Weaver95

sorry about the lack of updates lately, but as I’m sure you know - the holiday season can force one to be quite busy.

where to start…hmm.  well, lets go with a personal note.  I survived thanksgiving.  No relatives were harmed in the making and consumption of a turkey dinner…although there was a few moment there when I almost cried ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.  Luckily for all concerned there was a bottle of wine within easy grasp, so that occupied me until the urge to shatter the illusion of peace finally calmed down.

On the blogger front, i’ve got a couple things backlogged.  An interview with a porn star/dominatrix (which was the unintended result of  a VERY interesting series of email exchanges), a write up on the whole ecologist/global warming email hacker document dump and of course…more goldman-sachs insanity.  i’m actually taking my time with the first two write ups.  i’m still digesting the material and doing some reading on the background before I write my article.  And no you pervs, i’m not watching porn.  I’ve been reading about the business, not the material itself.  yeesh.

However, I can slam goldman-sachs in my sleep.  Take this article for example. GS bankers are apparently all buying up hand guns and various sorts of artillery.  Now gee, why would anyone think goldman-sachs was evil?  well…there’s this little gem:

Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and — oh yes — the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”

think about that for a second.  Consider what Paulson said there - people were ‘unhappy with the…discrepancies in wealth’.  yeah…I think that’s pretty obvious.  And while we’re talking about wealth and it being all discrepancies up, consider this news - shoppers up, sales down.  After two years of layoffs, pay cuts, bonus cuts, and 17% unemployment apparently some bright light analysts were thinking that somehow and against all reason that THIS black friday would see a massive surge in consumer spending.  And bankers wonder why nobody respects them anymore.

So now we’ve got bankers going around armed.  Apparently they’re looking at the fiscal system in this country and have decided to stock up on canned goods and shotguns while turning their mansions into fortified bunkers.  Yeah - that’s really inspiring me to trust my local banks.  thanks guys…I think i’ll head off to ebay and see how much a couple cases of MREs is gonna cost me.

And on that note - I think i’ll close this rant.

There are days when I find myself wondering if our financial sector is taking it’s lead from parody sites like the Onion.  Take this story for example -a banker from Goldman-Sachs (of all places) giving a speech in church this past sunday.  In part, he says:

The 53-year-old head of Britain’s second-biggest bank said banks are the “backbone” of the economy. Rewarding high- performing bankers with more pay doesn’t conflict with Christian values, he said. Varley was paid 1.08 million pounds ($1.77 million) and no bonus in 2008.

So apparently exorbitant pay (often achieved via shady methods) isn’t any sort of moral hazard.  Hmm.  lets see what my rather rusty bible research skills can find on that subject:

2 Timothy 3

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

And that’s not going for the obvious thing about rich people and camels.  The article goes on to make mention of Britain’s financial situation:

City bonuses may rise by 50 percent to 6 billion pounds this year, according to the Centre for Economics & Business Research Ltd., even after the U.K. economy contracted for six consecutive quarters, driving unemployment to a 14-year high of 7.9 percent. The gap between rich and poor in the U.K. reached its widest in five decades last year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a non-partisan research group.

So what you’ve got here is a banker (and he’s probably not the only one) who’s not ONLY seen his pay increase by 50% over the past five years but he’s getting super rich while the rest of his fellow countrymen lose their jobs at an ever faster rate.  And his justification for this?  Oh, well Jesus said it was cool to pillage.  y’know dude, I don’t think it’s gonna work out for ya.

Now i’m all for making money.  I try to do it all the time myself.  But I don’t delude myself about it - making money, especially at that level, is often a zero sum game.  In other words, when you make money someone else is losing it.  What I think is happening here is that somewhere in the banking industry there is a dim level of awareness that piling up all that money while so many people are out of work and getting more and more poor by the hour is generating a negative PR backlash of epic proportions.  Bankers like having a positive image in the press - it’s good for business after all.  So a couple of the more aware types are trying to convince us all that raping, looting and pillaging is somehow justified in the Bible.  This is the same excuse listed by child molesters like NAMBLA for their activities too by the way.  So draw your own conclusions about how Goldman-Sachs little exercise in biblical justification is going to go over with the rank and file.

I should mention that I have no respect and little trust for Goldman-Sachs.  I think they abused their connections with the Bush administration in order to survive the initial wave of investment bank collapses.  And they still have some deep connections into the financial institutions of this country, and markets around the world.  Connections that they (ab) use to maintain an artificially inflated hold on key market indicators, as well as outright manipulating the market to their advantage.  In short, I think they’re cheating.  So that’s why I don’t trust them, or anyone who works for them.  Goldman-Sachs are just bad folks all around but there ain’t nothing I (or anyone else for that matter) can do about it.

