This blog entry won’t have any examples with specific citations because I don’t have my books with me right now. However, I want to share this idea down before I lose it. I hope that I can expand this idea later.

I find it annoying when a book covers one topic and claims that understanding this one topic will explain everything and radically transform the way you live your life. I got partway through a book on loneliness before I got annoyed. Similarly, a business book might hammer one little idea over and over, applying it to everything. Ugh. What they propose may be one useful tool, but I don’t need to it be the one idea that changes everything. Sometimes this is a less a book problem and more a blurb problem. The blurb tells you how this book explains everything, but the text itself isn’t as epistemically arrogant.

I don’t self-identify as a one-idea person. I find Platonic forms and perfection troubling. I’m not much of a system person either, although that’s another topic and I’ll explore that more at a later date.

It is strange that having too much to write about produces the same effect as having nothing to write about. That is, I end up not writing anything. I have a large backlog of links, but I haven’t posted them here.

Anyway, I wanted to post something on the killing of Osama bin Laden. Immediately before and after I heard the news, I was playing Portal 2. The news did not affect my playing in any fashion. My workweek wasn’t affected by this either. When I go to the airport, I will still have to take off my shoes and get the option of being electronically or physically groped.

The one thing different may be that I was slightly more annoyed than usual. It doesn’t annoy me that everyone needed to have an opinion, but it was annoying that everyone was so predictable.

I suppose I would like to find out what affect this might have on al Qaeda, but alas, all I can find are debates about whether we should release pictures of a dead bin Laden or not. Oh how quickly Obama went from being tough for finally getting bin Laden, to being soft for not releasing pictures. I’m too unsurprised to be outraged at how idiotic the media can be with these stupid storylines.

Oh wait, I was wrong. This did have some effect on my life. I had a comic ready for Wednesday that was rendered null by the death of bin Laden. You can’t very well make a joke about him being killed 2 years ago when he was killed the day before yesterday. I was able to post mock outrage on facebook, and then I posted a modified comic on the website.

I also a fantastic tweet: “CIA cracks into Osama’s laptop. Finds treasure trove of key intel plus 132 hours of cute kitten videos.” I was rather proud of that and may turn it into a comic.

By the way, expect to hear “treasure trove” a lot. Now that you will notice it, it will become annoying. Sorry.

Finally, I would like to note that some people are using the killing of bin Laden to justify torture. Those people are sick fucks.

UPDATE: Sorry, I couldn’t end it like this. I had one more joke to share. I had an idea for a terrible sketch comedy character. One that’s hilariously bad. Remember how the one mom on Mean Girls wanted to a be a “cool” mom? Well, there should be a terrorist who’s not like other terrorists… he’s a cool terrorist. His name is Osama bin Awesome.

That is all.

Day one of this year’s draft wasn’t nearly as exciting as last year’s draft — at least, from my perspective. This isn’t an objective evaluation of the excitement, or even an evaluation as a fan. It’s just my personal feelings based on the context of this year.

Last year, the 49ers had two draft picks. Double the pleasure, double the fun. Thus, automatically, this year couldn’t be as exciting, haha. Last year, I remember being more optimistic that the Niners might make the playoffs. (To be fair, the division was really weak.) I also had a vehement hatred for Jimmy Clausen and hoped that the Niners wouldn’t draft him. I remember yelling, “NO CLAUSEN!” at the TV screen, much like I would yell during a football game.

This year, I definitely didn’t want Gabbert as the pick, but I didn’t hate him nearly as much as Clausen. The players that I would be extra excited about wouldn’t fall to the 49ers (Von Miller, Patrick Peterson). I didn’t do as much research, so I had an idea about certain players I would find acceptable that the 49ers might draft (Prince Ican’tspellhislastnamewithoutlookingitup, Cameron Jordan — a Cal guy, and Robert Quinn).

Instead, they picked Aldon Smith. I was like, “Who?” I was expecting to be either really angry or really happy about the draft. When I looked it up, some people were projecting him to go to Houston at #11, so it seems like this wasn’t a crazy reach. I couldn’t necessarily be angry. But I just didn’t have any idea who this guy was. I don’t have any strong opinions on the guy. I’ll do more research in the coming days, I suppose, but that won’t change how I felt yesterday.

How do I feel now about the pick? I still don’t really know enough about him, or enough about what other people think about him. I can’t form a good judgment. I will say that I am happy that at least they didn’t draft Gabbert. Even in a worst case scenario, another Manny Lawson is better than another Alex Smith. I also think I would’ve preferred Prince, but if this guy turns out to be a good pass rusher, I’ll be happy they went with him instead of the corner.

Glenn Greenwald on Bradley Manning’s transfer:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/20/manning/index.html

It’s good to hear that people can make a difference. I kind of needed to hear that after being so seduced by cynicism. It’s hard not to be cynical, though, when Obama was so against prisoner abuse.

Review of Mike Daisey:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/04/18/the-daisey-age.aspx

I thought this was a good review. I saw the show when it was in Berkeley and enjoyed it a lot. I recently thought about this show when I saw that a SAS cable I had to install was made by Foxconn. Perhaps I’ll blog about that and post it here. I’ll probably do it for work.

