Nanny State Powers, ACTIVATE!

Form of, Regulation!
Shape of, a baby!

"Paul arrived in Amsterdam looking forward to a weekend with his friends. Instead, the 24-year-old Australian stayed holed up in his hotel room, too frightened to walk the streets after taking magic mushrooms.
``We had to lock ourselves up in case we would do something crazy,'' said Paul, who asked that his last name not be used because he didn't want acquaintances to know about his drug use. ``There is no way this should be legal.''

..

In Amsterdam, where the fungi are sold in so-called smart shops, local officials agree. The city council last month approved a three-day waiting period to cut down on tourist use. The national government is considering an outright ban after a French teenager leapt to her death in March. Health Minister Ab Klink will release a statement on the hallucinogens this week.



So, you go to a foreign country with more advanced ideas about personal responsibility than your own, get in a bit over your head and, rather than reflect on your own immaturity and lack of growth, you call for the Nanny State to rescue you.

Pathetic.

I'm not a user or fan of most hallucinogens, mostly because my brain gets more than a little weird and I dont enjoy them if they are strong. OTOH, I'm pretty sure it isn't my business if you do enjoy them.

Ugh. I'm starting to sound like Travis.

Back

FTR I'm back from Barcelona and in Seattle today, hooray! To those of you who were on my case over the last 2 weeks, I am headed to the doctor's tomorrow afternoon. For those of you who have not been on my case, well, thanks! I've had a weird cough for the last 2 months and people have been getting insistent I go get checked out. It's minor, but annoying.

The next leg of my trip is scheduled to start 28 Oct when I head to Tokyo.

Creationist Cartoons!

Pretty good!

30 Rock

I bought Season 1 on DVD, you should too, it's hilarious!

Oh? Canada!

An idea has been rolling around in my head for a little while, dual citizenship with Canada.

Advantages:
Shorter lines at the international airport
Healthcare for life
A rich cultural heritage including one of the few bloodless revolutions in human history
Being a member of a respected member of the international community again
Legal pot
Avoid voting for either Hillary or Rudy
The French may no longer spit in my food (unless they think I am from Quebec)

Disadvantages:
Taxes

I'll leave this to the readers. Vote in the comments.

Bungie

I got this today:
Kicking bungie to the curb just because all the senior management quits enmasse? That's cold, man.
Refering to this, appearently: http://www.gamersyde.com/forum_8_22985_1_en.html

So heres my big secret. You should google Bungie + Microsoft + separation this week.You know that big ol BILLION dollar franchise Bungie has created for Microsoft, to show their appreciate Microsoft is letting Bungie leave. Of course Microsoft gets to keep all rights to the Halo franchise, but as today Bungie no longer part of Microsoft. Ask anyone who works there to search the global address book, they're no longer in there. Microsoft was supposed to release the press release today but if they wait till the 10/6 the impact wont effect the quarterly results. However today is the actual official date and the day the NDAs expire, however you still didn't hear this from me.""Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingie they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity. They'll probably make Halo 4 for Microsoft, however hey are also free to create new intellectual properties for whatever system they want. (Even though they prefer the xbox platform)"

I have no idea if it's true, and thought it a mildly interesting rumor. I'm at a a large industry trade show in Boston (hooray!) this week, doing a fair bit of press around our new payments product and offically launching the Capital Markets strategy I've been slaving away on for the past 9 months. Up until now I;ve had a lot of good questions about High Performance Computing and some arcane questions about how to write (and run) parallel code in automated trade alogrithms for buy side firms. Out of the blue I got asked by a reporter (I think for her own curiousity since her publication has nothing to do with the gaming industry).

"Any comment on the Bungie spinout?"

GAK!

I answered simply with, "you obviously know more than I do!"

AFAIK, it's just a rumor. There is no internal info to which I am privvy, but that's par for the course.

Details as events warrent.

gak!

A Real Conversation with My Son

Geoff: "I'll know! I'll waterboard them!"
Me: "No! You cannot go on Kid Nation and waterboard children!"
Geoff: "Their parents signed a release!"
Geoff: "It'll work for sweeps week"

This isi one of many horrible conversations we have. In an unusal twist, I am the voice of reason.

