One more Sully poke

Andrew Sullivan, July 27, 2004:

I've been writing for months now that Kerry's most effective message would be that he'd conduct the war on terror with more allies and more wisdom than Bush.

[Kerry] had to emphasize national security. But it's domestic policies that will win him the election, if he does win, and he hasn't yet made them the focus of the battle.

Sully's back

Andrew Sullivan, on his first day back from vacation, August 30, 2004:

The deeper question, however, is: do we have confidence in this administration's competence (not will) to conduct the war effectively and bring it toward victory? There are plenty of arguments on both sides of that question. Waging war requires both determination and effectiveness. Bush has a lot more of the former than the latter. And, if we want to avoid more Abu Ghraibs, that counts.

Again, Giuliani reminded us of why we tend to like George W. Bush. (Personally, I'd rather have pins stuck in my eyes than endure a conversation with John Kerry, but I'd love to hang with Bush.) All of this matters. A president in wartime needs to be able to connect with people. Bush can. Kerry can't.

Blind Gates

Microsoft is announcing that the next major version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, will be released in 2006 -- but without WinFS. WinFS was supposed to be a brand-new filesystem that would make it easier to find things on your hard drive. Alas, the technology is not developing quickly enough for Microsoft, and they cannot commit to a 2006 date without cutting it from Longhorn.

Well, to soften the blow, and to try to make Microsoft seem like even less of a disappointment, Gates tells a fib:

WinFS, I'd be the first to say, is very ambitious. Nobody has ever brought together the world of documents, media and structured information in giving you one simple set of verbs that lets you richly find, move around and replicate those things.

For a snarkier look at this announcement, head over to the Fishbowl.

Republican love-lickin'

The Mr. Sun blog has a wonderful list of tips on how to get laid at the Republican National Convention. Here are the best suggestions:

• Tell her that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge isn't the only gorgeous, white thing you'd like to see drilled immediately.
• Warn her that, "No disrespect to W. but if a pretzel makes you gag, then maybe we shouldn't go up to my room and let loose The Monster."
• Let her know you're going to rock her boat, but it won't be swift.
• Before sex, spin it as a preemptive strike motivated by an imminent threat of not getting your freak on. After sex, point out that it turned out good, so what the hell is she whining about?
• Explain you just scored some good shit from Bob Dole, if she knows what you mean.
• Propose to marry her and state your intention to have intercourse for purposes of procreation.

Come hither

Here's some of the funniest sex advice ever. For added effect, pretend that the answers are being read by "The Ladies' Man" from Saturday Night Live. And now, from Nerve's "Sex Advice From Slam Poets":

Dennis Francis, 32
a.k.a. MAD (Many Attitudes of Dennis)

As a slam poet, you have to be relatively competitive. Say you're at a party: how do you convince someone to go home with you?
Well, first of all, I'd tell them that I have a double mattress, that I'm strictly Sealy Posturepedic. You know, a lot of people believe in cheap mattresses, but I'm incredibly haughty when it comes to them.

Okay. Flow is obviously very important in poetry. Do you prefer a specific rhythm when you're having sex?
I'd have to say haiku.

Haiku?
You know, three lines, seventeen syllables. Flow.

Okay. As a performer, do you like having sex in public?
I've done it onstage.

Really?
Does that include sex with myself?

A little more than borrowing

In the past 24 hours, I've noticed two egregious cases of new music ripping off older music. You can decide whether I'm attentive or insane:

1. "No Phone" and "Take It All Away" by Cake (tracks 2 and 3 on the player). Both of these songs steal the guitar hook from the 311 song "Amber".

2. "Adelaide" by Ben Folds. This song is good, and it sounded familiar. Then I realized it's just variations on the theme from the Dwarf Castle in Final Fantasy 2 (or Final Fantasy 4, if you're Japanese).

Think different? Think sexy!

To Jamie: Forget what that asswipe Erik says -- I say that haircut looks great!

Way ahead of you, Ray

Raymond Chen, Microsoft programmer extraordinaire, warns us all:

If your program assumes that strings in the registry are always null-terminated, then you can be tricked into a buffer overflow if you happen across a non-null-terminated string. (For example, if you use strcpy to copy it around.)

(Note: I'm not going to get into whether it should have been possible to get into this state in the first place. I didn't design the registry. Arguing about the past isn't going to change the present, and the present is that this is how it works so you'd better be ready for it.)

