You known nothing today strikes me as interesting, sure Peter Jennings died, but I really can't get all worked up over someone I didn't know or even watch on TV. Heck when Johnny Cash died it bothered me more because I enjoy his music and never got around to seeing him live. Now that Jennings died, he's no longer hosting a news show I never watched anyways. Still I send condolences to his family for the their loss, but thats about it.

Went to a few ballgames this weekend, you know there are a lot of people out there who just don't give a second thought to the people around them. While no seats were thrown on the field and now one was stabbed or shot like at a Los Angeles Dodgers of Chavez Ravine game, there are some people at the Los Angeles Angels game that just need to be slapped around, for their own good of course. Watch the language, even though at times I curse like a sailor, the game isn't the place for it. Then their are the people who don't stand and remove their hats for the National Anthem, how about a little respect for the country you live in? Then their are the people who feel the need to stand up and leave/return to their seats in the middle of an at bat, hey just wait a minute and do it for a break in the action. Some people just amaze me how oblivious they are to the world around them.

Oh I also hate the wave, floaters and ketchup on hot dogs.

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This post is for the men out there, for those times when the women in you life get mad because you "don't care" because you aren't listening to them:

Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -- women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's

Posted by: the Pirate at 10:27 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 I read this story the other day and thought of it while listening to a Jack Johnson cd earlier today. Thanks for saving me the trouble of tracking it down.

Posted by: Steven at August 08, 2005 08:47 AM (6S8xe)

2 This is interesting, particularly in light of early research by NASA that suggested the most compelling voices for astronauts to hear announcements, etc. in were female voices. Beyond all the scientific fiddle-faddle, there may be (may be) a tendancy for women to be a bit more loquacious than men. This is as it should be, since we're very often the primary caregivers for young children, who need to hear a steady torrent of spoken language in order to learn to speak. Of course, as with all good things one can have too much. Sometimes my mother is talking talking talking and I'm using the blender or something and just really can't hear her very well. Then I'll often announce that I can't hear her, and if she says something important she should let me know. 'Cause a lot of it is just, well, stuff. There's sort of a wheat/chaff problem. Hypothetically, let's say a male was raised by a chatty female. Presumably, he'd either have to learn to tune her out, or become an axe murderer. Furthermore, let's suppose the man then got married. There might be an enormous temptation to tune his wife out as much as he sometimes does his mother. I'm not saying this isn't understandable, but I would caution that he should try not to get caught.

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 09, 2005 03:15 AM (RGWNz)

3 Let me say you don't have to be married to tune out the lady friend. I've tuned out many a girlfriend (99% of the time during televised sports), as a result if I don't have any idea what she said I'd divert to a standard response "I love you too." The key is fguring out the ratio of background information to important information and just tuning in to get the important parts. As far as NASA using female voices, it makes sense personally becuase if its quite then the voice starts I'll hear the words, its as the talking runs on that I begin to tune out. Of course for me its not female specfici, I can have the tv and radio on at the same time and go back and forth between listening to them, drives many a people nuts. So that answers why I'm not married pretty well....

Posted by: the Pirate at August 09, 2005 06:48 AM (SksyN)

4 I hate it when people like you turn on the TV or the radio (not music--words) and expect me to then converse with them. I always want to say, "if you wanted to talk, you wouldn't have the television on, would you?"

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 09, 2005 11:06 AM (RGWNz)

5 Oh see I shoudl clarify, if I am having a 'serious' converstion radio or tv get turned down. With the roommate (or other friends) we'll just ignore the game (or radio) and talk with pauses to watch the game, then go back to tuning it out. The worst is the girlfriends that want to talk in instances liek the bottom of the 9th with the winning run up to bad and 2 outs. it kind of applies to anyone who wants a converstion when I'm obviously paying attention to somethign else. So really the tune out applies more so when the converstion is start when I was paying attention to something else. Its also occured in other cases, like when I am working on a school assignment and the gf would want to talk on the phone..then getting in trouble for not paying attention.

Posted by: the Pirate at August 09, 2005 11:18 AM (SksyN)

6 I've learned that if I want to talk during a football game, I should wait for a commercial, or at least a point wherein the ball is not in play.

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 09, 2005 12:06 PM (RGWNz)

7 Actually, if there's a football game on, the only thing Attila the Hub really wants to hear is, "I brought you some Diet Coke." Or: "here's some chips."

