Steve Schlosnagle

12:14 pm - The cult of stupid

I just don't get it.

Why is "stupid" popular? Sarah Palin is dimmer than W and that is a good thing? She get elected to a governorship and bails after three years because she would rather promote herself do the work she promised she would do. And this gets spinned into a good thing? People would think this a positive attribute to look for in an elected official?

I just listened to a co-worker in the lunch room say that she thinks that Obama is the worst president that we have ever had.

What makes the coolaid seem so appealing? I know, I know, I hear the people on the other side of the political fence say the same thing about me. But what do they want Obama to do? He took office during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and now things are little better. How is that a bad thing?

Current Mood: sad

11:28 am - Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot"

Excerpted from a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996.
Dr. Carl Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot expands on these ideas.
Image from Voyager 1, 1990

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Current Mood: ecstatic

11:47 am - President Obama Wins Peace Prize

Obama Wins Peace Prize, Vows 'Call To Action'

How do I feel about it? I think it a bit facetious but the Nobel Board always goes their own way. Not like I dis-agree with the choice, but I'm not sure President Obama was the number one person on the planet promoting peace, definitely in the top ten though. Perhaps they thought he was was the number one unappreciated peace worker? Most needing of an "atta-boy"?

I do like the fact it will piss off the far right, so that has massive chuckle points there!

Some of the best quotes I've seen so far:

P.Z. Myers on Pharyngula:
"...but I guess all you have to do is follow after Bush and not blow anything up for a year, and presto, you look like Gandhi."

Seen on Facebook:
"Reason for President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize? They couldn't award his predecessor Nobel War Prize."

Jeff Fecke on Alas, a blog:
"I don’t know if Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize quite yet, and I’m actually serious when I say he won it in no small part for simply not being George W. Bush — for seeking to reengage with the world in the sort of way that decent, non-rogue countries do. That said, who cares? What’s fun is that this sets up the sort of massive, overwhelming, out-of-control right-wing freakout that money can’t buy."

Another from Facebook:
"[Friend] thinks that the ORIGINAL plan in Oslo was to mail a Nobel to everyone in the world except George W. Bush. But then they realized they could make the same point, for lots cheaper."

Current Mood: happy

10:44 am - I now have even better ammunition when the Right crys about "socialism"!

Via this über-good article from Submitted to a Candid World.

It's a bit too long as well as a bit too academic for you to send to your average far-right friend or confused moderate. But it does give you a concise education on the actual meaning of the word "socialism", it's historical uses (& mis-uses).

My favorite part is the enumeration of past president's (and other powerful politician's) nationalization of various private entities. The plum of that group is New York City's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's seizure of the subway system from New York Rapid Transit Corporation in 1938. The MTA is wholly owned by the government to this day and is the largest subway system in the world, measured by track mileage.

Current Mood: satisfied

11:10 am - Blasphemy Day 2009 Flyer

Okies, just a quick and dirty IP theft from the UB Freethinkers and now you to can have a nice Blasphemy Day 2009 Flyer! Check out more info at: blasphemyday.com

Current Mood: energetic

09:17 am - The Teabagger Socialist-Free Purity Pledge

Have all your rabid Republican friends sign this!

Current Mood: giddy

02:23 am - An open letter to Audible.Com

Please stop using DRM.

I was linked to your site from amazon.com and was delighted to see that the audio book that I wanted was available in digital format and for less than what the physical media version sells for!

I was sad to learn that your format is infected with DRM.

None of the devices that I would use to listen to Audio books support your DRM scheme. Even if they did I would not support a business plan that makes it difficult for the customer to use his purchase.

Yes, I know I could burn my audio books to CD and then rip them again and have DRM free MP3 files. This fact is not lost on me, why is it lost on you? You basically document and support a method of subverting your own DRM! Why not just provide the files in MP3 format? Then instead of your files working on 500 players they would work on ALL players.

In the time that it has taken me to write this email I could have gone to a bittorent search engine and downloaded the book I wanted, in the format I wanted! (Hmm, lets see 340MB, ok number of seeds for a three year old book.) Shoot if I wait until tomorrow I could go to the library and get the CD's and rip them from there. So DRM is loosing you a sale in this instance.

I really want to give my money to the authors of the books I read (and listen to) and I don't mind giving some to the publishers and retailers as well. But it is really hard to when it is more CONVENIENT to steal it. It is obviously cheaper to steal something, but it sad when a business plan literally makes it easier to use the stolen version of the product than the purchased one. It is hard for me to want to reward a company that is only subtracting value from my purchase experience.

I will probably end up downloading that MP3 version from that torrent site and then buy a CD version of it off of eBay to keep my collection all legal. Just as fast as using your service, no DRM worries, and probably about the same price. I would pay more, if I could get what I wanted from your service. I appreciate convenience and am glad to pay for it!

I am sorry for ranting at you I imagine it is the copyright holders that want you to continue using DRM. It is just an added cost to you. But please try to make the copyright holders know that the "Genie is already out of the bottle". They are not going to save ANYTHING with DRM.