You'll be sorry when we're old

Ok, first you need to listen to this song.

Done? Good.

Am I the only kid who, after coming home upset and depressed due to bullies, received the following advice from their parents?

Don't worry about it! It's good that you're a geek/nerd/dork/etc. It will pay off in the long run! Just wait -- when you grow up, you'll get a high-paying job as a computer expert, and those bullies will be envious of you.

In my case, it just adds to my unease. When you're still not finished four years into your bachelors' degree, and you're eager to move into a hip bachelor pad instead of living with your parents, remembering that old advice just makes you bitter.

Mystified by Wi-Fi

My brother is the owner of a new laptop (not an Apple, unfortunately). One thing he wanted to do was configure it to use our wireless internet. We spent a good 15 minutes trying different configuration options, messing with the wireless router, and ultimately admitting defeat.

Then I noticed the wireless card's "Power" button. [sigh]

Have you smacked a libertarian today?

I have to link to funny articles that make fun of libertarians. It's in my contract.

Here's an especially funny bit:

A liberal or even a very confused conservative might argue that we should have strict and far-reaching car safety laws. To protect people! How insulting! In reality, anyone who's taken Economics 101 can tell you that regulations like this are essentially taxes that will raise the price of owning an automobile for everyone!

How can the government know where the right level, the right equilibrium level (economics, again!) where the cost, equals the subjective benefit of that safety for that person lies? The answer is it does not and it cannot! We must allow people to choose a level of safety that is right for them! That's the only efficient (economics strikes one more!) outcome.

Some people who've hung around those mostly liberal universities for more than two years -- we all know the ones, no need to point them out! -- take a class called "Economics 150" or some equivalent. They learn, or I should say, they say they learn about something called "social costs". You must pretend these social costs do not exist!

Computer crack

If there's one feature within Microsoft Office that (1) people have never used, and (2) people are amazed by once they see it in action, it's PivotTables and PivotCharts. If you do any type of reporting within Excel or Access, you should check out the PivotTables inside Office. They will dramatically increase your productivity, allowing more time for solitaire.

I recently attended some training at my workplace, and the instructor did a quick tutorial on how to create a PivotTable report. Mouths were agape -- I assume either because of the "oh, wow" factor, or because people realized how much time they've wasted setting up sum formulas.

Get well soon Jobs

It looks like Apple falls apart when Steve Jobs isn't there to be the enforcer:

About a week ago, Think Secret reported on inventory problems with some of Apple's products. Currently, it's still kinda tough to get your hands on the fastest Power Mac G5s, and other products have a bit of a wait time.

In addition, 42% of iPodLounge readers report problems with the latest iPods! Steve, you'd better get back to Apple and straighten things out!

Naughty zinger of the day

Sadly, No! makes a funny....

Easy on the eyes

While I can't join in the chorus of "Trebuchet must die" (seeing as it would be hypocritical), I wholeheartedly agree that Comic Sans must be surgically eliminated from every personal computer on the planet. It is that ugly.

I also think that Times New Roman has become vastly overused, being that it's the default font in Microsoft Word. It's not even that attractive, and it looks really crummy within PDFs. Textism has a little font blog with some replacement recommendations. (They are not cheap.)

Unmaintainable

I have seen a couple of the bad coding practices laid out in this amusing guide. Here are a couple of goodies:

Single Letter Variable Names If you call your variables a, b, c, then it will be impossible to search for instances of them using a simple text editor. Further, nobody will be able to guess what they are for. If anyone even hints at breaking the tradition honoured since FØRTRAN of using i, j, and k for indexing variables, namely replacing them with ii, jj and kk, warn them about what the Spanish Inquisition did to heretics.

No Skill Required You don't need great skill to write unmaintainable code. Just leap in and start coding. Keep in mind that management still measures productivity in lines of code even if you have to delete most of it later.

Document How Not Why Document only the details of what a program does, not what it is attempting to accomplish. That way, if there is a bug, the fixer will have no clue what the code should be doing.

Never Validate Never check input data for any kind of correctness or discrepancies. It will demonstrate that you absolutely trust the company's equipment as well as that you are a perfect team player who trusts all project partners and system operators. Always return reasonable values even when data inputs are questionable or erroneous.

