January 2008
Monthly Archive
Audacious, partly bodacious, always loquacious
| Posted by Chill on 31 Jan 2008 |
My favorite music player in the whole entire world, Audacious, just released a new version that fixed a few bugs that were bothering me.
For you Windows fans, too damn bad, as it only runs in Linux, and run mighty fine it do. It is also able to use Winamp 2 skins, playlists, all that standard stuff. However, it’s not a bloated monstrosity like a lot of other so-called music players (or “media managers”) that throw in everything, the kitchen sink, your goldfish’s baby pictures and your grandpa’s toupee. I don’t need any of that.
What I do need is something that doesn’t crash like a Merrill CDO bundle, runs like a 1969 Barracuda, plays whatever I throw at it, puts grandpa’s toupee in the trash, and doesn’t skip no matter what I’m doing on my box. Audacious does all those things (but you have to use a special compile flag for the grandpa’s toupee part), and also it ain’t hardly use nary bit of no CPU in the process (triple negatives FTW!).
Yes, you have to compile the new version, as there aren’t any packages available. Luckily, there’s instructions. These also include how to change the Audacious icon, which is important, as the default icon looks like what happens if you put some mice in a blender and set it to puree. I have a somewhat different set of instructions that I use, as my setup is more customized than others, but that should get you started. If you have any problems, feel free to leave a comment.
Eventually, I’ll post my own instructions on my own stylin’ and compilin’ of Audacious.
Why?
| Posted by Chill on 31 Jan 2008 |
Why does anyone use Internet Explorer anymore? The biggest flaming turdpile of software is still used by a significant portion of those who visit my site — not that many people visit, but enough to get a general idea.
I understand if it’s for work, and you have no choice. However, I can tell when people view my site from work or home, and many home users are still obeisant to IE. I don’t understand. What gives?
In some worlds, I’m a girl
| Posted by Chill on 31 Jan 2008 |
Interesting post here about online identities in virtual worlds.
In Guild Wars, I typically play a quite feminine-looking female character. In real life, I’m a straight, relatively normal male who has no crossdressing tendencies at all (that I know of). So why do I play a femme in Guild Wars? A few reasons. The female character models in that game seem to be better-designed, for whatever reason, and have better posture. They also have more clothing choices and more varied physiognomies. This is obviously not true of every game, but for reasons unknown to me, it is obvious that more thought and design prowess went into the female character models and clothing in GW.
But that’s not the only reasons I play a female character. For me, there is some value in exploring radically outside of your usual comfort zones, especially in a safe environment, and though interacting in Guild Wars in no way mirrors real-life exchanges, there is some transference from the femininity of the character I play to my meatspace self. It’s a way to envision inhabiting a female body, and all the differences that would entail. It’s a very limited simulation of a common human experience that, in truth, I can never fully understand. Around 52% of the world’s population is women. Anything that can lead me to any further insight, even a little bit, into their condition, is worthwhile to me. I realize how limited this is, especially in this case, but anything is better than nothing — and without radical surgery that I have no desire to undergo (I’d make a hideously ugly woman), it’s all I got.
At Alas, A Blog, in a post long ago (you can look it up if you like; I do not feel like it), a poster and many commenters stated that they thought it wrong for a male to play a female character online (strangely, they thought the converse was a-ok).
I have a few responses to that. The first one is: Fuck you.
The second is that this kind of simulation of experience being verboten just worsens the separation of, and misunderstandings between, the sexes. There is no way males not being allowed to play females will make the world better. And though males being able to play females also might not make the world better, males being forbidden to do so will definitely make the world worse for everyone, women included.
Let’s do a little thought experiment here. Imagine earth in 2359 where you can take a few pills full of Dr. Snurflefung’s femmebots (heh), and within a week, you, as a man, will be changed into a woman at the chromosomal level. No surgery involved, and it’s all completely natural, and some more pills will change you back, just as you were.
Though this technology may never be possible, let’s pretend that it is.
How would the world be better-served by not allowing men to become women, if they desired it?
Don’t you think that there might be a little more understanding, a little more camaraderie, a bit fewer gropings and harassments on the subway, a bit fewer rapes, if some men, even many men, had been women for a while? It doesn’t even have to be — in fact, probably won’t be — the men who would be committing the gropings and harassments who would take these pills. As they truly hate women, this would be unlikely. Far more likely is that mostly-good men who now say nothing, and stand by and do nothing, when these incidents happen, would be far more likely to speak up, both in the public sphere and during any such incident.
Banning the “femmebot” pills, in this case, would actually actively hurt women — and I think men being urged, or not allowed, to play female characters in games would have exactly the same effect right now, for a variety of reasons.
Reductio ad absurdum is always great for giving a bad argument a case of the vapors.
I really enjoy playing my Guild Wars elementalist character. She’s a badass. She can knock people down and set them on fire like nodody’s business.
