Sciolism Rocks

I was recently reminded that “far away” is contextual, and has changed somewhat over time. Two stories, one in last week’s News and Observer, the other written in 1829 [FR (HTML) | EN(PDF)].

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Here’s the wrapper:

Note that it’s not just a mystery-flavored DumDum, but that it is Artificial MYSTERY FLAVOR™.

I tasted it. I didn’t know “Blue Suede” was a flavor.

It makes little sense to re-blog something from Boing-Boing, but I’m thrilled to see the following post from them.

Turns out, according to two academics on the NYT Op-Ed page, there is little scientific proof that this reduces energy consumption. It also turns out that this practice could be wasteful, a bit annoying, and a lot of people want to get rid of it.
A study in Indiana, a state that recently started DST, showed an overall increase of 1 percent in residential electricity use with occasional increases of 2 to 4 percent in late spring and early fall. So much for conserving energy.

Get rid of Daylight Savings Time !

I’m a fanatic when it comes to Macintosh computers. Aside from being cheaper than everything else, they let me do things like this:

(Click to enlarge)

The screen shows me running all three released versions of JMP (Windows, Macintosh, and Linux) all at the same time. I know, no one would want to do that but me. But the possibility of three operating systems on one box, that’s something.

In fact, I can make the claim for being able to do this without my cheat of using Remote Desktop Connection (which is free) by using Crossover by Codeweavers. A few days ago, the software was given out for free : thus all of what you see if possible by free software.

I’m an intellectual.

I speak three languages, some better than others.

I can recite the preamble to the Constitution and can sing it as well. I know all the words to the national anthem. I can say the pledge of allegiance, leaving out the “under God”.

My favorite novel is Moby-Dick. I know that there is an American Literature that is not British literature minus the accent.

I know the difference between differential and integral calculus. In fact, I left the calculus behind years ago because I mastered it and proceeded open-eyed to many more of the wonders of mathematics.

Starting in 1980 with the Reagan revolution, being an intellectual fell out of favor, and in the meanest way. A solid mastery of the liberal arts education became something to be ashamed of. Don’t get me wrong : if you major in philosophy, you’re going to have a tougher time finding a gainful niche than a computer scientist.

But the greed-is-good Geckolotry of Wall Street became a sadder and sadder reality. Education fell, en grands pas into schooling, where the idea of learning turned into an exercise in resumé building, focused on getting into a so-called good college, finding a place in society where success meant being marketable. Smart people didn’t take history, or poetics, or art, unless servicing some kind of international business or law degree. Winthrop’s shining city on a hill soon became a shining city on a hill of money. Nearly thirty years later, the city is not so much of a hill as it is a pile. And I wouldn’t call it shining, but steaming.

Thirty years where the avant-garde photomontage is only of currency, in a world where currency lost its ability to be figurative. The Chien Andolu busting its balls in the pursuit of selfishness. A selfishness where knowing less was knowing more. Turn off, tune out, drop into ignorance and you’ll get applause.

Not e-on-plural-potatos ignorance. Sunni and shi’ite ignorance. Wall Street ignorance. Affecting an accent ignorance. Palin ignorance.

We’re about to come out of it, my friends. Tuesday will be a reckoning, a thumping, a revelation. Morning time in America.

We will have a President who, unashamedly, started as a professor. A President of Constitutional Law. A President who will sit quietly and pensively in the Oval Office when he needs to.

I may somehow get my dream : where I sit in my office, in my chair, at my desk. My feet are on the desk, my hands folder, my fingers interlocked, my eyes closed. And anyone that bothers me will feel obliged to say “I’m sorry that interrupted you while you were working.”

It is daybreak. It is time to get clean.

Chromatic. Pentatonic. Terpsichorien.

Le déjeuner des Canotiers.

Victory.

Hope.

Despite my ever advancing years, I am still able to concentrate and hear many of the conversations that take place around me, especially here, in the Caribou Coffee shop that I spend most afternoons in. (reading, writing, and thinking, not barista-ing).

As you can guess, the election is all people seem to talk about these days, especially with North Carolina being (for the first time in my adult life) a contestable race.

