Category: Personal

World’s Smallest Political Quiz

Go ahead, take the quiz and find out in about a minute where you are on the range. I scored squarely as a “Left-Liberals. Left-Liberals prefer self-government in personal matters and central decision-making on economics. They want government to serve the disadvantaged in the name of fairness. Leftists tolerate social diversity, but work for economic equality.” My Personal Self-Government Score is 80% and my Economic Self-Government Score is 40%. The quiz has been taken over 1.1 million times as of this writing, with my crowd running a poor third at 16.9%; not surprisingly for the Web, Libertarians are at the top with 38.1%. From the site’s FAQ: “Who produces the Quiz? The Quiz is produced by the Advocates for Self-Government, a non-profit, non-partisan libertarian educational organization.” The FAQ does make at least one good point: the old “linear” model of political beliefs (that is, from left to right) is outmoded. Bill’s additional opinion: When almost everyone, except the libertarian, is more or less characerizing themselves as a centrist we need a new model.

Political Compass is another site trying to popularize a new, more complex classification scheme for political views. There’s no real About Us page or detailed information on who’s behind the site except for this: “The idea was developed by a political journalist with a university counselling background, assisted by a professor of social history.” The only clue I could see is that a banner ad for an organization called One World Action is on every page, and One World Action is a group associated with the British Labour Party. [Pause while I take the test] Okay, well, just from the questions one would think this test was written by people left of center (to use the old, simpler classification). And it’s longer. Oddly, the last page, questions on sexual attitudes, are all questions that a liberal would answer Strongly Disagree except the last one (“What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state.”). I wonder if the sudden change of perspective throws the less careful off and skews the results. Anyway, my score was Economic Left/Right: 0.82, Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.55; on their grid, barely to the right of center on economics and somewhat more towards libertarian on that axis. Just goes to confirm my belief as stated above.

Farrakhan ‘sorry for anti-semitism’

Attempting yet again to gain entry to the United Kingdom, Louis Farrakhan apologised through his lawyers for anti-semetic remarks has has made during his career, according to The Times of London. Farrakhan’s lawyer “admitted that Mr Farrakhan had made “sensitive” remarks about blacks and Jews in America, and about American support for Israel but said the comments had to be set in context.” What context? Farrakhan for years has used the Big Lie technique to further his own (admittedly good) cause at the expense of Jews. Like many another before him, Farrakhan is getting old (67) and sick (prostate cancer) and he sees the likelihood of achieving his life’s dream receeding and so he is willing to begin compromising on what was so clear to him in younger years, to get the dream within elusive reach.

Last night’s movie: Dr. Dolittle 2

Uh, don’t bother the beaver. The godbeaver. Yeah, Eddie’s talking to the animals again and they’re getting organized. Much better than his other remake series, Dolittle gives Murphy a good range of other characters to play against–his wife, both daughters but especially Raven Simone, Archie the Bear, some mafioso small mammals and rodents, and the ever-nasty Jeffrey Jones (who’s bloated up quite a bit) supported by Kevin Pollack (who seems to take any role offered to him). Director Steve Carr, who previously directed the fun Ice Cube movie Next Friday and a bunch of rap music videos and commercials, mainly steps back and let Eddie rule here.

p.s. Murphy is currently working on a buddy cop comedy with Robert DeNiro for release next year called Showtime.

Mob’s greatest hits: awards keep coming

The nominations are out and for a second year running, The Sopranos lead the hunt with 22 mominations. Bruce Springsteen’s HBO Special got six nominations as well. Gandolfini, Falco, Bracco, Chianese (Uncle Junior), Imperioli (Christopher), and Aida Turturro all got nods. I guess it’s too soon but I can’t find a complete list of the nominations yet.

The trip to Italy

Part 2 of the trip journal, The Week in Palermo, has been posted. Palermo is a neat older city (or at least the part where we stayed and walked is), plus Dad and I visit Segesta, Agrigento (Valley of the Temples), and Monreale. More soon.

Cringely on the next wave of startups

I love Cringely. He wrote great stuff years ago at InfoWorld but got canned after a fight with his editor. Then he wrote a great book and some cool PBS specials. Now he writes a weekly column on the PBS website. Recently (while I was in Italy) he wrote a very insightful column on why startups fail. Biggest reason: founder and/or VC greed.

p.s. Cringely is a pseudonym.

3 Billion Years and Turn the Lights Out

It’s true. While the Universe may live on for billions of more years, our own beloved Milky Way will be destroyed in only 3,000,000,000 years by colliding with nearby galaxy Andromeda. Astrophysicists Lars Hernquist and John Dubinski ran Galactic Collision Simulations to see what it will look like. I can’t wait to see it with my own eyes. Okay, eyes may be stretching the point, I’m sure I’ll be using some advanced sensory technologies by then.

Yesterday’s movie: Meltdown/High Risk

Watched a very funny Jet Li movie last night, which is called Meltdown on the DVD but High Risk on The Official Jet Li Website. A criminal kills Li’s wife and some schoolchildren after collecting a huge ransom; two years later, they face off again when “The Doctor” (played by Kelvin Wong) and his crew target some antique jewels at the opening of their exhibition. By this time, Li is working as the bodyguard (and stunt double) for martial arts film star Frankie Lane. Lane is famous for doing his own stunts but Meltdown shows us that’s just PR BS, Lane was a world class fighter who’s long since degenerated into a sex-crazed party wimp. To my eyes, the Lane character mocks Jackie Chan but in the end the charater redeems himself by defeating the most dangerous of The Doctor’s crew. Lots of laughs, not the least of which come from the dubbed English voices (Li does not do his own), and good fighting scenes.