Phoney Soldiers

Pretty much, this says it all.

More War!

I suggest reading Glenn Greenwald's column on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment. It's a bit strident, but given that the momentum is strong for creating a war with Iran, I don't think a little hyperole is much of a vice.

In an excellent comment, Thomas C elaborates on Jim Webb's warning about the danger of the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment. Specifically, contrast that Amendment's finding that "Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps" is a "foreign terrorist organization" with the declaration under the 2002 Iraq AUMF that "the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States," and one could make a strong case that the Senate has just agreed that President Bush has inherent authority -- i.e., authority under the Constitution -- to attack Iran, given that its military unit is a "foreign terrorist organization."

To those handful of folks who came back to me and said I was right about the problems in Iraq, I say this: we will look back wistfully at the sunny summer days when our biggest problem was a needless war with Iraq, if we bomb Iran.

Non-Verbal Memories

Interesting experiment on evidence of early memory development in 2 year-olds.

I have 2 or 3 very early, non-verbal memories I've managed keep all this time. One from when I was about 9 months old and learning to walk, and one from when I wandered out of the backyard and down the ally behind the house when I was 2. I've got dozens of memories of being 3ish and remember my early childhood pretty well. I still find it odd that most people claim their memories don't start until 4 or 5 and am actively offended when people tell me any earlier memories "can't be real".

I know, for example, that my memory of being 9 months old is real. When I was 18, I (unknowingly) went back to the place the memory formed and immediately recognized the room, the fireplace etc., and had noticed the color of the rug was different. When I asked how long the rug had been there, they said 15 years, but it had been blue (the color I remembered it being) before that. Ergo, it was a real memory.

The Logical Conclusion

A long time reader writes in:


"It stands to reason, though, that once men enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they will be one with God, and will no longer be lonely and in need of mortal companionship"

So, doesn't also stand to reason that in the afterlife men will need to fuck god? Because I don't think that requirement will cease just because they are dead.......

Women Probably Don't Have Souls!

You read it here first! errr...second...

"The absence of either salvation or condemnation for women finds extensive support in the Word of God." He reported. "Jesus said that the sole reason God created women in the first place was to provide company and service to men (1 Corinthians 11:9), God determined that men would be lonely living alone, so he created women purely to keep men company and serve their needs (Genesis 2:18-22). Women are therefore completely subordinate to men (1 Corinthians 11:3). It stands to reason, though, that once men enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they will be one with God, and will no longer be lonely and in need of mortal companionship. Thus, the reason behind having women will no longer exist. Women, like the members of the animal kingdom, will fall by the wayside."

Pastor Deacon Fred warned the congregation that there was no reason to be alarmed. "Dr. Neiman's conclusions still need to be formalized," he assured. "I am certain that our team of religious experts will find some way around these Scriptures." Some of the women present were visibly shaken by the report. A teary eyed Sister Taffy Crockett said through choked sobs, "I've heard of colored women not having souls... but me? NO! This is outrageous!"

It's nice to know that women are just like the rest of us, not possessed by imaginary ghosts!

BTW, Landover is one of my favorite religious websites.

Take a gander at their mailbag!

Spoiled

So I bought my cat Bitey some "Sheba" brand cat food as a treat. There used to be three cats in the house, Buster, Sam and Artemis (Bitey), but alas, Sam and Buster got very old and passed away over the summer (I got a rather suspecious look from the folks at the pet morgue when I brought the second one in a few weeks after the first one died. If Artemis snuffs it, I'll have to send her out of state for sure). While she fought constantly with the other two (she fights constantly with *everyone*), she has been a little lonely lately. I thought some high-end cat food might be a treat for her, but she's mostly uninterested. Which is a pity, because it has rich, thick hunks of tender, slow roasted breast meat, soaked in a creamed gravey sauce.

A real pity. It was just sitting there on the plate. Untouched.

Unwanted.

Juicy.

Big Hunks.

Just waiting....

I have to say...

It's fucking delicious!

