GroupThinkTank
Revolutionizing the world, one "I agree" at a time
Sunday, January 30, 2005
X-Pub, 10:44 AM:
Let's Hear It For Iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.main/index.html
So whatever you think of the war, the efftiveness of democracy in stabilizing Iraq, seventy two percent turnout on a day with at least eight suicide bombings (let's hope they were driving Jettas) and around 100 casualties is pretty impressive (25 dead and 71 injured as of 7:47). Hopefully the information is accurate, but so far I feel like things are going relatively well. I suppose the real test will be when winners are announced.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
David Bernat, 1:46 PM:
Shep, WTF you guys working on?
From Slashdot:
Monkeys Pay For Monkey Porn
"Give a monkey some spending money, and he'll blow it on pictures of women monkeys. He'll also pay to see dominant monkeys. But you'll have to pay him to look at inferior monkeys. That's the upshot of a study out of Duke that was designed to explore the 'social machinery of the brain with an eye toward helping autism patients.' Next up -- seriously -- the researchers want to run the same test on Joe Sixpack (sans the monkey business)."
stephen, 1:16 AM:
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Mike Russo, 8:28 PM:
Counting down the hours
Just a general announcement that the Iraqi election is in three days. I don't know if this blows anybody else's mind, but every time I realize that, I let loose a sort of strangled noise somewhere between a chortle and a groan. Will see how it goes, I guess.
Also, I am annoyed: some fool has carelessly scheduled the State of the Union for the same night I am going to see the Arcade Fire. It's hard to muster up the drunken belligerence when you're watching the thing on Tivo, I'd imagine...
David Bernat, 3:16 PM:
Tech Giants Push Open Standards for Health Network
From Slashdot (article from NYTimes):
"The New York Times' Steve Lohr reports that 'Eight of the nation's largest technology companies, including I.B.M., Microsoft and Oracle, have agreed to embrace open, nonproprietary technology standards as the software building blocks for a national health information network.' Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Accenture, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and Computer Sciences have formed the Interoperability Consortium to build a health information network proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The network is the first step in moving from paper to electronic patient records and sharing health data between doctors, researchers, insurers and hospitals."
I admit I haven't read the article but from the synopsis, this is fantastic! In the past, when I've discussed whether or not our government should hold large databases of sensitive data, I've used the argument: "Better in the public's hands than a corporations'." Well, here's an even better solution. The technology is nonproprietary and there are enough companies in the mix to keep things (more) honest. Granted, having this many corporations holding data will quicken the rate at which the data is mined (bad) but at least what is reaped is more likely to benefit the consumer/patient (in a non-'Walmart brings cheaper goods' sort of way).
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Mike Russo, 8:44 PM:
King for a day, fool for a lifetime
Feith No More
Why yes, I am inordinately pleased by my cleverness, even over and on top of the delicious frisson of schadefreude.
The brittle pleasures of the opposition.
Tom Fletcher, 6:33 PM:
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
David Bernat, 3:13 PM:
Speaking of Conspiracy fodder
A mysterious "suicide bomber" VW commercial turned up on the web yesterday. Forty Thousand British Pounds got VW the fifth most blogged idea (no term given).
(It Make You Go Boom)
I admit that I'm biased (I love conspiracies and hate corporate advertisers) but I say it's 2-3 pickem that this is a legitimate production. It matches the quirky sense of funny and timing found in televised VW commercials.
I should also admit that I hold a grudge against the VW advertising department: Their east coast commercials display an I-95 road sign before running a commercial clearly filmed on CA-118, thus abusing the my trust and intelligence.
Does it mean I watch too much television if I hold a grudge against the VW adertising department? Yes. But I also have a lot of time on my hands.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Mike Russo, 6:21 PM:
If I were a terrorist...
Fire cripples 2 of NYC's busiest subway lines
This appears to have been the result of a fire set by a homeless person trying to stay warm.
