The Sky Has Limits

The Abscess of Excess

I consider my father an incredibly intelligent person, who has far more experience than I do, and has recently been bloating his mind with powerful books that talk about the modern era.  About a year ago, I lived with him for a month or so, and it gave me the chance to start interacting on his level, instead of forcing him to come down to mine.  My newfound political interest is almost a direct result of that occurring during an election year.

During that time, he began warning me that my generation is in a pinnacle place to shape our country, and that our abundance of over-spending and living beyond our means would catch up with us.  He showed me a sobering statistic from a Time Magazine a year ago, February: that our country consumes 11 times what it produces.  He claimed something like that is unsustainable and that eventually, our economy would shift to deal with it.  Sure enough, things went South.

When perusing the current Time Magazine headlines from my RSS feed, I happened upon The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good For America?, and while it's a good 10-minute read, it's probably the best article I've read by them.  It accurately labels our country and its habits, then tells us what we shouldn't do, and what we could do.  If ever you were looking for something that sums up what this generation has been focused on for the last 20 years (and where it's going), this is it.  I would encourage you all to take the time to read it.  While not saying anything brilliantly new, it takes many things into consideration and places them side by side for your own edification.

Isn't it Ironic?

A little too ironic...

Irony is probably second only to sarcasm in humorous use, and I see it all around me.  The most recent manifestation is my thorough enjoyment of writing a story that reflects my own despondent view of life.  Deeper still, the story could not have been born without first having utter frustration at existence, and at this particular moment, I find myself pretty damn pleased with life.

Among other ironies, I have one in particular happening with Dungeons & Dragons.  My whole life, I've found it difficult to play role-playing games, because I love being told a story and socializing with others, but I always felt like I was not playing my "role" very well, be it the character, or the player.  Participation always seemed to get in my way of enjoying what was going on around me, yet I wanted to be a part of it.  After reading the newest edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide, I realized that I have always been the "observer" or "storyteller" type of role-player, who enjoys watching things unfold and creating new tales to relate, respectively.  A light-bulb switched on over my head, and I realized that makes me the perfect candidate for a Dungeon Master, which I had simply never thought of before.

Now, to enjoy participating in the storytelling and socialization, all I needed were some friends willing to play.  Sure enough, the time was ripe, and as I mentioned it casually at dinner the other night, everyone seemed "game".  Hopefully, in a few week's time I can be up and running a campaign of my own.  Perhaps someday I'll be comfortable enough to put something together myself, as I'm bursting at the seems with ideas for neat NPCs and strange environs.

As the irony treads ever deeper, I have never been much for fantasy fiction, preferring it's smarter, older brother, science fiction.  Yet here I am, contemplating several swords and sorcery scenarios, eager to see them brought forth.

Will it ever stop?!  I love meat, in every form, barely pausing to consider the implications of veal or foie gras.  Tonight, I plan to try and ask my almost-vegan out on a second date.  While I'm not sure it would ever work out in the end, who is to say?  I find her opposites very attractive, and I intend to find out.

Perhaps I simply like melodrama, or maybe my life has become so stagnant that I court irony as if it were some fleeting romance.  I suppose only time (and my blog) will tell.

Intrepid Trepidation

I watched the 3/12/09 episode of The Daily Show with reluctance, because I hate seeing people embarrassed on TV, and I was pretty sure the interview with Jim Cramer would not be to his favor.  As usual, I was blown away by what I saw.  I'm impressed Cramer had the balls to do it, and he upped himself in my world, because it has got to be really hard to sit in that chair across from Stewart when he has home team advantage.  Mostly, I was surprised Cramer kept his cool, and both were pretty professional.

Stewart never ceases to amaze me by asking exactly the questions that need to be asked.  Sadly, I think Cramer dodged a lot of the direct bullets, but it was kind of vindicating to see him cop to some of the problems that his show (network?) cause.

The real question is, are the news networks ever going to change?  If they asked the questions that Stewart does, they would never get any interviews and the pretense of their empire would collapse.  One of the big reasons I'm interested in/horrified by Frost/Nixon is the idea that the interview recreated there is what basically ended objective journalism.  A public duel with the figurehead of the most powerful empire on Earth, which basically crippled the leader in a way he never recovered from.  Knowing that, no leader/CEO/figurehead will ever put themselves in a position of weakness ever again, which is why Jon Stewart gets interviews like the one last night once a fucking year.  It has nothing to do with the fact that his show is on Comedy Central, it's entirely because people know he will ask them things that they cannot spin and dodge away from, not to mention the power of his editing and writing teams who are extremely good at ramming a point home.

