Robot Monkey Pants

George Carlin was among my first comic idols. It’s a real shame he’s not with us anymore.

Almost every eulogy and obituary I’ve seen on the talking picture box and the interwebs makes mention of his Seven Dirty Words bit, but he was much more than that. He was a great observational comic, a gifted wordsmith, and shied away from nothing. The profanity was nothing more than a tool in the toolbox, and he often used it to poke fun at society.

One of his bits that I always held close as a personal philosophy centered on how words in and of themselves are meaningless and harmless, and therefore inherently inoffensive. Context is what should offend people, not a word. I can use a string of profanity while praising you to the highest levels, and I can not utter a single four letter word while belittling and insulting you, and in this so-called enlightened age it’s the former over which people will get their panties in a bunch. It’s ridiculous.

Alas, now there’s one less person praying to Joe Pesci. I guess I should start.

Turn Me Up is a group devoted to a noble cause: bringing dynamic range back into music. The age of the CD was supposed to make music clearer and bring out details we couldn’t hear before. Alas, the idiots behind the bulk of the music these days (RIAA, I’m looking at you) are driven by this inane concept that louder is better.

Layers upon layers of compression leads to a waveform that looks like a jumbled mess and all nuances in the music are lost.

It’s sad, and it needs to stop. The wikipedia page linked from the site has a telling graphic. It’s the waveform of the song “Something” by the Beatles, on 4 successive remasterings: Abbey Road (1983), Abbey Road (1987), 1967-1970 (1993), and 1 (2000).

A couple of examples of musicians whose studio mastering seems to have avoided this technique, and it shows in how dynamic the music sounds:

Tally Hall: Good Day
Vampire Weekend: A-Punk

Now these are YouTube videos, not renowned for their audio clarity. But if you can, listen to high quality recordings, and you’ll hear it.

Google does some great stuff. I use them for searches, obviously. They’ve got a great RSS reader that I love to death, and gmail’s a wonderful throwaway mail account. I don’t have anything sensitive sent there — mainly because I simply don’t trust them.

Today, I learn ofGoogle Health, and I am afraid. Not for myself, mind you. I’m not going near it. But under what circumstances could someone possibly want to do something like this?

I barely trust them with throwaway e-mail information — why on earth would I want them indexing my personal medical information? What possible good can come of this, for anyone?

Google may have a mantra of “Do no evil”, but y’see, that’s not actually a legal and binding document. In fact, legally, Google is beholden to shareholders, since they’re a public company. Their first and primary obligation is to maximize shareholder return on investment. And if maximizing share value means selling off your medical data, they’re going to do that. But, even if they don’t, you’re still sharing way too much with them if you sign up for this.

Maybe one day you’re searching for something on Google, or reading your mail… maybe looking at your RSS feeds while someone’s shoulder-surfing. And up comes an ad for a medication that’s perhaps a bit personal. Because, really, serving up ads is the only revenue stream this has for them at the moment.

I don’t really have a point here — I’m just simply dumbfounded at the amount of trust people put into Google because it was founded by a couple of techy hackers.

We’re now at the fifth version of OS X. I think it’s about time you adopted one of the useful Windows features, specifically “Install updates and shut down.” Sometimes, I don’t actually want to reboot, but want to shut down, and I hate having to try to catch the machine in mid-boot.

This is long, but worth reading/watching.

I can’t say how angry this administration makes me. The outright lies are bad enough. That there’s a large base of gullible people who lap it up is even worse. And, worst of all, is that nobody in the mainstream media except Olbermann seems to be calling them on it.

January 20, 2009 cannot come soon enough.

The image above comes from CNN’s Election Center as of this morning. I’m just amused at it right now.

the Illinois primary is Tuesday, Feb 5. I won’t be in Illinois on that day, so today I took my final opportunity to vote early. This was my first vote as a US Citizen.

And it felt good.

I wear my politics on my sleeve, and I’m a bleeding heart liberal. I’m proud of it. And I’ll argue with anyone who isn’t in the bizarre hopes I’ll somehow make them see the error of their ways.

But that’s not what today’s post is about.