Self-publishing or working at Microsoft?

Adam Barr wrote a book about his tenure at Microsoft, 10 years as a programmer, sounds interested and I may someday get a chance to read it. He’s written other things too but I got a great laugh out of Dr. Selfpub, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Amazon.Com, his story of his experience writing and selling the book. Lucky dog, Barr sold his MS options when the stock was over $100/share early last year; I only wish I’d done the same with Sun. I read about Adam’s book and article in Victor Stone’s interesting article Image Problems; Stone also previously worked as a programmer at MS, although not with Barr.

Someone actually published this book! Amazing! Funny!

I’ve never heard of a publisher called Writers Showcase Press (sounds like a vanity press from its name) but they’ve published Hiroyuki Nishigaki’s opus How to Good-Bye Depression : If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? This is just too hilarious. Sample quote: “Besides shooting out a big blank from your buttock, you can feel as if your root chakra leaked sweet hot mucus.” His Amazon biography reads, in part: “A female inorganic ally gave the author the ability of space travel at age of 10 and 56. His first space travel was at the age of 56.”

Getting ready for XP

Microsoft, Court of Appeals ruling in hand, is preparing to release the next version of Windows, Windows XP, on Oct. 25. If you want to get a head start on what XP is all about (besides Hailstorm), check out Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows. Thurott is a writer for Windows 2000 Magazine and he’s put together a large quantity of XP technical and historical information, screen shots, tips and tricks, and more on this site.

The Future of War

Not surprisingly, specialists have been thinking on the changes in warfare constantly improving information technology, such as the ability to better coordinate and more precisely target various forces, can bring forth. Grouped under the rubric of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), it turns out that lots of people are thinking about it. The New Yorker has a very readable article focusing on RAND Corp. icon and current Pentagon Director of Net Assessment (whatever that means!) Andrew Marshall.

The trip to Italy

Part 1 of the trip journal, The Trip Over, has been posted. It was, to say the least, memorable all by itself. Thanks to CR for the transcription!

Yesterday’s movie: Cast Away

Something I didn’t realize until looking this movie up on IMDB bu the title is actually two words–Cast Away–not a single word. Oh, how arty and meaningful! Hanks is Hanks, a great actor, and Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Contact) did a good directing job but overall I just don’t get it. The two (since this movie is almost completely a one man show) spend two hours setting us up for a huge emotional ending and then leave us almost completely unresolved. Granted, the obvious ending would have been corny, smarmy, and completely Hollywood. But the path they chose is no better and I blame scriptwriter William Broyles, Jr. (Entrapment, Apollo 13) and Hanks, who together plotted this film Recommended for big Hanks fans only.

Today’s Movie: Kiss of the Dragon

Jet Li plays a Chinese cop assigned to Paris as liasion on a drug investigation but is set up to be the patsy by the French flic with whom Li has been sent to work in the thriller Kiss of the Dragon. Although I’d initially been put off by a nasty review in the San Jose Mercury News, we headed to the movies on a whim and decided to see if anyway. Glad we did, despite the bad press, because I thoroughly enjoyed it. Luc Besson, who wrote and produced this, also made the excellent films La Femme Nikita and The Professional.

Yesterday’s Book: Genesis Wave, Book Two

Star Trek novels continue to have a hold on me, as I await the fall debut of Enterprise. In the second half of the story, John Vornholt picks up where he left us. The Genesis Wave is blasting through the Alpha Quadrant and life on Earth is less than two days from the end. Picard, Data, and LaForge team up with Romulans, Klingons, and a finally awakened Carol Marcus, finally figure out the moss are the bad guys, and find the way to end the threat. (Of course they do, did you think this was the end of Star Trek and all the profitable publishing?) Oddly enough, the story seems to come to a complete resolution but the PsiPhi database lists a Book Three coming in January, but no description of what the story is.

Microsoft: Buy Belize and put the Feds in your rearview mirror

Columnist Robert Cringely, taking a break from recounting the wonderful tale of his DSL installation, looks at one possible outcome of the Appeals Court decision in the Microsoft antitrust case. This article is more interesting than most of the reporting in the last few weeks. The main focus is the “woeful state of the PC industry,” but he also looks at the possibility of MS moving outside the U.S. to escape jurisdiction:

“The best solution I think would be for Gates and Ballmer to simply buy a small country and declare Microsoft’s sovereignty. Belize would be nice. It’s a small tropical country in Latin America where the dominant language is English and the CIA 2000 Factbook says the Gross Domestic Product is $740 million. Microsoft could easily buy Belize ($2 billion is $400 per acre and would probably be enough) pay off the $380 million national debt, then throw up luxury condos for 20,000 programmers.”

BillSaysThis.com now searchable

Thanks to a reference in JD Lasica’s weblog, I’ve added the site search function from Master.com to BillSaysThis.com. Now when you want to see the last time I wrote about Star Trek or Sun Micro in this weblog, just enter your search term in the Find box and you’ll get a good list. I’m not quite sure how often, or if, Master.com updates my search index, so bear with me if the results are mildly out of date.

Yesterday’s fun: moving boxes and couches

Okay, so it wasn’t quite as much fun as, say, being slapped upside the head by an O.G.. I spent the morning helping a friend move a truckload of an aunt’s material possessions from another relative’s backyard to a Public Storage space. We were told the space was 6’x12′ and that would have been true if the space was rectangular, but it wasn’t. More heavy lifting than I’ve done in a long, long time but oddly enough I didn’t mind.