I've been on Facebook for about a year now. I know entirely too much about what you are having for lunch, the song lyrics in your head at any particular moment, and who has the most experience shaking down city council members.

I now realize that on the occasions that I get to see you all in person, I have less and less to talk to you about. Not only that, but I realized that with even the meager contributions I make, I could be relatively easily profiled by marketeers, identity thieves, or people that are even more nefarious. I then did some reading about what Facebook Inc thinks that their future is all about and I was horrified.

I have come to understand that Facebook is the "Homeowner's Association" of the web. Your accountability to your neighbors constitutes a sacrifice of your freedom so that you might live in a more "civilized" place, away from the ugly and unsanitary real world. For a year, I have *sold* every bit of information about myself for a few bytes in a database. No more. Facebook is not a bunch of "hip young people starting a revolution" they are billionaires that got there by selling YOU to the highest bidder, and no amount of checkboxes labeled "don't share my information" is going to stop them from doing so.

So I'm done. I hope I haven't come off as a tin-foil-hat curmudgeon, and that you at least consider the true nature of this beast, and that perhaps your privacy has value. I'll leave my account on for a couple days so that anybody that cares will know why I'm gone.
Hasta la Pasta
Brian

"And that my lord is how we know the world to be Banana shaped."

I'm not so arrogant as to suggest that there aren't some ridiculously smart people working on the fundamental laws of the universe, but I think that they are in serious need of a reality check, as are armchair physicists that are eagerly awaiting the experimental results at the Large Hadron Collider. I want to give the good people of the world a peek into the "seedy underbelly" of theoretical physics. The whole mess stems from our piss-poor understanding of how really simple shit works, like gravity and light. There is a substantial body of experimental evidence that suggests that things appear to act differently at different scales. (outer space vs your back yard vs atoms)

That's right, they saw something that they didn't understand and started making shit up. The basic underlying theories are based on nothing more than a WHOLE LOT of ludicrously complex math. That's right. There isn't actually a shred of direct evidence for any of the grand sounding theories of space and time. "String Theory" "Loop Quantum Gravity" "M-theory" "supersymmetry" are all different ways to explain that "we don't know a damned thing."

Let's put this in perspective. A bunch of mathematicians sit down to figure out how life works. They watch our biological processes and write up 10,000 pages of mathematical formulae describing how the we must have to eat rocks and breathe plutonium, and they can PROVE it! You sit down and read it, only to realize that there was so much they didn't understand that they had to fill in the gaps with elaborate new organs, hypothetical chemical reactions and voodoo.

That's about where we are in physics. They see things and try to explain them the best they can with what we do actually KNOW about the universe. (which isn't a whole lot) When they find something that doesn't fit with that explanation, they do their best to reconcile the differences. The problem here is that this reconciliation often comes at the expense of something that couldn't POSSIBLY be experimentally tested. The current favorites seem to be adding extra dimensions to the universe and creating new particles that you can't find because they disintegrated a nanosecond after the big bang.

None of this means that the people making the predictions are wrong. Indeed they might be righton with their predictions, but it's a really ass-backwards way of getting there. My hope is that the new experiments at the LHC give some truly surprising results. I want the theories to be wrong, not because I am a contrarian, but because I want the scientific establishment to take a long-hard look at how they got to where they are.

So Obama wants a new assault rifle ban.  BAD MOVE

Don't get me wrong, I like Barack Obama, and even I, a great cynic, was hopeful about meaningful, systemic change in politics as usual in DC.    I read this article and I realized that nothing has changed at all.  Mr. Obama, even discussing any kind of firearms ban is a terrible idea in the long term.  I know that you have political favors to pass out for your election, but this is a BIG mistake.

1) You are strengthening the hand of the "angry white males" that have dominated politics since 1994.  You have to understand that firearms signify independance.  They are a sacred cow to the single largest group of voters in the United States.  Your allies in congress NEED these voters.

2) You're overreaching your mandate.  Let's face it, you were elected because of a tanking economy.  Until you have some results on that front, don't go touching the sacred cows.

3) Speaking of the economy, this is an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Americans.

4) You can't justify it, Violent crime has been going down for years, independant of firearms restrictions which have gotten looser and looser over the last 8 years.  (according to the FBI)  Mexico?  Come on, nobody gives a crap about Mexico, especially the Mexicans.  If you want to help them, arm the populace so that they needn't live as sheep in fear of the wolves.

