So yesterday on The View...
oh god - did i really just say that?
yeah... i guess i did... oh well, nothing to do but go forward from here...

*cough*

So where was I... ah yes... Whoopi Goldberg went off on a nuanced rant about racism in America and tried to reclaim the N word. Needless to say the resident blonde on set didn't really understand - and honestly - I have to say I felt for her. Whoopi is making an argument that's got complexities and rules that are BEYOND Elisabeth... and thus the sad Survivor refugee finds she's unable to follow the rules and know what she's supposed to do.

The reality is that there are some things you dont reclaim. You cant take back the swastika even though it's a religious symbol of good luck that predates the N421s... no one in their right mind would try. When a white southerner makes claims about 'heritage' in reference to the confederate flag you KNOW how people react - and for good reason... Elisabeth is TRYING to do the right thing here and Whoopi is confusing her... yes - there's racism that's deeper and more complex than the use of a single simple word - but that doesn't mean we need to USE the damned word - and that doesn't mean that someone as demonstrably stupid as Elisabeth is EVAR going to understand that.

In the mean time, in no way does this alter my willingness to use the C word for Hillary.

If you're an IT guy and you have a mad plan to take over your city, it should probably involve more than 'securing the network from unauthorized tampering'. I mean - this guy is being accused of taking the city hostage - when in reality he just has the master password for the routers and is refusing to relinquish it.
Maybe I misunderstand, but this story seems a bit of an exaggeration.

Red Swingline indeed....

The good news is that no matter how far we fall, there'll always be someone who's leading the charge with a sense of unbridled irony.

In Japan, everything is on the table.

Whether it's a little girl raising the spirit of a sunken relic of empire, a space battleship saving earth, or a moe girl who transforms into a mighty battleship to blow the clothing off the CV-6 Enterprise.

I wish someone would do this sort of thing to the American civil war - not that i want to see Longstreet in a tattered speedo or anything...

sing it with me --
...tiny bubbles...

no, things haven't crossed the line... honest... you just need more medical treatment if you think so

hey jesse...
in case you didnt notice - he doesn't have any
didnt you get the memo?

For some reason i keep having these conversations with these people from skill-game companies who want to figure out how to convert their players into people who'll play for cash. I wrote a long fairly complex paper on the subject six months ago, citing some of Henry Jenkins work on collaborative culture (what draws people to online communities like these) and drawing on my fairly extensive experience in the space. The net net is - ITS NOT GOING TO WORK. There's really not much point in reading all the 'here's what these analysts over at E&Y had to say about the sector growth' and mapping those projections to the realities or the breakout of all the attempts by very large online organizations to make these games work (backgammon to mahjong) and why they've all failed (no matter what model was attempted). The only route that seems to work is the large scale advertising model - but that requires HUGE channel relationships with giant piles of eyeballs (ie what EA seems to be doing with POGO in China if the guys they're talking to to run the thing are telling me straight (language barriers can be tough some days)).

Ultimately - there are probably ways to make these sorts of things almost work - but you have to have DEEP pockets, have a method of pouring massive amounts of your profits back into brand building to fend off the traditional game portal brands and service providers who see gaming communities as easy advertising eyeballs, and all the idiot companies that will come along and blow massive wads of cash trying to snap up your fun players so they can try to do the impossible themselves.

The reality is - doing online gaming requires COMPLEX infrastructures that you are not going to build in your garage with 3 guys who havent been there and done it. If you want to build these things - you need to find people who've done it - and you need to VET YOUR IDIOT IDEA before you waste the development money. MARKETING REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENTS people... do your homework... if some sleazy CEO comes to you and promises you a billion dollars if only you'll give him enough money so he can fly first class to China and stay in a 5-star hotel - odds are you're being taken for a ride.

In the end - sometimes - it's not about the execution. Some ideas are just bad. An MMORPG based in a high school for example... (Of course, if you're going to make a verb out of a bacteria, it might as well involve a dance mix...)

Since we're not talking about politics - how about kitties...

'i wonder if they make rohypnol for dogs'

FISA and Politics

There comes a point in life when you look at the years you've been banging your head into a wall and say 'that wall there, it's a wall, it's probably not going to be a doorway just because i keep running my head into it'. It just sort of defines batshit crazy...


Ok - maybe defines is strong... Still and honestly, I expect 'the machine' to control politics in this country - big and small. I expect corporations to run things through the use of lobbyist money and post-government employment. Why? The same reason communism fails - because people are dicks. Where this system fails is when the public interest at large lacks a voice... where the education system is intentionally deteriorated to the point of churning out people more interested in Bachelorette than Iraq's PM insisting on troop withdrawal timetables... where the news media becomes a venue for 'entertainment' stories rather than facts (from a book)... where the political system becomes so corrupt that real dire threats to the public at large are swept under the rug, ignored, pandered to, and left to later generations to sort.

I'm done with politics. I dont want to talk about it anymore. There's no point. I've put my head into that wall too many times - and it's not changing. No more Colbert and Stewart... no more Olbermann and TPM and DU and WaPo op eds... it's pointless and i'm tired.

Obama? Phil put it pretty well...

    Well if you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand
    I've seen your face before my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am
    Well I was there and I saw what you did, I saw it with my own two eyes
    So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been
    It's all been a pack of lies

So that's it. Go ahead and burn the planet to a cinder people. I'm buying a lawn chair and a four-pack of Guinness, a bucket of popcorn, and some opera glasses. No more money to political parties, no more standing in lines for 3 hours to caucus, no more weeks in Little Rock or 18 hour days in political organizations trying to change this country for the better - and no more voting for bond elections that increase teacher pay or rebuild infrastructure. I'm truly disaffected at this point. It can all go to hell for all I care.

i've been polishing off the last Charles Stross works - namely Glasshouse and Halting State over the last couple weeks. He's an author that keeps getting better. His ideas are still strong - his characters are getting cleaner and more nuanced - and his story telling is getting tighter. With most authors you pick up a book and you know you're going to get something a lot like what you got last time... Stross is breaking that rule. I started reading Stross when i pulled one of his older ebooks off a torrent - loved it - bought the hard copy - and have bought all the rest (take that you anti-filesharing nazis).

Halting State was a really intriguing story - but then i suppose if you write a book merging the worlds of corrupt high-finance, government spying, online banking, and World of Warcraft I suppose it's natural to find me intrigued - somewhere in there rooting around like a pig in shit.

Thanks Charlie - you've been making my brain work - and there are far too few of those out there. Saturn's Children is next - i'll pick it up when next in town.

did i mention that we suck yet today?

yes...?

damn... well...we still suck
"On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all"

I'm almost numb to it all now...

DIAF assholes.

The US Army is at it again. Not enough to throw puppies off cliffs or torture the innocent... now we're killing the sheep in iraq so they dont come to the US i suppose.

Idiots.

Cant help but feel for the people flooded out by muskrats in MO.

"It's so disappointing," said Linda Wilmesherr as she peered through binoculars at water pouring through a gap that appeared to be 30 feet wide. "With all the guns in this county, couldn't we kill a muskrat?"

if you need to kill varmints you gotta fallback with superior firepower - and superior intelligence. Alas - we seem to have neither...

FISA
Cuts for NASA funding
Budget Increases for Faith Based Intitiatives

Fuck him.
I hope he spends a lot of time with Michael Ballack near the bus stop.

0:13 to 0:18 is priceless