Bloggy MacBloggerton

I would like to propose the Monetary Transfer Immunity Amendment Act of 2008. This act would allow authorized individuals the authority to don blue trousers, red shirts, and black masks, enter the premises of any commercial establishment, confiscate any items of value found therein, and exit the premises with impunity. How is this any different than the FISA Amendments Act of 2008? Congress is saying that it is OK to break the law, if the government allows it. Nice. I need a law like that for me.

Flying from the southwest of the country to the northeast takes you over the largest and most scenic parts. We flew over the red rock country of northern Arizona and southern Utah right over the Rockies and then the plains. The thing I hadn't thought of until now is that the scale seems just wrong in retrospect. The huge size of the landscape made it seem so very much closer than is anything what you would expect from 38,000 feet. It seemed just a few thousand feet away, rather than 5 miles.

There seem to be two groups of developers, each working on the same problems, but from different camps. There are the enterprise guys, who are looking at things from the corporate side, and are much more interested in getting things done right (right being any combination of securely and with an eye towards maximum configurability) while the other side seem to the web2.0 design types who are not necessarily looking for Miss Right, but rather Miss Right Now. If she happens to float the boat, well she may become Miss Right, but we got an itch to scratch, and she has long nails. It would be nice if the two could get together and recognize each others strengths. There is a place for OpenID, just as there is a place for SAML. Different scratches for different itches. I guess it's all about the process.

I had a lovely flight out from JFK to SAN sitting next to a 2 and a half year old. Her name is Rochelle ("Ro" for short) and she was everything I would expect from my own 2 year old. She was crawling all over and pointing at stuff and generally acting age appropriate. Her mother, Renee, had been with Ro visiting her mother in Weston, CT, where Renee is originally from. They were on their way back to Oceanside to meet Daddy and Jake, her golden retriever. Right on cue, as the pilot announced over the PA that we had to return to our seats and fasten our seat belts as we began our descent into San DIego, she fell asleep for the first time on her mother's lap.

A picture of Ro:

There is apparently this new movie out by Ben Stein called Expelled about the scientific community and how they don't want anyone to question anything about Darwinism and how they ostracize those who do. I also watched Michael Scheuer interview Steven Coll about his new book "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century". The main point that both author and interviewer wanted people to get regarding the Arab world was that the presumption the West has made that modernity == secularism is not correct, and as long as that is the case, the Arab world will be disenfranchised. I think they would agree that the reverse is also true; the Arab world views the West as debauched and godless and that secularism == depravity. So to bring these two things together: I find in absurd that so many people claim to know the mind of God. I believe in a supreme being, but I humble myself and do not presume to know what the plan is. Even that is presumptive that there is a plan. I can reassure myself that all this arguing is as it should be, but it still is dispiriting that you can argue that a god who has the wherewithal to be involved with the design of DNA, but the stuff we already know, you know, for sure, that is OK being Darwinist in origin. Anything we don't know, that is where god is. I thought the point of most spirituality was to get to know god in our daily lives, not to look for him where we are ignorant, the dark cracks and crevices of the most obscure parts of science.

Like a new car or word you learn, they are now seemingly everywhere:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/03/17/super_villain_flowcharts/

My colleague Max showed me this after I made some comment about how bacon is wonderful:

It's true. I know several vegetarians whose return to the world of meat was brought about by bacon.

I like the idea of this becoming a clearing house of novelty flowcharts. I may keep this up....

This appeared in the New York Times:

and being one who appreciates novelty flow charts, wanted to see where I ended up. Sadly, this chart is woefully inaccurate. I start out OK with the "early exposure to D&D", but then I went to TTY's, which dialed in to a main server using an acoustic coupler. My sci-fi at the time was the TAG teacher who played us recordings of H2G2. I'm not one of those VAX/PDP-*/Data General guys, but I'm close. I never had a chance.

William F. Buckley died yesterday. His views were at the least entertaining and more often thought provoking. His manner of arguing them like a block alum in the maw of his adversary. The Times' obituary was a bit short on facts but contained many nice anecdotes, running three pages.

I just found out about National Punctuation Day and plane to celebrate this year. Not sure how yet, but something will make itself apparent.

I found out about National Punctuation Day through an email forwarded to me by my sister, alerting me to the fact that "Punctuation Man breaks with Associated Press, endorses serial comma". I have always been a strong proponent of the serial comma and dislike the ambiguity of sentences that don't use it. The serial comma has been dealt harsh blows by people seemingly unfamiliar with syntax and it's purpose in grammar.