8! 8 Chips!

I miss my old Color Computer.

This TRS-80, according to what I could find on the Internet shipped with 16K of RAM. These 8 chips make up that RAM.

I miss my old Model 1 even more though.

the Basic and the OS fit in the 4 KB ROM

with another 4K for the program! Of course, back in the Elder Days, we all knew assembler. It was the only way to write a decent calendar program! We had to save pur programs on an audio cassttee recorder, which only worked when it was snowing during an eclipse. Also, the sound system consisted of an AM radio, through which we could hear the processor ticking away.

Sigh.

You Ruby on Rails folks don't know how sweet you have it.

A Real American Hero (tm)

From GI Joe:

"Actually Mrs. Clinton was too modest. I was there and saw it all. When Mrs. Clinton got off the plane the tarmac came under mortar and machine gun fire. I was blown off my tank and exposed to enemy fire. Mrs. Clinton without regard to her own safety dragged me to safety, jumped on the tank and opened fire, killing 50 of the enemy." Soon a suicide bomber appeared, but Mrs. Clinton stopped the guards from opening fire. "She talked to the man in his own language and got him [to] surrender. She found that he had suffered terribly as a result of policies of George Bush. She defused the bomb vest herself." Then she turned to his wounds. "She stopped my bleeding and saved my life. Chelsea donated the blood."

(via)

Light Posting

Unfortunately the new job puts me in a bad blog bind: I am busy doing things, cool, interesting wildly insane things, and I can't utter a peep about them. I can't even give you a hint about what we're doing, but I can say it's changed my view of the entire internet.

ugh.

Compartmentalized information control sucks.

Why I Am not a Man of Principle

I usually object to religious symbology in a court of law, we should all stand equal before an onjective set of laws.

Unless of course, it's my religion getting the statue.

"everybody kills Hitler on their first trip"

LOL!

On my first trip I killed Van Horn, now the secret of time travel is all mine!

(via)

The Newer, Sader, World Order

From the Cunning Realist:

Third, the implications for the future are far more troubling than this single episode. Because the government just deemed Bear, a medium-size player and non-commercial bank, as worthy of a public backstop to the tune of tens of billions, what do you think will happen if a Citi or Washington Mutual -- not too mention a Fannie -- finds itself in the same position? Fourth, in the debate about bailouts, Fed mandates etc., don't lose sight of the fundamental story: a small coterie of unelected and in many ways unaccountable statists just reached into the public till to facilitate a transaction between private parties who've made an extraordinary amount of money during the past few years (more on that soon from a personal perspective; I think many non-industry readers will be stunned).

Yes, it seems one of the many legacies of the Bush Administration is going to be the dismantling of the capitalist economy, replacing it with a guarantee system where if you make money fleecing folks great, and if you get caught, the government will bail you out.

But touch a hooker and you're toast.

I see a little silhouette of the Fed

This is currently making the rounds. It works a little too hard in places, but it's pretty good:

CDO fantasy - to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody

Is this the real price?
Is this just fantasy?
Financial landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
And look at your buys and see.
I'm now a poor boy
High-yielding casualty
Because I bought it high, watched it blow
Rating high, value low
Any way the Fed goes
Doesn't really matter to me, to me
Mama - just killed my fund
Quoted CDO's instead
Pulled the trigger, now it's dead
Mama - I had just begun
These CDO's have blown it all away
Mama - ooohI still wanna buy
I sometimes wish I'd never left Goldman at all.
I see a little silhouette of a Fed
Bernanke! Bernanke! Can you save the whole market?
Monolines and munis - very very frightening me!
Super senior, super senior
Super senior CDO -
magnifico
I'm long of subprime, nobody loves me
He's long of subprime CDO fantasy
Spare the margin call you monstrous PB!
Easy come easy go, will you let me go?
Peloton!
No - we will not let you go - let him go Peloton!
We will not let you go -let him go Peloton!
We will not let you go -
let me go
Will not let you go -
let mego (never) Never let you go -
let me go
Never let me go -
oooNo, no, no, no, no, no, no, -
Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go
S&P had the devil put aside for me
Forme, for me, for me

So you think you can fund me and spit in my eye?
And then margin call me and leave me to die
Oh PB - can't do this to me PB
Justgotta get out - just gotta get right outta here
Ooh yeah, ooh yeah No price really matters
No liquidity
Nothing really matters - no price really matters to me
Any way the Fed goes...

Often Wrong, But Never in Doubt

I saw a version of this on the John Stewart last night:

The Joker's Boner

I can see this providing hours of entertainment for 12 year-olds worldwide.