5) It's unconstitutional. "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" Well guess what, a ban is infringement, and the NRA has been VERY successsful at knocking down this kind of stuff.

Any kind of firearms ban is a bad idea for America.  You can try to take their guns, but you'll only succeed in giving them ammunition.

Why isn't Ubuntu the number one operating system?
I read crap like this and it occurs to me just how out of touch some people are with reality. There are a lot of Linux fanboys out there that like to spout off about how much cooler they are because they use this $up#r k001 operating system. This particular article was not written by one of them (at least that's not how he appears) It was written with somebody that legitimately thinks that Linux is a viable option, and that it's "the Man" keeping it down. (microsoft)

News flash: The reason that people don't want to use Linux is because Linux is stupid

Here's my itemized list:
5) Douchebaggery - There's nothing worse than being told to RTFM then discovering that you don't know where TFM is. Ask for help - Get snarky responses. Ask your cube-neighbor where the file is in windows and they'll generally lean over and help you after taking a swig of bitter, lukewarm coffee and feeling useful for a brief second. Advantage: Windows

4) It doesn't fucking work - This may be a bit controversial, because an equal arguement can be made against any operating system. Working is defined as always doing what you think it's going to do. Sure, I have problems on Windows, but why should I switch to another platform that has an equal number of different problems and nobody is around to help me fix them, or even blame for them. Think that Macs "just work?" WRONG. I'm writing this on a Mac, and it's already crashed twice in the last hour, and my spacebar doesn't always work. Linux breaks too, the same way that windows breaks, when you're trying to do something that the developers didn't expect. Advantage: Windows

3) Where are all the programs. "Linux has an office suite and even a suite for photo and video enthusiasts" Well guess what, a hot-air balloon has an accelerator and a brake, but that doesn't mean that it's going to get me where I want to go. There are MILLIONS of applications on windows, each scratching a different itch. You can't cover 1% of the potential applications of a computer and call it equivalant to windows. Oh yeah, and Linux Apps BLOW. Don't even pretend that Gimp is in the same league as Photoshop. It's not even playing the same sport. Advantage: Windows

2) Windows is essentially free too. How many people of the two billion windows users paid retailfor their copy of Windows? A couple Million, maybe? You can spout off numbers all day about how windows costs so much, but for Joe user it's a pittance when a $300 desktop comes installed with it. Advantage: Tie

1) The devil you know. So you install Linux and what happens? The last 15 years of using a computer, worthless because even the fundamental concepts underlying the thing no longer hold up. You vaguely alluded to this, but you didn't hit on the nerve of the issue. WHO THE FUCK CARES? This is about as intelligent of a discussion as which web browser is better. Nobody gives a shit because you don't browse the web to look at a browser,and they don't use a computer to look at the OS. It's supposed to just be there and you shouldn't have to think about it. Advantage: ME

And finally
Reason 0)
Case sensitivity. Fuck that.

So it's that time of year again. The time for showing people how much you supposedly love them by buying a bunch of crap they probably don't want. So I got real drunk and went on Amazon. I happened to notice the "reccomendations for you" section, and I was intrigued. Amazon.com thought that I would be interested in a 5-user copy of Apple OS-X "Leopard" 10.5. I couldn't help but wonder why on earth Jeff Bezos and Company would think that I would want an Apple operating system. I own a mac, but I've never purchased anything from amazon for it, in fact I use it exclusively for travel because the battery is better than my PCs and the wireless is built-in. Thankfully Amazon tells you exactly why they recommend what they recommend. I was a touch surprised by the answer.

So what? Amazon thinks that since I have the capability to fence in an animal that I need a new OS? Do they think that I have a real live Leopard? Aren't they endangered?

So A.E. Vogler proposes that media studios will be replaced by venture capitalists, ala. Michael Clayton.

I love the idea, but He's forgeting about two VERY important data points, Uwe Boll and Pornt. Uwe Boll He has consistently pumped out shitty movies by helping wealthy Germans VCs exploit a tax loophole. He spent $3m making craptastic flicks that rake in a modest $15m. The system he describes is exactly what the porn industry does, and for every great "Redheads Attack 2:Fire in the hole" you have 1000 crappy "Anal Whores 3."