And she is me, and I am her, indivisible.
No pat conclusion
| Posted by Chill on 31 Jan 2008 |
Julia Sweeney discusses something I’ve also noticed.
Seven: Mostly, people are not introspective.
This has been a really profound realization for me. I was raised in Catholicism. I thought while everyone was praying they were thinking deeply about the hardest questions. Turns out that’s not true. I don’t think they are really thinking about anything. I don’t think–this is sad and maybe cynical–but I don’t think most people are very interested in why they do the things they do, and why they believe the things they believe. I know that makes me sort of a pessimist, but I came to this conclusion through thousands of e-mails and conversations.
When I was younger, I also thought that most people introspected as much as I do; that they examined why they do what they do, what they are trying to achieve, how their actions effect the world and how the world effects them in turn.
As I met and talked with more people, I realized that the exact opposite was true. Most people hardly think about these sort of things at all. Most people, when asked to justify what they believe, will offer almost nothing in response. Usually, it’s little more than “It feels right” or “My family was raised that way,” etc. I am not saying these are prima facie wrong reasons to believe something, or behave a certain way, but for me, there has to be much more than that.
Like Sweeney, it startled me to find out the things I spent years thinking about, most people had not thought about in any ordered way at all, ever.
The entire piece is here.
BBS like it’s 1986
| Posted by Chill on 31 Jan 2008 |
This brings back some memories. The first time I ever signed onto any BBS was 1986 or so, when I was in fifth grade. I don’t even remember its name anymore.
I do remember thinking it was about the coolest thing in the universe. Because I lived in a rural area, I could only rarely sign onto the really good BBSes, which were all in Gainesville, Florida, as the long distance rates were prohibitive.
The first time I saw the internet, which was about that time, I was utterly unimpressed. It had very little, it seemed to me, to compare to a great BBS.
Amusingly, one of my classmates at the time ran a BBS, and he asked me not to sign onto it so much, as he’d prefer one our classmates he liked better than me be able to use it more.
Who knew then that we were presaging, and helping to build, the future? To me at the time, it just seemed cool, freeing — but I guess that is the bricks and mortar from which the future is constructed.
One chance lost
| Posted by Chill on 30 Jan 2008 |
Now that Edwards is out of the race, the smartest thing either of the remaining Democratic candidates could do would be to pick him as VP. I know I’ve not said much about politics on this blog, but people who supported Edwards are quite ardent about that support (as I am), while he is not very offensive to most other voters, for a variety of reasons — among them that the press has essentially ignored him, as he is a direct threat to the corporations that control the press.
Those who would’ve voted for Edwards in the primaries or the general will be much more likely to vote for whichever candidate picks him as a VP. I know that is certainly true of me, and given how Cheney strengthened the role of VP while in office, it may actually benefit Edwards.
Also, this is America. Race and gender still matters a great deal. Some people absolutely will not vote for a black person, or a woman. Having an Obama/Edwards or a Clinton/Edwards ticket will make those voters a bit more likely to vote against their prejudices. I know that sounds like a shallow concern, but ignoring race and gender in American politics is naive and a sure way to defeat. Having a white man on the ticket, even if it gets only a few percentage points more, will be worth it. Unfortunately, in politics, as in science, you have to deal with the reality, and not what you wish were true — and these are the realities on the ground in the US right now.
Given that Obama and Clinton differ very little in policy, if either one of them picks Edwards as VP, I’ll likely vote for that candidate. So will enough others for it to matter.
Like a strangelet in a G2V star
| Posted by Chill on 30 Jan 2008 |
We’ve been subjected to another half-point rate cut by the FOMC. Big mistake — well, unless you’re some high-finance Wall Street type, as that’s about the only ones this will help. But even for them, it won’t help all that long.
We’re now entering the failing stages of the kind of capitalism that’s been practiced for the past 100 years or so. This failure doesn’t necessarily mean there will be mass starvation, societal conflagration, and bread riots, though that is a possibility. What this breakdown entails is what we’ve depended on for “growth” for this past while will no longer be available to us. Some of these previous dependencies include wanton exploitation and abuse of the environment, the easy energy of fossil fuels, and deep consumer debt as the economy’s true engine.
Note that I’m also referring only to the Western countries with my prognostication, primarily North America and the US in specific. Though I have lived in the 3rd World for a time, I don’t feel like I’m an expert on anything occurring in any of those very diverse countries.
The failure could be sudden, and if so, a societal collapse is more likely. However, I think it will proceed slowly, though in many ways just as painfully. At least the slow way will give us time to make a transition. Unlike Jim Kunstler, I do not believe the end of our old arrangements will necessarily eradicate technological society. However, I think our society in 30 years will look almost nothing like it does today. Cars will be electric, and less common. There will be much more mass transportation. Houses will be far more energy efficient. People will grow more of their own food. Telecommuting will be far more common. Usury will once again be significantly curtailed.
