I was reading blog posts on Vincent Baker's website*, and this thread got me wondering about a game where the action-of-play consists of what cloths you wear.

I don't have a lot of development to that idea, which is the big reason I'm posting about it here rather than commenting about it there. (Free to a good home, because I don't have one, and all that.) But like, is color significant? Tshirt versus button-down? What is the goal here, what kinds of actions are legal moves and what are just kind of irrelevant?

* they did Dogs in the Vineyard and Mobile Frame Zero, and also other tatterpigs that I'd have to look up to tell you anything about.

Four of us at work are some sort of GSRM type, counting me.  (Mostly S.  Well, everything I know says S, but with one person that's technically an inferrence, so mostly.)

I find it slightly funny, because it's this grocery store in rinkydink rural nowhere, where you stereotypically don't talk about this stuff.  There's like thirty or forty employees, and that's including the family in "family owned and opperated".  And yet there are four of us.  Just that I know of!

And yes, we're close enough liberal Ithaca that I think nothing of hopping on the bus for forty minutes each way to go to a concert or a meeting or do some shopping or whatever.  But we're not in Ithaca, and this town is very... republican.

#3870 Cromulence

Two questions, closely related:

Is it cromulent to apologize for not knowing something; and

Is that a correct use of "cromulent"?

Mom said something which–to her–seemed completely innocuous to me when I came downstairs just now. She said, "You can bring whatever you're doing downstairs and just do it down here." Which really just shows kinda the misunderstanding going on.

As a general idea, that's a fine idea. But "what I was doing" was inextricably tied to the computer. A lot of what I do is, for better or for worse. And since the computer I use currently is a fixed-location type, that means I couldn't bring it down. Which I'm not terribly fond of either, I'd prefer more-mobile access, but it is what it is.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to paper, I guess. Paper's good as an artifact for consumption, as reading fiction (but not certain kinds of scholarly/intellectual-type work); and for certain kinds of reference; and at least some kinds of note-taking— I rather like editing with pen on paper, honestly. Not saying that it's efficient, but that's how things are. But paper's crummy for arguing, a halfway-decent internet discussion thread is much better, so long as the people involved aren't dicks— and if they are, the chance of a decent argument is right out no matter what. And paper's terrible for storage, as my recent experience with using both version-control and paper on the same writing project has shown me. Dear god is that a nightmare-in-waiting.

Now where did my point meander off to OH YE— no, wait, false alarm, I don't actually remember. Drat. Well, I guess this is just a drivel anyways. I dunno.

OpenId's big problem

If you really look at the comment box at the bottom of any of my posts, you'll find a whole bunch of ways to say "I'm a human". One of these is OpenID. I like OpenID, and its cousin OAuth, on general principle. People shouldn't have to be hooked up to some suspect overlord like facebook or google to participate, you know?

(On consideration, my "reasons" for not allowing "anonymous" comments may be suspect. Maybe I should allow that. But that's not related to my point.)

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror made a recent post about "install our apps" pop-ups. You know the kind:

One of the points he makes is that with so many apps, apps kinda need to be free. Otherwise, they're overpriced. But that brings us to this old privacy-freak adage:

When apps are free, you are the product.

OpenID and OAuth are intended to help solve this problem. And that, in a fit of paradoxical irony, is their problem. The very thing they're supposed to do, is the very thing the people who'd have to adopt it don't want.

Without huge, hyper-driven use demand, they're doomed.

Faulty Thinking: "some things man was not meant to know"

Breakpoint, who I respect in general, just aired a radio article on transhumanism. And their concerns are good, and need to be considered. That doesn't mean they didn't commit a thinking error.

The main point of the article was that knowledge can be used evily, and some forms of knowledge can be put to greater evils than others. With which I agree. It then claims that such areas shouldn't be researched at all. Here they went wrong.

The trouble is that any piece of knowledge that can be discovered, can be rediscovered. History supports this claim just as much as it does theirs, if not more. What matters is when it's discovered, and by who.

(There's a handy example of this in cryptography, the study of secret communication. A group of people working for the british government invented the form of encription now used for internet banking, -- before powerful computers existed. The british government kept it hush, because they didn't have a way to break it. Later, some american academics came up with the same system, without knowing anything about the british version.)

If you'll forgive my archtypes, I'm going to go with a supervillian analogy. Say a supervillain is doing genetic research. He discovers a way to trigger a latent genetic defect in the majority of humanity--a virus that causes cancer, maybe. He can then release it, or threaten to releas it, on major cities or even the whole planet.

But if a good guy scientist has been researching as well, and discovers the trigger first, she and others can research and find an antidote or a vaccine. Then, by the time the supervillain is ready to unleash his disaster virus, maybe it won't work anymore. Certainly it won't be as bad. Now imagine if the scientists hadn't been working on the antidote.

I won't argue with the should-ness of their claim. But as the line being crossed sooner or later is inevitable, it's far better to look in hope for Prometheus than to wait in fear for Pandora.

