BunkBlog

Any of my contacts not from California – have you ever heard of a Pee Chee?

After many years of being mocked by anyone with a modicum of understanding in medicine or science or reproducible results, homeopathy has been slammed by an actual governmental study in the UK.  I particularly like the line refuting the necessity to fund “traditional” medicine: “Witchcraft is traditional, so does that mean the MHRA should endorse that too?”

Apparently the opening speaker of the Tea Party Convention is openly courting racists. Tom Tancredo, who is cuckoo for illegal aliens, started off the proceedings by claiming that President Obama was only elected because people who can’t say “vote” in English elected him. Wow, we must have an awful lot of non-English speakers in the USA, to have over 50% of the vote like that. And then he appeals to people to take back America from “them” – whoever they might be.

I find it interesting that all of Tancredo’s grandparents were immigrants (legal presumably) and yet he’s still so unabashedly xenophobic in his rhetoric. Just for full disclosure, my father’s family immigrated to this continent before the USA was founded (by over a century), and I somehow was capable of pronouncing the word “vote” and casting it for Obama.

Oh, and real socialists most assuredly do not consider this president one of them. At this point, many liberals are saying he’s not even one of them.

Thank you, California, for finally diverting some of the “oh no they didn’t” attention from Texas. Menifee, a town in Riverside County, has decided to pull the Webster Collegiate Dictionary from their school library, because it has definitions of terms like “oral sex” and the poor children just can’t handle such things. Seriously, didn’t everyone flip through the dictionary looking for dirty words, just because you could? Our children are not so delicate and easily bruised, people!

Is Menifee in the 909?

2010. The year we make contact. Or not. Let’s see if I can beat 80% accuracy in this year’s predictions.

1. Tablet PCs will continue to be something which almost nobody has heard of or cares about.
2. President Obama will continue to be vilified by the Right as some sort of mythical evil being.
3. The GOP will make some gains in the 2010 midterm elections.
4. The US economy will improve enough that even people who watch Faux News have to admit it, although they will claim it’s improving despite anything that President Obama or the Democrats have done.
5. There still won’t be a good crypto system that the public uses, despite ever-increasing threats from man-in-the-middle attacks.
6. All the various ebook readers will continue to be incompatible with each other.
7. Sarah Palin won’t go away.
8. TSA flight restrictions will cause the airline industry to lose money.
9. And, of course, the weather will continue to be remarkable, which will still not mean anything to denialists.
10. Kat and I will still not fight.

I know, many predictions are just “things won’t change” – but they should change, and I’ll be happy if I’m wrong about them. We’ll see how that goes.

Apple Blue Beer

One year ago, I made a series of 10 predictions for the new year.  Let’s see how I did.

1. The right wing noise machine did find new and interesting ways to make themselves look silly while calling the new president a socialist, a communist, a nazi, and a racist – all at the same time. If President Obama were on fire, the GOP would call fire departments a socialist plot, as John Scalzi wrote this week.
2. Windows 7 did not save the computer industry.
3. Netbooks were a bit easier to find than I feared, so there’s one point against me. To be fair, the good netbooks were harder to get hold of, so maybe half a point.
4. Yep, suck.
5. No single sign-on system of any note, although Facebook is getting a lot of headway into “sign in with Facebook” on various sites.  Maybe we’ll count this as half and half.
6. No crypto.
7. DTV changeover was, although delayed yet again until June of 2009, not a crazy display of incompetence and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Got this one wrong.
8. Politicians continued to line their pockets by picking ours, and gave as much largesse to their corporate overlords as possible. Sadly, I got this one right.
9. Weather was much remarked upon. Denialists continued to deny reality. Climatologists turned out to sometimes be jerks, but that overshadowed that the science continues to be reinforced with evidence.
10. Kit dropped me from her “LJ Friends” list after 9 years (no idea why), so I have no idea how amusing she is.

Let’s see, that gives me 6 of 10 completely right, 2 partly right, one completely wrong, and one I can no longer assess, so I can’t use it for any statistics. We’ll call it 7-2 or 78% accurate. I’m sure that beats all the “psychics” out there.  Now, what shall I predict for 2010? Stay tuned.

Why did I just see Deepak Chopra, a licensed physician who spends most of his time promulgating disproven medical treatments, speaking on economics during a CNN special?  What the…

Apparently Congress doesn’t have anything useful to do, so a subcommittee found time to debate whether the NCAA can call someone a “National Champion” if they haven’t gone through an elimination-style playoff.  Really?  This is something which is so important that the United States Congress must intervene?  People are stupid.