Stewart argues that CNBC should hold these people accountable for the lies they tell in the interviews, and I think he lives in a rosy world.  If the network burned every bridge they had, no one would watch because there would not be anything TO watch.  Not to mention that the public gets mad when it's nothing but bad news, all the time, and then they get mad when the network tries to lighten things up and doesn't go for blood in every single dialogue.

The Daily Show is popular now because our country (obviously) has some accountability issues, and Stewart seems to be in support of heavy accountability.  Until the public drops their faith in the credo, "Ignorance is bliss" and stops enjoying the lies that it tells itself, journalism that ruthlessly hunts down evil in every corner will die an early death every time it's born.  I am glad to see so many eyes in our generation opening (mine so recently included), but I still think we have a ways to go.

Leoben, Rebooted

A timely delivery from Newegg.com gave me most of the last few components I intend to add to my new PC.  Some, like the 1TB internal HDD I desperately want, are going to have to wait just a little longer before they make it in, but for now, he is pretty complete.

First, I got the cold cathode UV bulbs, as well as the UV reactive cabling and fans I was eagerly anticipating.  If there was any doubt before that the box resembles an ascendant AI, it is gone now.  I received my packages at 10am and had everything installed, cables tucked where I wanted, etc by about 2pm.  When I turned on the machine, I discovered a few Easter eggs: my RAM slots are UV reactive, as are my two 120mm case fans.  This was nice, because I had replaced the two 80mm fans, but chose to wait and see if the bulbs were bright enough to even reach the other ones, and sure enough, there's a circular cloud of soft glow at the back of my case.  The sleeved PATA cable looks like some albino cave-dwelling python, unraveling itself in my case to present a greater threat.  I haven't purchased the UV-reactive detailing paint, or the plasma bulb (for fear that its light would overpower the UV) but they may be just around the corner.

Also, I finally hooked up the front LED "eyes", and while they are blue--not traditional Cylon red--there are red HDD activity LEDs embedded behind them, so if it's dark, and he's thinking, you see a flicker of crimson in his electronic gaze.  Is that malice....?

As the sun slowly set, the interior began to glow more and more, a subtle luminescence from within.  By the time night had fallen and my eyes had adjusted, I was very pleased with my work.  The bulbs are velcroed to the underside of the interior roof of the case, so they are not visible, but the combination of my power supply's blue LED and ultra-violet light make the inside eerily visible.

Did I mention my new LinkSys router looks like a Cylon device?

When playing around with some other things to make the final conversion (so that I use him for everything except BitTorrent, instead of just gaming) I discovered some other fun nuances.  For instance, iTunes 8's visualizer is like watching stars have sex--which is fucking awesome.

The Windows Vista sidebar has some incredibly useful gadgets that are, oddly enough, exactly the things I have always wished I could see at any given moment.  Right now, I have the day/date, the temp, and a CPU/RAM tachometer set, all faded to a 20% transparency, so they don't distract, but can be read easily anytime I need them.  I think I can safely say this is the first time MS has given me exactly what I wanted from the next OS version.  Here's hoping for Windows 7!

Which brings me to Vista.  I am surprised by how much I like it, from the 4-second to sleep/wake features, to the next-gen "glam" UI options.  Some of this is the power of too much RAM and a quad CPU, but it still has a very efficient vibe to it.  I'm fortunate enough to not have had the driver and compatibility issues many talked about in the beginning, which I'm sure would have soured the milk.  So far, there have been few hiccups.  I miss the info pane from XP that allowed me to instantly create a slide show from all the images in a folder, or play all the movies/mp3s in a folder.  While these can still be done, I haven't found a way to bring that simple "one-touch" functionality back just yet.  I've had some trouble getting the folder views the way I want, but I think I'm almost there.  We're trying out Avast AV on this machine to see how it goes, and I plan to play with Open Office once Ubuntu is up and running.  If all goes well, I'll install it on Vista, too.

Windows 7 made it onto my machine for about two hours when I first fired it up two weeks ago, and I intend to revisit that, but I just spent 6 hours yesterday making everything on the new box as close as possible to the way it was on the old box (bookmarks, programs, preferences, iTunes, etc.) and doing that all over again, except with hiccups and work-arounds isn't at the top of my list.  Plus, I intend to be as helpful to MS this time around as I can, reporting software/hardware issues as they come up, hoping that when I pay for the OS, it will have all those kinks ironed out.

Installing Ubuntu will probably be like that time your Grandma gave you that slightly odd birthday gift, but you didn't really understand why.  Once you started playing around with it, you realized that it was better than you first judged, grew up a little, and learned to respect your elders.

