The Process

I sit here in amazement, remembering what I felt after first hearing about a job what is, for this point in my life, literally a dream job. After applying for the position, I was so excited about the possibilities. I looked out the window and imagined how wonderful it would be if I could actually manage to get it.

Throughout the process of applying, interviewing, and verifying my employment history, there have been lots of ups more recently followed by lots of downs.

I'm incredibly happy to say that I managed to get the job. My dream job.

I am going to keep this short because there is a celebratory filet mignon that has my name on it.

"These are the demands and sayings of Lee."

So I was chilling out, not really sure what I wanted to write about now, and then got caught up with the breaking news story occurring in DC about a gunman having entered the Discovery Channel building.

Apparently, he wrote a list of demands before taking his action, and published it at www.savetheplanetprotest.com. (The link's to the Google cache version since the original site is down.)

I started doing some digging and found this thread, in which you can see his extremist viewpoint being mocked by fellow conservationists who criticize him for being unreasonable and unrealistic. This was from back when he first got arrested for protesting outside of the building in 2008. His hatred seems highly focused on Discovery, and it is creepy and fascinating to see his anger displacement and fixation on the channel when

Very interesting how the internet has created a wealth of information that can be sifted through even as events unfold. If your google-fu is strong, it's amazing what you can find.


Craziness.

"Better dead than red!"

Kotaku has a good little piece on Diablo III, if anyone's interested.

I'm getting ready to go to New York City for a week, so I'll not be updating. I'm looking forward to doing the tourist thing and getting my second glance at the Big Apple.

Travel is something I love to do. While I was living in Japan, I visited both China and Vietnam. I was very interested to see these communist nations, and was surprised to find that there really wasn't a huge difference in the city life compared to Western democracies. The lives that these commies lived actually seemed very similar to my own.

Nonetheless, this article is a good example of the potential downside of a "communist" government. (The article is from Game Politics, which is a really cool website if you're interested in that type of thing.)

If you are like me, a video game maniac who can literally play games for eight hours straight, then the article represents a horrible alternate reality. Vietnam's authoritarian government imposed limits on how much of one's free-time can be spent gaming.

I've heard of similar practices in China, as well. I can understand that they think its best for people to be productive and not waste their time on games, but it sure chafes me to imagine the government getting in my business.

Freedom truly is precious.

The other side of the coin (Making Excuses)

Back when West Virginia had its most recent mine disaster, I felt that the corporation responsible for operating the site was in the wrong. They were playing fast and loose with safety, they had been penalized for doing so in the past and had failed to fix things, and then we had the worst mine disaster in four decades.

Some people whose families' livelihood depended on those mine operations vehemently disagreed with this opinion, claiming that the miners themselves were more than happy with safety conditions and that it was all a big happy family. If the miners didn't want to work there they could always just quit, they suggested. I never did come to agree with such an opinion.

Now, however, I can perhaps see the other side of the coin. The Bayer Chemical Plant at Institute is phasing out one of their chief and most profitable items manufactured here in West Virginia. This could end up costing a lot of jobs in the local area, and might even affect some members of my family.

On the one hand, chemicals that cause health problems in children? Very bad. But part of me wants to rationalize; they may cause problems. If the application of such chemicals is carefully controlled, then the risk is minimal. And I could go on.

It is very interesting to see how easy and powerful one's ability to rationalize is, at least when something very important to the beholder is at stake.

A friend of mine has pointed out an entirely different concern about the article, however; if it is no longer being used due to unacceptable health risks, why on earth are they phasing it out? Why not shut it down immediately, and destroy the stockpiles?

I wish I could say I'm surprised by such lack of logic from a government regulator, but I figure it is just part of a government plea bargain with the Bayer corporation, and that's the best they could get so they'll take it.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Had a job interview today, and what a lucky day for an interview!

I guess America's latest folk hero is having an equally bad day, with lots of doubts being cast on his original story. The power and irresponsibility of the mainstream media really concerns me. People trust the media to bring them news, yet what the media really wants is ratings. In an effort to out-do their competition, they run stories that they haven't verified and sway public opinion before all events are known.

I for one greatly distrust the mainstream media, and hope that more Americans will start to do likewise.