So there you go.  Goldman-Sachs thinks they’ve got a religious justification for their self serving greed on wheels.  Amazing stuff ain’t it?

yep - they’re really gonna do it. Data mining blogs, comments and whatnot from all over the Internet.  The goal is to, in theory anyway, identify sites used by terrorists for getting their word out to the masses.  Then the CIA can track down these terrorist aggregator sites for more aggressive intel gathering operations.  Sounds scary, don’t it?  The CIA out there, combing through masses of data and then doing the nasty to their political rivals…but really, think about it for a moment.  Just how many social gathering sites are out there right now?  Not counting my tiny and ignored blog of course…there are MILLIONS of people from all over the world all talking to one another about every subject imaginable all at the same time.  The signal to noise ratio is enormous!  And the CIA is going to process all that garbage?  good luck with that guys.

Oh, and lest we forget - what happens to the CIA’s plan when the 4Chan goons get wind of this?  Because you just KNOW those motherfuckers will want to jack with the CIA’s intel gathering efforts.  Why?  well…why not?  it’s 4Chan.  it’s kinda what they do.  So if any of my 3 readers get the urge and have a connection with Anonymous (or anyone over at 4Chan forums) let ‘em know the CIA is begging to be played the fool.  Just let me know about it so I can break the story once they’re done!

well, to be fair - I’ve been busy.  My sister gave birth to a wonderful baby girl (named Eleanor-Catherine).  8lbs, 2 oz of ne0-hippie goodness that I simply cannot WAIT to start teaching about Ayn Rand and how to hack a windows server and not get caught by the sysadmin.  It was something of a bittersweet moment for me, since Dad passed away back in April and his presence was certainly missed.

However, mother and child are both doing very well.  My sister is recovering from her C-section surgery.  I’ve had to put in some time at work to pay the bills, and i’ve arranged things to give myself some extra time off so that I could take a weekend off and go visit with my neice.  Incidentally, I have to take my sister to lunch too, I was informed of this fact just yesterday.  Apparently I have been remiss since I took my brother-in-law to a nice dinner while my sister was in the hospital.  No good deed goes unpunished!  So i’m looking forward to heading down to Annapolis and seeing how everyone is doing.

Now that I’ve got the boring administrative stuff out of the way - woah!  so much to talk about!  I honestly don’t know where to start!  I suppose here would be a good a place as any. Steele is the nominal head of the Republican National committee.  which should mean something…but as we all know, he’s a figurehead.  Limbaugh and Hannity really run the show over there, Steele just does the boring stuff like answer the phones and deal with the accountants.

Anywho, Steele started a blog.  why he felt the need to start a blog is entirely beyond me…but hey, I started a blog and i’m a useless layabout slacker so I really can’t make fun of the guy for a blog.  However - this blog is heavily moderated.  Emphasis on the ‘heavy’.  First off, the site requires registration.  Not a problem - after all, so do I.  But he also doesn’t allow comments to automatically post.  they have to be approved by a moderator.  Now, I did the same thing at first.  But in my defense it was because I had NO idea how the admin fuctions on this site actually worked.  So I had to find the damn box, turn off moderation and just let the commentary flow.  Steele, on the other hand, is apparently not going to let us little people mess up his rosy view of life, the universe and everything.

Incidentally the blog link went up on fark.com today.  So let’s hope the moderator of Steele’s blog is up for a lot of incoming fire.

So here I am, sitting at the keyboard…wracking my brains looking for a blog entry.  I paged through the fark.com queue…nothing interesting there.  Checked drudge, same crap as always. Ars Technica has likewise failed me.  I guess i’m in the summer doldrums.  it’s damn hot outside and I have yet to venture forth to finish up my work week.

I guess i’m kinda bummed out at not getting to go to GenCon this year.  I had really wanted to attend that convention.  But I ended up burning the bulk of my stashed vacation time dealing with Dad’s funeral earlier this year.  Which is a whole bundle of emotional baggage right there, let me tell ya.  Not that i’m angry over the whole loss of a parent deal, it’s just that the whole thing is one more reminder that Dad isn’t here anymore.  I was hoping to hit GenCon, wander the dealership floor, play games ’till my eyes were bleeding.  I did not get to do that this year, and on top of it I really do miss my conversations with Dad.   It all combines into a giant ball of suckitude.

Then there’s the whole situation at work.  we’re merging with another IT organization.  Which is always cause for concern, since you never know if you will get to keep your job or not.  Our old boss got a promotion and he’s taking some of the management team with him when he goes up the chain.  so the bulk of our department is getting merged into another IT department, basically doubling the size of this other manager’s responsibilities.  I don’t really know the guy who’s now going to be my new super boss, and from what I gather he doesn’t even know what half of us do on a daily basis.  So i’ve been asked to write up a short description of my daily responsibilities and send it to him.   Oh, and of course he wants to meet with us all individually.  I’d really really really like to keep my job, since a paycheck is just one of those things i’ve gotten used to over the years.