Prosper
http://www.prosper.com/

Peer to peer lending sounds cool and innovative. I think I might invest in this. I want to think more about my principles and how I can live them. (Found this via Slate.)

Social experiment: Know thy neighbor
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/11/3543819/social-experiment-know-thy-neighbor.html

I found this via Think, Try, Learn. I might look up the book some more because it sounds interesting. This gets back to the principles thing I mentioned after the last link. I value community as an abstract concept, but I don’t know my neighbors.

On a writing note, I don’t think this article is particularly well-written. I might end up making a comic, “Op-ed outline: 1) Set up. 2) Anecdote. 3) Oh shit I’m out of space.” This isn’t to say the article is like that, but it inspired those thoughts based on op-eds I’ve read in the past. I’m not sure why the op-ed form leads to shit writing. I mean, a blog post can be just as long or shorter, but still be better. So, it can’t the length of the format, per se. Then again, a blog has the benefit of being part of a conversation, so one post isn’t really as short as you think it is.

I fucking hate the way they decorated the new fitness center at work. A sample of phrases you’ll find in bold print: Finish strong, slow and steady, mind and body, breathe…

Whenever something idiotic is done, I like to imagine the brainstorming that went on. “Hey, I got an idea! Let’s throw up some stock photos and put random cliches in places!”

“Cool! What kind of cliches?”

“I don’t know. Anything that vaguely relates to sports or working out. We only have a few minutes left in this meeting, so I wouldn’t worry about fancy things like parallel construction or tense or parts of speech.”

It’s seriously the last part that bothers me the most. They couldn’t even bother to make the words match in any fucking way. They haphazardly threw phrases together without worrying if they went together or not. I don’t enjoy it when idiots shit all over the English language.

Blogging note:

I’ve decided to post more often. I’ll embrace quantity over quality for now. I figure getting in the groove of writing will help spark ideas for longer pieces of writing. (Warning: I may suddenly change course with this quantity/quality thing, as I have in the past.)

Ugh. I’ve been more edgy the past few weeks because every time I read about the war in Libya, I get pissed off. This is a stupid, stupid war, and the US has no business being there.

I was so smug too when the Libyan civil war began, and I thought: “If McCain was president, we’d already be in there!” I was happy that whatever else Obama has done, at least we weren’t involved in another war in the Middle East.

When we began bombing the place, I was angry, but I didn’t know yet how wrong I was. The whole time I was thinking “we’d already be in there,” we actually were in there! The CIA was in there, helping the rebels.

Between this, the treatment of Bradley Manning, and the failure to close Guantanamo, I’ve run out of reasons to support the man I helped get elected as president.

How ironic that the man awarded a Nobel Peace Prize escalated the war in Afghanistan and involved the US in a third war in the Middle East. The man who knows so much about constitutional law goes to war without even talking to Congress.

Fuck this. Fuck all you shitheads in government.

At first glance, Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” appears to be a vapid song about having a good time at a club. Yet every time I listened to it, and threw my hands up, I was left with a slightly disturbed feeling. I later realized that this was a subconscious reaction to a very disturbing song. It turns out that “Dynamite” is a song chronicling the last moments of a suicide bomber. The song is a trip through his twisted psyche as he prepares to pull the trigger to blow up himself at a dance club.

“Dynamite” isn’t merely the title of the song because it is repeated throughout the chorus; it signifies what is most important about the song. That is to say, it is about blowing things up. Quite literally. The low-hanging fruit for this complex interpretation is the chorus:

‘Cause we gon’ rock this club
We gon’ go all night
We gon’ light it up
Like it’s dynamite
Cause I told you once
Now I told you twice
We gon’ light it up
Like it’s dynamite

This club is going to be rocked and lit up, which indicates the violence of an explosion. We know this is the most significant part of the song because Taio Cruz has to tell us twice. The repetition emphasizes the final moments of the suicide bomber: the explosion of his self and the surrounding club. Now, the suicide bomber isn’t literally covered in dynamite, but the dynamite represents the bombs he has strapped to himself.

Another set of lyrics delves deeper into the terrorist’s psyche. The line “I’m gonna take it all out” expresses his desire to not only take out the club, but to take out the entire Western-imperio-capitalist regime. When he says, “I’m gonna be the last one standing,” he doesn’t mean he will be literally standing there after the explosion. It means he is going to win the war. Even with his confidence in winning the war, he also cries, “I’m alone and all I.” Despite the presence of his comrades and Allah, he still faces the existentialist void alone. When he dies, he dies alone. This is an expression of fear, which is understandable given that he is about to commit suicide. After this, he reassures himself through an appeal to faith: “I’m gonna be the last one landing / ‘Cause I, I, Believe it.” It is only through his trust in Allah that he is able to complete the mission.

Having established the basics of my interpretation, let’s look at some earlier lyrics. The suicide bomber resorts to extremism because of a sense of futility. When he says, “Cause it goes on and on and on / And it goes on and on and on,” he recognizes that this conflict continues and will always continue, unless something drastic is done to change the dynamic. We also get to see the method of ignition for the bomb: “Just drop the phone, came here to do, do, do, do.” He will utilize his cell phone to set off the charge.