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 09, 2005 04:23 PM (RGWNz)

8 Hahaha Every man's dream. Well some would substitute Beer for Diet Coke, but nevertheless the feeling is the same. :p

Posted by: the Pirate at August 09, 2005 06:08 PM (Rg0+S)

9 He's not a Neanderthal, but he does like his football.

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 09, 2005 06:48 PM (RGWNz)

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So I pull in to my local drugstore parking lot and get chased around by people who appear to be of hispanic origin and quite possibly wouldn't be able to produce proof of so-called "legal" residence. It was that spot on the news where the Redondo Beach Police were inforcing the law regarding soliciting work on the streets and focred to stop enforcing the law due to wild-eyed leftist activists. Of course they recieved no help from our illegal alien apologist Rep. Jane Harmon (who's office is right by the Macaroni Grill one Rosecrans, if you feel so inclinde to leave an opinon regarding her views). First off lets take the border seriously. Next I do realize we can't go rounding up 12 million people, but when we catch them say working illegally they should be deported. More so we should institute the rules the Brits did regarding immigrants:

• Deporting foreigners who foster hate, or advocate or justify violence.

•Throwing out those linked to extremist websites, groups, bookshops or centres.

• Banning foreign extremist preachers from Britain.

•Closing mosques and places of worship if used for 'fomenting extremism'.

•Outlawing worldwide the condoning or glorifying of terrorism.

• Refusing asylum to anyone linked to terrorism.

• Stripping citizenship from extremist naturalised Britons.

• Banning extremist Islamic groups Hizb ut Tahrir and Al-Muhajiroun.

An extreme Muslim cleric whose family have been living on benefits in Britain for 20 years says it would not be 'fair' to deport him...

...Since Syrian-born Bakri settled in Britain, he and his extended family have raked in benefits amounting to at least £300,000. He is registered disabled because of an injury to his leg during his childhood, and was recently supplied with a £31,000 Ford Galaxy under the Motability scheme. Bakri, who lives in a £200,000 home in North London, tops up his £250-a-week benefit payments with an extra £50 incapacity allowance. He has praised the September 11 terrorists as 'magnificent', called Israel 'a cancer' and said homosexuals should be 'thrown from Big Ben'. In January, he declared that Britain had become a 'land of war', and called on Muslims to unite behind Al Qaeda. He has supported suicide bombings and urged his followers to kill non-Muslims ' wherever, whenever'.

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1 I'm sorry; I'm just not getting an idea of how you feel about this guy. Perhaps you could clarify . . . ?

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 09, 2005 02:27 AM (RGWNz)

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I have come to enjoy working in Downtown LA, aside from the fact Downtown LA has the largest concetration of government buildings outside of Washington DC (many of whom are our clients). Its just a nice environment to be around during the day for work, there is always something going on and there are some fantastic places to eat (Morton's, Pacific Dining Car, Engine Co. 38, Phillipes, The Pantry.....). The building holds frequent functions for us, including friday afternoon's show by The Sevilles - Mowtown Tribue, it was fantastic. Of course you have easy access to go catch a game after work.

There are some downsides, its not quite a decent place to live yet, even less so if you have kids. Once they put the supermarket in, things will improve slightly. the biggest problem is all of the bums that wanter the streets. You can't go a block with out getting harrased, even worse as an early riser I get to work early and exprience the joy of getting to see the local bums relieve themselves, pleasure themselves and pleasure eachother....its a problem down there that needs to be taken care of rather than the current policy of making it easier for them to stay on the streets.

Lastly I am glad Hockey is back, and with Roenick on the team (known for his diarrhea of the mouth) its going to be a fun year for Kings Hockey.....well so long as they resign Ziggy.

On that note I'm off to the lab.

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Right off the bat I have to mention that Tony Blair showed off his brass balls today. He came out willing to amend their human rights laws to deport anyone who advocated hate or the murder of innocent people. Some may claim freedom of speech and condemn this 'love it or leave it' mindset, but what Blair appears to be going after is more than love it or leave it, because your ability to stay in the country only hings when you cross that region of not loving where you live and not loving it to the point you start advocating murdring other peope in the country. It really won't happen here in the States because CAIR and the ACLU would crap the biggest brick man has ever seen and tie the idea up with so many lawsuits it would choke a donkey. Speaking of kinding people out of Britian for inciting hate and those who want to kill Britons, I nominate this guy to get booted first:

the guide recommends that if lethal force is needed to stop someone who fits a certain behavioral profile, the officer should "aim for the head." The intent is to kill the suspect instantly so the person could not set off a bomb if one is strapped to the person's chest

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Ahoy Mateys!

Its the Pirate here taking up some of the posting duties while Little Miss Attila is off pillaging and enjoying the spoils of conquest over the East Coast, as part of the deal my people cut for doing this I also get rule over Taxachusetts and Vermont, which really leads me to believe I need new people working for me.