America's Latest Hero

Move over, Captain Sullenberger! America's got a new hero of the skies.

I'm sure everyone has heard the news about that flight attendant who, after an excessively rude passenger cursed him out, got on the intercom and thanked those passengers who were not rude, then grabbed two beers from the galley and escaped through the plane's emergency chute. He was arrested "in a sexual embrace" at his home a few hours later.

When I first heard about that, I seriously thought "This guy is the man!" Apparently, so did most everyone else in America. Public opinion is overwhelmingly sympathetic with him, and I'm sure that this will factor into whatever punishment he ends up receiving.

I think that it was his grabbing two beers, reportedly saying "there goes 28 years" as he slid down the chute, and then being arrested in the midst of getting his last jollies before jail, that really makes this guy's story resonate with America. He may have lost his cool and flipped out, but he did it in style.


I for one love it, and hope he gets a very lenient sentence.

Update: Are things not quite as they first seemed?

Civ 5 exlusively on Steam!

Short post today. I'm actually really quite busy; been applying to tons of jobs and trying to clean up my wreck of a room before I have to go house-sit for a week. (Nintendo Wii here I come!)

Anyways, I hadn't been staying up to date on Civ 5 and when I recently checked it out, I was surprised to see that it is apparently a Steamworks exclusive! That is a tremendous marketing slam-dunk for Steamworks, and as I'm already an avid user of Steam I don't mind one bit. I'll be interested if others aren't quite pissed off, though. I understood when Valve was making us go through their digital delivery service to play their games, but Civ 5 is in no way connected prior to this dark partnership.

If you want to read about it, here's an FAQ they posted.

In case you have a decent memory, let me just say I'm still planning on finishing my RPG post... someday.

Life in small town America

My parents moved to a new city while I was abroad, and I've been staying with them since I've come home. I grew up in the previous home, located in a town that wasn't incorporated. The traffic was terrible, there was no sense of community, and overall it just didn't feel like the small-town America I had seen on TV or read about in books.

That has since changed, as my new home is very much the picturesque slice of Americana that would make Mark Twain smile. Town hall, town police station, a community that rallies around the town's school sports organizations... I truly felt like I had arrived, and this in particular was the perfect salve for my homesick soul. I wanted more than anything to see small-town America when I got back from Japan, and now I had it.

I've taken to exploring on my mountain bike, just traveling all through the town as I learn the various roads and neighborhoods. I often will ride out to main street and watch the sunset, where they have some benches by the train tracks that run through our town. I like to enjoy a cigar while the sun descends, and just really relax.

Of course, on Monday while I was there, two police officers approached me. They told me that they had a call, that someone described me exactly and said I was selling narcotics. "Now why would they say that," the officer inquired. The tone was confrontational, and the onus of proof was suddenly on my head.

I am still amazed that anyone can just call in a report such as this. I was minding my own business, but some ultra-conservative redneck saw me smoking something that wasn't a cigarette and they instantly assume I'm a drug dealer?

Now, in all fairness: as soon as the police officers heard me deny the claim, and explain that I was just minding my own business smoking a cigar, they immediately dropped the confrontational tone and even apologized for wasting my time. "Welcome to a small town, it was probably just some nosy old person." In the end they introduced themselves, shook my hand, we made some small talk, and they departed while wishing me a good day.

Still, it was a jarring experience that has definitely marred my image of this new town as an idyllic American community. Irony is that I'm one of the devoutly law-abiding people, who strives to live up to Plato's description of a "virtuous citizen".

In other news, the (corporate) powers that be have agreed to some sort of net neutrality agreement, though critics say this would be a dangerous precedent suggesting that corporations can self-regulate, which may lend itself to abuse in the future. I can't decide how I feel either way, and am going to wait for more details before giving it any serious thought. Still, very interesting.

This is the future?

I remember growing up, and there being lots of talk from the late 80's through the early 90's about how crazy and different the world would be in the next millennium. Flying cars, teleportation, giant robots... turns out none of that came to be. Here we are in 2010, and we don't even have sexbots?! I'm disappointed in the glacial pace of technological growth.

Then again, I read this article the other day and feel like its pretty damn exciting! Now that is a crazy high-tech futuristic change to the world that I'd love to see become a daily sight.