All-in-all, I am very pleased with my purchase.  I spent more than I should have, but I definitely have what I wanted, plus more.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with the old machine, so I don't have two boxes running 24/7 around here.  A new CPU fan/heatsink is inbound for him, hopefully ridding me of the insolent screaming that occurs once a week.  Once I get the new firmware for the router in place, I can truly make him the Torrent machine, and use Leoben for everything that matters.

National Lampoon's Work Vacation

I had a dream last night that I was serving four of the most obnoxious and ridiculous table imaginable.  They would order ice-cream and ask us to hand-turn the cream; steaks were sent back because they were cooked; ice-water wasn't cold enough, hot coffee wasn't hot enough, and orange juice wasn't sweet enough.  I was stressing out so much that I went postal.  I walked over to each table, swung a Masamune through each guest's head (Sephiroth's impossibly long sword), which caused a fluorescent blue-white arc to trace the air.  Then, each person simple shadow-faded out--8-bit NES enemy style--and I snicked the blade back into it's sheath with a sudden sense of nirvana.

My paid vacation, which will allow me to spend a week with my awesome new PC, cannot come soon enough.

All pieces will be here by Wednesday, and I intend to put them together sans disaster.  For the record:

Case:    Raidmax Aztec ATX-619WB
CPU:    Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
Motherboard:    Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
RAM:    2 x Crucial 4GB (2X2GB) DDR2 800 (PC6400) Dual Channel Kit
Graphics Card:    Asus Radeon HD 4830 512MB
PSU:    Rosewill 550W Power Supply
Trim:    Logisys 12" Dual Ultra-Violet Cold Cathode Kit

Aaron, after seeing my case, blue-LED power supply, and UV cold cathode, stated that my, "PC will look like a Cylon", and I agree.  Let's hope it performs as cunningly.

UPDATE:  I decided to name the new machine "Leoben", after my favorite Cylon from BSG.  Leoben is technically a "number two" model, which fits well, as this is my second PC built from scratch.  It may be too much to ask that we do not end up torturing each other, but I imagine that, in the end, it would bring us closer and enhance our spirituality.  Or something.

Ricer-Roni

It is a wonder I get anything done.  When I turn on my TV (which is always set to display my PC monitor), I start browsing the net and a few hours later I realize my day is gone.

As I was poking around Evil Avatar today, I saw a post discussing the original Metal Gear Solid, and since it was a pretty cool game, I realized I could probably get a copy fairly cheap on eBay.  Then, I put a bid on a low auction for Final Fantasy XII.  I discovered the the seller was offering up his 3rd Gen iPod (just like mine!) for ridiculously cheap, so I bid on that to get one for my bedroom.

He also had a 2000 Toyota Celica GT-S for sale.

I thought for sure it was a model until the page came up and I saw the price.  I did some research and found out that it was not an unreasonable price, considering all the aftermarket parts and the mileage, and I was tempted, road-trip to Rhode Island and bank loan approval not withstanding.

I have always craved a sporty little thing to zoom around in, if only because I have testicles.  My '92 Honda Accord had a spoiler, was in excellent condition, and was my pride and joy--until the timing belt snapped and turned the engine into a worthless piece of junk.  It was still a four door sedan, but the spoiler and nice paint job satisfied my craving for a little visual respect.  God bless my father for coming to the rescue by giving me his old car (since he just bought a Smart ForTwo), but I have realized that its high mileage and age means it may not make it through another winter.

There were two things that stopped me from buying aftermarket equipment for my car.  The first was practicality--I have a very hard time justifying spending hundreds of dollars on something that isn't broke, particularly if it just makes the thing look spiffy.  The second was a local newspaper article with a picture of a Civic wedged mid-air between someone's house and the SUV parked in their driveway.  The article estimated they were traveling from 60-90 mph when they struck the curb and went air-born.

Now, I'm not THAT dumb, but it reminds you that there's an atmosphere that surrounds a tricked-out "ricer" vehicle.  The street challenges, with some dumbass revving his motor at you; the break-ins to steal your (possibly) awesome stereo; the cops looking for your car first whenever they think something bad is going on.  The only thing my ex had on her Civic were aftermarket tail-lights, and she had all three of these problems.  Plus, looking at that eBay auction, I know only the basics about engines and I wouldn't have the foggiest concept of how concerned I should be that this part has been upgraded but that part wasn't.

This calls into question the whole concept of using eBay to buy a car.  Craig'sList, sure--I can call the d00d up, go see the vehicle, drive it around, or even take it to my mechanic and have him look it over.  But if I'm buying a car from some guy in Rhode Island, I have no idea if what I'm seeing/expecting/wanting is what I'm getting.  I would assume that eBay-ing for cars is mostly for dealers who have a shop where they can fix things up.