I swear, half a dozen reasonably motivated and reasonably well-informed terrorists could more or less bring the city to a grinding halt. It's a continual source of disbelief to me that nobody's attempted anything like this yet: thank god for the obsessive fascination on large-scale propoganda victories.
Mike Russo, 5:33 PM:
Name that meme!
In the interests of fostering some audience participation:
One of the soundest reasons for opposing any Bush administration policy is the simple observation that no matter how good anything they plan sounds on paper, in the implementation they will fuck it. This principle was thrust into prominence by being one of the more prophetic objections to the Iraq war, viz, that the feckless armchair warriors in charge seemed to think they were playing the flag game ("I put down my flag! I win!") and not getting the whole "nation building" thing, but it's applicable in all sorts of situations: Brad DeLong, for example, likes the idea of private retirement savings accounts, but knows that whatever monstrosity eventually emerges from the White House "policy" "process" will actively suck goodness from the world. And on and on; the principle soon emerges, which can perhaps be summarized succinctly as "whatever the Bush administration attempts will fail catastrophically, almost always because of their own incompetence."
A principle with such broad explanatory power deserves a pithy label, in my view. My suggestions:
Think you can do better? Nominate your favorite in comments!
Sunday, January 23, 2005
David Bernat, 6:41 PM:
Life Goes On, Bra!
It may be an effect of the inaugaration, graduate school burdens, or just seasonal mid-winter blues, but things around The Tank have been sluggish.
Just us all cheer up with this alternative version of Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. [thermalgreen.com]
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Mike Russo, 5:20 PM:
Libertarians Are Funny
This post is hilarious. Quoting some blowhard at a debate sponsered by Reason magazine:
"To justify taxation we need the additional assumption that rights enforcement cannot be done by the state at a profit, despite historical examples of societies where the right to enforce the law and collect the resulting fines was a marketable asset."
HA! You know you're in trouble when Richard fucking Epstein is coming off like the reasonable one. Reasonable-ish. Whatever.
The overall blog is very good too, by the way. A fair bit of discussion of the crisis of literary studies, from more of a philosophical perspective -- Andrew, you might enjoy taking a look.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Mark Dixon, 10:56 PM:
Mark Shields takes irony to a new level
If there was an award for the best use of irony, Mark Shields on tonight's Jim Lehrer News Hour on PBS would have to win it:
JIM LEHRER: "Mark, how do you see the significance this week of the administration declaring the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq over and none were found?"
MARK SHIELDS: "Jim, a less prudent national leadership might not have waited for the evidence and rushed in and invaded a sovereign country -- another sovereign country. But of course, that wasn't the case with the United States leadership."
The expression on Lehrer's face was priceless, I wish I had a video.
stephen, 5:09 AM:
Thank God I'm Protected By Straight (or Lying) People,
20 linguists fluent in Arabic, and 6 fluent in Farsi, have been fired for being out of the closet.
oh thank goodness. just imagine what might happen otherwise....
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
X-Pub, 2:38 AM:
Why isn't this guy working for the government?
So I was checking out the Daily Show's old interviews and watched the one with Paul O'Neil, the former Bush Treasury Secretary (who was railroaded out in under two years). He doesn't really add any new information to the scene, but he total flabbergastation with administration was fairly revealing. Particularly telling was a quote that runs something like (totally paraphrasing) "when I worked in past administations (Kennedy through Ford) I got used to the idea that when you tackle an issue you do a lot of research, look at several point of views, discuss the best solution and make an informed decision. When I worked in the Bush administration, well [shakes his head]." I just thought it was good to give one a good feeling of what it's like to work for the man.
http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/videos_celeb.jhtml://
Also, Howard Zinn, who wrote a reasonably famous book called The People's Guide to the History of the United States or something like that is about as annoying as I thought he would be. To clarify Zinn's book rightly points out that most American have been historically both oppressed and ignored. But he also seems pretty close to thinking that we have made zero progress since the time when only wealthy white men could vote, blacks were property and Native Americans were getting genocided which baffles and annoys me. Anyhoo, the interview confirmed my suspicion that he was ruining "liberal" for the rest of us.