What about you, my faithful reader-legion? What sort of technological advances did you expect to see by now? Will there any other near-future revolutions in our daily lives?

The fight has begun!

As I previously stated, Arizona's new law targeted at curtailing illegal immigration has now become a battle over states' rights verses the federal government. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I really do believe we Americans have a lot at stake regarding states' rights.

Should the feds steamroll a state's ability to govern itself without undue federal interference, then I truly believe it might create an actual secession movement. And the last time that happened, a lot of Americans died.

And really, no matter what your opinion is regarding illegal immigration and the potential for discrimination and abuse, it is an important precedent that has long-reaching consequences completely unconnected to the issue at hand.

The fact of the matter is that illegal immigration is a problem in Arizona, and the federal government was not enforcing the laws they have on the books. What Arizona did was simply create a state law to allow them to enforce federal laws that aren't being enforced by the feds themselves.


To me, this is a clear case of the federal government's failing to protect a state, and then trying to prevent the state from protecting itself. A dangerous precedent, indeed.

Modern politics has become so mired in retaining popularity for one's future political career that nobody has the willingness to make the right choices, regardless of how unpopular they are. What I would give to see a government full of men who truly wanted the best for their nation, and not just for themselves and their wealthy elite allies. But alas, that is a dream that neither elephant nor donkey could fulfill.

A short post today.

This is really cool. Check it out!

What does the future hold?

On October 29th, 1929, Wall Street was shocked by a complete collapse of prices on the stock market. The plunge continued for a full month, and thus began the world-wide Great Depression.

This directly led to the rise of extremism throughout Europe, with fascist groups taking over in Spain, Germany, and Italy. It also was responsible for the military coup that took control of Japan.

The rise of extremism in various countries eventually resulted in World War II.

Now we have the so-called "Great Recession". It certainly has created a great deal of unrest, some of which is dangerously reminiscent of the past. Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, gave a very stark warning about the potential for the democracies of Greece, Spain, and Portugal to collapse under the current economic strain.

Revolution can occur when people lose faith in their government. Kinda like what happened in Okaloosa County, Florida. The county commissioners voted to take action without regard to the red-tape filled chain of command that exists through state and federal governments. They're saying that the government isn't working; it is neither efficient nor effective for their needs. And they're willing to go to jail, if that's what it takes.

I wonder if this isn't an isolated case. It certainly seems like a lot of people, all around the world, are fed up with what they see as government that just doesn't work.

May we live in interesting times, indeed.

The ills of technology

I found this article very interesting. Its about how constant multitasking can rewire our brains, and gives an example of a young tech guru who has lost the ability to focus his attention on any one thing. He's constantly looking for "something else" to the detriment of his family-life and even his work.

Now, I do believe that this family represents a good example on the extreme end of things and I fully admit that heavy use of technology can rewire a person's way of thinking. I have no particular beef with the findings of this article whatsoever.

On the other hand, it seems like they got a really dysfunctional / scatterbrained married couple who just happen to be heavily into technology.

That said, some people will read an article like that and think "technology is bad". Maybe people like these parents who are upset about how an educational video game is being used in New Mexico schools. The game is successful enough that the kids actually want to play it, even though it requires the understanding and use of mathematics.

"We are feeding the addiction of these children to video games," said parent Marlene Perrotte. Indeed, we should abandon an incredibly effective tool that actually gets kids excited to learn about math. Because, as Marlene so eloquently put it, "We are feeding the addiction of these children to video games." I shudder.

And before you go, make sure to check out this test to gauge how well you can filter out distractions. Even though I would be considered a high multi-tasker, I scored perfectly. This just furthers my belief that this article took an extreme worst-case example family just to make the story sexy.

"May you live in interesting times"

The title of today's post is an ancient Chinese curse. You see, to the Chinese "interesting times" meant a lack of stability. In other words: chaos, starvation, sorrow, and death.

As a child, I would always love to watch World War II movies with my dad. I grew up on stories about the war as told by my grandfather, a veteran who fought under Patton in the Third Army. Even as recently as high school, I recall thinking to myself about how amazing it must have been to live through such momentous events as those that transpired from the Great Depression up through the Cold War.

Of course, I started to reconsider my opinion that I would never experience anything like that shortly after 9/11.