In 1989, I enlisted in the Army, partly because the economy in California was in the dumper. In 1992, I reenlisted for much the same reasons, although the rest of the country had generally recovered from the Reagan-era recession by that time. I thought it was odd that California, a state which by many estimates could be in the top ten countries’ economic stature, would be in such doldrums. California has transportation, tourism, energy production, entertainment, manufacturing, agriculture – in short, everything you need for a robust state. Yet, it continues to be hammered harder and sooner and for a longer period than most of the rest of the country even today. So, the 1980s aerospace collapse isn’t the only reason; there must be some explanation for why California seems incapable of maintaining a healthy economy.

Over the years, as I grew older and more curious, I discovered what seems the most likely explanation: Californians hate taxes but love spending. Since states can’t spend into deficit territory like the federal government can (too bad CA can’t issue money, eh?), they must balance the budget. So, every one of those propositions people vote for has to come from somewhere. I dug around a bit more and discovered the proximate cause of this insane situation: Proposition 13. Whenever someone would talk about how crazy high the housing prices in California were, I would opine about Prop 13 and the caps on property taxes and the 2% limit on valuation increases per annum and the disincentive to selling and friction in the housing market and their eyes would glaze over. When the housing bubble burst and friends and family lost jobs, businesses, and homes, I would think back to the Proposition 13 consequences and commercial properties paying a lower percentage of the taxes every year due to shell corporations and other legal legerdemain. But, I had a hard time tying all the pieces together for my friends who have never lived in California, and I didn’t have a great summary of how far the state has fallen, from the great public schools that my older sister went to in 1974 until the much deprived public schools that my younger sister went to in 1990.

Now, I’ve come across a journalist who writes a very concise and cogent explanation of exactly what went wrong with the California economy. If you’re curious about how the Golden State has become the Gilded State in a mere 30 years, you should read it. I find it interesting that CA had a large budget surplus, and Moonbeam Brown wanted to hoard it, which caused the Governor Ronnie backlash in 1978. Talk about unintended consequences.

I received a generally decent email from corporate overlords today, which basically told employees that the 2010 census will be happening soon, and that census workers won’t ask for your credit card or bank information, but will have badges and handheld computers etc. Don’t be scammed, and all that jazz.

Then, there was a paragraph which stood out for its appeal to the wingnuts among us:

AND REMEMBER, THE CENSUS BUREAU HAS DECIDED NOT TO WORK WITH ACORN ON GATHERING THIS INFORMATION.. No Acorn worker should approach you saying he/she is with the Census Bureau.

Um…yah. ACORN was not going to send “Acorn workers” to do the census anyway. Never a plan, never an intention, never an agreement. ACORN was going to help direct people looking for temporary employment to the Census Bureau and assist them in applying for those jobs. The end. So, you’d no more get an “Acorn worker” approaching you than you would a “USA Jobs worker” or an “Employment assistance office worker” approaching you. Such an insane appeal to continue to demonize a rather innocuous and minor organization, sadly, is not too surprising in the defense contractor world.

Happy birthday, Carl.

Suddenlink killed my cable modem on Thursday morning. When I called tech support that night, they couldn’t get a signal from my modem, an old Motorola 4200 (DOCSIS 1.1).  The techie they sent to the house Friday said that Suddenlink had recently upgraded to DOCSIS 3.0 locally, and therefore my old modem would no longer work. He offered to rent or sell me a modem or I could go out and buy a new one on my own. Since I know they sell a strange brand that nobody respects, I decided to hit the local Radio Shack to pick up a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. They only sell one modem, which happens to be a DOCSIS 3.0 model (Motorola 6120).

I plugged in the modem, hit DHCP refresh and got a non-local IP address, but couldn’t connect to the internet. This is expected, of course, and so I called the tech support help hell line and proceeded to be told that 1) DOCSIS 3.0 is not in my area, 2) the modem I had been using should work just fine, and 3) the modem I just spent $100 on was not on their approved list. Naturally, I find it absurd that a modem which complies with DOCSIS 2.0 and DOCSIS 3.0 standards would not work on a DOCSIS 2.0 network. Isn’t that the whole point of standards? The tech support guy was very patient and well-informed but was eventually unable to get the Suddenlink system to connect to my modem, regardless of the IP address that it granted me. He even had me connect the old modem, which would not grant me a routable IP address, and he couldn’t get a signal from.

