February 2009
Monthly Archive
The real stimulus
| Posted by Chill on 28 Feb 2009 |
The more I read about climate change, the more I think that geoengineering is our only hope.
Given a total SWAG, I’d say it has about a 40% chance of doing enough good to stave off near-extinction of humanity.
But 40% is far better than the 0% chance we have now long-term.
My dad would understand
| Posted by Chill on 24 Feb 2009 |
Twitter: The CB radio of this decade.*
*If you don’t know what “CB radio” is or its import during the ’70s, time for some history readin.’
Mojave
| Posted by Chill on 22 Feb 2009 |
In Mojave, California, now. There’s a spaceport here, and people who actually build spaceships for a living.
Our spaceports and spaceships look nothing like they do in Hollywood’s phantasms, and given the physical constraints of space travel, they may never get to that point of movie realization — however, on days on which I can appreciate the human spirit, I’m much more grateful to those who don’t let the naysayers get to them and actually go out and, say, build a fucking spaceship.
Because it’s not a sane person — not at all — who declares, “I’m going to build a fucking spaceship.”
But the state the world’s in now, we probably need fewer sane people who understand the minutiae of what is supposedly “impossible.”
Mojave.
It’s dry, there are a lot of trains, and somewhere nearby someone’s building a spaceship because they just decided to.
I like it.
No country
| Posted by Chill on 18 Feb 2009 |
I think No Country for Old Men is the best movie I’ve ever seen.
It’s not my favorite movie. No, that’s a different one. No Country is far too bleak, too somber to be my favorite movie.
But it’s a movie that doesn’t leave your mind. You wear it like a scar, and for that gravitas, and its unrelenting power, I think it’s the best movie ever made.
Autarky not anarchy
| Posted by Chill on 18 Feb 2009 |
Contrary to what a lot of tards on the liberal side think, Heinlein did have more than a few good ideas and insights.
One of them was the recognition that all party affiliations aside, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who want to control other people, and those who want to do no such thing. (I’m almost quoting Heinlein directly there.)
The leitmotif of desire to control is playing out right now in the Republican temper tantrum in Congress about the stimulus bill and Obama’s presidency in general. For a variety of reasons I won’t go into here, the Republicans currently attract most of those interested in controlling other folks.*
*Though not all of them. And in other countries and at other points in history, it has been the other side. Communism and the revolutionary movements in Latin America were all leftist, for instance.
Matt & Kim
| Posted by Chill on 17 Feb 2009 |
The words they heard
| Posted by Chill on 17 Feb 2009 |
When I was getting out of the Army, a friend of mine named Kelley made a list of phrases I could be commonly heard to use. Most of them I stole from elsewhere, but I thought it was a pretty cool gift because I liked making people laugh with my stolen mini-comedy routines, and because he cared enough to actually write them down. Of all the things I have left from my days in the Army, I value that little slip of paper the most.
First, a caveat. The Army is, shall we say, a salty place. It is the opposite of a home of political correctness, as am I. In fact, I liked it that way because you could really let loose without worrying about what anyone thought — within reason, anyway. Call it privilege or whatever you wish, but there is some value in that kind of environment.
Anyway, here’s a list of Kelley’s Millerisms (as he termed them):
1) Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
2) Miller’s 82nd newsletter: The Towed Jumper*.
3) If you train the cattle to think, they’re not cattle anymore.
4) I wish people weren’t such tardmonkeys.
5) No spank you.
6) I’ve got a pornographic memory.
7) When it’s a leap year, I’m going to go around saying I feel very bissextile.
8) Short and hard like a body-building midget.
9) I believe in a ruling class ’cause I rule.
10) Just like celery, I’m stalking you.
11) I’m going to stab you in the head like a Puerto Rican.
12) I got more lines than a welfare office.
13) Knowledge is power; Kelley is a AAA battery.
14) The thing about me that annoys me is that I’m a big buttmonkey.
15) I’m in a good mood because I’m always happy that people aren’t hunting me down with weapons — yet.
16) I like to snatch a kiss, and vice versa.
17) I don’t drive my car. I pilot it.
18) Kelley: It sure is raining hard outside.
Miller: Reminds me of that time I stormed your mom.
19) Kelley: I see you got the Mac[intosh] working.
Miller: Yep, ’cause I’m the Mac daddy.
*A towed jumper is a paratrooper whose static line fails to detach. This is often fatal, so this would make a very bad name for a paratroopin’ unit’s newsletter, which is why I suggested it.
Windows Se7en — what’s in the box?
| Posted by Chill on 17 Feb 2009 |
Why I won’t be using Windows 7, and why you should not, either.
This time
| Posted by Chill on 16 Feb 2009 |
I’m going to be ridiculously busy over the next couple of weeks. There will be some posting, but not at the typical frantic pace.
I know you all will be waiting for each post with bated breath.
I think this
| Posted by Chill on 16 Feb 2009 |
I think this is my favorite French phrase that has trod over into the English camp from time to time.
It says — and means — so much in such a short span.
Being at a fin de siècle time, in the metaphorical sense (as it’s most commonly used), I’ve been thinking of the phrase often.
They gone
| Posted by Chill on 15 Feb 2009 |
Went to an older part of Bellevue, Wa., today.
In one shopping complex, about 80% of stores had gone out of business. Admittedly, this was probably already an area on the way downhill, but now it looks as if a neutron bomb had hit it.
For the Republicans who say there is no recession, take a look around.
No chute, no shirt, no problem
| Posted by Chill on 14 Feb 2009 |
This reminds me of a movie — unfortunately I can’t recall which one — where the protagonist throws a chute out the door of the plane and dives out after it.
Technically, this should work as a chute would have a lower terminal velocity due to wind resistance than a falling human (especially in diving position) — as long as the plane hadn’t traveled too far in the time between tossing the chute out and jumping out yourself.
Not the best idea
| Posted by Chill on 14 Feb 2009 |
After further research, evidence indicates an IQ test to help preserve site quality would be ineffective.
See this paper for reasons why.
The smackdown
| Posted by Chill on 13 Feb 2009 |
No matter what, Wall Street is going to hate the stimulus bill because it’s not another handout to banks.
We shouldn’t, of course, run a country and our lives by what Wall Street thinks, no matter how many tantrums they throw. And they will throw many tantrums along the way to a different world because large portions of the middle- to-higher echelons of Wall Street are some of the most entitled, out-of-touch pricks in the entire world. They fully believe they deserve their corporate jets and $5 million apartments on 5th Avenue because they move other people’s money around (and steal some of it along the way).
Smacking them down — not to punish them, but to make them behave — will be imperative as everything is contracting.