Just Enough

Me; Fine, I'll send you $50
Geoff: Oh wow. $50. ho hum.
Me: $50 is a lot of money young man!
Geoff: You used to send me $50 just because it was Tuesday.
Me: hmmm.. it would buy you... 32 seconds with Eliot Spitzer's hooker.
Geoff: That's just enough!

My Life is a Total Failure

As I was about to write a blistering, hard edged retort to this, a distrubing thought occured to me:

I'm 43 years old and arguing with nerds over the subtle rules differences between D&D and GURPS.

I have utterly failed the bright promise of my youth.

On the bright side, I am not living in my parents basement.

yet.

Finally, Something to Admire About the President

and I do! From Slate:

When a Houston reporter asked Bush about the difference between the Episcopal Church he was raised in and the Methodist one he began attending after he was married, he replied, "I'm sure there is some kind of heavy doctrinal difference, which I'm not sophisticated enough to explain to you." His religion has often been best described as evangelical, but in various respects it appears not to conform to the definition. Unlike most other evangelicals, Bush blithely uses profanity and as governor would play poker. He doesn't tithe. He didn't try to convert others—one of the central obligations in most evangelical denominations—even before he resumed a political career. He didn't raise his daughters in his faith. On issues that divide evangelical Christians from nonevangelical Christians—and varieties of evangelicals from each other—Bush does not need to feign ecumenical neutrality. He isn't hiding his beliefs; he simply doesn't have many of them.

I admit I didnt know this about him and I give him credit.

Charm School

Hillary Clinton, like many egomaniacs, blames her problems on other people, usually the press or the VRWC(tm). This comes out in not very subtle ways, like setting up the press room in the men's bathroom (and later serving lunch there).

and yet somehow people think that a McCain presidency will more resemble the current one.

D&D Explained

(via)

This reminds me, I am out of Rennent.

On The Hook

I stand in slack-jawed awe of this:

Prosecutors specializing in government corruption cases are leading the investigation into what authorities say was a prostitution service that charged up to $5,500 an hour ...

$5500!!

An Hour!!!

wow.

just.... wow. That's like ... hiring the entire cast of Zumanity for the night.

I am in awe of this man.

Not the Philosopher Jagger

Someone I know once said he thought an issue should be made of Huckabee's "ability to objectively evaluate evidence" based on his total abandonment of logic and reason in insisting on a biblical law based system of government. In that spirit:

[Huckabee]...ran into a guy he thought was Mick Jagger, but who was really his younger, less successful brother Chris Jagger, at a Miami taco stand during a stop on his campaign trail. According to politicaltabloid.com, Huckabee "couldn't believe his eyes. He approached him and said he's always loved the Rolling Stones and has almost all of their albums on vinyl," the Web site reports. "Jagger recognized him and started talking about the presidential race ... Huckabee asked Jagger if he would come to a campaign rally that night and sing with them. Jagger eagerly agreed." Later at the rally, Huckabee announced a "surprise visitor" who performed with the band. "The crowd went crazy," the site reports. Later, Huckabee was told he had been duped.

The New York Post.

In similar form, I guess the headline for the faithful on Mike would be Tough Luck, Huck Sucks. I, for one, won't miss him all that much.

Expelled!

PZ has the latest on some bootleg footage from Expelled.

The Catholic Church Branches Out

Sin, it isn't just about you you know!

"While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance, due to the phenomenon of globalization," said Girotti, who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican body that issues decisions on matters of conscience and grants absolutions.

See what you can come up with after 2000 years of socialism?

SubPrime Explained

Awesome *and* accurate.

(via)

Socialists and Science

They often don't get the point, and more often, they think science works like social science or religion. Vox Day doesn't seem to get the point over at the Bad Astronomy blog, posting something worthy of any Smith undergrad with a 2.4 GPA and a head full of nonsense:

In other words, even by its own lights, science and rational materialist philosophy is only relevant to five percent of what we currently consider to be all known Creation. Combined with its complete inapplicability to abstract concepts such as justice, equality and freedom, this shows that even attempting to build a social order on a secular basis is not only doomed to failure, but is quite arguably insane.

Just because only 5% of matter in the universe is Byronic (which I still think might be wrong), doesn't mean you're free to make up your own, untestable rules for the other 95%. I would argue that the biggest problem with science these days is probably not, "its complete inapplicability to abstract concepts such as justice, equality and freedom", but that religious nutjobs get 95% of the airtime and seem unembarrassed to spout this kind of pure, 100% weapons-grade Bolognium.