Back to the store, to return the modem. And then to a different store a few miles away, to buy a less-capable modem. While at the store, I noticed a couple things. First, there were almost no DOCSIS 2.0 cable modems remaining on the shelf, although they normally stock three different models. Secondly, my old buddy Karl was there. Karl’s cable modem died on Thursday morning as well. He told me that his gym buddies also had widespread cable modem destruction visited upon them at the same time. Suspicious. We both left the store with new cable modems, and the shelves appeared to have one modem remaining that would work on our system.

I get the new cable modem (which is awfully tiny compared to the old one) home, plug it in and call the tech line to get the modem provisioned. This time, the person on the end of the line was less informed, which is always annoying. She was very obviously reading directly from her flowchart and would not deviate, no matter how absurd the things she insisted I do. At one point, she wanted me to unplug the modem, the router, and all computers connected to the router. This displays a deep lack of understanding of how routers work. Finally, after far too long on the phone with Flowchart Fanny, the connection was up and functioning as it was meant to.

I find it absolutely amazing that the two stores I went to both sold the Motorola 6120, which won’t work on the local system. Since there’s only one cable internet company in town, this exhibits a distressing lack of understanding of the market on the part of the local retailers.

Now it’s time to write a nasty letter to Suddenlink for breaking my modem, lying to me, and wasting my time and money. I don’t expect to get anything but catharsis from this exercise, but I must try.

I’m continually amazed at how frequently what “everyone knows” about an event is wrong. For instance, did you know that the Columbine shootings in 1999 were actually intended to be a massive bombing? Fortunately for the students there, the bombs didn’t actually go off, but they were placed in the cafeteria. Almost nobody knows that, but almost everyone “knows” that the two shooters were part of the Trench Coat Mafia; they weren’t. Everyone knows the two shooters were bullied by jocks; they weren’t. Two girls were shot because they were Christian; also not true – Cassie Bernall’s entire exchange with Harris was when he yelled “Peek a boo” before he shot her.

So, this week we have another shooting. First reports are that three men, including a U.S. Army Major (and psychiatrist, ironically) shot dozens of people with handguns and M-16 rifles, and the Major was reported as killed by a police officer who lay fatally injured himself. Turns out, the Major isn’t dead. Neither is the cop. There are, as of now, no other shooters identified by law enforcement and none are expected. ABC reported that Hasan was a convert to Islam; his brother says they were raised Muslims. He’s been rumored to be a sleeper agent; apparently sleeping since his birth in Virginia to Muslim parents.

At this point, so soon after the shootings and while the gunman is in custody to be questioned, could everyone just take a moment to stop and NOT speculate or repeat rumors?

Bob Bennett (R-Mars) is currently harping about how awful Czars are in the U.S. government – they undermine the Constitution. From Senator Bennett’s website, this is one of his proud accomplishments during his tenure:

I don’t think I can add anything to that.

Just one more example of why I avoid that place.

I had the vinyl of this, but all my vinyl disappeared when I joined the Army – it either ended up thrown away or in my brother’s house, and there’s no expectation I’ll see the licorice pizzas ever again.  But, the song is one I’ve been hoping to find digitally for years, and now I’m just giving up. It’s a 12 minute megamix of a crazy assortment of hip hop and rap from 1985, which was called (if I remember correctly) LA Beats Megamix or something like that. Not only is this classic of the era completely missing from any online store, it’s even missing from many people’s memories. Many of the songs which are part of the mix don’t seem to have been preserved even as lyrics on the web today.

The Knights of the Turntable section, from their classic Techno Scratch, is remembered fondly. But what about the section in vocoder that says, “don’t be afraid of these vicious beats” – where is the tribute to that band, whose name even I forget?  Let me up freak, get me some juice, indeed! You only came to the party to rock shock and dance… Ah, memories.

If you’re reading this anywhere but at my actual blog, the little streaming player won’t show up for you.

[podcast]http://www.andysocial.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/LA-Beats-Megamix.mp3[/podcast]

As of this school year, Texas public schools will be required to teach the Bible. In public schools. After our illustrious Governor appointed the second creationist loon in a row to head the state Board of Education.

Why does the GOP want other people to laugh at Texas?

Microsoft, which recently applied for a patent on XML documents (how one can patent an open standard that was written by others remains a mystery), has lost a $200 million lawsuit for violating someone’s patent on XML documents. Now, MS is ordered to cease selling any copies of Microsoft Word that work with XML. That would be Office 2007 and the upcoming Office 2010 or Word V13 or whatever they’re calling it.

Software patents are good why?

Once again, a Democrat finds a new and entertaining way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. For want of a signature…

It’s just so easy.