So for those who know nothing about me, I have a little background information for you to kick off this event. I was born and raised in the greatest city on the planet, Los Angeles where I have had the imense joy to experience both the public and private educational systems in the area. I have spent time working with and for the Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts of America, including 7 summers on Catalina Island. Experienced the wide world of evicting people as a law clerk and finally put my BSE degree in Civil Engineering to use (2 years after graduating) working for an Environmental Engineering Firm, not the tree hugging type because they even hate us too, where I have been gainfully employed since 2004 working on issues like water/wastewater treatment & quality, burried infrastructure assesment, land applied biosolids, groundwater quality, water resources planing, stormwater management, odor control and hazardous waste remediation. In the process of employment I have somehow managed to sucessful become a mere two semesters away from earning a MSE in Civil/Environmental Enginnering and the ultimate goal of winning back my night time and weekend freedom. On top of all that I am doing some research into the fate of nitrogen species (Ammonia, Ammonium, Nitrate, Nitrite and Organic Nitrogen) in secondary waterwater effluent used for sprinkler crop irrigation, sounds exciting doesn't it?

Feel free to ask any questions you want (I'll answer most) and we'll get this experiment started.

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"The Pirate" of Pirate's Blog will be sailing this website through the treacherous waters of Southern California's hot (and liberal) climate for the next four days. Hoist the black flag, and give him a warm welcome.

I'll be on the East Coast from tomorrow morning on, attending my sister's wedding and poking around in some of the state's eminent domain abuse cases (apparently, the ones in New London are only the beginning in that area). I'll check in now and then if I can find a cheap internet cafe. After all, I still have tons of Siggraph stories from the past few days that you people have to hear (or, possibly, skim over).

But now, I'm going to grab a few hours of sleep. Because I'm such stuff as dreams are made on, and so forth.

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Insty has an interesting post up on the various stripes of anti-technology activists/sympathizers—on the left and right.

He even discusses a PBS Special that defends GM food. Utterly amazing; I'll have to watch that soon.

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Gin martinis or vodka martinis? Discuss.

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Sorry; I have the winners all picked out, but I haven't had a chance to post them, between preparing for Siggraph and completing trip preparations. I'll post 'em tonight.

UPDATE: Spoke too soon; I need to crash, get up, finish packing, and get out to New England. So I'll hope to get web access and post on that while I'm out of town.

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. . . are finally pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. Goldstein has your links, with his usual acerbic commentary.

I don't think it's so bad here, because of the American tradition that ethnic groups take on the overall cultural imprint of the U.S.A., but my impression is that things are entirely out of control in Europe, and that it's long overdue for someone to say, "if you hate us so much, get the fuck out of here."

(No, no: I'm not for forcibly deporting anyone from any Western country because he/she is cranky. Some of my best friends are misanthropes. But there's a difference between having a cynical take on our political traditions and actively preaching violence against them. As a former member of the Communist Workers' Party, I know the difference. I sometimes wonder why my little group wasn't thoroughly investigated by the FBI when we were studying Marxism in the 80s. Then I realize that half the group probably were special agents.)

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Go catch up. If you like my blogging, you're going to love these other center/right/libertarian chicks.

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After Professor Fractal is done presenting his paper, and we've both called our spouses, we link up with Scanmaster and go out for a bite to eat. In Scanmaster's Prius I show the good professor "my Precious," my compact PowerBook. And then my "little Precious," the Motorola cell phone with e-mail capability and a qwerty keyboard.

"I have zero CPUs on me, and you have two," he remarks. "So who's the geek?"

"I don't want to talk about that right now," I reply.

Later, I exult to Scanmaster that I had finally utilized the WiFi at the Convention Center, and "live-blogged" from Siggraph itself.

"What's 'live-blogging?" he responds. "I swear, you use all these obscure technical terms. I can't keep up with you."

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We must always bear in mind that not all the adventures chronicled in Po Bronson's Nudist on the Late Shift were undertaken in Silicon Valley itself: the computer business has been big all over the West Coast, with plenty of action in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. As a matter of fact, rumor has it that the title anecdote about the workaholic nudist actually occurred in Burbank.

The nudist himself was sent a copy of the book along with a pen and a self-addressed stamped envelope by a colleague who wanted to vicariously experience someone else's fifteen minutes of fame.

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The first time I went to Siggraph, it was being held in Anaheim. I drove down from West Los Angeles a couple of nights. My roommate at the time was part of a small computer graphics company that had its party at the Disneyland Hotel. The world of computer imagery was still, in many ways, a primitive art form in the mid-80s: as I recall the best minds in the business were still working on how to make plants look real, rather than like little explosions of color. Simulating human skin was still impossible, and there was still a distinctive "look" to any work that included "CGI" (Computer-Generated Images).

A few years later Terminator 2 would be made; the quantity and quality of computer images would spike.

Two years ago, I returned to Siggraph. It was in San Diego that year, and despite my being what they call "an English major's English major" I was talked into attending again. I found myself marvelling over and over about the kinds of technologies that were becoming "hot." Siggraph is not only about visual art: it explores that place where art and technology meet, no matter the sense that is being engaged. As I write this I have on my desk two little objects that were created by 3-D scanners/"printers." One of them is a tube containing little ball bearings, all of which were created inside the tube. The other is a little box with a lid that screws on: the threads are perfect. The object was made in two pieces, and they match exactly.

