Month: February 2004

(No, the title doesn’t have anything to do with the subject. Live with it.)

So Emperor W supports a constitutional amendment to define a marriage as being between a man and a woman. What a load of crap.

Marriage is between a couple and their god (or whatever they might call it). It’s the spiritual bond sanctified by whoever they accept as their moral authority. The government should not be in the business of legislating morality!

Sure, there are pesky legal documents, and all sorts of rights granted to married couples by the state. Beyond the question of why these rights exist only as such, I see this as the “domestic partnership” contract, no matter what you call it. And because it would be discriminatory to do otherwise, the contract should be legal between any two citizens (or three, or non-citizens – however we choose to define it) – the gender of the participants in, say, a limited corporation isn’t questioned, why should it be in this case? Is there some way the government is losing out on tax revenues if it allows same-gender partnerships? Or perhaps like the church, the state now wants to encourage rapid breeding to pay future taxes? Even though the government insists on calling this contract a “marriage licence”, I believe they shouldn’t discriminate about who they’ll grant it to.

I think it’s great that gay people are lining up in San Francisco to get married – mainly because I strongly support anyone who’s out to subvert the dominant paradigm.

And while we’re at it, anyone who asks, “Would you support a constitutional amendment…” should be cut off with NO! before they get any further than that. Unless there’s a really really good reason to change the structure of our government that’s worked reasonably well for the past 218 years. Flagburning – ain’t it. Homophobia – ain’t it. Limiting nepotism and corporate support of politics, and outlawing taxing the middle class to make the ultrawealthy ultrawealthier – now that I might support.

P.S. This post reminded me that: -My mom reads my blog sometimes, and -Often rants don’t reflect what we really mean. But I guess I stand by it. Mainly the kooky Libertarian idea of getting the Governement out of our lives to whatever extent possible.

Mardi Gras? Pfeh, that’s kid stuff.

I want to celebrate Carnival, Rio de Janiero style. Forget the beads – everybody Samba! Laissez les bons temps rouler?? Va a cagar en no mato!!!

(Of course either of these seems a bit bizarre to me if you’re not a practicing Catholic.)

There _is_ a Brazilian barbeque place in Oceanside I’ve been meaning to try, tho…

Does this contrast strike anyone else as amusing? From the LA Times today.

‘Green Hornet’ to get the Kevin Smith Treatment

Filmmaker and comic book aficionado Kevin Smith will write and direct an adaptation of “The Green Hornet” for the big screen, Miramax films said Wednesday.

“Longtime comics geek gets to make comic-book movie? This is a dream come true,” Smith said in a news release. His previous films include “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy,” Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and “Dogma.”

“The character of the Green Hornet offers a myriad of possible film ideas and numerous merchandise and branded integration opportunities with our corporate partners, giving us a platform for a very viable and long-standing franchise,” said Miramax Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein.

No, I’m not making this up.

I admit it. I’m a Mac bigot. I can no longer be objective about Windows, or even Linux. Because there’s just no way I’d want to use them for “my” computer.

Granted – my work computer is Windows. Because for some inexplicable reason (okay, it’s explicable, but it would just take me too long and raise my blood pressure too much to try to explic it again.) we – I – chose to use ASP.NET and C# and MSSQL as the development environment for the project I’m working on. Oh, and we’ve got Exchange Server and Outlook running our email – that was emphatically NOT my choice. Really, the ASP.NET/C# (and Visual Studio) and MSSQL aren’t bad, in comparison to other platforms I’ve used. But they’re so f’n proprietary! I can only develop on Windows. I can only use SQL Server Enterprise Manager on Windows. As far as I know, everything I’m developing works fine on Linux and MacOS clients (I test it regularly) but who knows when Microsoft will change their mind about that, and there will be NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. Except to port the product to a more open platform. And if and when M$ decides to force me to upgrade, well, I’m stuck there as well.

I get to listen to computer questions all the time. I’ve got friends (some of them no doubt reading this) who despite other positive charactaristics are Windows bigots, or Linux diehards.