Efficiency and Creativity

I was thinkin' about science fiction and technological explosions. A scifi writer and utopian once said something about how "machines will eventually take over so much of what we currently do with manual labor, humanity will be in a state of enforced leisure. What an envied thing it will be to work!" (That's not even close to an exact quote.)

Humans are, of course, really inefficient at a lot of things.

How does one measure efficiency of creativity?

Logging

All I really want is to save everything I ever see in my browser to disk somewhere so I can see it again as I first saw it if I want to, no matter what happens to the originating site or original file in the interim. If we conveniently ignore disk-space and copyright/'intellectual property' issues, is that really too much to ask?

Apparently, yes. It seems it really is.

Social time: last.fm

Alright, social time:

Why would one want to use last.fm? I'm sure there are reasons, I just don't know what they are.

But I'd like to. I've got a last.fm account, but no real idea why. I think I use it as a "junk I've listened to" list, currently; but I don't think that's a 'good' use of it/ think that's under-using it.

A wacky reformulation of Moore's Law

Moore's Law states, in paraphrase, that processing power as a whole doubles every eighteen months. Sometimes it's been clock speed, sometimes it's been number of transistors, but this seems to have generally held true.

The obvious corollary is that newer processors --computers in general-- are more powerful than older ones. This has consistently been born out, with extreme cases being the emulation of entire old systems on newer ones, even many at once, even without being emulated on the newest systems. (See: Linux to Game Developers: No More Excuses)

Based on this, I've thought up a potentially interesting, but probably wrong, corollary: Every eighteen months, it becomes possible to add another layer of emulation, without effectively slowing down the deepest layer. This means that, for example, I can have my MacBook Air emulating a Mac from a year and a half ago, emulating a three-year-old Mac, emulating a Mac eighteen months older than that, all the way down to the original Macintosh -- with the deepest Mac having an effectively indistinguishable user-experience (for better or worse).

Practically speaking, assuming an arbitrary six-month delay before full emulation of a system, this means that twenty-four months after a system comes out, it's possible to emulate it indistinguishably.

Of course, this is all armchair garbage. I have no numbers of any sort to back it up. I have no intention of going looking for them, although you're welcome to throw any you find/have at me if you want :)

I saw Amber Dow today.
Not so much I "really saw" her, as literally saw her. I spotted her crossing the street as I was driving out to pick up my brother. She was probably on her way home, but beyond that, I really don't know anything.

I feel weird, kinda bad about this. In school she was one of those kids, the odd ones who're social outcasts and seem to possibly even like it that way. Not that that really means anything, I was one too. Part of me feels like maybe I should try to re-connect with her. Just kind of a hey, how're you doing, hang out kind of thing. I don't really know what the purpose of that would be, though. It's not like I know we share much in the way of interests, and she's probably an 'All Grown Up' Actual Official Adult by now (unlike me, who's faking it). It'd probably entirely be just for nostalgia (or even pseudo-nostalgia) purposes.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel a little depressed these past couple days. I should retract that; I know some people who have had "actual" depression -- don't go pedantic on me, I know, I know -- and I know I don't have that.

I'm making a new blog tag, undrafted. It'll probably be something like "this never went through any drafts, so it may be incoherent / logically inconsistent / not spellchecked &| grammar-checked / otherwise generally wrong". Maybe I should make a "here's what the tags mean" post.

A snippet

Knowledge can only be used for Good or for Evil. There is no in-between.

Using the Mac

I discovered today that I can't use the Mac effectively. I can kinda use it, but only the same way I can 'kinda' drive a stick shift: I can steer and stop, and even hit the gas, but ask me to change gears and we are done.

Thing is, all the problems have to do with the keyboard. First is the command key. Through long training, I have become accustomed to using the 'control' key. This one isn't really Apple's fault... much the same way it's not the carmaker's fault if they put the turn signal controls in the middle of the dash instead of on the stem, or Ford's fault that the Model T doesn't even have turn signals. I don't blame them for it, I just hate it.

Then there's the keyboard itself. I might have more success with macs if I used Mac keyboards. All Macs these days have those chiclet laptop-type keyboards, though. When I'm at a desktop, like our Mac, I really prefer the old-style key-travel 'klacky' keyboards. They feel better. And no, my older Mac keyboard won't cut it. It doesn't have quite the right feel to the keys.

The real insult, though, is emacs. I'm used to the Alt key sending emacs' `meta`, but for the life of me I can't seem to find the `meta` key on the Mac. This forces me to use `Esc`, a real problem because just about everything I love about emacs is on the `meta` key. Those of you who've never used the power of emacs might feel this is a little like complaining about a car not having a steering-wheel cover. Which is true as far as it goes, but it's more like complaining about a car not having a steering wheel.

Faulty Thinking: The Use of Theories

My brother has a fairly rad shirt. He got it from Harvard (yes, Harvard U, that Harvard) when he went there for an "econ bee"¹. It bugs the crap out of me.

See, the shirt has this quote on it:

Sure, it works in practice, but does it work in theory?