Current Mood: quixotic

11:46 am - Saddened by the amount of hate and fear aimed towards Obama

Now I realize that "the black man" is a mighty terrifying thing to some white folk. But I really didn't think I would hear some of the people I consider friends refer to Obama as Hitler! I can appreciate not agreeing with policy, but to equate him to a mass-murdering-fuckhead is quite another level of "dislike".

Here is a letter that I had to write to our school district this morning:

Current Mood: disappointed

01:04 pm - To Dragon*Con or not...

So Dragon*Con is Labor Day weekend. The idea of going sounds like so much fun. It has been 14 years since I have been to a "gaming" convention.

I say sounds like so much fun since I have never "been" to a convention. I've worked (volunteered) at quite a few run by Andcon/WotC/GAMA. Those were super fun times! I was usually running the video game area, so that meant 18 hour days broken up by staff parties. I'm not sure what one does at a convention as an attendee.

It would be an 11 hour drive ($150 for gas), $200 for tickets, and $450 lodging. Mostly for a chance to "fan-girl" all over my favorite web comic authors. Yes, I have inappropriate thoughts about Jennie Breeden, and while paying $800 for her to leaf-blow my kilt does sound like a good deal to me, I'm not sure if that will exactly fill-out the weekend.

I'm feeling like an outsider anymore, if I had other friends going or had something to do while there (other than being a creepy old man) I would go in an instant. Some of my hesitation is that I would feel guilty spending money on something just for me. And since this is my idea it would be up to me to actually get out and meet and talk to people. Without the excuse of working I'm afraid my shyness would just talk me into watching TV in the hotel room.

It would be so cool to hang around and party with the likes of R. K. Milholland, J. Jacques, R. Stevens, J. Grant, M. Hynes, J. Breeden, G. Lagace, Dave Z, Aeire, C. Daily, S. Hodge, I. McConville, M. Boyd, R. Munroe, discounttherapy, metalweb. But, there are only a couple thousand other people there with the same idea, so any of that is unlikely. So the likely outcome is getting autographs while muttering something insightful along the lines of "I really like your work!" or worse yet: "Draw on my kilt! RAWR!"

Well, either way I have to figure this out soon, all the better hotel choices are already gone.

Current Mood: depressed

09:12 pm - Best 404 error page ever!

Current Mood: amused

12:37 pm - The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (H.R. 1256)

I feel for the anti-smoking peeps.

Everyone agrees that cigarettes are bad for you, there is no argument there.

They don't taste good (when you start).

They don't give you a fun buzz.

So why do people still smoke?

They only reason they can think of is that they start when they are young and then have a hard time giving it up. (No real disagreement about this anywhere either)

So how do you stop teenagers from starting to smoke. Good question, it can mostly be shortened to "how do you make a teenager do anything"? An no one has a good answer to that question!

Some of my friends are a little zomg about HR 1256.

I don't blame them, really. HR 1256 is a wacky-ass bill.

But when you have wacky-ass problem like smoking this sort of thing is bound to come up.

I think smoking regulation is still moving in the right direction, some of the particulars are puzzling to me, but the overall direction still looks good to me.

Current Mood: contemplative

01:10 pm - Closure (of the geeky kind)

frogmistess and I paid off our house this month! /clap

I've been happy about it, she has been positively dancing around over it.

There was one point I got all giggly about it: When Outlook popped up my monthly "Pay Mortgage" reminder, I got to do a "delete this reminder" dance!

Friday we checked out the State Liquor store that opened up a quarter mile from our house. It's kinda a cross between a no-name convenience store and liquor store. Pretty sketchy feeling when there is a bag of cat food right next to some rum.

The nice Indian gentleman does have a good selection of spirits though.

Frogmistess picked up a bottle of Navan which everyone has pronounced universally yummy!

I got a tiny bottle of Patrón Reposado Tequila. I thought it was the tiniest bottle in the world, it's 375ml, but upon checking their website they also market a 50ml bottle!

Personally I think I prefer the Patrón Silver, but Frogmistress said that she sure likes the Reposado better! I have been partial to the Silver Tequila's as of late...

Well, after our booze purchases we walked two doors down and had a pitcher of margarita's to cap off our Support Our Local Drug Dealers day! (See we are ProStow too!)

Let me tell you, it is so nice to be able walk to get drunk! Now we can even walk to replenish our drunk! The world is a wonderful place!

Current Mood: bouncy

03:44 pm - Perspective

Working for an automotive supplier certainly has been a fun place to be for the last 14 years.

Even more so as of late.

Yes, GM and Chrysler have done some Less-Than-Smart things. But their down turns have been pretty much on par with all the other auto manufacturers out there.

I ran across this graphic that puts the levels of stupidity into perspective:

From Transparency: The Largest Bankruptcies in History at good.is

Current Mood: discontent

11:51 pm - Secularists have a right to maintain their ethos

I stumbled on such a nice post on independent.ie.

