The Mother of All Dohickeys

Found on The Eco-Senior, via Audrey.

Thinking about Guns, Or Not

 Some gun people staged an event in the Broad Ripple neighborhood in Indianapolis, Indiana recently. Broad Ripple is home to View From The Porch and The Adventures of Roberta X. The event was called OBRWG (Occupy Broad Ripple With Guns) and was intended (I think) to demonstrate that carrying a gun is civilized and should not be prohibited.

One Indianian posted this message on an internet forum. I thought it illuminating.

"I will use my workplace as an example. I work closely with about 15 people. Two of us are gun guys and the rest are pretty much uneducated to guns and gun laws. When the OBRWG topic came up how do you think it went? I'll tell you it was ugly. They had made up their minds that it was a bad thing and noone would change that. Even though I didn't support OBRWG I still tried to explain some things to them but it didn't register. That was 15 people. 86% of the people I work with everyday believe gun carriers are wrong, on power trips, have hidden agendas or are looking for trouble. Now imagine how a whole city thinks." - jd4320t

For cogent explanation of pistol packing, see this post by The Munchkin Wrangler.

Via Roberta X.

The Future Connectivity of All Things, Large and Small

A post by Patrick J. Kiger on the Discovery website asks if connecting everything to the internet (top men are working on this as we speak) is a good idea. I am sure it is. Who will benefit is another matter. I could see it bringing the internet to a crawl when everything decides to talk at once, either because of a programming error or because of intentional monkeying by a new gang of merry pranksters, or not so merry pranksters, for that matter. I can see whole server farms come crashing to a halt because the immense flow of data uncovers some fatal weakness in a data farming algorithm. I can see corporations internally crippled, and eventually collapsing because an overworked key programmer cracks under the strain of trying to keep his colossal master placated and running smoothly. The CEO, unable to comprehend what is happening will steadfastly deny there is any problem at all while the remaining inept minions will scurry around ineffectively trying to patch things up enough to keep the ship of commerce afloat, unaware that the vessel has cracked in half and nothing they can do will save it.

But these kind of disasters will be rare events, kind of like police beatings of innocent suspects, and mostly it will work smoothly and will be a great boon to mankind. Although with the way things are going I am beginning to wonder if my vision of ancient Egypt as an empire of high-technology might have some real basis.

Quote of the Day

“Years ago, I used to listen in the car on my way to reporting gigs, and I’d notice that I disagreed with everything he was saying, yet I not only wanted to keep listening, I actually liked him." - Ira Glass talking about Rush Limbaugh in an old story in the New York Times by Zev Chafets.

 Make no mistake: in my book Rush Limbaugh is a flaming jackass. I've only heard him a couple of times, briefly at that, and my mind was set.

Normally I try to refrain from writing about people I disagree with, I don't want to give them any more publicity than they already have. Rather I try to write about good ideas. I don't always succeed, but I try. Picking a fight with someone like Rush is like throwing gasoline on a fire. He thrives on that kind of thing.

He reminds me Michele Bachmann, the insane, which reminds me of the Borgia family. We have immersed ourselves in a television series about the Borgia family the last couple of days (available from Netflix). I find myself exclaiming "they're insane!" at least a couple of times every episode. Maybe they are, but more likely they are just human, just like Rush and Michelle and you and me and everyone else on this planet.

Via Dustbury.

Update: We just finished watched the series, and I discovered that it is NOT the Showtime version which debuts next month, but a different series from Europe. Too bad these two groups couldn't have gotten together to produce an extended series.

Comedy. Or Not.

I watched a couple of episodes of Breaking Bad last night. Netflix has it labeled as a comedy, but it seemed more like a horror show - just one disaster after another. It was so extreme I wondered if maybe I just wasn't getting it. I asked my college age son about it and he thinks it's funny, so I don't know.  It reminded me of True Lies with Arnold and Jamie. The opening scene (at 55 seconds in the trailer) has Arnold having a running gun battle with a bunch of bad guys on skis. He manages to reach his accomplice in their getaway vehicle, a big old bread truck. Both doors are open and the driver is leaning forward talking to Arnie. Arnie tells him to sit up and he does and Arnie fires shot through the truck, the bullet passing right in front of the driver and hits a bad guy who has just appeared on the far side of the truck. It was one of the funniest scenes in the movie and the audience roared, me along with them. It was just so over the top that it was funny. A friend of mine went to see this movie and we were talking about this scene and he didn't get it. What's so funny? A man was shot and killed. What is everyone laughing about?
Reminds me of a couple of movies by the Coen brothers that I expected to be funny, but really weren't. Also remember reading something about how the Coen brothers make people laugh at things they normally wouldn't laugh at. And then there was Danny DeVito's War of the Roses, that was supposed to be a comedy, but was really very sad.

500

Following a link to the BBC I got an error page with this charming little character. What was weird is it wasn't an image, or at least not an image according to Firefox. Some html voodoo I suppose. The light gray blocks surrounding the image did not appear on the original page. I am not sure where they came from.

Just tried to look at the html. This version of Firefox (7.0.1) does not have the View Source command. And the two editors I tried (Gedit and Bluefish) both locked up while trying to edit it. Though that could be because Linux is Lovely.

Storytellers

Nobody knows what is going to happen. Given what you know about your situation, you could make some predictions on what is likely to happen, but you do not know. A big rock could fall out the sky and crush you. That would kind of put a crimp in your plans. The odds are slim that such a thing would happen, but it is possible. Closer to home you can be pretty certain that things will go as you expect them. The farther from home you look, and the more people that are involved, the more uncertain the future becomes.

The world is a complex place, and it is especially complex for humans who can comprehend just how complex it is, which can make decision making difficult. For some things we rely on our instincts to guide us. We are fundamentally animals, and we have a full set of instincts. For many other things, we depend on our minds to make a decision. But some questions are very complex, and trying to figure out the best decision can be time consuming and arduous. In most cases a decision is not critical. Should you have a Coke or a Pepsi? Should you take the freeway or Main street?

But other decisions, should be given a little more thought. Unfortunately, there are some questions where there is just not enough information available. The future is unknown. All you can do is place your bet and hope it turns out okay. Our beliefs help us decide what to do in cases like this. And where do our beliefs come from? They come from storytellers.

We start off nursery rhymes and stories our parents tell us. We move on to school where we pick up more stories, probably as many from our classmates as we do from actual school. And then there is church and TV. TV. Hoo boy. All kinds of stories come out of that box, and most of them only serve to reinforce the stories we already know.

Who are our storytellers? Some of them. like teachers and preachers, have spent years studying a subject and their stories can be considered to at least partially convey the information they have acquired. Others were born with the gift of gab, and by persistent practice have come to be known far and wide. Talk show pundits, for instance, and some preachers for that matter.

This is how wars get started. Somebody stands up and starts telling stories about how we need to fight the enemy and the people around him listen and, if they like his presentation, they will start believing his story. The speaker doesn’t know if going to war is the right thing to do anymore than anyone who is listening to him. But by saying it, and repeating it over and over again, he can sell the idea to all those listening to him, and eventually, by gum, we get a war.