Quote of the day

"It's like being invisible. I mean, if a white dude does something nobody acknowledges that it was a white dude. They'll just say that it was a person that did it."

cliché

[French, past participle of clicher, to stereotype (imitative of the sound made when the matrix is dropped into molten metal to make a stereotype plate).]

n.

A trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse

The thing about cliches...

...is that sometimes they are true. For example: Strike while the iron is hot.

Update: A stitch in time saves nine.

A Memorial Day message for you

A wartime death isn't a noble sacrifice. It's a tragedy brought about by our collective stupidity.

riparian

adj.
Of or relating to or living or located on the bank of a watercourse (as a river or stream) or sometimes a lake.

littoral

[From Italian 'littorale', from Latin 'lītorālis', from 'lītus', shore]

adj.
Of, relating to, or being property abutting an ocean, sea, lake, or pond.

Killology

As in all things, let's start with the wikipedia:

The Killology Research Group is an advocacy group devoted to research into the idea that first-person shooter games can lead to violent behavior in people. Specifically, the founder (an ex-military man) believes that FPS games are "murder simulators" that desenstitize players to violent acts. |link|

Fair enough. Next, from the group's website:

KILLOLOGY, (n): The scholarly study of the destructive act, just as sexology is the scholarly study of the procreative act. In particular, killology focuses on the reactions of healthy people in killing circumstances (such as police and military in combat) and the factors that enable and restrain killing in these situations. This field of study was pioneered by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, in his Pulitzer-nominated book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.

KILLOLOGY Research Group consultants are human behavior studies specialists with credentials in psychology, educational psychology, training, military history, and modern warfare. Each project is unique, and each project is customized to meet the needs of the client. Col. David Grossman, Director, personally contributes to and supervises all projects.

KILLOLOGY Research Group examines how culture and society change when one human being kills another. The lives of individuals and families in our society can be literally transformed and the world can become a safer place through education about the causes and impacts of violent behavior. |link|

Next up, let's see how the good Colonel puts this to work. Check out this passage from Blackwater:

At the conference, retired Army Lt. Col. David Grossman, author of the book On Killing and founder of the Killology Research Group, addressed participants in a hotel ballroom, pacing around with a microphone. He spoke of a "new Dark Age" full of Al Qaeda terrorism and school shootings. "The bad guys are coming with rifles and body armor!" he declared. "They will destroy our way of life in one day!" The world, Grossman said, is full of sheep and it was the duty of warriors -- the kind of men assembled at the Blackwater conference -- to protect them from the wolves. "Embrace the warrior spirit!" he shouted. "We need warriors who embrace the dirty, nasty four-letter word kill!" |p. 152|

And, lastly, a brief excerpt from the colonel's latest work of science fiction:

Private Jarvis had been mauled by an ape in the last battle. He'd recovered enough to be released for duty. Now here he was again, with musket balls bouncing around him and wood splinters flying into his exposed flesh. Sergeant (oops, Lieutenant) Broadax might enjoy this stuff, but he'd never been so miserable in his life. At least the apes didn't shoot at you. Once again his bladder control was failing and "leg sweat" was darkening his trousers. He felt his bowels loosen and it was all he could do to maintain control of his sphincter.

In training they'd been told about a survey of combat veterans in World War II, back on Old Earth in the twentieth century. About half the veterans who saw intense frontlineactionadmitted to wetting themselves in combat. In the same survey almost a quarter of these combat veterans admitted to messing themselves. Jarvis was one of many combatants since then whose cynical response to that data was, "Hell, all that proves is that the rest were liars." |link|

Usability complaint Thursday, not particularly veiled sarcasm edition

I've got an idea for an awesome computer virus. Here's what it will do. At irregular intervals (think weeks or months) it will cause a dialog box to appear reading something like:

Automatic Updates
Updating your computer is almost complete. Your computer needs to be restarted for the updates to take effect. Windows will restart your computer automatically in five minutes.

Do you want to restart your computer now?

Naturally, restarting will be the default option, and the dialog box will float on top of all other processes until you deal with it. Also, if you dismiss without restarting, the dialog box will reappear ten minutes later.

Man, that would be annoying. If only I could get somebody to write it...

Our next President of the United States

I can't find it in print, but yesterday I think I heard Bill Richardson say that instead of having a seperate health-care system for veterans, he'd give veterans a "Hero Card" that woud allow them to get premium health care from any provider they wanted.

Seriously, this guy is going to be president.

Internet ghosts

W.B. Yeats obituary @ Drumcliffe by ~C4Chaos.