Also, I would like everyone to welcome my nephew, Jake. He is now 1 (day) on the dot.
David Bernat, 2:29 AM:
My Guidance Counselor Sucked
(NY Times | Opinion | Ownership of 2004 Red Sox World Series Final Out Ball)
The author was an "expert witness" for the trial concerning ownership of Barry Bond's 73rd Homerun Ball (2001). I wish I had know baseball law was a professional field. Tom, this is right up your alley.
Monday, January 10, 2005
stephen, 9:50 PM:
bu$#it.
On Armstrong Williams:
Scott McClellan says the media "ought to be reporting in an objective, unbiased and fair manner," but that "the government certainly has a responsibility to help when it comes to providing accurate information and helping to adhere to that principle."
McClellan says that there weren't any other such contracts *he was aware of* and that the public fiasco was William's fault anyway: "There are also questions about whether or not this commentator should have been disclosing the information publicly." Which information would that be, Scott? The information you PAID him to disclose, or the fact that he was actually a government-funded propagandist "embedded" in the free press?
We've gained the ability to swear on this new BBS, and I can't come up with a good enough curse....
BTW, I'll buying a drink for anybody who can expose this "isolated incident" claptrap.
Mike Russo, 4:39 PM:
A quick survey
I am curious about something. Before reading the rest of this post, please consider the following question, and come up with an answer to it:
In the American system of government, where does sovereignty lie, if in fact it lies anywhere?
If you need further information, we're considering sovereignty here as the power which cannot be resisted, the entity which is absolutely in charge. So that's the question; consider it for a bit and come up with an answer.
In the American system of government sovereignty rests with the people -- that's the theory, at any rate, and we should put scare quotes around the people just to be sure we know we're talking about a fiction, but it's close enough. I am curious how many of you either knew that or were able to figure it out, because the constitutional law class I just sat through took around 15 minutes to reach this realization (the prof, finally, had to ask a student to read back the first three words of the constitution).
I realize this post sounds all bitchy and superior. But you must understand, this class was run in the straight Socratic method -- prof calling on people one after another, with no chance to volunteer to speak. It was a special kind of hell.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Mike Russo, 10:58 PM:
It is a good thing I am not a conspiracy theorist
Because if I were, this would give me plenty of fodder:
In an unusual last-ditch move to find clues to the three-year-old killing of a freelance fashion writer, police investigators are trying to get DNA samples from every man in this Cape Cod hamlet, all 790 or so, or as many as will agree...
I think it's outrageous," said Dick Seed, 44, a Truro sign painter who called the American Civil Liberties Union to complain.
"I really think they're usurping my civil rights," said Mr. Seed, who may know something about DNA because his father is Dr. Richard Seed, the eccentric physicist who drew worldwide attention by announcing seven years ago that he planned to clone humans.
Mike Russo, 7:20 PM:
Thermodynamic Miracles
File under "things only I will care about", but I figured I should memorialize this somewhere.
I've spent most of the day doing a chunk of my first week's worth of reading for school (I tend to like to do most/all of my reading over the weekend, and then just quickly review the assigments the day of class. This seems rather efficient, and also a sad comment on my social life). In the course of going over my first set of assignments for Criminal law (which is shaping up to be fun so far -- we're starting out with the philosophical justifications for punishment, and man, are they *shoddy*), I came across a mid 19th century British case, Regina v. Dudley and Stephens (I didn't know that the Brits used "Regina vs." in place of our "US vs." or "People vs." It strikes me that this means that when the monarch is male, all the cases are "Rex vs. blah", which amuses me).
