Michael Alan Miller

It’s strange that science fiction gets such a bad rap from book critics and lay readers, as it’s been the only really dynamic, consequential fiction of the last 50 years.

I say this as a reader who reads in every genre, and enjoys it all; I read (and like) John Updike, for instance. But the truth sits where it sits, and that’s the chair it’s in right now.

No Comments »

I just don’t get this idea that many website operators have that blocking ads is “stealing” from them.

Look, when I visit your website, I didn’t sign any contract that says I have to do anything in particular. I am in no way obligated to view your obnoxious ads. I understand completely that your website, like many others, depends on ads for revenue. I don’t care. I have no interest in being marketed to, cajoled into consumerism, insulted by unexpected sounds, and otherwise annoyed by asinine affixations found on your page.

If there were some way to fund deserving website by micropayments, I’d gladly sign up for that. For example, if I were charged $0.02 every time I visited Ars Technica (one of the worst whiners, link goes to a comment of one of the prime whiners), I’d sign up for this in a heartbeat. Why micropayments haven’t taken off yet, I have no idea, as ads are just not a good model for most of the Internet. Don’t get me wrong; I do want to support sites that I like. I learn much from them, and depend on them for many things in my life. However, I will not view ads, ever, if I can help it.

I truly hate that, taking the lead of the RIAA, many people are asserting that anytime anyone does something unexpected or that they do not like with their product, that someone is “stealing” from them.

That’s some heinous high-horse those people are riding upon.

These same website operators who complain about people blocking their crappy ads are probably going home and fast-forwarding through the commercials on shows they’ve got on their TiVo — which I don’t have a problem with. What I do have a problem with, obviously, is the hypocrisy. If blocking ads is stealing, an idea that I find utterly laughable for so many reasons, then not watching commercials (or even changing channels when a show goes to commercial — no way those Turd Fergusons can tell me they’ve never done that) is also stealing.

I haven’t seen an ad on the Interent in several months now, nor will I start. Don’t like that, try to block me, if you can. (Hint: You can’t.)

But don’t call me a fucking thief because of your dumbass, broken business model. Don’t even go there; think of a better business model or close your ad-infested site. Calling me a thief just makes me just want to write a script that loops wget -m and point it at your page all day from the various IP addresses I have access to.

Update: This is a rant blog. I’d never do the above action with wget, as, first of all, it’s not worth my time. It was just a dark thought caused by being called a thief.

96 Comments »

This is awesome.

This field has 1,301 florescent bulbs planted in it, and they’re all glowing. They aren’t plugged into anything, however; they’re powered solely from the magnetic fields produced by the power lines above

I’ve done this myself, with a single bulb. There’s nothing to it. Take a fluorescent light, walk under high-tension powerline. Voila! (Residential ones don’t work.) But what that artist has created looks like some extraterrestrial art installation.

No Comments »

It seems as software projects age, they offer their users fewer customization options. Firefox 3 seems to be poised to do the same thing, for instance.

Windows has done this. Gnome in Linux has done this; Nautilus — the so-called file manager — being the most glaring example. Microsoft Office has done this. Adobe products have done this. Internet Explorer has done this. Many, many more software project have done this, to the displeasure of the majority of users of each product.

Why, I wonder? I have some ideas. Don’t I always?

The main reason is that when a software project is young, it attempts to attract and keep new users any way that it can. One of these ways is to allow the program to be customized to act and look like the user expects or wishes it to — perhaps like a competitor’s product, or an older version, or any of many other innumerable possilities. At that point, attracting users and making them happy is the modus operandi of the entire endeavor.

However, as the software becomes accepted and picks up more users who are unlikely to switch to anything else, the software becomes a standard of sorts. That’s when the developers begin to get a little arrogant. Most developers think they know the One True Way that users should interact with their software, and when there is no longer any reason to coddle the users, and management can be convinved that angering the market has no consequences, those One True Way developers start to herd the “sheep” into how they think these sheep should work.

So buttons become unmovable, or disappear altogether. Options can’t be added, or taken away. The GUI can’t be changed. Default options are always default, no matter what. Keyboard shortcuts can’t be altered, and the order of operations is set in stone. The application becomes a sarcophagus, displeasing most of its users, and most especially its more passionate users. (This incidentally, is how software evolves; as one becomes a tomb, another is born. This is what spawned Firefox, for instance.)