Mid-sentence flip-flop

"I cut the taxes on everybody. I didn't cut them. The Congress cut them. I asked them to cut them." -- George W. Bush, August 6, 2004

Pass the KY

Bad news: Wayne State is bending us over even more. Daily parking rates are going up 25 cents; regular parking will cost $2.25 and premium parking areas will cost $3.25. Good thing I've only got a year left!

P.S. Here's a related graphic.

Seismology and Valentine's Day

Here are some questions for all the geologists out there:

1) Can the symphony of love-making that occurs worldwide on Valentine's Day be detected using seismographs?
2) Have geologists ever confused such a phenomenon with an earthquake?
3) Does the phrase "If the room is rockin', don't come a-knockin'" have special significance to geologists?

Thanks to the scientific community in advance...

Quick hits

• Is there a scientific explanation for the phenomenon of transubstantiation? A Catholic First Communion doesn't count if you use a no-wheat cracker host. Perhaps the Church knows that gluten is a critical catalyst during the transubstantiation reaction? :)
• You can find some interesting discussion about the phrase "truth is relative" in the comments of this Matthew Yglesias post.
• John Perry Barlow is one of the libertarians I like. In this Reason interview, Barlow eschews the Randians and the Norquist cult. I highly recommend reading it.
• For such a short post on the Political Animal blog, there were a lot of comments. Within the tangled mess there are a couple awesome links to articles about the fallibility of markets.

The Human Stain

Jon Stewart is ratcheting up the anti-Robert-Novak rhetoric. (For the uninformed, Robert Novak was the first journalist to report that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent, thereby blowing her cover. Presumably, Novak got the tip from someone in the executive branch.)

Here's the progression of insults on the Daily Show:

March 29, 2004: Stewart first refers to Robert Novak as "a douchebag... for liberty."
August 10, 2004: Stewart uses the phrase "a douchebag for liberty" once more in reference to Novak.
August 11, 2004: A slight variation: Novak is now "a douchebag for freedom", and an on-screen graphic shows Novak in a blue evening gown.
August 12, 2004: Novak is now a "human stain".

I hope Stewart will eventually cut to the chase and call Novak what he is: a motherfucking, traitorous rectal wart.

Publicon

Wolfram Research, developers of the super-sweet program Mathematica, introduced a new program for technical publishing today called Publicon.

It's tough to compete with LaTeX, as LaTeX is 1) free and 2) fucking awesome. On the other hand, Publicon costs money, but it has a graphical user interface. Perhaps Publicon will be popular among those who don't want to spend a lot of time learning LaTeX syntax, but want high-quality output. (And Publicon has a LaTeX output feature, so you can slowly learn how it works.)

As for me, I'll stick with TeXShop. But Publicon is lookin' good so far!

Email to Bill O'Reilly

From: Jeffrey
To: oreilly@foxnews.com
Date: Tue, Aug 10 2004
Subject: Research

I read about your attack on Paul Krugman the other day for using research compiled by third parties.

Since your show is a no-spin zone, I fully expect you to vow NEVER to use the services of a think-tank. Of course, reading press releases or the latest Republican talking points would be off the table too. And I'm sure from now on, you will run all of your own Lexis-Nexis searches.

Shall I tune into your Talking Points Memo tomorrow to hear your new policy? Or should I not hold my breath?

Sincerely,
Jeffrey

P.S. Hack.

The Seven Habits of Highly Deceptive People

Remember back in 2000 when the world was made of sugar and no one wore a frown? Remember when Bush made campaign promises and we naïvely believed him?

Well, it's 2004 and it's about time we evaluated Bush on his own campaign promises. After all, as Bush himself pointed out, "When it comes to choosing a President, results matter."

They should have bought a GameCube

I would like to see a Scoble comment on the latest string of news reports about the "XBox killers". Long story short, crazy young men get angry at family members for kicking them out and depriving them of their XBox, so they go on a killing rampage.

Are news headlines such as "Xbox killing suspects denied bond" harmful to the XBox brand? Or does Microsoft believe that any publicity is good publicity?

Who's the flip-flopper?

Erik, I know you don't believe anything you read, but you should check out this bit of pre-Iraq-war history that you might be trying to forget.

In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force. And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. "I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction," Mr. Wolfowitz said. He added that many Iraqi expatriates would likely return home to help.