Still, the thought of a deal on a spiffy car makes me want to look around...

A hero is born

While I'm sad to see another electronics company in the rough, discovering that Circuit City was selling the 360 wired X-Plorer guitar controller for ten dollars was an amazing find.  I ran out and bought Guitar Hero II used for $20, and I will soon be able to rock out with my {guitar} out.  I chose the second iteration because I have heard from many (including Scott) that having Activision's in charge of the note application instead of Red Octane has been a boon for the game.

Since this is a budget purchase (I didn't buy the even better deal of the 360 wireless guitar controller), I opted for the cheapest shipping available: $4 to get it to me by 1/21/09 at the latest--almost 3 weeks after I bought it.  Turns out, I'll probably have the thing in less than 5 business days.  Now, when I go over to Aaron's to Rock in Band form, I can hopefully put up a better showing, stealing some of Scott's expert (and I do mean "expert" difficulty!) lead-guitar thunder.  While bassist is an incredibly important role, it does become a tad stale unless you are playing Police or Red Hot Chili Pepper songs.

Ah, Detroit... Part 2

(Click the picture to read the fine print)

Ah, Detroit...

You've probably read about it, but just in case you haven't, I'll tell you:  Ford, GM, and Chrysler, the three auto-manufacturers of America, are in financial dire-straits.  So much so, that if things continue the way they are, none of the companies will be around in a year's time.  I again tapped my father for some more information on what is going down and thought that posting our dialogue might be of interest to some of my readers (again, his words are in bold):

Dear Dad,

Okay, it's time for me to ask questions about our ridiculous economic situation again.  We can talk more about this on Monday, but as things are starting to unfold, I want to get a bigger grip on just WTF is going on with GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

First, I think I understand that this was basically a domino farther down from the initial stock market crash (due to the mortgage snafu).  People started freaking out that they weren't going to have any money, so nobody bought cars for two months, businesses didn't "upgrade" their fleets and everybody (literally, everybody) tried to make do with what they had for a few months to let some of the dust settle and figure out where they stood.  This caused the auto-makers to not make very much money for three months.  I assume their stock was not doing tremendously well, either.

Second, because they have been running a campaign not based on a better car, but based on brand and tradition, when people started turning to the higher quality, lower-gas-mileage cars (Japanese), they were a few years of engineering and development out from being able to really respond to where the market was going, and this left them up shit-creek without a paddle.  While this happened first, I imagine it has only exacerbated the problem from a receding market and panicked consumers.

Then, word gets out that they are having trouble, America panics, and nobody paying attention wants anything to do with American auto-makers because they are afraid that the investment of a new car might not be followed through on in the coming years when maintenance and leases start requiring some attention.  Sales don't just go down, they almost stop.  Now, the companies that have been relying on brand and tradition have none.

But this brings up a few questions in my mind, and congress' slow response to the situation brings up a few more.

For instance, three of the most powerful companies in America couldn't survive three fucking months of dismal sales?  What kind of business platform are those guys running on?  Colleen's father, VP for Nebraska Book (one of the largest online/campus college bookstore companies in America) told me that the reason they are who they are today is because they started during the dot-com boom, and they had a business plan that set aside a full third of their investment capital to ride through the bubble burst.  Violla!  They are now a major player.  So car-manufacturers who have been doing this for over 50 years were living paycheck-to-paycheck?  It's so hard for me to believe that it makes me incredibly suspicious that they saw how deeply the pockets went for the financial institutions and wanted a piece of the pie.

Next, I want to know why we're nipping at the bit to save the people who fucked all this up in the first place (the financial institutions) but not companies who's sole purpose in life isn't just to make money by making money.  It seems transparently shallow to me that America was worried when its savings account might not be as secure, but they already have a car, right?  So why worry about those guys?

I'll be the first one to scold Detroit and laugh when they fail because Japan was doing a better job and they kind of pretended it didn't matter, but I was expecting a much more gradual fall, or for someone to wake up and build better cars.  But I think that if we are going to say it's okay for a company to play roulette with our houses and then beg for forgivene$$, we should be equally as willing to forgive those who provide goods instead of just hold our money.

I also understand that Congress is realizing the beast they have unleashed, and they're trying to be a little more sensible about it, now.  But I really feel like the wrong companies got saved and screwed here.  What am I missing about this situation, and how do you feel about all this?

Dear Sky,

You have an excellent grasp of the situation.