I voted my preference in the presidential primaries, of the candidates still running. Kucinich was my man, but he’s dropped out of the race, which left me the choice between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mike Gravel. I like Gravel, but he’s a bit looney and way too long a shot. That leaves Hillary and Obama. Well, I liked Bill Clinton as a president, but I don’t like how the Clintons are campaigning right now. I also don’t much like many of Hillary’s policy ideas, and I find she’s a Democrat version of Mitt Romney — she’ll say whatever it takes to win a vote, whether she means it or not. I know that’s almost the very definition of a politician, but she takes it to an inspiring level. It’s almost impressive. And then there’s the name. If there’s one candidate who can inspire the rabidly right into getting out and voting against someone, it’s Hillary Clinton. A lot of people love her, but more people hate her. And I just don’t think I can stomach another Republican administration. It just hurts too much. So, I’ll quote Susan Sarandon, who summed it up very nicely:

There’s absolutely no reason why a woman shouldn’t be in that office, but I am not sure about this woman.

If you haven’t guessed it, I voted for Obama. Hardly a meaningful gesture — this is Illinois and there’s no way he won’t win here. But I like him. And of the candidates left, he’s the closest to my ideals.

But that’s not what today’s post is about.

I’m in Illinois’s third district. It’s a Democratic district at the moment, and the incumbent is Dan Lipinski. And he’s awful. He’s basically Joe Lieberman as a congressman. And that’s what today’s post is about.

Today, I voted to unseat an incumbent. I voted for Mark Pera, and I hope I was far from alone. I can’t say how nice it would be to have a real Democrat represent me in this district.

Unseat an incumbent! This congress has been horrible. They got in on a promise of standing up to the president, and have done anything but. They’ve let him rip apart the constitution. They’ve let him legislate by signing statement. They’ve let him “pocket veto” when he wasn’t entitled to do so. And they’ve let him completely ruin this country — its economy, its currency, its global standing.

It’s not enough that Bush is going. We need to remove those complicit in his plundering.

I just wish I could have voted against Pelosi or Reid.

So that’s what today’s post is about. Vote for change — anything’s got to be better than this.

Visa, you are evil.

Okay, I’m not going out on a limb calling a credit card company evil. Clearly, I’m not living out there on the edge with some horribly controversial stance, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Okay, so why am I saying Visa is evil? At the moment, at least, for their Visa Check Card ads. These 30 second festivals of consumerism, that show how nothing makes you happier than spending your money. And if spending is the protagonist in these little vignettes, then not spending fast enough is the antagonist.

We’re treated to choreographed musical montages featuring the well-oiled machine that is our “WANT!” society set to various themes, from Powerhouse, to Rockit, to When The Saints Go Marching In. In them, the fool who dares to not use the check card brings the entire society as we know it to a horrible, catastrphic stop.

Aside from the complete glorification of the entire process of buying that which we don’t need, there’s a bigger problem; they make it seem as if the retailer/restaurateur/comic book guy would really rather it if you used a Visa card instead of paying cash.

It’s a lie.

Every time you use a Visa card at one of these establishments, whether it’s a debit card or a credit card, they pay a processing fee to the credit card company. Money they wouldn’t be paying if you used cash.

I use my credit card almost exclusively. I don’t pay a fee, I earn rewards, and I pay off the balance in full every month. Which means that not only is Visa not making any money in fees off me, but they’re actually giving me rewards. And they love me. Why? Those fees they rake in hand over fist from the retailers. Here’s a PDF showing what those fees are, though they are careful to point out that the merchants pay a discounted rate.

Now, I said “almost exclusively” up there. When I’m patronizing a small business, especially if the dollar amount is in the $20 or less range, I won’t use the card. And despite the urging of these awful pieces of propaganda from Visa, that’s what you should do. Money doesn’t come easily to these small businesses, and you can do your part to keep as much of it in their hands instead of entities whose entire profit model is based on screwing people out of as much money as they can.

If you can somehow mute any music that’s in the place when you do pay with cash, then bonus.

Once upon a time, I was pretty immune to any bank phishing attacks. I’d get mail that looked to be very legitimate, purporting to be from Bank of America or USBank, and I’d think if I were more gullible, I might fall for that.

That I didn’t is attributable to two factors:

1. I’m pretty savvy when it comes to these things.

and

2. I didn’t bank with those guys.

The second one doesn’t seem to hold true anymore, since because something like 90% of the banks in the United States are now owned by about two or three entities, I actually do bank with these guys now.

It’s annoying. Today I was targeted by not one, but *two* phishing scams through two different institutions. It’s crazy.

Luckily, I still have #1 up there to protect me. Well, that and my office toad.