These little objects are passe now, two years later. Now the cutting edge is to be found in little devices that can be inserted into one's inner ear to disrupt equalibrium and make a person dizzy when he or she is not moving at all. Or machines that simulate the act of drinking through a straw, though one isn't consuming anything. Or virtual-reality hangliding.

My usual tourguide is Scanmaster, who knows everybody in the business. He's the go-to guy for scanning fine artwork, and the scanner he uses is one he had to invent. Last night, at the Aztec club, he introduced me to the legendary Jim Blinn, and I was nearly speechless.

"What am I on the lookout for this year?" I asked before we set out. I always want to know what the hardest effects are: last year it was hair that moves realistically, a la Violet's mane in The Incredibles, and that eternal bane of the special effects world: water. And fabric. Fabric was the hardest thing to do well at that time. Think of the long flowing robes worn by the dementers in Prisoner of Azkaban. That was plain old showing off.

This year, Scanmaster explains that the vogue is beautiful, stylized portrayal of technology of the kind we saw in Star Wars: Episode III. Now that a lot of the technical problems involved in creating fabric are considered fixable, we'll be seeing more and more exotic treatments of fabric in some of the less "photo-realistic" movies: neon fabrics. Fabrics that catch light in ways that appear nearly impossible.

And eye candy, as always: not just the buxom women we've been seeing since this technology moved beyond cubes outlined in green against a black screen, but more and more computer-generated images meant to be appreciated as high art in and of themselves, rather than imitating some other medium. Landscapes based on fantasy worlds; abstract art. Machines that use magnetic fields to create patterns in a shallow sandbox by means of a small metal ball.

This is a pursuit of beauty itself. The people around me who are often dismissed as "geeks" are really artists masquerading as engineers, underappreciated painters in pixels. And it's glorious to behold.

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Finally. Never mind that I've only got ten minutes until I meet my friend Professor Fractal for a quick bite to eat before I go home and blog this for real from the desk in my dining room at home: like the engineers I'm surrounded by, I'm willing to savor the victory of a technological achievement. Because these little watermarks always hold out the promise of better things in the future.

It turns out the propoganda on the GE "Carousel of Progress" at Disneyland was correct. Who knew?

More—much more—on this later.

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One of the sites devoted to encouraging Dr. Condoleeza Rice to run for higher office (and I am not, for crying out loud, talking about VP, here, or governor of freakin' California) is Americans for Dr. Rice, which is now beginning to consider the notion of "drafting" her onto the ballot in a handful of states. If Dr. Rice could be added to the ballots in a few big states—let's say California, Texas, Florida, and one other—the momentum would build quickly.

The model is the Eisenhower campaign, which emerged from the grass roots.

I honestly believe that if Hillary Clinton runs for President and Condi is her opposition, Hillary will lose. Not because she isn't a shrewd politician, but because Condi is one of the smartest people on the planet. And those who don't steep themselves in the peace culture as if it were good English Breakfast tea sense that the girl can play chess. Not because she's getting good advice from a master-politician spouse—but because she figures things out for herself.

Condi's been the President's foreign policy coach for years; set her loose on the world leaders she's getting to know right now, and we'll see what it looks like when the leader of the free world really leads it. I'm talking Reagan-level leadership. She's got your "iron hammer" right here, Baby.

It is absolutely my favorite Condi site—and the one to watch right now. Make it a daily stop, because I feel things are about to happen, and these people will be in the forefront when it does.

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1 I still like Fred Thompsons return to politics option.

Posted by: the Pirate at August 02, 2005 07:53 AM (SksyN)

2 Condi is it!

Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at August 02, 2005 09:20 AM (xX0fS)

3 Condi would be great

Posted by: Patriot Xeno at August 03, 2005 08:22 AM (LPdru)

4 I love Thompson, but he does have the baggage of having been involved with the Clinton impeachment trial. He'd make a great VP

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 03, 2005 10:01 AM (RGWNz)

5 I am rabidly eager to se this happen, and I agree: in a Clinton/Rice matchup, Clinton will lose. First, she carries more baggage than that old lady at the beginning of "Titanic." Second, I don't think that I'm totally biased when I say that her personality is unappealing. That's not a personal slam; I just think that, like Gore and Kerry, she doesn't connect well with voters. Dr. Rice, OTOH, is smart, tough and charming, just what we need as POTUS. Bring it on, I say.

Posted by: utron at August 03, 2005 03:49 PM (CgIkY)

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James Joyner has excerpts here.

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Over at Right Wing News.

And, yes, I participated. I actually would have voted for John McCain, but it never occurred to me to place him "on the right."

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