It was written August 31 2008, so the author, Emer O'Kelly, wasn't talking about the several currently proposed "anti-blasphemy" laws (at least I don't think he was). But he hits that point and a couple other points that have been chafing at me lately very succinctly. So I thought I would share!

10:48 am - Out there...

...There's a world outside of Yonkers
Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby
There's a slick town, Barnaby
Out there
Full of shine and full of sparkle
Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby
Listen, Barnaby...

I obtained a full DVD copy of Wall-E last night, so happiness is!

What?! I only watch Wall-E about once a week... It's not an obsession as much as it is a compulsion...

This version has a much better picture than the version I was watching. Plus surround sound!

12:49 pm - Drive-by definition...

You can not describe yourself as modest, that is what the word means!

Current Mood: amused

10:21 am - Where do disgruntled republicans go?

Back in 2004 when W won by campaigning against 2-boys-kissing, I was depressed. I looked around and thought "why do so many value different things than I do?".

So, I contemplated emigrating to Canada. It's close by, more Left, tolerant, universal health care & a genuine desire to help one another. It sounds like a perfect match.

OK, now it is 2008, I'm sure that there are a good number of depressed republicans out there. Where do they dream of emigrating to?

Where is more right wing, greedier, fundamental than the US? The only places that come to mind are places like Saudi Arabia. Maybe they would prefer just to go to a tiny country where their wealth can just can totally control their personal space?

I'm really not sure what their preferred fantasy action would be, I just don't relate to the mind set enough to extrapolate their course of action.

Any theories out there?

Current Mood: chipper

10:50 am - You don't have to become evil to fight evil

In fact, if you do, you are no longer fighting evil, you are perpetuating it.

I listened to a NPR story this morning about Fort Hunt, a secret military base where Nazi prisoners of war were interrogated during World War Two.

Researching it a bit more I found an article in the Washington Post last year covering a meeting of some of the veterans of P. O. Box 1142 (what Fort Hunt was referred to while it was operating).

These veterans decried our country's current stance on interrogation, both on moral grounds and on grounds that it is just not as effective.

This was a War that was orders of magnitude much more critical and bloody than our current "war on terror" and we composed ourselves much better, in this respect, then than we are now.

It saddens me how far and how fast we have fallen.

Current Mood: cynical

02:12 pm - I love my wife

(2:11:33 PM)frogmistress: Never give me a dry erase marker to hold while I'm programming. Apparently, I've been absent-mindedly sniffing it. Woooooooo.

02:11 pm - Eventually I get fed up with Right Wing Excuses...

Ok, the following entries in italics are from a person responding to a person's request for comments on what they thought of our current crop of Presidential candidates.

I had to respond, every so often I have to vent...

If you think your taxes are too low.
Well, since the federal budget has a huge deficit, I think it does need to generate more revenue somehow. And I do think that we need to spend more money on infrastructure (ie. roads) and more money on schools. So why do you think your taxes are too high?

If you think that "soak the rich" is a sound economic strategy.
Well, it makes more sense than "soak the poor". Again unless someone has a better idea than income tax for revenue generation it does make sense to me that the more money that you make that a larger percentage goes to supporting the government.

If you think that Judges should make laws from the bench per their views (not per the way the law was written, nor according to the some 200 years of tradition for which we've run the country).
Judges interpret laws. Laws that might not quite fit the world we live in at the moment. Don't like a particular interpretation, make a more specific law. "Tradition" I'm not sure why this is a value. It is used by people that don't have a better argument. There are far more things that were "traditionally" bad than were better. Me, I like electricity, women voting, and Cholera not being a major cause of death.

If you think the constitution is a "living" document.
Isn't that why we have those Amendment thingies?

If you think that just talking to people who 1) have openly expressed their desire to kill us, and who 2) fervently believe that them dying in the process is a ticket to paradise. If you think that is the way to get us more secure.
Why do you think that killing them will discourage others given your point #2? We have been killing them (or funding others to kill them) longer than they have been killing us. I wonder why they would be pissed off at us?

If you think that everybody should get healthcare provided by the government and doing it that way just works awesome in Canada so you want that system to be used here too.
You did imply that you liked the Constitution, how about the Declaration of Independence?
"...certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life..."
So, yea, silly me, I think that everyone as the right to healthcare. Would universal healthcare be expensive and complicated? yes! But our current "system" is already expensive, complicated and unfair (sometimes even unfair to those with coverage).

If you think that our borders are merely a line on a map and an inconvenient hindrance to all the folks that want to come here. (and if they come with a bomb in the back of their truck to blow us up with, well that's just the chance you're willing to take)
Well, they are a line on a map. And they are not much of a hindrance to anyone who wants to come here, even to people with little or no money and education. Do you honestly want to spend the money it would take to fortify the entire US border against well funded and organized illegal crossings? Inspect every shipping container? I thought you wanted to pay less taxes?

Current Mood: quixotic