I am not interested in the One True Way any developer thinks I should use their application. I want to be able to change my buttons all around, even in a way that violates every usability guideline on the fucking planet. I want to be able to re-order my menus to be completely unintuitive to anyone except a blind Alpha Centauran on acid. I want to be able to put my file menu on the bottom of the app, or maybe even on another monitor altogether. How the fuck do you know how I am going to use a piece of software, anyway? You don’t, and that’s why when options get taken away from me, it just hurts your software and your project in the end. I almost never use software as some developer intends it; almost no one does. That’s just the nature of software.

All those One True Way developers and managers can take their One True Way and shove it up their One True Ass with a spiny anteater for companionship.

2 Comments »

Good article on how draconian copyright robs us of our own culture, and knowledge.

Without carrying costs, copyrights remain in force almost forever – even though, over time, the demand for the copyrighted material can fall to almost nothing. As the demand decreases, the value may remain, but it becomes effectively unavailable to, as the Constitution puts it, “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Witness all the copyrighted books, scientific journals, audio works and visual works that are out of print or otherwise unavailable because copyright law prevents the new, low-cost methods of distribution from being utilized.

In the problem space of all possible copyright systems that could actually be implemented, we have somehow strayed into the worst quintile. That’s what happens when you let large companies run your government.

I think a tax on so-called intellectual property is pretty brilliant. After all, if the copyright cartels want us to pretend that imaginary property is real property, why shouldn’t it be taxed that way?

1 Comment »

A very good sign, that Obama has a whole cadre of top-flight behavioral economists on staff.

It’ll be nice to get back to reality-based public policy, if he wins.

No Comments »

This is a good article about high-seas salvage operations and the people who conduct them.

He holds an unlimited master’s license, which means he’s one of the select few who are qualified to pilot ships of any size, anywhere in the world. He spent his early years captaining hulking vessels that lifted other ships on board and hauled them across oceans. He helped the Navy transport a nuclear refueling facility from California to Hawaii. Now he’s the senior salvage master — the guy who runs the show at sea — for Titan Salvage, a highly specialized outfit of men who race around the world saving ships.

Yeah, but can he drive an air boat? Because I can. Man, those things are fun. They only need about an inch of water to zoom — and zoom they do.

No Comments »

Not only was Ben Franklin against copyright, he was against patents, as well: “Franklin was a prodigious inventor. Among his many creations were the lightning rod, the glass harmonica, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the flexible urinary catheter. Franklin never patented his inventions; in his autobiography he wrote, ‘… as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.’ His inventions also included social innovations, such as paying forward.”

That’s from Wikipedia.

As with the Jefferson quote I used earlier, you can really see the spirit how the founders of our country intended copyrights and patents to be used, and how that has been subverted by craven corporate interests.

I support patents, by the way. The limit on them (17 years) is about right, in my opinion. However, I don’t support silly patents like software patents, or business method patents. Those are just idiotic.

No Comments »

How to optimize a fresh Windows install.

My advice on optimizing Windows: Install Linux.

But don’t read that article if you’re trying to actually optimize Windows. That article is like the baby book for optimizing Windows. To really make Windows not suck, you need tools like nLite, some good tweaking utilities and/or registry hacking, a hex editor, TCP/IP optimizations, and a bunch of other random tools.

If you insist on using Vista, your tweaking options are more limited, as Microsoft’s DRM obsession has crippled much in that OS.

Random people who’ve used my computer, when I used to run Windows, said it was the fastest machine they’d ever used. Windows (and Linux) is amazingly slow out of the box, due to “safe” defaults. Within half an hour, I can make a 500Mhz machine feel like a 2Ghz machine without much effort. That Wired guide is not the way to do that, and is barely even a good start.

But, pity for you, I have no intention of putting up a Windows tweaking guide here. There are already too many of them on the Internet, but be warned that most of them also feature bogus or useless “optimizations.” Maybe one day, however, I will build a Linux version for your pleasure.

No Comments »

James Kunstler, my favored old curmudgeon, is spot on about the financial system as it’s currently run.

But that system was considered too awkward and “reserves” were then denoted in just currencies themselves, or certificates that represented the existence of currencies held elsewhere, or pixels on a screen representing the movement of alleged piles of currency from one place to another, or the intention to move a notional pile of currency to a theoretical destination, and then that became an algorithm purporting to represent the future arrival of a notional pile of money at theoretical destination to-be-named-later, and so on…. And after another while, the nature of money became so detached from anything real, so abstract, that its very existence became hypothetical. Even this “worked” for a while, in terms of the managers of this money being able to “cream” substantial amounts of this hypothetical money off the top of their notional operations and translate that hypothetical cream into Tribeca lofts, Gulfstream jets, and other real luxuries.