The USA Today recently gave a brief report concerning the victims of the Virginia Tech Massacre: “Slain Students Pages to Stay on Facebook”. The social networking website’s administration decided that these students’ profiles will not be taken down; instead, they will be remain frozen in their last updated state. This decision goes against Facebook’s policy of removing profiles of the recently deceased out of respect for their privacy, but this is not a new phenomenon. There is simply no way for these websites to keep track of which of their users are dead or alive - the dead are all online now; they “live” on websites like Livejournal, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, or Flickr, and they’re not going anywhere.

Yikes. I don't think they realize how many small traumas this is going to cause. I'm still a little leery of signing on to Myspace ever since I saw a recently deceased acquaintance being advertised in the "cool new people in your area" section. What's worse was clicking through to his page and reading the comment posts by friends of his that clearly didn't know he had died.

BoingBoing: Facebook profiles, dead or alive. No, seriously. Dead? Or alive?

Extremely odd quote for today

I have been a long time supporter of President Bush. Quite frankly, lately, I don't quite know what to make of the man. However, one thing about his legacy will go unchallenged. His term as President has been unparalled to serious coin collectors.

link

Dumb game blogging: "Anyway, remove a lot of sticks."

Stick Remover.

What I didn't get right away is that when you feel you have removed as many sticks as you can without collapsing the tower, you can click "next" to move to the next of the five stages.

My best score for all five stages is 51. TRP0 reports a 57. Can you beat it?

Untitled political post #4

If you haven't had a chance to watch James Comey's testimony before Congress on Tuesday, here it is:

Three observations:

1. McNulty's testimony a few weeks ago was damaging enough, but this is on another level. I think a few years from now we'll look back on this episode as kind of a tipping point where medium level political appointees began deciding that throwing the Whitehouse under the bus is a better career move than loyalty to the Bush crowd.
   
2. The villain of this story is clearly Alberto Gonzales. Please note that he's now leading the agency he tried to strongarm.
   
3. Subpoena power is the bomb.

When doom comes calling, don't pick up

Wash your hands, computer geeks! by Wade Rockett.

I didn't see the debate last night, so it's a slow-post day from Austin. Consider this an open thread to discuss anything we should be blogging about. In the meantime:

Mobile Phone Virus Scare Jumps from Pakistan to Afghanistan

Rumours last week were spread around Pakistan that a deadly virus was being sent through mobile phones, and that anyone answering phone calls from some certain numbers would contract a fatal illness. The rumours claimed that "as soon as you answer your phone blood comes out of your mouth, nose and ears and you die"

The cellular operators moved to calm down subscribers and said in a joint statement "These rumors are completely baseless. They do not make any sense in technological terms." Farah Hussain, a spokeswoman for Warid Telecom, told Reuters that their customer service centers had been inundated with panicky subscribers inquiring about the so-called virus. | link

Okay, so that's not too interesting. But consider that the only other thing I had to post was Maternacord.

Truly, we are as brothers unto one another

So there's this guy working in my building who lacks, shall we say, a sunny disposition. Gary, the carpenter I used to work with back when I was a garage door repairman, would have said, "That cocksucker's a mean old cuss."

Anyway, over the last eighteen months or so my interactions with this guy basically consisted of me passing him in the hallway, maybe saying good morning, and him glowering and maybe asking a pointed question along the lines of, "Do you know why that fucking couch is in the goddamn hallway?"

But then last week he came upon me while I was cussing at the newly repaired water fountain (which water fountain now produces chilled water, but directs it back away from its operator, meaning that you'd better bring a glass if you want a drink, or be willing to stand behind rather than in front of the water fountain, which would be a good trick if you could pull it off). Apparently we are now great friends. Now whenever I encounter him instead of giving me the hairy eyeball he lets me know who or what has pissed him off at the moment.

For the record, today it's the homeless guys who hang out in the alley behind the building.

Two quotes for today

First is this, from the Pink Lady:

Every time I see Obama speak, I remember why I like him. And then I feel guilty for cheating on Hillary. But she’s used to it.

Ouch!

For the second one, I'll let you pick your favorite quote from this:

This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption

First, if you haven't read it already, scoot on over to Crooked Timber and read this spirited defense of the claim that Budweiser is a good beer. For my part, I agree that beer snobs don't give mass produced American beers enough credit and endorse the observation from a commenter that it's important to taste American beers in the right sort of context. Writing about Budweiser, the commenter wrote:

...when chilled to refrigerated temperatures, which removes most of the flavor notes in all beverages, Bud has a pleasant hint of malt without the apparent weight that most so-called craft or micro brews have, making it a great accompaniment to a summer BBQ in the typically sweltering American summer.

Which is about right, although I would say that the best beer for a hot summer day isn't Budweiser but is rather Miller High Life. It has to be served extremely cold, though.