One may dispute the legitimacy of my interpretation by pointing to the lyrics about “Brands, brands, brands [etc].” The suicide bomber, being a religious zealot, would not pay attention to brands, one may argue. Yet this is false because fundamentalism is a response to modernity. The more the suicide bomber enjoys these brands, the more he stokes his self-hate, and the more he clings to his fundamentalism. It is his entrancement with capitalism that drives him to this suicide mission. This is analagous to the fundamentalist’s response to sex, desiring it, but repressing that desire, and expressing the self-loathing by repressing women along with the desire.

Another possible interpretation is that the lyrics about brands are expressed ironically. The suicide bomber is mocking the capitalist’s love of identification with brands. This is a hilarious perversion because the only true self-identity is with Allah. However, I do not believe this interpretation works by itself. This is not because of any particular textual interpretation from this song, but because of my familiarity with the songwriter. Because Taio Cruz’s lyrics are layered with complexity that mirrors the twisted psyche’s of his songs’ subjects, I think my image of a terrorist wrestling with modernity must be the correct one. That’s not to say that the irony is nonexistant. This may be indeed what the suicide bomber is telling himself to think, but he is also still tortured by his love/hate relationship with modernity.

For an example of complexity in his lyrics, let’s return to the chorus. Why does the suicide bomber have to tell himself twice that “We gon’ light it up / Like it’s dynamite”? It should suffice to mention this once, or even to merely repeat it. There should be a reason he must literally enumerate the tellings. Even though the suicide bomber is a religious zealot, he still has his doubts. He is daunted by his impending mortal end, and so he is psyching himself up, so to speak. He reassures himself that he will complete his duty.

I’m not entirely sure how to address the topic of moving. The terrorist tells us, “I came to move, move, move, move / Get out the way me and my crew, crew, crew, crew.” Now, this could refer to the displacement of the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He could also be expressing a desire to move them away and populate the terrority with his people, just as they did to him. However, this dilutes the universality of the message. Another interpretation is that he wants to eject American occupiers from the region. Yet this falls prey to the same lack of universality, especially along temporal lines. The lyrics may also refer to the establishment of a global Islamic caliphate. This interpretation also has its problems. The caliphate will establish dominion over all and will involve conversion of non-believers. It is not about displacing peoples. This certainly requires further investigation by those more talented than I.

Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” is a complex look at a suicide bomber’s mind as he prepares to blow up a club. The lyrics show a literal explosion — emphasizing it — while also looking at the doubts the speckle the zealot’s faith. He is enticed by capitalism and afraid to kill himself. The song expresses the churning layers within the terrorist’s mind. In the end, after much self-reassuring, he is prepared for his final moments on Earth. We normally think that a terrorist must be able to kill himself because he’s so sure about his religion. While this is partially true, it doesn’t show how a tortured mind comes to that conclusion. “Dynamite” shows that terrorists are still human. In fact, that their complexities mirror our own doubts and self-loathing may be the most disturbing thing of all about this song.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t post the pictures on facebook yet because I’m too lazy,” I say, as I learn HTML5, redesign my comic’s website, learn PDO, redo my website’s backend, and finish a book in the meantime.

Hypothesis: Laziness is often more a reflection of priorities than character.

Andrew Sullivan links to an interesting debate about pop culture references in comedy. Matt Zoller Seitz wonders if dense pop culture references will ruin shows for future generations. I have to be on the side of the people who respond to this musing with: “Who cares?”

Something from Marcus Aurelius pushed me toward this direction:

“18. How strange are the ways of men! They will spare no word of praise for their contemporaries, who live in their very midst, and yet they covet greatly for themselves the praise of future generations, whom they have never seen and never will see. Almost as well grumble at not having praise from one’s ancestors!” (Book 6)

To me, it seems a fool’s task to try to make something “timeless.” It’s a waste to ponder what people will think of your comedy tomorrow when you have no idea what these people will be like. Would Shakespeare find “Community” funny? is absurd a question as asking if someone in 2026 will find it funny.

Make something funny for people now and let the people of tomorrow worry if they still find it funny or not.

EDIT 3/13/2011 —

Clarification: I should say it’s a useless question when you’re trying to ascertain the comedy’s value. If Shakespeare wouldn’t understand the cultural context, it doesn’t mean that a comedy would have any less value. The same applies to a hypothetical 18 year old in 2026.

I’m not sure it’s possible to be less rooted in cultural context, even if you cut out pop culture references, but that’s a separate issue.

It occurs to me that for the past year or so, my life has been very stable. I have had the same job since about a year ago, and I have worked at the same place since December 2009. I have been dating the same girl for almost a year. For more than a year, I have gone to the same place every Monday night and seen more or less the same people. My good friends are still my good friends. Since the end of last year, I have been debt-free and I have enough of an emergency fund to last me through the end of my lease.

All of this has been a blessing. I’ve been really happy and lucky. Granted, at the time all this was happening, it didn’t feel so smooth. (For example, I was super stressed out when I was working two jobs.) Zooming out, though, it does appear to be a rather stable period of my life.

Now, if this were a movie trailer, this would be where the narrator says, “But all of that is about to change…” It needn’t be as ominous as you’re probably imagining, though. It’s just that a lot will change and it will happen relatively rapidly.