Greed has overwhelmed the system, and with greed, always comes a collapse. Whether it’s the slow-motion collapse of an ancient stone structure or the quick collapse of a C-4 demolition of an old Vegas hotel remains to be seen. My guess is, at least for the financial system, the latter is a bit more likely.

Whether that takes the rest of society down with it is less likely, in my opinion, but it’s certainly possible.

No Comments »

I like making things go fast. I don’t know why. From computers to cars, if there is a way to make something go faster, I seem to want to give it a try. It’s almost a compulsion. If I could overclock my brain, I would.

Next, I am going to overclock the neighbor’s cat.

I can get nothing done faster than anyone on the planet.

1 Comment »

Marcotte really misses the mark on this one.

While I wish everything could be all kumbaya and comity, in reality, welcoming a large number of people who have no interest in your culture at all, or have an active interest in subverting and destroying it, is a problem, no matter which side of the political aisle you happen to occupy. Isn’t this just bloody obvious?

The post just glosses over the fact that, yes, massive Muslim riots in Paris truly did occur, and most rapes in Oslo are committed by Muslim immigrants. I could go on, and I don’t mean to specifically demonize Islam, though it certainly deserves it.

My broader point, however, is that opening your society to strangers, often with little interest in assimilation, is perilous. Its benefits might outweigh the negatives, but that usually depends on numbers. I think the culture of Europe is worth preserving over that of a culture that seems to hold women in absolute contempt, and which has not produced any useful science or world-class art since the 1200s.

I’ve always found it strange that feminists tend to defend Muslim immigrants who would impose Sharia law on them in an instant if they could. That just does not compute.

1 Comment »

Of this list, Love, Actually is the best, and one of the few there that moved me.

A movie that really belongs on the list is Off the Map, probably my favorite movie of all time. What an unremittingly wonderful, lyrical, expertly-told, lush and enrapturing film. I only wish I could tell a story that good. There’s not much in my life that I can say that has left me rapt (a wonderful word that is falling into desuetude), but being jerked back into reality after watching that film was shocking, unwelcome, like being pitched into a tub of cold water. I’ve always loved movies, as I think they are the true art form of our time, but I really had no idea before that film that anyone could make a movie so blissfully exultant and yet completely real and grounded.

If Off the Map doesn’t leave you awed, giddy and weepy by turns throughout, then you have no heart, and no soul to speak of.

No Comments »

I’d never personally join a club that didn’t admit women.

However, I don’t toe the common liberal line that they should be banned. The Constitution has this nifty little proviso usually called “the right to free association.” What it means is that people, in their own private lives, have the right to associate with whoever they damn well please. Abridging this right is where I draw my own line between where the government should put its dirty mitts, and where it should not.

I just don’t believe that the government should be in any way involved in deciding personal associations. If someone wanted to start a club that only wished to admit women between the height of 5’1″ and 5’1.5″ with one brown eye, one blue eye, a lisp, who owned precisely three dogs and one lawnmower, more power to them. And, by the same token, if someone wanted to create a club that admitted only men, so be it. I’d never have the first thing to do with it, and I’d heartily make fun of it, but I don’t believe there’s anything innately wrong with it that the government needs to do anything about.

The problem is, once you give the government one inch of freedom, they take a mile. That is inevitable, and has been true throughout history. It’s happening right now in other realms. I have no interest in the government telling me who I can associate with and who I cannot. While banning men-only clubs might appear to serve the greater good, that’d also serve at the same time to ban women-only clubs, alcoholics-only clubs, blacks-only clubs, children-only clubs — well, you get the picture. (I realize no one in that post is advocating ending the right to free association, but I have seen that argued elsewhere many times before.)

I just started a club for 31-year-old males with green eyes who are named Michael Alan Miller, live in a house with stairs, drive a black car, drink Tazo brambleberry tea whenever it’s available, and who listen to Habanot Nechama.

Want to join?

Well, you can’t. That’s what the right to free association does for me.

No Comments »

Anyone who designs a UI should read this, and then memorize it, and then recite it to their goldfish until it fills their brain.

No Comments »