Nowadays, with North Korea and Iran developing nuclear weapons, the former's increasing saber rattling, and Israel losing Turkey's good will (not to mention the increasing loss of world opinion) along with America's purposeful backing away from staunchly supporting Israel... let's just say I'm no longer convinced that I won't live in equally monumental times of change.

As a side note, I think this woman is the perfect example of what I hate about modern litigation. I think that even though Google is providing directions, it still falls upon the user's shoulders to use some common sense.

It is a tragedy that she got struck by a car, and I don't even particularly mind that she's suing the person who hit her (though I don't necessarily believe she ought to win... if she was walking on a road without a sidewalk, it might be her fault,) but to sue Google for "careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions" is beyond ridiculous.

Playing God

I woke up this morning thinking "What on earth am I gonna blog about?"

Of course, as soon as I went online I was bombarded with the news about artificial life actually being realized.

Huh.

Well, I will say that I'm not the least bit surprised at all the hullabaloo. I am a bit surprised at the Catholic Church's reaction, with a cautious approval given the appropriate constraints. That is far more progressive and forward-looking than I've ever come to expect from the Vatican.

On the other hand, all the uproar from various groups claiming that this is Pandora's Box... well, I will grant that it very well could be. There's always that possibility. But I'm just not as worried as they think I should be. Call me a Modernist, but I put more faith in humanity's capacity than most groups would like to believe. Especially the religious types, who believe God, in his/her/its divine wisdom, created human beings to suck. Awesome.

I don't think progress happens without taking steps towards the future. This seems like an appropriate baby-step into the world of genetic engineering. And given the political fallout, I feel like it had to come from a relatively independent scientist. Hopefully from now on, it can be regulated and become mainstream, with the end result being a capacity to cure genetic diseases.

Or maybe it'll be with a small terrorist group able to wipe out the human race.

Either way, I feel like Earth will be better off for it. :)

How far is too far?

This here is a bit old, but I've been meaning to mention it.

In April, a militia-group was rounded up and placed under arrest for planning to shoot up a bunch of police officers. There was a debate over whether to release them or not, since their case was mostly based on speech alone, with no definitive plan of action to show intent.

On the other hand, if you arrest a group of radical militants that meet together to talk about how the government holds tyranny over their lives, and that the only way to stop it is to become martyrs in a grand gesture of multiple murders, then you let them go free briefly before their trial... does this not give them incentive to believe their views and furthermore give them no reason to not act on them?

I believe in the protections of free speech, and I don't believe in locking people up for no good reason... but I also recognize a need for public safety.

I just don't know how to think on this one. What about you?

Nostalgia: Exosquad

I'm not sure if anyone remembers Exosquad, but it was one of my favorite TV shows as a child. It dealt with a lot of mature issues, including: the ethics of "playing god", racism and the fight for acceptance, death and loss, working hard towards your goals, perseverance, teamwork, religion, and politics.

That's a lot to throw into what is nominally a kid's show, eh? But I remember it resonating within me, because even as a kid I got the idea that the world wasn't as rosy as the other kids' shows would have me believe.

One of my favorite things about Exosquad was how it avoided painting a simplistic "good verses evil" schema; they went out of their way to show that the "bad guys" were actually treated very poorly and were unfairly oppressed when they rose up to fight against humanity.

I'm sadly not familiar with modern day kids' cartoons, but I hope that there's at least one similar show out there that can help the young'ins get a head start on understanding and being ready to deal with so many heavy issues.

If you're interested in watching it, either for the first time (bear in mind it is a kids' show and furthermore its from the 90s...) or else for nostalgia's sake, you can find them here thanks to Hulu.

On a different note, we have yet another "my hot beverage was hot" lawsuit, this time against Starbucks. I swear, historians will refer to our time period as either the age of liability or the age of entitlement. Either way, I find it kind of embarrassing.

I'm off to my last undergrad final ever!

Early May already?

Well, I'm afraid that my post on procrastination will have to wait. I've been consumed with writing a research paper for over a good 72 hours straight now, and am very nearly finished.

In order to not offend your sensibilities of fairness, I shall try to offer this tidbit; Greece's financial meltdown might just result in a civil war. I figure its either that or the rise of an ultra-nationalistic fascist government.