Assignment

Geoff gets his assignment from the Army:

"I'm in charge of a platoon"
"Cool! That's awesome! How many people is that?"
"It's like 40 or so."
"So this is combat?"
"It's a tactical UAV platoon"
"UAV? Urban Assult Vehicle?"
"No... Unmanned Arial Vehicle"
"... ... you mean like those things on Stargate? You're sending RC planes through the Stargate? This is a real assignment?"
"No, no Stargate! But yes, UAV Platoon..."
"So wait a minute. You're in charge of 40 RC geeks who fly toy planes around? *This* is what you trained for??? Oh son, I am ...
...
...
I am very happy for you and your friends!"
"NOOOO!!!!"

Media Smackdown

The penny may have dropped on the GOP in the media. Pretty much until this point, most GOP talking heads have gotten a free ride on Iraq, issuing their talking points mostly unchallenged, making their points to will hosts etc.

This link goes to an interview on Tucker Carlson's show where an unsuspecting congressperson stumbles into an ambush. From a media training POV, Rep. Blackburn does a terrific job. She stays on point, she keeps trying to bridge back to her talking points and, while she comes off a little smug at the beginning, she does not drop into a defensive crouch when the interview goes off the rails. Host David Shuster plays an old reporters trick on her, asking her the name of the last soldier from her district to die in Iraq, one she should have been prepared for, but she does a professional job of trying to extricate herself.

All in all, a facinating exchange.

The Noncommutative Frobenius Problem is Solved!

Now how am I going to stay awake at night??

here

Consider the famous "Chicken McNuggets problem": if Chicken McNuggets are sold at McDonald's only in boxes of 6, 9, or 20 McNuggets, what's the largest number of McNuggets you can't buy at McDonald's? The answer happens to be my favorite number, 43. (Why it is my favorite is a story that will have to wait for another day.) Notice that you can buy any number of McNuggets greater than 43.

For example, 44 = 4*6 + 1*20, 45 = 5*9,46 = 1*6 + 2*20, 47 = 3*6 + 1*9 + 1*20,48 = 8*6,49 = 1*9 + 2*20, and any number greater than 49 can be obtained by adding an appropriate multiple of 6 to these.In general, you're given a set S of integers, and you want to know the largest number that cannot be expressed as a non-negative integer linear combination of the elements of S. This is called the Frobenius number because Frobenius is supposed to have mentioned it often during his lectures.

...

Unfortunately, the general problem was proved NP-hard (under Turing reductions) by Ramirez Alfonsin in 1996. Roughly speaking, this means the problem is at least as hard as many classical problems for which we still have no efficient solution, such as the traveling salesman problem.

About 6 years ago, I suggested generalizing this problem from numbers to strings of symbols (sometimes called "words"). This kind of generalization is a typical activity in mathematics and theoretical computer science. You take a well-studied problem over one kind of domain, and see how the problem translates in another. The classical Frobenius problem dealt with positive integers, so we'll replace them with strings. Now S will be a set of strings.
...

No One I Know

The Goons certainly have *someone's* number, but it's no one I know. Good argument for me to get my own though.

"You can't spell 'arguement' without 'gun'"
-Me to my son

"Lightning Rod"

ZAP!

Biker's penis hit by lightning

A Croatian motorbiker's penis was zapped by lightning as he stopped beside the road to take a leak.
Ante Djindjic, 29, from Zagreb, said: "I don't remember what happened. One minute I was taking a leak and the next thing I knew I was in hospital.
"Doctors said the lightning went through my body and because I was wearing rubber boots it earthed itself through my penis."
Djindjic, who suffered light burns to his chest and arms, added: "Thankfully, the doctors said that there would be no lasting effects, and my penis will function normally eventually."

"eventually"

The McCollough Effect

Weird illusion seemingly based on brain function. I couldn't'get it to work the first time, but I only did the standard 30 seconds or so you do with optical illusions. When I looked at the colored boxes for 4 or 5 minutes it worked perfectly.


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Update: 20 mins later and it still seems to be working, although a little less maybe.

Work is essential, the rifle is near.

This and other dittys at Soviet Poster of the Day
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