutes of nothing, you turn the power off again.

Jesus, I'm going to wear this computer out, too, aren't I? It's two days old and already I'm torturing it.

Posted by Matt at 5:31 AM

Bob writes that he's only

Bob writes that he's only gotten three Nigerian scam e-mails over the course of the week. I'm not so lucky. I get about two of these a day, lately, all from guys who have English first names and Nigerian last names (such as "GEORGE OLA" or "MIKE RABIU"), and all of whom use computers with a broken caps-lock key. Perhaps this because the Dark Continent cannot afford a keyboard repairman. Or, perhaps, it is a longstanding practice in Nigerian culture to WRITE LIKE THIS. Or perhaps, they are all yelling at the computer, and their dication software -- far more advanced than ours -- is making the brilliant calculation to capitalize those words which are spoken with particular emphasis. The implications would be interesting to study. I imagine an illiterate society, which, instead of overcoming illiteracy, gets computers to do their reading and writng for them.

At any rate, these guys have computers, and they all have my e-mail address. My spam-to-regular mail ratio is currently at about 26:1. I'm seriously considering trashing all my current e-mail addresses and switching to a safe one that hasn't made it onto the spam lists. If you, too, are displeased with how these scam-artists take in regular folks for thousands of bucks each, you're sure to get a kick out of this e-mail exchange, in which a guy here in the states manages to scam enough information out of his scammer to get his ass thrown in jail.

Posted by Matt at 3:55 AM

February 12, 2003

So, a new tape is

So, a new tape is floating around purported to be from Bin Laden.

Does anyone else find it odd that all of Bin Laden's tapes have been audio-only since, oh, say, November 2001? The implication that he's dead begs the question: then who is it on the tapes, that has the CIA publicly convinced that it's his voice?

I'm going with the theory that it's his son doing the recording. I don't know about anyone else out there, but I can do a great impression of my dad, cadence, voice quality and everything. Some firm in Switzerland analyzed the last tape a few months ago and concluded that it wasn't Osama -- but everyone else says it sounds like him. Who knows?

On another interesting sidenote, I read somewhere that back in his college days, Osama was once a big fan of Isaac Asimov, sci-fi writer extraordinaire. Asimov's Foundation series tells the story of a hero who forms a resistance operation (called "Foundation") to fight a guerilla war against the fearsome space-empire. As fate would have it, the hero doesn't live to see his goals come to fruition; he is killed in battle at the hands of his enemy. But the twist is that he knew that his followers needed to believe in him, to continue the battle against the empire -- so he made arrangements for video to be spliced and played back after his death, to give the impression that he was still leading the revolution.

Interesting parallels, no?

And just in case you're curious, the word for "the Foundation" in Arabic: al Qaeda.

Posted by Matt at 5:43 AM

On a happy note, I

On a happy note, I just got a decent paying gig for programming. I don't think there's anything more satisfying than to exercise your skills and get paid for them.

Posted by Matt at 1:39 AM

Speak of the devil: Bob

Speak of the devil: Bob just sent me a humorous primer on the military history of France. Reproduced for your entertainment -- and historic enlightenment -- some notable excerpts:

Hundred Years War - Mostly lost, saved at last by female schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare; "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman."

War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War - Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Frogophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.

American Revolution - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."

French Revolution - Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.

World War I - Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein."

War on Terrorism - France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe. Attempts to surrender to Vietnamese ambassador fail after he takes refuge in a McDonald's.

On a related note, blogger Evelyn writes about the current diplomatic shenanigans by les weasels: "I think that we're missing the point on this one. I think that France has been trying to self-socio-economically Darwinate for a century now, and we keep intervening." Question is: Why do we keep trying to pull them from the brink? Wouldn't it be better for us to pull a John Galt and let them freely suffer the consequences of their actions?

I don't know. Maybe.

Posted by Matt at 1:22 AM

February 11, 2003

What? Bob Collins reads this

What? Bob Collins reads this blog? I'm thrilled; I don't know what to say.

Bob's a good friend of mine and former roommate. Aside from my current roommate-slash-love-of-my-life, Bob holds the title of Roommate Who Lived with Matt for the Longest. Bob was the inspiration and idea-man behind Buzz & Mr. Moog, the extremely popular comic that I drew for The Daily Texan. Nary a day passed that I didn't run a comic through the Bob Test. If Bob laughed, I knew I had a hit, even if it was only he who laughed when the comic hit the papers. Sometimes -- and this was rare -- Bob would laugh so hard... he would spill his beer. Considering the fact that he always had a beer in-hand, I knew I had genuine comedy on my hands.

Further, in my ever-expanding quest for personal fame and attention -- and to provide you with entertaining and thoughful commentary on the world today -- I direct you to visit the site of one Bryan Baskin. The first guy I knew who even had a web page, he is the brilliant mind behind the Clubbing Baby Seals Webpage, which, predictably, is, and was, a much-misunderstood resource on the practice of, you guessed it: clubbing baby seals. (How does this fit in with the whole "fame" thing? The theory is that BBaskin will link to me for the prominent mention on the page here. Yep, that's how the internet works -- just get people to link to you, and you'll never have to work another day in your life!)

More shenanigans to come. In the meantime, please amuse yourself with some neat T-shirt designs. I'd get one if I weren't so boring in my choices of outerwear.

Posted by Matt at 9:51 PM

February 4, 2003

Der Hookmullah Gloats Over Shuttle;

Der Hookmullah Gloats Over Shuttle; Sane Muslims Respond: "Get Your Worthless Ass Out Of Here":

The Muslim fanatic [Abu Hamza] called the Columbia crew “thugs of space” who deserved to die.

He denounced the team — made up of Americans, an Israeli and an Indian-born Hindu — as a “trinity of evil” punished by Allah....

His rant caused outrage across Britain, in the grieving space communities of Houston and Cape Canaveral in the US and in Texan counties littered with wreckage.

Here, angry Muslims led renewed calls for Hamza, who lives in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, to be kicked out of the country.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “He does not possess a scrap of human decency. How dare he gloat over a tragedy like this.”

It's bad for any group when one of its members keeps making a public spectacle. Our brains are wired to make associations; thus, we think "Falwell == Christian." Or "Muslim == Terrorist." It's how we learn and survive. The only thing that gets us closer to the truth -- which is far more textured -- is more people like Bunglawala being outspoken in their condemnation of cartoon characters like Hamza who ought to be an embarrassment to any religion.

Posted by Matt at 12:03 AM

Build your own South Park character. Why not?

September 2009

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