The case is a rather grim little fable; Dudley and Stephens were shipwrecked, and wound up in a lifeboat with a boy who appears to have been injured or taken ill quickly after the wrack. After 18 days, Dudley and Stephens colluded to murder the prostrate boy, and save themselves by the expedient of cannibalism (apparently this was the common seafaring practice of the day). They were subsequently rescued. The jury found themselves in something of a quandary, reporting that the two defendants would probably have died before rescue if they hadn't resorted to cannibalism, and the boy almost certainly wouldn't have survived in any case. On these facts, the jury had a hard time finding murder. The appellate court found no such difficulty, and ruled that the traditional exculpatory excuses of self-defense inapposite, and sentenced Dudley and Stephens to death (later commuted to 6 months imprisonment by the Crown).
Two weeks ago, I read Life of Pi (by Yann Martel, winner of the 2003 Booker). It's a good read; it concerns an Indian boy who is shipwrecked and winds up in a lifeboat with a tiger (as contrived as this sounds, it actually really works in the novel). The tiger is named Richard Parker; a hunter killed his mother and shipped the cub to a zoo, but the receiving clerk was an idiot and transposed the hunter's name with the name of the animal. Although the error was detected, the zookeepers found the idea of a tiger with a humaniform name amusing, so they kept it.
The name of the boy Dudley and Stephens killed and ate was, of course, Richard Parker. This is interesting both because of what it adds to the consideration of the central questions raised by the novel's scenario (don't want to say more than that for fear of ruining one of the best sequences in the book), but also because I had a flash of Martel's creative process; coming across the case, intuiting a thread he could weave into the book, and the amusing anecdote about the idiot shipping clerk emerging by necessity. Perhaps I'm projecting -- this is how a fair amount of my writing proceeds -- but I think it's basically right.
The title of the post refers to Moore's Watchmen: there's really no plan of divine providence which plausibly includes a former astrophysics-major reading Life of Pi scant days before stumbling across the Dudley and Stephens case in his criminal procedure casebook, and having novel-writing experience to relate it all back to. Somehow, scary as the thought is, this is the sort of thing which I think makes life worth living.
Also, I appear to be the third person on the Internet to notice this connection. Woo.
EDIT: Does anybody know why putting returns/new lines in one's HTML leads to the spacing showing up in the post? It's kind of annoying, since I like to put spaces between my paragraphs so I can see what I'm composing, but failing to use paragraph tags feels somewhat unvirtuous...
Saturday, January 08, 2005
David Bernat, 1:58 AM:
$1.82
My kingdom for robust, user friendly software that will rename and sort my MP3s (with plenty of user options.)
Got anything good?
Friday, January 07, 2005
Andrew, 1:42 AM:
David Bernat, 1:03 AM:
Roll Call
There's been a bit of confusion the last few days.
X-Pub: Eric
WDWonka: Clayton
David Bernat: David Bernat
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Tom Fletcher, 1:00 AM:
Do You Speak American?
I am thoroughly enjoying this program on the finest of television stations, PBS. Link to its site here. I will have more comments once the show is over.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
wdwonka, 6:07 AM:
Quitting Your Job or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Apply to Grad School
Seven schools down, two to go. Why am I applying to graduate school to study physics? Is it because of my enduring belief in the singular importance of a fundamental understanding of nature? Is it because I really really want to make a quantum computer. Oh lord no.
I'm applying to graduate school because working with software in a chip company, outside the warm glowing warming glow of academia, for two years has driven me to the brink of utter despair. Not only did the experience destroy all faith in mankind's capacity for the pursuit of noble things, it also made me sick to my my stomach on a daily basis. While some friends have found solace in the working life and the marriage that inevitably follows(that's for another post), I was busy breaking up with my girlfriend, quitting my job(twice, basically...same job), and generally running away from the general monotonous monotony of such a life. It didn't matter where I went, or how long my hair got, I needed something else. Eventually, sweet sweet memories of college days when life was a seven step process inevitably draw one back to the womb. I think it went something like this:
S: drink
M: sleep
T: drink
W: drink
F: turn in AMa95, Ph106, Ph125, Ph219 HW sets; Ph6 lab writeup, drink
S: sleep
S: drink
Doesn't that feel good!