Disagree? Chime in with your own predictions.

Also, I found this bit of news to be not at all biased! I've always been quite skeptical of the supplement industry, myself. It seems like most Americans think they can eat McDonald's three meals a day for seven days a week, but as long as they also take Echinacea that their health situation should balance out.

I remain unconvinced of the claims made by the supplement industry, especially when compared to the facts presented by a more reputable source.

Speaking of Mayo: I'll see you on Cinco de Mayo, my faithful readers.

The Immigration Debate - Or Is It?

I find myself uniquely qualified to chime in on the immigration debate that has recently been sparked by Arizona's new law.

You see, when I was in Japan I experienced this exact situation. Japanese law allows police to request proof of a person's visa status, and on multiple occasions I was stopped and asked to show my identity card.

You know what? That makes sense to me. I wasn't offended, because I had nothing to hide. It is a country's right to enforce the integrity of the system that gives citizenship to the people living there, as well as a duty; it is necessary to protect the lawful citizens of a nation from those who don't respect the law.

The fact that they are making it illegal on a state level to be in the country illegally (which would be federal law) just goes to show that the federal government isn't effectively addressing the problem. A state ought to have the right to pass a law like this and look after its own, especially when the feds aren't doing anything to resolve the problem.

America has been incredibly lenient on illegal immigration for a long time, and I think it is a good thing that we're going to start taking things a little more seriously. If you are lawfully in the country, you have nothing to worry about.

In my opinion, though this is starting out as an immigration debate, I think that ultimately it will turn into a state's rights battleground. The federal government will try to impose its will on Arizona, and Arizona (and probably Texas) will fight against this. When the dust settles, I can only hope that the states will have reaffirmed their right to govern themselves with minimal federal interference.

The Age of Litigation (Or: I Exercise My Noble Freedom to be an Asshole)

So instead of considering the fine art of procrastination today, I want to comment on the recent iphone fiasco and Gizmodo in particular. (I'll try to get to the other topic in early May.)

You see, some guy found a prototype of the next gen iphone and sold it to a journalist-blogger website, which started revealing a lot of juicy secrets. Apple didn't like them reporting all about it, so they had the police get involved.

Now we've got a debate over whether or not bloggers are protected under journalist laws, as well as what exactly the laws entitle journalists to do.

In my opinion, it is obvious that this is a case of private property which is still in a prototype stage and that releasing information on it is almost certainly harmful to the company. By purchasing it and then analyzing and reporting on it, Gizmodo did something definitely unethical and probably unlawful.

I agree with the people who claim that journalistic legal protection does not extend to committing illegal acts for the sake of creating a source; they exist so that journalists cannot be forced to reveal sources. There's a significant difference here.

Furthermore, I'm not a particular fan of Gizmodo in the first place. A while back they pulled a "prank" that in my opinion shows that their modus operandi is basically selfish and antisocial.

What they did wasn't a prank, in my opinion. It could have been, if they didn't take it so far, and if they had revealed what they were up to shortly after pulling it. But the worst part in my opinion is their lame justification and complete lack of regret.

They paint their actions by associating them with the noble idea of "civil disobedience", claim that the prank "pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting", and say that any journalists who criticize their actions are obviously just corporate lapdogs who have sold out.

Seriously? This is the worst sort of self-righteous closed-mindedness, and it pisses me off. So I'm really not that surprised to know that Gizmodo is claiming a moral high ground and suggesting that the purchase of known stolen property and then revealing trade secrets is somehow related to freedom of information.

Suppose some kid I don't know steals my neighbor's diary, then sells it to me for five bucks because he knows I'm always desperate for any old topic to blog about, and I start revealing Old Man Thompson's secret obsession with Hello Kitty... is this seriously about freedom of information?

The problem with modern day society is that we keep taking ideals of freedom far past their logical extension. The justification of selfish and antisocial behavior, wrapped up in the guise of something noble, is so pervasive that we have to debate about whether or not its wrong to steal something secret and then make it public. This type of thing used to be common sense.

The fact that its not is exactly what's wrong with our modern day society.

**Update 4/30**
Here's some info about the guy who originally found & sold the iphone. Sounds like he's full of regret now that he might get in trouble!