Which apparently is rather funny if you're an economist, but I hate it because it reflects (or appears to reflect, and in practice there's no difference in how you get treated) utterly flawed thinking.

The whole point of theories is to reflect (or explain) reality. If a theory or its predictions differ from reality, then it is worthless to the extent that it differs from reality. For example, Newtonian mechanics, the simple version of reality where you add speeds together, isn't the whole picture. It's still useful, because it holds together at any and every speed we humans can actually reach². A theory that doesn't reflect reality (makes wrong predictions) is useless at best -- at worst, people keep using it anyways and they are wrong.

This way of thinking ignores that. It rejects anything that doesn't fit into its existing theory. That's a recipe for irrelevance. Now ordinarily, I'd be perfectly content to let people be idiotically irrelevant into oblivion. But this is expressed by Economists, so-called "experts" who people actually listen to. Almost by definition, they are not irrelevant. And so this is a huge problem.

The lesson here is, if your thinking doesn't match reality then you need to update your thinking. And watch out for your economist -- even if they know what they're talking about, they might still be wrong, maybe even on purpose (the worst kind of wrong).

Footnotes:

¹ Not really an "econ bee", it was an Econ quiz thing. I'm not super sure of the details, and "econ bee" gets most of the idea across by way of analogy to "spelling bee". It was probably a bit more like Jeopardy.

² As of this writing, anyways.

A Quick Followup Note on God

There's a C.S. Lewis quote I love about Lewis's time as an atheist. Basically, Lewis didn't believe in God, and at the same time was angry at God for not exiting. I'm not exactly angry per say, but that's pretty much where I think I am right now. I'm not entirely sure that I think God doesn't exist, but in that case...

8093 Celestia

If I were a writer, I would write about Celestia in order to ask my questions about God. Since I'm not doing that, I conclude that I'm not that much of a writer.

Which I suppose is a pity, since I love books and all, but what are you going to do, y'know?

A promise to blog is a curious thing/ Makes one man crazy, another man sing

A promise to blog is a curious thing.

I'm bashing this out on a borrowed computer in a browser other than my typical one, while a movie I'd love to catch plays in the other room. And the whole reason I'm doing this, is because I comited to updating every day, and don't have anything else set up to cover for today.

I'll try to put up two things for tomorrow to make up for it.

Context

It's amazing what you can do simply by striping context. For example:

I am moved.

-- Abraham Lincoln

I'm fairly certain he said that exact combination of words at some point in his life. What context he may have used them in, I can't imagine. The context where I picked them up is that he is literally moving into a new room.

Computers are like Cars

Choosing an operating system is kinda like buying a car.

When you get a Mac, you walk into Toyota dealership and say "Ooo, that one looks nice." And they say "good choice. Do you want it with 4, 6, or 8 cylinders? Stick-shift or auto?" You say which, pay your money, and leave. You're pretty happy with it until a new one comes out in six months, but in the meantime you're confused by the steering 'wheels' on other cars.

With Windows, you spend a lot of time fiddling and debating and comparing Ford to GM, and the various options, and eventually you decide on one with 75% of the options, an entertainment system you can only use half of, 18 cupholders and two seats.

Using Ubuntu is like deciding "Hey, I need a car," so you go on craigslist and spot a car that looks good and it's in your price range. You end up getting it, and it does 93% of what you want it to do, but sometimes you have to turn left three times before you can change the channel on the radio and it has to be in reverse to open the trunk.

Using arch Linux is like saying "Well, I should get a car," so the first thing you weld together a frame and then you go down to NAPA for a couple of pistons...

repoetry: "dancing tv-heads"

i am a product
of this
society
i pick-pocketed
my personality
from a ghastly array
of tv shows
and teenaged drama
if you would like a re-run
of last night's
late night
sitcom
i'm at your service

i am a product
of this
society
if you want some fashion advice
from me
because i dress
so well
log on to
pinterest
they'll tell you
exactly
what i would
because everything i wear
no matter how weird
or ugly
i wear because
they told me
to

i am a product
of this
society
i do not
think for me
i have an iphone
that has replaced
the normal functions
of my brain
it remembers everything
for me
i know everyone
we talk
all the time
i text
really fast
i'm so connected
i mean,
i'm plugged into
everything...

i am a product
of this society
my thighs
don't touch
and a lovely
mountain ridge
adorns
my back
a cavern
in my
belly
come explore
me
a beautiful
bony
product
of this
society

I AM A PRODUCT OF THIS SOCIETY
and you all should really stop blaming me
for being a social deviant
for being unwilling
to conform
to this new normal
sanity isn't
statistical
and this isn't
1984
meaning:
just because a billion people
do this crap
it doesn't make it
right
doesn't make it
make
sense
i will not hold onto your tail
and follow you
blindly,
society
because you don't know
where the frick
you're going
anyway
if we progress
one more step
we'll all be
dead

-- Rachel H. © 2013 an' stuff.
Reblogged (with permission) for posterity and my own interests.