I love the idea of Linux. Really. Open source OS, open software, runs on whatever cheap PC you have lying around, is technically superior, more secure, more stable, etc. than Windows in so many ways. And of course, it’s free! (well sorta – I recently tried out Suse, and rather than spend all day trying to download it, I just went ahead and paid for it, as I’ve done before with RedHat – but it was only about $40 rather than several hundred for Windows or $100 for OSX.) But the interface just plain sucks. It just looks ugly and slow and clunky. Menus take a second to pop up. Windows give no feedback when they’re working on something. Dialog boxes are poorly-thought-out and inconsistent. It’s a hack. Sure, the command line is nice and responsive – so is the Windows command line (notwithstanding all the ugly cruft – backslash, etc – that’s still around from CP/M – and the lack of great command-line tools like grep); I like OSX command line even better than Linux. But the GUI (which most of the users will probably end up wanting to use since they’ve been “spoiled” by GUIs for the past TWENTY YEARS!) sucks. No matter what skin you drop on it. Admittedly I haven’t tried all that many of these – and there are many. All different. All available for free from developers who are at best condescending and unconcerned about the needs of lame-os who want to use the GUI to get real work done.

Now, Windows, I pretty much hate across the board. When I’m using it I keep looking behind me to see who’s got a gun to my head (or more likely, whose hand is reaching into my pocket for my wallet. It’s usually functional, tho (as discussed earlier) error messages are unhelpful, programs are just plain hostile (“In order to use this feature you must insert the Office 2002 Professional disc NOW. I don’t care what you thought you were trying to do, my needs are more important than your needs, puny human.”). The user interface shows that a lot of design work went into it – by people who appear not to care as much about the user experience as they do about implementing features as requested by marketing.

MacOSX? I look forward to paying for updates ’cause they’ve got cool new stuff. I love to buy shareware – or even commercial software – for it! I love it even more when open source stuff (like Open Office) runs fine on it! Windows are responsive and rounded and pleasant – dialog boxes are consistent. Crashes are very rare and usually caused by me running beta software or hot-unplugging something. The interface is clean and simple and intuitive – not perfect but so much smoother than the others.

So there you go. I’m unrepentant. I’ve tried the rest, and I’m sticking with the best.

I’ve heard there’s a proto-pagan holiday of some sort going on tomorrow, represented by the symbol of a vulva. How charming. That’s actually just co-opting the Roman holiday of Lupercalia, much more interesting (and I’m sure Scix can provide more details on that).

But today, friends, today is Friday the 13th! A much better reason to celebrate!

Did you remember that the character “King Friday” on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood celebrated his birthday every friday the 13th? Sounds like a good idea to me.

Here‘s an interesting story about Philip le Bel and the origins of Friday the 13th and the Knights Templar, as well as others.

Not to mention a series of really bad pulp horror movies.

So – break a mirror, pet a black cat, spill some salt, walk under a ladder, exit a movie theater by the same door you entered, drink your first pint without offering a toast. They’re all okay today (by some convoluted logic understood only by me, and perhaps the Knights Templar)!

Sounds like my kind of cooking.

I can’t help it, everything in the news these days sounds Orwellian, in a double-plus ungood, duckspeak sorta way.

War is Peace

We have always been at war with Iraq. Libya has always been our ally.

Freedom is Slavery

The “Patriot Act”.

Ignorance is Strength

Commander-in-chief?

Survivor needs more outright hostility and brutality.

In fact, screw all that voting people off crap. They need to either drive them off (shunning – more like Lord of the Flies) or just wear them down till they leave on their own. And all the game show contests? Come on. I want to see attacks by native tribesman, and by local fauna. More work on building better shelters (maybe wash them away in Monsoons every day or two). Robinson Crusoe never had to assemble f’n jigsaw puzzle pieces. And like Tom Hanks on castaway, I say just leave ’em out there for years and only check back now and then, unannounced. Don’t let them know they’ll ever get home. Last person to leave the island alive – gets the cash. If and when someone comes to rescue them.

I’m also thinking, instead of selecting a few camera-ready contestants, just let anyone play. You’ve got to get yourself to the pickup point – Honolulu or something – and then they take everyone out and drop them on the island. Bring whatever supplies you can carry (tho in the interest of prolonging the agony I’d disallow guns). No doubt it’d start with several thousand people, but they’d quickly taper off and form themselves into tribes. After a few weeks, massive numbers of people who shouldn’t have showed up in the first place, would be desparate to get home. Then as resources got scarce, the tribes would start warring on their own. Being a cameraman would probably be pretty hazardous duty as well. I know – have volunteer cameramen, too – provide them some food incentive, give ’em sturdy videocams and solar chargers, make ’em drop their tapes off on a regular basis.

Of course I won’t be satisfied till there’s outright cannibalism.