The aforementioned Monday meeting will soon be changing location. My friends’ lease is up and they’re moving out. I will then be hosting Monday nights, which is a pretty big change. Since I’m going on vacation before the changeover, it will seem all the more disorienting to come back and have my routine become drastically different.

The reason my friends aren’t renewing their lease is because one of them is joining the Peace Corp and will be leaving for Africa. So, that’s another big change. One of my good friends will be gone for two years.

After that, grad schools will start up. Although I don’t know where anyone is going, it is likely that two of my friends will be moving from the Bay Area. A third could possibly move, and I’m interested to see how that will turn out.

Two more friends are currently living with their parents, and I suspect they will probably move before the end of the year. I don’t know where they’ll end up, so this may also change where we all gather. What they decide will probably affect where I live after my lease is up. I’ve decided that I’m paying too much, so I should go somewhere else when my lease is up in October.

Change in routine. Change in people. Change in place. This is all very disruptive. Especially since I’ve felt so rooted ever since I moved back here after college.

Then, there’s the not very robust commute situation. I currently carpool with my dad to work, and I don’t own a car. If he were to get a new job, I wouldn’t have an easy way to get to work.

I’ve definitely been apprehensive of the upcoming changes. I enjoy the situation now, and it’s hard to see it change. Lately, though, I’ve been warming to these changes. I’m excited to take on the challenge of being a good host every week. I’m not sure what prompted the change in emotions. Maybe I realized it’s silly to cling to the past when change is inevitable. Maybe I realized that there are opportunities out there for me if I change too. Maybe I’m also getting slightly tired of my routine.

I’ve slated a redesign for my comic to be released on April 11. I’m excited to be playing with code again. I’m ready for a new look, and I’m ready to give it renewed focus. After that, I’ll try to see if I can sell some t-shirts. And after that, I got more programming projects to do. It sounds like a lot of fun, so maybe that’s why I’m less apprehensive.

“Boy howdy, times they are a-changin’.” — Curly, in Larry Whitman: Data Entry Maverick

I’m redesigning the website for my comic. I tentatively have it scheduled to be released on April 11.

As I was eating potato chips for breakfast, I had the urge to update facebook. My status would read: “Shawn McDonald is eating chips for breakfast.” I’m sure that would’ve received several likes and one or two comments, at least.

I’m limiting my facebook usage to M-W-F, only once per day, and it was a Saturday, so I couldn’t update facebook. I sat there thinking how I could express this to the world. Maybe I could make a comic? No, “I’m eating chips for breakfast” isn’t a good comic. There’s not enough there. I could perhaps extend it to comment on adulthood and the possibilities of eating whatever the fuck you want. Maybe I could too comment on the stomach ache I would probably get later.

In any case, when it comes to facebook, the thinking can stop at “is eating chips for breakfast.” That’s sufficient to get lots of attention. It’s pretty lazy, though. So, I think that facebook limits my creativity. I stop thinking before I really get anywhere.

Before I started this social media diet, I had this vague anxiety about ruining my comedy. Now, I have this specific example of facebook limiting my imagination.

Oh my god! I finally got Silverlight removed after months. There’s been this Windows Update sitting forever on my Windows 7 laptop that’s supposed to update Silverlight, but it keeps failing. I tried to solve this by updating Silverlight at their website. Instead, when I ran the installer, it said it couldn’t find the msi to uninstall the previous version. I tried uninstalling Silverlight with Add/Remove Programs, but that didn’t work either. Different websites gave different solutions: None worked. (Dot dot dot) until now! I found this in a forum: http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/p/23415/83181.aspx

Instructions distilled:

Run regedit. Delete this key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT / installer / products / D7314F9862C648A4DB8BE2A5B47BE100

Bam. Done.

After that, I was able to successfully update Silverlight from the website. And the next time I ran Windows Update, nothing failed.

I was using facebook and twitter a lot. I felt guilty for using them so often because it was eating up time I could be using to actually accomplish something. I felt anxiety because the continuous partial attention may be ruining my ability to think. I’d considered quitting twitter, but I hadn’t made any decisions. Then, I did something I hadn’t really done in a while: Reflected on life, evaluated what was happening, and proposed a change.

While using them, I was deep in the grips of loss aversion. I can’t quit! I’ll lose communication channels! I need to stay updated! I’ll miss out on information! So, I needed to take a step back and evaluate the pros and cons. I needed to figure out if the benefits outweighed the negatives. I also needed to specifically categorize what I’d be losing out on. Fear is aided by vagueness. My loss aversion could be conquered by clinical, analytical precision.

When I evaluated twitter, I decided that I could quit. Twitter wasn’t improving my joke writing, or my writing in general. (Aside: Maybe if I had found twitter before webcomics, I would be exclusively a writer because I can’t draw well.) It actually reduced the domain of jokes I could make because I wasn’t writing dialogue anymore. There are cool links on twitter, but I don’t need them when I already read the blogs of the people I follow. In fact, this wasn’t really a benefit because I felt that I needed to cut information intake so I could produce more. Twitter’s mostly empty calories, anyway. (Example: What’s the point of reading cool little tidbits from Smashing Magazine on web programming, if I’m not spending enough time doing actual web programming? Moreover, reading code would probably be a better use of time.) There were jokes, but I read web comics anyway, so I didn’t need them; I get enough laughs. Roger Ebert has become annoying by constantly hawking Amazon wares. That left a few people who I follow personally: Lloyd and Erin. The rest of the people don’t update enough to be that much of a loss. Most of Lloyd’s updates are pictures, and I confess that I don’t often click on pictures on twitter.

