December 2009
Monthly Archive
Hasan enough
| Posted by Chill on 31 Dec 2009 |
Decent profile of Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter.
Miss OG
| Posted by Chill on 31 Dec 2009 |
Of all the ways to hate people, I understand misogyny the least.
Though I have no sympathy for it, I can at least understand how you might come to hate folks who look differently, act differently, and have a culture far-removed from your own. That I can wrap my mind around. It seems almost fundamental to the human condition since history began, as far as behavior goes.
But hating the women within your own society, who look, talk, act, and dress like you do? Who think the same things, have the same dreams, ambitions, desires and fears?
This I just completely cannot understand. I have no path even to start walking down to try to understand how that makes sense.
It didn’t take much for me to become a feminist ally. I’d never even read any feminist writings or even heard the word “feminist” when I did so. I just realized that the dumb-ass stuff the people around me were telling me about women (and some of those people doing the telling were women!) was all complete bullshit and lies.
My dad says I was born with both middle fingers pointing straight up. But that’s just because I don’t easily buy the lines of people around me without checking for myself, and he didn’t care for that when I was a kid.
And when I got told repeatedly how women were inferior and dumb, I recognized that as complete calumny by the time I was 10. Amazing some people never do.
The pulse
| Posted by Chill on 31 Dec 2009 |
Interview with the discoverer of the pulsar, Jocelyn Bell.
The garden
| Posted by Chill on 31 Dec 2009 |
Less bean
| Posted by Chill on 31 Dec 2009 |
The outlines of sf really have gotten broader.
I’d never encountered woman-written* lesbian sf before finding this book. I won’t read it for a while — have too much else to read first — but I’ll let you know if it’s good or not.
*Nothing wrong with male-written lesbian sf if it’s good, but most of that I suspect would be more about “tongues and tails” than how people actually live, and would lack plot. I’d love to be proven wrong, though.
Short stuff
| Posted by Chill on 31 Dec 2009 |
When a tech company puts business guys in charge of major tech projects, that’s probably a good sign it’s time to short the stock. Or at least not buy it.
Maintaining theft
| Posted by Chill on 30 Dec 2009 |
Right after CDOs and Nigerian e-mail “offers,” software maintenance plans are the biggest scam out there.
$1,200 a year so I can access your website? Can’t even call your tech support number until I pay another grand or so?
What a rip-off. I wish I’d thought of it.
Back that thing up
| Posted by Chill on 30 Dec 2009 |
Today was a good day. I fixed many things and backups saved my ass yet again.
Sys admins without good backups are worse than useless.
Car abandon
| Posted by Chill on 30 Dec 2009 |
I am so glad the new Pontiac GTO did not look like this testosterone apocalypse.
One of the reasons I bought it is how restrained and tasteful it looks, contra the trend of cars today which are all undergoing “I have to be as ugly as possible” phase.
When the new GTO came out, many idiots ignorant of all history complained that it wasn’t aggressive enough, that it didn’t look like a muscle car. But the original muscle cars were just regular family cars fitted with a ridiculously-large engine and a better suspension. Other than some grille-work, the original GTO was body-identical to the boring, slow-ass car that your grandmother drove. That was the freakin’ point of muscle cars.
I like aggressive looks, but most modern cars are just too ugly and ungainly looking. The GTO blends masculinity and femininity, raw power with grace, artistry with abandon — and that’s why I like it.
Everybody screwed, and then we were screwed
| Posted by Chill on 30 Dec 2009 |
The latest numbers show that fertility rates have stopped declining around the world, and are holding steady.
This is very bad news.
Disable daytime running lights
| Posted by Chill on 30 Dec 2009 |
I didn’t take this picture (my car is not yellow), but here’s what you pull to disable the daytime running lights on a 2004-2006 Pontiac GTO, in case anyone searches this:
I will be doing this the next time I get my car out of the garage, as I just hate daytime running lights. Just pull that relay out (it’s all it controls), and done.
Prep me
| Posted by Chill on 29 Dec 2009 |
In the past, survivalists and conspiracy theorists might go out into the woods, live out of a bunker, waiting (or sometimes hoping) for the apocalypse to hit. It was men, mostly; many of them antigovernment, often portrayed by the media as radicals of the likes of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. In the late 1990s, Y2K fears brought survivalism to the mainstream, only to usher it back out again when disaster didn’t strike. (Suddenly, unused survival gear began showing up in classifieds and on eBay.) A decade later, “preppers” are what you might call survivalism’s Third Wave: regular people with jobs and homes whose are increasingly fearful about the future—their paranoia compounded by 24-hour cable news.
I’m not sure it’s just paranoia. Society can go sideways more quickly than folks imagine. Ask any French citizen in 1941.
More GTO blather
| Posted by Chill on 29 Dec 2009 |
What I really like about the GTO is that it’s a very deft blend of American muscle car and BMW comfort — in both its ride, its interior, and its performance.
But one thing I don’t like about the car I own now is all the ricer racers who pull up beside you and want to race.
I forgot how prevalent it was, as it has been many years since I’ve owned a fast car.
Even driving back from buying it, on the interstate, some idiot in a racing-modified Lexus pulled up beside me in the right lane wanting to go for it.
I have no interest at all in that.
Eventually, I just slammed on the brakes unexpectedly, so he passed me and finally gave up.
In my Z one time, some woman in a mini-van pulled up to me at a light and was completely serious about wanting to drag. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I waited a few seconds for her to pull away to avoid her.
I already know the GTO is faster than 99.9% of the cars on the road. I don’t need to prove it.
He shoulda stayed gone
| Posted by Chill on 29 Dec 2009 |
I believe Plato said the same thing about them stupid, good-for-nothin’ kids, oh, about three thousand years ago.
Of all the people whose writing I hate on the internet, I think I hate Anthony McCarthy’s self-righteous ahistorical pap the most.