It’s not all bad of course.  I stopped drinking gallons of mt. dew and quit cold turkey.  I’ve switched to iced tea and/or water.  it’s been nearly 2 weeks now and i’ve not had a drop of soda, diet or otherwise.  Also - i’ve lost about 6lbs just on that switch alone.  Plus i’ve started going back to the gym and doing a cardio workout every other day.  In fact I SHOULD be heading there right now, but I wanted to put something up on the blog first.  It was difficult heading back to the gym - that was something Dad and I used to do together.  we’d both head to the gym at last twice a week and make the rounds of the weight room, trying to get back into some sort of shape.  I think he liked having some sort of activity that we could do together like that.  Hitting the gym for the first time without him along was…not easy.  But I think it was something I had to try and do.  it’s still not easy - and not because of my inherent dislike of exercise, but because yep - you guessed it, it’s another reminder Dad isn’t around anymore.

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose none of the above really amounts to much.  I’ve got the same sorts of problems everyone else has.  And there really isn’t any point in feeling sorry for myself.  After all, i’m in relatively good health, i’ve got a steady job and live a comfortable lifestyle.  I suppose i’ll always miss having Dad around…but again that’s not anything unique.  Lots of people have already lost a parent.  And if they can learn to deal with that loss then so can I.

well that was deep, wasn’t it?  yeesh.  Now that i’ve wallowed in maudlin self pity, I think it’s time for me to locate my sneakers and get my fat ass to the gym.  I want to lose 20lbs and sitting here wallowing in useless emotional drivel ain’t gonna make that happen any time soon!  Maybe something interesting will hit the news and i’ll have another entry before the end of the day.  You never know, stranger things have happened.

There are days when I really wonder about Japan. Don’t get me wrong, i’m a big technophile myself. But as much as I love machines and all things technological, even I realize that a robotic fashion model is a little weird.   I read this article, and couldn’t help myself, I was reminded of this.

Now, are we going to end up creating the Cylons? Probably not. But there are days when I wonder where our rampant drive to create new and more powerful forms of technology is going to end up. The trans-humanists believe that as we learn and grow, eventually we will transcend the limitations of the human condition and start to consciously guide our own evolution. well, some of them do anyway. it’s hard to get any 5 trans-humanists to agree on the time of day, let alone on what the future is going to hold. Essentially though, trans-humanists believe that eventually the human race will reach a point where ‘humanity’ will be a pointless definition. we will be whatever it is we want to be - cyborg, genetically engineered perfection, or maybe even digital copies of our minds existing in robotic bodies. Regardless of the price we might pay for that end goal, it’s what they’re working towards.

Then there are those who believe that mankind has a duty to safeguard our ecological balance. they believe that technological or industrial development is a danger, and should be artificially limited for the greater good. In their view, mankind itself needs to be controlled, and directed towards a lifestyle that is more ‘natural’, even if that means a lower standard of living for the greater portion of the human race. Some of the more radical groups even advocate a more active role in controlling human population, but with the end result being ecological balance, not advancement or purification of the human race. To them, it’s all about the plants, not about us bipeds.

Reality is probably somewhere between the two extremes. But if I had to guess, I’d say that right now the trans-humanists are winning the battle for hearts and minds. Japan is just one example among many - just look at the proliferation of personal communications devices over the past decade. We like our gadgets, and that is not likely to change any time soon. Where is it all gonna end up? Got me. I just work here man. But I think we’ll all eventually have to make a choice and side with one of the two extremes on the technological/ideological divide. Just make sure the choice you make is done consciously, and be sure to read the fine print!

Y’know, I’ve hinted at this before, and walked up to the edge of cultural commentary  - but I haven’t really taken the plunge yet and done what all bloggers do: rant about what’s wrong with [insert country here].  So I guess it’s time to bite the bullet and just make with the ranting/commentary.

I’m not your ‘average’ blogger though, so pardon me if I take a somewhat different approach.  I’ve skimmed plenty of blogs, each with clearly defined views.  And quite a few blogs without any definition at all.  Everyone has an opinion, everything thinks THEY have the answer to what ails us.  But I think that’s our problem…I think that we’re all so sure that ‘our side’ has ‘the answer’ that we’ve stopped listening.