I didn’t really intend this post to be a list of my amazing and startling predictions of the scintillating future, so I’ll stop there with the mundane and less scary ones. Really, the intent is just to try to inject into the consciousness, with the small readership I have, the idea that massive societal change is coming, and that is not an opinion. Given the input, it’s an absolutely inevitable output.
We’re going to be living in the most interesting times since the Roman empire fell, very likely.
Needs more kindling
| Posted by Chill on 30 Jan 2008 |
I agree with Charles Stross’ thoughts on the Amazon Kindle.
There is no better way to guarantee I will not use a product than toss a lot of DRM in there for no good reason.
Don’t think it’s new
| Posted by Chill on 29 Jan 2008 |
I don’t think Southerners using “Canadian” as a covert racial slur is anything new.
Definitely sure I heard my grandfather doing this in the 1980s, because the first time I heard it, I had no clue what he was talking about. I grew up in the land of a whole constellation of racial slurs — that being rural North Florida — so I probably had more time to sample the varied panoply of mariginalization than those who didn’t have the pleasure of growing up in the South.
For instance, I heard Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to dozens or hundreds of times as “Martin Luther Koon” before I had any idea what his real name was.
Glad I’m up outta there.
Remove the corporate hood
| Posted by Chill on 29 Jan 2008 |
A really well-researched screed on why we should remove the concept of corporate personhood.
Yeah, the humanities are totally worthless.
Rebut the robot
| Posted by Chill on 29 Jan 2008 |
The thing about AI is that no one knows how we’ll get there, if we can, or even want to, so when I see people discussing AI and they contend that “No, that approach is impossible,” or “It won’t be done that way,” I pretty much ignore it.
There’s no way to rule out most routes on a map you’ve never seen. We could be building AI right now and not even know it, which I find far more likely than its deliberate construction.
I put AI in the class of “Hard, but basement-level hard” problems, meaning that in some year, we’ll likely have the technology for someone, or a few someones, to do it alone in their basement. I have no idea when that year will be.
Increasingly advanced spam and phishing filters or expert systems are the most likely avenue for spontaneous AI. As for focused AI, though it might still happen accidentally even in this context, evolving algorithms are most likely.
What I wonder is, if we do create AI, will we even know it?
What year?
| Posted by Chill on 28 Jan 2008 |
The great stimulus package of 1929.
There are far more contemporaneous parallels with 1929 than with 1987, but there are important differences. We’re much richer now, and it would take far more to knock the economy down to that level again. Computers and automation help to mitigate some of the slow responses that have hampered past staving off of economic calamities. The Fed is marginally more intelligent, though a likely rate cut tomorrow will belie that notion.
However, people are just as much in denial as they were in 1929 about many things. Unchecked corporatism has insinuated itself much deeper into the heart of government, and even the people are more subservient now than they were then to corporate interests — all too often these days, when people find out some corporation is about to anally rape them with a monkey wrench, they are overjoyed when they find out that the wrench is actually smaller than they thought.
That ain’t no way to live, in my book.
And, obviously…..
| Posted by Chill on 28 Jan 2008 |
This reminds me of being in a class where the professor says something like, “And, obviously…..” Inevitably, what’s covered in “obviously” is the very hardest part of the lesson, and the part that’s explained the least.
Why is this? I think I have a partial answer. The part that gets elided by “obviously” truly is the hardest part, but because this is one of the areas the professor herself has worked hardest over the years to understand, it is in fact truly obvious to her. For someone interested in, or employed in, that particular field, making the hard parts into “obviously” in their own minds is absolutely essential.
For instance, you obviously cannot install an Exchange 2007 cluster on a shared bus. I mean, duh, right? That’s obvious to me because I banged my head against that more than a few times. But to a neophyte? I might even forget to mention it to him because it’s so obvious.
That’s exactly why documenting the obvious is important, and where open source often fails spectacularly. (I’m typing this on Linux in Firefox, by the way.)
The ATM is closed, yuppies
| Posted by Chill on 28 Jan 2008 |
New home sales fell by record amount in 2007.
This is just the beginning. It isn’t even the beginning of the bottom, as another article about the same topic claimed. If I had to act on any wild-ass guess of mine, with no ability to change my decision in the interim, I’d postulate the best time to actually buy a house will be somewhere between 2012-2015.
The market still has lots of froth in it, and too many people still have too many wildly high appreciation expectations for their houses, as they try to sell them. Which is to say, the prices of houses are sticky, and take longer to fall than they do to appreciate.
My best SWAG is that house prices fall about 15% this year, about the same amount in 2009, and then stagnate in non-inflation-adjusted dollars for 2010-2015 (thus actually falling), while they fall back to within 1-2% of the median over the past 100 years.
Suck it up, yuppies. It’s going to be a long ride.