I actually talked to Erin about how much she updates (I was talking to Stevie about twitter at their apartment) and she only said once a day. When I told her that I was thinking about quitting Twitter, she said, “But how will I ever know about your fantasy football team?” I thought that might be reason enough to quit; that is, I don’t need to bore people with that stuff.

So, I wouldn’t lose that much by quitting twitter. I could still engage with everyone I needed to through other channels.

What would I gain? I think the phrase “addition by subtraction” is helpful. More time. More attention. It’s one less thing to pay attention to, and one less thing to distract me. Less empty calories, which I could replace with better reading. My writing would probably get better too.

Since this post has gone on longer than I thought, I’ll try to wrap up and I’ll write about facebook another time.

I decided that quitting Twitter was a net gain. So, right now I’m taking a vacation from twitter. I think I’ll do it for three weeks, but I doubt I’ll want to go back after that.

I still click on the link, but I don’t sign in (more on the addiction later, too). I tell myself. Would you rather browse twitter all day? Or would you rather read Marcus Aurelius? I tell myself I’d rather read Marcus, but I’m still not there yet. I’ll read a few pages and get distracted. Still, this is a start.

If you’re reading this, leave me a little note about Twitter. Do you use Twitter? How often? Is having it a net gain or net loss? Do you think your time browsing twitter is okay, or would you rather read a classic book? Is that a false dichotomy?

Note 1.

I’m back. I took an unannounced hiatus from blogging. My lack of output was stressing me out, but all this stress didn’t inspire me to write awesome things. So, here I am, refreshed, and also in less physical pain than I was not too long ago.

Note 2.

I looked at my “About Me” page and it is terribly out of date. Things that were important to my identity are no longer that important. Yeah, sure, I’m an atheist, but I don’t give it as much thought as I used to. I’m not involved in any communities and I don’t feel any need to proselytize or argue.

I think my political views have moved beyond conservative apostate. But politics no longer has the appeal it once used to have. I used to really, really want to be president, but now I don’t think it’s a very appealing job. In fact, it’s probably an impossible job. (It’s too much to manage; we can discuss this at length at another time.)

It needs an update. Before I update it, though, I need to do more thinking, and I’ll try to do that thinking on this blog.

Note 3.

I release myself from the obligation to be prolific on this blog. First off, I’m spread kind of thin. Second, I think a better focus on quality would give me more psychic ease.

I haven’t been writing much in this blog lately. At first, I thought it was because I had nothing interesting to say, that I was not thinking about interesting things. I realized, though, that I am thinking about interesting things, but these are not things I want to share on this blog.

I never embraced the share-everything model of blogging. I’m rather private, and I enjoy blogging about issues more than about myself. So, I guess I’m at a stage in my life where personal issues are very pressing, and they have pushed away some of the musing about other things.

I also have done a better job tuning out a lot of the news and when I do hear the news, I’m not in a rush to form opinions about things I know nothing about. It doesn’t make me a better blogger, but I think it makes me a better human being. In some contexts, certainty is very dangerous.

I’m in no rush to blog up a storm. I would like to write more, but I tire of staring into screens. Maybe, like the comic, I need a sabbatical from blogging. This is a decision I can make another time.

I discovered that I have an odd hangup about going to bed early: I’m afraid of being old. If I go to bed too early, I’ll make jokes about eating oat bran and watching Matlock.

Let me briefly consider this from another perspective: Noted bad-ass Benjamin Franklin thought it was good to be early to bed and early to rise. Kant isn’t as much of a bad-ass, but he was a famous early riser too.

I do like the idea of being an early-riser. In college, instead of working on essays until the dead of night, I’d wake up really early and work up until class. I found it much more productive. Even now, I’d like to wake up early and do things before work. I find that I’m way too tired after work. (I recently had an epiphany that even though I wake up really early for work, it is still possible to wake up even earlier than that.)

So, the other side of being an early-riser is also being an… early-bedder? Er, anyway, I guess I must ask myself what will I miss out on by sleeping so early? On weekdays, I am not missing any great activities because most of my friends have to go to work in the morning. I’m also not making any late night phone calls. I guess there are the Matlock jokes, but I am the only one making those jokes.

After considering these factors, it seems that my fear is unfounded and I would be better off waking up earlier even if it means going to bed earlier.

And now I will go to bed once I finish this episode of Matlock.

Finance
*Start contributing to 401(k)
*Open Roth IRA
*Get my credit score

Programming/Web Design
*Do a project in Ruby on Rails
*Write Modemizer extension for a browser
*Design a website for a nonprofit
*Make a custom theme for my blog
*Get a job programming that I can get to via public transportation

Chalkboard Manifesto
*Redesign CM website
*Sell 1 thing
*Get 1000 fans on facebook

Health
*Eat one fruit a day
*Go on 12 hikes
*Be able to do 50 push ups
*Be able to do 50 sit ups

Miscellaneous
*Finish 1 more episode of Larry Whitman
*Get a comfortable mattress
*Finish 30 books

At some point, I thought it would be a good idea to follow the rule “Be Interesting” when it comes to posting on this blog. This would preclude ever talking about my fantasy football teams. I do want future me, though, to know what past me was interested in. And current me is obsessed with fantasy football. So, I’m going to talk about it and you can ignore it.