Of course, that’s kind of trite.  The addendum to the discussion is that we’re also completely clueless as to how to define our problems.  For example - i’m a libertarian.  that means, by definition, I see government intervention in anything to be a necessary evil at best and something to be avoided at all costs.  But as I watch Obama and his people debate solutions to our health care problems, I’ve noticed that a fair number of people see government intervention to be a good thing.  How can I - or any libertarian - find common cause with a mindset that is diametrically opposed to a core principal of my beliefs?  And therein lies the main problem confronting our nation…this country was founded on the concept of personal liberty and freedom, but (operationally speaking anyway) this country’s administration has been drifting away from those founding principals.   The Federal authorities want more power, the state governments act irresponsibly and ‘we the people’ end up having to toss our water bottles before we can get onto a plane.  Assuming of course we can even GET onto that plane in the first place, since nobody can tell me how someone gets added to the ‘no fly’ list, or more importantly - how you get the hell OFF it!

So we have a serious problem even defining who we are as a country.  Half the country wants massive government intervention and regulation, the other half thinks government is evil and should never be trusted.  And never the twain shall meet.  Adding to that issue is the fact that, as a culture, we’re…well….boring.  No, really - we’re dull.  Look, I know you don’t want to think about it, but as a culture we’re about as exciting as paint drying on a wall.  Our entertainment is mass produced by a slick corporate culture that disguises advertisements as hour long TV shows.  Fast clicking through the channels on cable, I find cop show, cop show, world poker, ‘amazing videos’,  cop show, Lost, bernie mac, and NASCAR.  All of which is boring!  Ok, except for bernie mac and NASCAR, which are insulting on top of being boring.  Even Lost has gone off the rails and started explaining things to people.  There is nothing in our culture that encourages us to develop ourselves as individuals.  We’re told that smart people can’t be trusted (they’re hackers!  they’re criminals!  they’re evil people!), spirituality is stupid (it’s a lie!  it’s a fake!  god is dead!  only stupid people believe in those invisble sky wizards!) and that we should all look the same, act the same, get breast augumentation and take lots of male enhancement products.  Everything is about sex and the answers to all our problems are always handed to us on a silver platter.

Boring, loud and insulting.  But we’ve got a fast food, 30 second attention span culture.  entertainment and news are mass produced by corporations who tell us what to think, what to eat and how to live.  We don’t encourage complex thoughts or introspection.  After years of telling people that all problems can be solved by the end of a one hour long TV show, it’s no wonder that people can’t even wrap their heads around complex real world issues like health care reform or why the war on drugs has failed.

Eventually, our culture is going to have to evolve.  we simply cannot afford to be this stupid and self centered without paying some sort of price.  Maybe the collapse of our financial markets.  Maybe it’ll be famine, or some sort of social unrest.  I really don’t know…but I think we’re going to eventually hit a rough patch that will be large enough to threaten this entire country.  And the only way we’re going to get out of it will be to admit that Republican and Democrat alike are part of the problem and NONE of them have any sort of answer to our problems.

For those of you who might not have noticed, today is the birthday of Nikola Tesla - the worlds first ever genuine bona-fide mad scientist.

Tesla (the inventor, not the band) did it all - he was building wireless communication devices back in 1894.  His ideas were prolific indeed, eventuall filing 50 patents. An impressive number by any standard.  He was a pioneer in energy development, power distribution and electrical power production.  Absolutely nobody in the world denies that the man was a genius.  But he was also quite mad.  See, he also said that he’d figured out gravity - that he’d done what no other person alive could do.  His plans on building a Death Ray (for peaceful purposes only of course) were also a topic of much discussion.  Not to mention that he had one very weird obsession with a certain pet pidgeon.

I guess you have to take the good with the bad.  Tesla has also been the subject of many conspiracy theories - it seems that a number of his private papers all disappeared after his death.  I don’t know the truth of those matters, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he just lost them somewhere.  He was…not well at the time of his death.  Mentally speaking of course.  But that said, just based on the devices and theories that Tesla DID release - you cannot help but wonder what else he might have been working on.  He made mention of electro-chemical propulsion systems, a ‘unified field theory’ of gravity, directed energy transfer devices just for starters.   But the guy running the FBI at the time was our buddy J. Edgar cross-dressing Hoover.  It’d be just like Hoover to snatch up and bury anything Tesla might have been working on at the time.  Even if there wasn’t anything dangerous in it, old J. Edgar would hide it just on the off chance that it MIGHT be ‘dangerous’.

Ah well.  Maybe one day something will turn up.  I mean you never know, right?  So today let’s just have a moment of silence for the man who invented the Tesla coil and so many other devices which have brought joy to the hearts of mad scientists the world over.  Here’s to you, Mr. Mad Scientist guy!  You are greatly missed, even if the world really didn’t need another Death Ray device.