I'm applying to study physics because I was tricked into going to Caltech to study physics by my parents, teachers and a culture which can't find a better niche for introverted, submissive, nihilistic, obsessive compulsiveness, terminally immaturable individuals like myself. These disorders have now rendered me brain-washed by physics and math professors from Caltech into believing that http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/0108075 might be a good way to spend my time. Emotionally incapable of resteering ship and heading off to law school like many friends, I'm stuck on a course to study physics.
Thoroughly mired in the application process: reading papers, talking to old professors and new, digging through clouds of smoke (yup) for vague memories of when I knew stuff about stuff so I can fit the part of "Stanford Physics PhD candidate", I've gotten my first personal taste of what graduate school might be like. It tastes a lot like Ovaltine: you know what I mean, sort of like chocolatey freedom, but all full of chalky educational-type vitamins to cramp it's style. There''ll be a lot of bs, no doubt, but at least there'll be somebody with a lab coat and a PhD telling me I'm not wasting my time: who better to assure you?
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Andrew, 10:10 PM:
In case you haven't heard.
Bugmenot.com hosts a database of publically submitted usernames and passwords for free registration websites. There are even extentions for both Firefox and IE that make the information one right-click away when you hit a login screen.
stephen, 7:49 AM:
Republicans flip-flop on ethics
Wooooot! They still know shame!
I get the impression these guys are gonna have a real hard time being in charge. And thank God. Now, let's just hope the Democrats are quick enough learners to figure out how to play effective opposition...
stephen
Monday, January 03, 2005
X-Pub, 1:33 AM:
Free Thought, Howard Stern and Satellite Radio
So Howard Stern was on Letterman recently. I'm not a big fan, but I have heard enough smart people (including that one chick from NPR, yeah that one) who say that they listen to him, and I got a hint of why during his interview.
He has refused to extend his contract with his boss (who is one of the big three radio providers) and will be moving to Solaris satellite radio when his current contract. He cited the standard fact that 60% of the radio market is controlled by three companies who are dominated by corporate influence. I think we all know the schtick. Music channels suck because most of them are charging record companies to play songs, and these songs are the same damn singles you just changed the channel to avoid. News channels are the same neutered news that we see on CNN - just rehashing press statements. Opinion channels are surreally conservative on the whole. And (for those of you who don't care about sports) sports radio sucks as they will do things not play local games if the tickets do not sell out or just play games that are not important for no reason.
Stern believes that this is pretty much the fault of the big three companies and the FCC. He cites his own show in which he had a segment taken out in which he basically pointed out that each of the three radio stations had held Pub benefit dinners or had given a ton of money to the pubs.
He claims that satellite radio will fix this. First, since you pay for the service ($12 a month) the FCC is not involved. Second, it's apparently much cheaper to add a station, so it will be difficult to establish any sort of idea monopoly so long as the provider is willing to take on new stations that express different opinions. Third, the companies currently involved are not the Devil.
I was wondering if anyone had tried it out or knew someone who had and could give a recommendation/rebuttal.
And since this is my first post to the new blog, I will say I really like the setup. Much prettier and a bit easier to use than our old place. Also: fuck fuck fuck shit cunt tit ass cock.
Terry Gross! That's the NPR chick's name.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
David Bernat, 9:10 PM:
Big Brother Awakens
I've added an extremetracking.com tracker to our blog. Email me for the login/pwd.
I'll also look into setting up an email account (either through gmail, my server, or andrew's) that forwards mail to all of us so we can spam everyone equally.
Also, Clayton has joined the Group. "Welcome, Clayton." He promises drunken QFT rants.