I WON!!!!! WHOO!!!!

I’m champion in both leagues I played in. One was a money league. I won $250 for first place plus an additional $10 for the highest score during one week in the regular season. So, remember when I wrote about how my team, The BART Police, was done? It wasn’t! A miracle happened! I needed another team to lose, but that team was behind by only 3 points and still had Mark Sanchez to play against New England. I was sure I was going to lose. I watched a little bit of the game and left when it looked like Sanchez had enough points to defeat me. But he threw a bunch of picks and I sneaked into the playoffs as the 6th seed with a 6-7 record. I got lucky in the first round of the playoffs with a low point total, but my opponent did worse. Then, Ray Rice suddenly came to life in the 2nd round of the playoffs, and I blew-out my opponent. In the finals, my persistence in starting Miles Austin finally paid off when he got a hundred yard game for the first time in forever. I also snagged Rob Gronkowski at the last second after I heard Aaron Hernandez was hurt. He got me 17 points while Kevin Boss would’ve got me 0, and cost me a championship. I was also helped by a garbage time TD from Philip Rivers.

In my other league, I successfully defended my championship. My team was called the Hedonic Treadmills. I also kind of sneaked into the playoffs, but it wasn’t as much of a miracle. I lost, but when another team lost, I still got into the playoffs with a 7-7 record as the number 4 seed. (I did, however, have a miracle game where I got 13 points from Adam Vinitieri on MNF to win it.) I survived the first round of the playoffs after TO got hurt, Darren McFadden had all his touchdowns vultured, and AP was a scratch for the Monday night game. In the finals, I made a slap bet with Nick, my opponent for that game. (Thank you Tom Brady and NE defense.) I won, and now I get to slap Nick. Ahahahahaha!

One thing I want to say is that I was right about Jamaal Charles. He is a beast and is an RB1 all the way. I would’ve drafted him in the second round if autodraft hadn’t screwed me. (Luckily, I was able to turn Ryan Mathews into Calvin Johnson. What a steal! I also traded Maclin and Knox for Mendenhall.) My only regret is passing up Jamaal Charles for Roddy White in the third round of the draft in my money league.

I am going to give serious consideration to drafting Jamaal Charles first next year. Dude is amazing.

I recently posted this on facebook:

Can we just call it like it is: Cable news makes you stupider. If anyone’s watched that episode of The Boondocks where Huey watches nothing but BET, you’ll understand what cable news does to you.

And I included a link to this article: Study: Some Viewers Were Misinformed by TV News.

In retrospect, I never read the study and trusted someone else to inform me on it, so that probably wasn’t a good idea. Anyway, people have been lured into the partisan aspect of this, claiming that Fox News misinforms people the most. Or rather, that people who watch Fox News are more likely to believe certain false claims. I don’t care about this and don’t want to talk about it because I believe that all cable news is stupid.

I recently found some stuff that confirms my bias, so I’d like to link to them:
Be Careful What You Magnify, Ctd on Andrew Sullivan’s blog (He’s on vacation, so it’s not Sullivan writing)
On Cable News by Radley Balko
Cable News Switcheroo by Radley Balko
Cable News: Where Being Loud Trumps Being Wrong by Radley Balko

This seems like a good trick: Treat Yourself Like a Toddler.

I need to work more at knowing my limits. This might help.

Limits can be a good thing when it comes to creative writing. Amateur free-form poetry often is often prose with random line breaks. Using a set form can help impose rhythm into the poem. Similarly, word counts can help you tighten up a piece, or you can lazily add filler until you hit the count.

My skepticism of the op-ed/political column has grown. It may be too small a place to actual prove anything. When you write something so weak, it has no chance of educating people. Or so I hypothesize. It could just be lazy writing because Hitchens does marvelous things in his columns. (As an aside, this short blog post doesn’t count as too short because it’s part of an entire conversation that is this blog. I can backtrack anytime I want. It lacks the finality of an op-ed.)

Erin recently posted a small philosophy piece on my facebook wall, and I read through it expecting an argument, but never really found one. It sounded like the introduction to a piece, rather than a real piece. Maybe the author was just trying to stimulate conversation? In any case, I think it was too short to truly argue a point.

Another thing I found online was a political column about the census. Normally, I shouldn’t read stuff like this because of my self-imposed traditional media blackout. (I fail at this a lot, by the way.) It contrasts Texas with California:

First, the great engine of growth in America is not the Northeast Megalopolis, which was growing faster than average in the mid-20th century, or California, which grew lustily in the succeeding half-century. It is Texas.

Its population grew 21 percent in the past decade, from nearly 21 million to more than 25 million. That was more rapid growth than in any states except for four much smaller ones (Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho).