Despite all the news and information around, there are still many myths about voting in North Carolina. I hope to dispel a few here. I’ve heard them all in the past five days.

I voted for x, and you voted for y, so our votes cancel each other out. Ridiculous. Two people shouting does not make silence. Even the mathematics of it doesn’t make sense in our voting system.

You have to be a registered Democrat to vote in the NC primaries. North Carolina, despite its recent spate of voting for Republicans in presidential elections, is still a Democrat’s state. Thus local and state elections have a hard time getting a single Republican to run, much less several. Outside of the few metropolitan areas, the Republican primaries are essentially non-existant, thus the myth : much of the decision is in the Democratic (party) primaries.

We’ve only had two Republican Governors since 1900, both in my memory (Jim Holshouser, in 1972, and Jim Martin in 1984 And those were on the heels of vast presidential landslides, with the Republicans winning 49 out of 50 states.) A similar story exists for the Lieutenant Governor, except that neither Nixon nor Reagan could get one in: None since 1900. The NC General Assembly has never been controlled by Republicans (evidence here). Pick a city, look at the mayoral elections : It’s democrats all the way down.

Let me be plain: I’m voting for Obama and can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t. I’ve had his campaign button on every public moment for weeks, along with signs up in my yard and window. But I don’t pretend that supporting a Democrat in general is out of the ordinary. The ideologies and labels have changed in NC like everywhere else, but the party hasn’t. And it’s state and local elections that affect your life. Presidential elections are just more talked about.

Look at the lines at early voting. Thus you’ll wait just as long since you’re voting in the regular election.Again, mathematically this doesn’t make sense. My home county (Wake) has only fifteen early-voting sites, but literally hundreds of actual polling places. I’ve voted in this county all my life, and have never seen a line of more than a few people. Double, triple, or quadruple my experience, and still the wait wouldn’t be more than a few minutes.

I don’t have time to vote. I have to work that day. Among other problems with our voting system, we choose to have it on a Tuesday. Why not on Sunday, when huge numbers of people do not work ? That’s how they do it in France. Wait : maybe that’s the problem. The French only had an 84% turnout in their last presidential election, 87% in the presidential primary.

But even if you have to work, maybe your boss wants you to take an hour off to vote:

I’m doing some research on the early history of French aviation and came across this delightful cartoon (click to enlarge).

The caption says “After Blériot’s flight, how England will defend itself from an aerial attack”. (from Grand-Carteret, John (1909) La conquête de l’air vue par l’image)

The funny thing (to me) is that this cartoon is from just after the super-rich and flamboyant Louis BLÉRIOT made the first successful flight across the English channel. The technology was so new that no one could understand its implications. Or, that in 1909, the air had not actually been conquered. Nor that France’s enemy wasn’t England.

And that giant military-sized bellows and fans arent’ the most effective way to fend of an aerial attack. Unless you’re Wile E. Coyote.

Never count your lives. With my recent move to Publications, I’ve taken stock of the jobs I’ve had in the past. Not just at SAS, mind you, nor those throwaway jobs where you last only a couple of weeks. Real jobs, with real pay checks; jobs that make demarcations in your life. Here at SAS, I’ve mostly been a writer. Before that, I was a teacher, at the high school and college levels. I’ve also been paid as a movie projectionist (which I doubt is a real job anymore), a cooking instructor, a stand-up comedian, a stand-up comedian who got no laughs for several gigs in a row (unintentional), a close-up magician, and perhaps some others that I’m not willing to admit to just yet.

I spent some time this weekend with an old friend from one of those jobs playing Rock Band. For the uninitiated, the game involves staring at a TV screen with a plastic guitar “controller” around your neck, trying to push colored buttons in sync with the little colored chiclets that scroll down the screen, all 3-D-like, in tune with a rock-and-roll song that blasts in the background. After a brief eight to ten hours of this, pizza and adult beverages get involved as you contentedly congratulate yourself on your musical ability.

But I’ve been playing Rock Band guitar for many years, predating this game by more than a decade.

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