Let me add a few more observations:

- Why do we care about Detroit?
Millions of jobs and $billions of business.  Note: it is doubtful, no matter what happens, that everybody will lose their jobs and all that business will dry up.  But even a percentage will cause huge chaos.

- What is wrong w/ Detroit?
You listed many of them.  All together:
= Bureaucratic culture of entitlement.  This means
== Comfy execs
== Comfy engineers
== Comfy workers
-> This means tradition rather than innovation, and bloat.
= Carrying the retirement costs for millions that would otherwise be borne by the Federal government
== Rich benefits
== An assumption that Detroit car-makers were a "utility" and could carry this forever
== Other car companies don't have this burden
= Worker benefits
== The U.S. is the only country in the world where employers pay for health care.  This puts Detroit at a disadvantage vis a vis its rivals. (This is part of why healthcare reform may finally happen under Obama - U.S. business finally woke up to this hidden "tax".)
= Higher labor costs
== This is not a huge difference in salary, but it is a huge difference in flexibility.  Honda and Toyata can change the way work gets done, w/o worrying about union work rules.

- So what?  What can we do about it?
We can assist them through a potential short spot, with money, or we can make some serious changes.
= Bankruptcy is the traditional way, but it can't deal with a plan that covers three companies, especially w/ one union at all three companies.  Still, it is tried and true, and would not mean the end of those companies.

- What would be the best possible outcome?
1) The top-two tiers of management get replaced.
2) The retiree health benefits get shifted over to Medicare, w/ some payout to the retirees.  (Remember, they don't have 401(k) plans.)  Detroit is now free of this.
3) The retiree pension plans get annuitized under a private or government entity. Detroit is now free of this.
4) A 401(k) plan is put in place for all current workers.
5) The union agrees to pay, benefits, and work rules similar to what are in Toyota and Honda's American plants.
== Pulling off all five will be difficult, politically and economically.  Again, a bankruptcy judge might be able to pull it off.


2008 has really uncovered many long-time structural weaknesses in the U.S. political & economic system.  It is why Obama got elected and why everything is in chaos.   "We have ruin'd all our ruses."   Global events will probably not let us go back to business as usual.   The problem is that making lots of changes at once is very hard.  There will be many dislocations and pain.

Something to think about and watch is the generational issue.   The younger you are, the bigger stake you have in seeing changes.   Human civilization got us this far, but we have crossed a tipping point on our progression toward the Singularity (the first sentient computers).   Many of the cultural things that caused us to survive to this point are killing us.  Until we figure out how to replace them, they will continue to drive us to extinction.  It is no longer a question of "If?", it is a question of "When?".  Ignoring global warming is not an option.  Ignoring the globalized and federated nature of world commerce is no longer an option.  Ignoring poor people's plight is no longer an option.   More and more people your age are getting this.  And as you get power, whether it is getting into government, or industry, or the way you invest, or the way you vote, you are starting to pry the levers out of the hands of the old guys and charting your own destiny.  It was ever thus, for thousands of years.

  Love,
    - Dad

Change is here already (probably NSFW version)

While I'm 99.99% sure it was not part of Obama's platform, it would appear that the adult film industry is changing.  Recently, I happened upon the Not Bewitched XXX (NSFW) movie and I was pleasantly surprised.  Here is an adult movie that doesn't take itself too seriously and has fun with the fact that the plot is ridiculous.  I actually like snarky humor with my sex, because it deepens the entertainment experience (something Hentai has understood for decades).

As a fan of adult cinema, I miss the 70's and 80's porn with their awkward acting, ludicrous plot lines, and absurd situations.  Back then, no one was pretending that their excuse for showing skin in a movie had anything to do with real life.  As time progressed, egos (and paychecks) grew, directors fell in line with "reality entertainment", and everybody started thinking their shit didn't stink because they were making insane money.  That's probably part of the reason I have so much respect for Orgazmo (SFW trailer about NSFW movie...) and Boogie Nights (SFW)--they are parodies of the industry that point out some fascinating things, the former much less serious than the latter.

While there have always been lighter adult films around, this is a new breed of pornography.  Films like Debbie Does Dallas Again completely lack cohesion and style, and have none the personality or charm of the original.  But lately there seem to be producers interested in putting the fun back into porn.  Movies like Pirates (SFW) break budget and sales records, and they are close, but not quite there.  Apparently, the makers of Not Bewitched XXX were responsible for another parody called, Not The Bradys, which didn't hold my attention, but seemed like a step in the right direction.

I'm glad to see that the industry is growing in new (and better) ways, regardless of how else it has changed.  While I'm not sure I would put these films on par with the amusing jaunts of yesteryear, I definitely like the giggle with my snuggle.