Texas’ diversified economy, business-friendly regulations and low taxes have attracted not only immigrants but substantial inflow from the other 49 states. As a result, the 2010 reapportionment gives Texas four additional House seats. In contrast, California gets no new House seats, for the first time since it was admitted to the Union in 1850.

I think if this was a paper I was grading, I would circle the line about Texas’ diversified economy, etc. and write “Evidence?” next to it. I want to surmise that it’s the form of the piece that limits it. The author only offers quick hits on census data, without offering much in the way of argument. Is there not enough room for a proper argument? Or maybe it’s just my natural skepticism about figuring out cause-and-effect that’s makes me demand a higher standard of evidence? Or, again, is it lazy writing?

Pop psychology is often like this blog post: Lazy. This blog post and pop psychology, however, use different techniques. This is just me spouting something off the top of my head without any research. Pop psychology will often grab one study and then overgeneralize, telling you how this changes everything. It will make you feel clever by telling you how this study is counterintuitive and subverts the status quo. Then, it tells you how you can apply this to your own life. Although there are no studies to back up this application, the author has a lot of anecdotes, culled from months of confirmation bias.

I must remember to get closer to the source. One simple heuristic: Distrust psychology books written by journalists.

Today, Richard introduced me to Epic Sax Guy. Looks like my hunt for Halloween costume 2011 is over.

See also:

Parody of SNL bit…

Epic Sax Walrus

I’ve tried to hide myself from the day-to-day political stuff. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t comment on important things, even if they’re political topics. So, I guess I’ll say something about Wikileaks because it will help me talk about how it relates to the bigger topic of tyranny.

First, a word on tyranny. It’s unfortunate that most of us are stuck with a 20th-century conception of the topic. Every infringement of rights is step on the dark road towards totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is the industrial version of tyranny. It is a product of the 20th century. Stop using 1984 as prophecy because we are in the 21st century. The dark road is dark enough, even if it does not lead to absolute darkness. That is, it is still tyranny, even if it is not totalitarianism.

In a democracy, such as what America is supposed to be, the law is king. We are supposed to be governed by laws rather than the arbitrary whims of our rulers. Unfortunately, it seems as if the arbitrary whims are winning. The prison at Guantanamo Bay, which is still open (Thanks, Obama!), is not governed by law. We’ve held people there for years and years, without charges. Some of them have even been innocent people, trapped in a legal black hole. Meanwhile, the US government tortured people. This would be bad enough, but the Bush Administration hasn’t been held accountable for its war crimes. What’s more, they destroyed video evidence of the torture. The law is ignored by our ruling class. The US government has jailed journalists with no charges. I can’t complete this paragraph without also mentioning that our ruling class includes the owners of large corporations. I don’t think it makes sense to talk about government officials and corporate leaders because these are the same people; they freely move from one realm to the other realm — it’s very incestuous. So, the government is helping banks kick people out of their homes at a breakneck pace. Corrupt courts let banks commit fraud and lie. This leads me to believe that our government is already tyrannical, and I have yet to mention the TSA or Wikileaks.

Well, I’ll save the TSA rant for another day. (They’re touching our genitals now?! Really? I mean, fucking really?) Some day I may read this and not know what the hell is going on, so I should provide a quick recap. Wikileaks is an website that publishes leaked documents. They published dumps of documents about Iraq and Afghanistan. They also recently dumped a bunch of documents that were provided by a private in the military. These documents include diplomatic cables and I think evidence of war crimes. The founder of Wikileaks is Julian Assange, who is not an American citizen.

After the latest dump, the rhetoric became especially vicious. Many members of the political commentariat have called for Assange to be killed and even for Wikileaks to be declared a terrorist organization. Glenn Greenwald, whose blog is invaluable on the subject of Wikileaks, said, “The way in which so many political commentators so routinely and casually call for the eradication of human beings without a shred of due process is nothing short of demented.” It reveals an authoritarian mindset. The law is king, and we shouldn’t be jailing or killing people without due process.

Then, there’s the fact that all the documents that Wikileaks has published so far have already been published by other news organizations. It’s already dangerous for the government to arbitrarily declare a group a terrorist outfit and then use violence outside the law. But some journalists are openly calling for their own demise. It’s sad that they cheer on tyranny.

It becomes scarier when donating to Wikileaks could suddenly, and arbitrarily, become giving material aid to a terrorist organization. This can be used as the flimsiest of excuses for the government to grab whomever they want.

Now, I’m not talking about the government actually grabbing people. The issue is that the government will have the power to do this. The issue is that the rule of law will have been replaced by the arbitrary whims of our rulers. In Disney’s Robin Hood, King Richard was just as much a tyrant as Prince John.

Speaking of flimsy excuses to grab people, the arrest of Assange has very suspicious timing. I should withhold judgment about what’s really going on, but it just seems too convenient. My mom mentioned a whistleblower in China who revealed that poison was in milk powder. He was put in jail. She said the US is essentially doing the same thing. I am not quick to disagree. We shall see.

The Wikileaks website has been under attack recently. Amazon dropped its hosting after getting a phone call from Joe Lieberman. Visa and Mastercard refused to take money for donations. So, what happened to Visa and MasterCard? Denial of service attacks. The digital mobs have struck.