The point of this is that studio execs act as a crap filter. (although not a very good one) What I am concerned about is a proliferation of low-budget porn-esque shit-flicks. Imagine that you are an investor with 100 million dollars. Would you rather invest in a $100m star-studded sci-fi action-drama or 33 $3mil plotless wastes of film. Everybody smart enough to have that kind of money will diversify so that you end up distributing risk instead of risking it all on "battlefield earth 2."

There are certainly crappy movies, but the real problem is TV. TV is just bad. Dramas are formulaic and uninteresting, sitcoms are dead, and I'm convinced that "reality" TV is a plot by the chinese to make Americans even dumber. The only quality work on TV seems to be in cartoons.

Galactic Civilizations 3 Wishlist
I'm a huge fan of a game from stardock called Galactic Civilizations 2. It's much like Sid Meier's Civilization, but a lot less boring. The new expansion, "Twilight of the Arnor" looks great, but it got me to thinking of what would I do to make the game better. This concepts in this wishlist goes for Civilization or any other turn-based strategy game as well.

The way I see it, you are acting as a head of state for a civilization. States have three major overlapping functions, Defense of Territory, Economic, and Social development. As these games go, 90% of your time is based on managing military assets. While this might be accurate for pre-industrial society, no head of state in the world controls where their military units move from day-to-day. (Except maybe Kim Chong-Il) What I would like to suggest is as much detail paid to modeling the social and economic functions of society, and a streamlining of military functions.

Economic functions.
For guidance, I would suggest looking at Superpower 2. It's a fine, if simplistic game, but the economic simulator is *worlds* better than most games. Rather than a slider that says "tax rate" that trades money for "happiness" how about separate tax rates for citizens, industry, trade, and results that compound on each other. Higher income taxes increase govt income, but reduce spending, thus dragging down consumer spending and hurting the commercial sector revenues. Raise import tarifs, drop import profits, reduce imports to tax/happiness/foreign relations/etc. How about setting interest rates to adjust inflation? How about adjusting spending on government services to promote development or save money? How about letting corporations do the R&D, trade, and building of factories? (I set priorities, they respond for max profit) And lastly, why must economics be the same for every civilization? Why does a Thalan "Hive" need money? make their economic system based on time to produce vs food or something. Let them make money for trade based on their exports. (A different system for each civ?)

Social functions.
Civilization had a good idea with different government types, but it wussed out on making them actually different. GalCiv2 doesn't even try. Sure you can research new government types, but there is no functional difference. Let your government type affect your production capabilities, research capabilities, luck, taxation, soldiering etc. How about setting laws and having them ratified by dictate/legislature/popular vote/etc and have them affect the game. I like the ethical alignment feature, but it's too simplistic. How about a 3D alignment? Liberal-Conservative, Authoritarian-Libertarian and Violent-Peaceful. (just examples) Make the effects more dramatic in terms of foreign relations, trade, etc. Also, let's retain race-types when changing planet ownership. If I genocide a planet, then it's just me, otherwise I conquer/accept/whatever a new planet WITH it's people. These people operate a bit different, etc...

Military Functions.
The Galciv governors are a good start, but they're way too simple to manage a large game. I propose the ability to create military regions. An area of space where I can centralize production, and ease Command and Control functions. Ships needn't be "owned" by a region, but it can act as a management tool. This also opens up opportunities for military coups, partisans, etc. Next, enough with the ridiculous distributed shipbuilding. Ships are big and expensive, that's something that has to be centralized to capitalize on economies of scale. Instead of 50 planets making ships that I have to individually guide, how about making shipyards that produce many ships. These ships default to a fleet. A fleet is (assigned?) to a military region and contributes to requested tasks. As an ancillary military function, intelligence plays WAY too small of a role in these games. Let me be a terrorist or spark a revolution. Let me steal technology, or pirate ships. Let me understand order-of-battle and effectively target in military engagements.

Research functions.
R&D Needn't be a government function in all races/government types. Let society do it in response to your funding allocation, or have a society that gets by ONLY stealing tech. How about random breakthroughs and a societal influence on research.

These are just a few ideas, yours for the taking. Don't be afraid of complexity, society is complex. Use the races for people that want o play differently. (dictator vs compromiser, warrior vs pacifist, etc) and the the differences become true strengths and weaknesses.