A mob is rowdy and violent. It’s not a gathering of people who merely shout their displeasure. If we had real mobs today, they would’ve burned down the mansions of the CEOs who caused our recent financial disaster. So, people no longer burn down mansions or tar and feather people, but it seems they do hack into websites. I wouldn’t be surprised if this trend continued. (I might even take some guilty pleasure in it.) The good thing about mobs is that they scare the ruling class, and that’s when they listen. Of course, the mob also has its downsides. Still, I wonder what havoc future digital mobs will wreak. Will they attack their own government as well?

EDIT: Let me post an addendum. I really enjoyed Umberto Eco on WikiLeaks. As the government invades our privacy, we have begun to invade its privacy. And as they digitally attack the people, the people begin to attack them. Interesting.

Today, I found this free programming books via Twitter. I started reading random chapters in 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know. Not only did I not know any of things, I couldn’t even understand some of the chapters. Yes, yes, I’m announcing my ignorance to the world. I, however, like to think of it announcing to the world that I’m busy learning things.

In other news, I am pondering quitting Twitter. Well, I’d stop updating, but I’d probably still troll it for interesting content. Using Twitter has morphed my humor into staccato hits. I’ll spit out quick one-liners while my capacity for set-up/punchline is eroding. My comics are becoming tweets.

My blog posts are becoming tweet-ish too! I’ll often post one or two lines instead of sitting down and thinking. Not all writing is equal. Just as the typewriter changed Nietzsche, Twitter is changing me. Funnily enough, it’s also pushing me to a punchier, more aphoristic style. On first glance, this may not be entirely a bad thing because it may be more in line with my natural writing style. My original tweets were private post-it notes. I’d write my philosophical bites on post-its and often return to the same themes in my writing. I guess the problem occurs when the quick hit crowds out other types of thought. Working 8 hours limits the time and energy (the latter is more important, I think) I have to do things, and Twitter sucks up brain power. I don’t have enough brain power to take the time to pause and think more deeply and tweet, do I? Maybe I would if I didn’t have a billion other projects that I want to actually start.

Sitting in the back of my mind has been the problem of the internet sapping my attention. Sophrosyne is the goddess of “moderation, self-control, temperance, restraint, and discretion.” Unfortunately, I think her powers are weak. Humans have a very limited amount of self-control, and it’s better to use cleverness to trick ourselves into doing what we should do. So, now I’m thinking the issue with Twitter is that it’s easier to tweet than to blog. This seduces me into tweeting at the expense of better blogging. It may be better to cut Twitter out of my life. I’ll ponder this some more.

There once was a boy who owned a magnificent Fighting Fish.

“My, my,” the boy exclaimed, “This is the most wonderful fighting fish in the world!” He admired his fish from all angles, thinking nothing could ever top his most marvelous possession. That is, until he noticed the fish’s reflection in the bowl — and an idea came to him.

“What if,” he thought, “I had two fighting fish. That would be twice as good! It would be so easy too! All I would have to do is get another fighting fish and put him inside of the bowl.”

So with much joy, at his brilliant idea (and also joy at being so brilliant an originator of ideas), he set off to buy another fighting fish.

“This fish bowl,” he declared, “will be the best fish bowl ever!” And so, he dropped the second fish into the bowl.

The fighting fish fought. And fought and fought. “Oh no!” the boy cried out. But they paid him no heed. They fought and fought. Until both fish were no more.

The moral of the story: You are an idiot if you think your feature would be so easy to add to the program I’m working on.

In one of my leagues, the one with a pricey buy-in (okay, not that pricey), my season is over. The BART Police — what a great team name — are done after a 3-game losing streak to end the season. Before that, I was first place in points and either second or third place overall. Instead, I’m going to finish the regular season in seventh place and not make the playoffs. *sigh* This basically ruined the rest of my Sunday.

My players started tanking at the wrong time. After a really hot start, Philip Rivers had like one touchdown in the past two weeks. Roddy White had zero touchdowns. My pick of Miles Austin in the second round looked genius for the first 4 weeks of the season, and then he started doing nothing. Ray Rice underperformed all season. And Beanie Wells… well, let’s not talk about him. Ahmad Bradshaw also had a really crappy game like 3 weeks ago that started my downward spiral. I benched Steve Johnson when he had 30+ points, played him every week after, even the game where he had 5 drops. I inserted Dez Bryant into my fantasy lineup as defenses started rolling more coverage his way and effectively taking him out of the game. Even my kicker joined in, scoring zero points to start my 3-game skid.

And I’m done complaining.

At least I’ll get $10 back for getting the highest score in one week. (Funnily enough, this was the game where I had practically everyone on bye. I had to start Blount and Wells at RB.)

I’m still hoping I can defend my title in my other league.

Currently reading: The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

I was reading it during lunch, and I couldn’t finish my burger, haha.

San Francisco recently made a law banning toys in Happy Meals (well, foods that have a certain number of calories or something). People complain about this and government intervention. They should complain more about corn subsidies.

(via Andrew Sullivan). I’m not sure I agree with Sullivan on McCain’s motivations for being against DADT. It’s not that I necessarily disagree and have my own opinion. Instead, I generally find that it’s hard to discern for people I don’t know personally, and I don’t like commenting on it.