...Enlisting countries to help to pay for this war and its aftermath would take more time, he said. "I expect we will get a lot of mitigation, but it will be easier after the fact than before the fact," Mr. Wolfowitz said. Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless because of the variables. Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said. (emphasis mine)

Um, no. Kerry actually had a separate plan to pay for the war, but Republicans didn't like it because Kerry wanted to ensure we had the $87 billion to spend.

Also yesterday, the House debated and passed, 327 to 93, a GOP-drafted resolution praising U.S. troops in Iraq on the first anniversary of the invasion and saying the world is safer because of Saddam Hussein's ouster. Many Democrats criticized the resolution, saying it was silent on Iraqi civilian casualties, Democratic efforts to boost military spending on body armor and other matters.

Hastert and DeLay used the resolution debate to criticize Kerry, even though he could not vote on it and reporters had not asked about him. "I'm sure that John Kerry and [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi will have a different view about the war and what is right," Hastert said.

DeLay, accidentally referring to the Democrat as "Senator Kennedy," noted that Kerry on Tuesday said he initially had supported $87 billion in Iraqi war spending last year under a plan that would have financed it with a tax surcharge on the wealthy. "He just wanted it contingent on tax increases," DeLay said, "as if holding body armor and ammunition hostage to a political agenda is a legitimate position for a national leader."

Geekable permalinks

Today I made some changes to the permalink system at Geekable.com. To make a long story short: all of your previous links to Geekable should still work, but future permalinks will link to a separate page for each individual entry. (Existing permalinks will continue to link to the monthly archives as they always did.) In addition, the individual entry pages now include a list of all trackbacks to that entry. I think it's pretty sweet -- but I'm drunk right now, so who can say for sure? Check it out for yourself by clicking the date stamp on any entry.

In the morning, I plan to upgrade my Movable Type to 3.01D. We'll see how well that goes...

Mmmmm... ooh la la

Forgive me... I'm a little bit tipsy after finishing off a bottle of Jägermeister and having some shots of Canadian Club. Now I'm having impure thoughts about the woman in the Toyota Corolla "Pimp My Ride" advertisements.

Today's song recommendation

My favorite song of the moment is "Going to Marrakesh" by The Extra Glenns.

(Discovered at Music for Robots)

Koppel vs. Stewart

I did not see Jon Stewart on Nightline last Wednesday, but it sounds like I missed a war between generations:

...[Koppel's] first challenge to Stewart: "You say that [the Democratic Convention] is like a product launch." "Not like a product launch—it is a product launch," Stewart replied, and proceeded to outline his take on Kerry's nomination as the result of a year-long process of corporate branding: "John Kerry: now with lemon!" A pretty standard line of argument for those of Stewart's generation, reconciled as we are to our postmodern condition as the constant targets of marketing and spin, but to Koppel, it must have sounded like the sheerest nihilism....

...Stewart was careful to separate The Daily Show's mandate from that of "real" television journalism: "I know my role. I am the dancing monkey." But that dodge didn't satisfy his broadcast-news interlocuter: "The reality of it is—and this is no joke—there are a lot of people out there who do turn to you." "Not for news," Stewart countered, and they were off again.

What was at stake in this debate between two men, a generation apart in age (Stewart is 42, Koppel 64), both of whom host some version of a late-night daily talk show on current events? Clearly, Koppel's beef went far beyond the question of whether most folks who watch The Daily Show do so for yuks. (As a long-term viewer, I would contend that of course they do, and that anyone who can't tell the difference between Stewart's out-there satire and actual investigative reporting is too dumb to understand the "real" news anyway.) No, the battle of the network anchors was about nothing less than the future of TV journalism.

Koppel, a venerable holdout from the era of the three-network system, stands up for the beleaguered notion of an objective truth that journalists can wrest from politicians, protect from satirists, and bring to the American public. Stewart, on the other hand, finds it "dispiriting" that broadcast news has become complicit with the prespun narratives coming from both left and right: "It's Coke and Pepsi talking about beverage truth." And yet Koppel is far from naïve— he quickly concedes that the convention-as-product-launch concept is "one I'd like to steal sometime"—and Stewart is no jaded Gen-X cynic. At one point, he even encourages Koppel to use the bully pulpit of Nightline to speak truth to power: "You can say, 'That's B.S.' You don't need humor, because you have what I wish I had, which is credibility and gravitas."

Wednesday night's discussion came to an abrupt end when Stewart, who was clearly ready to go on talking, was told by a polite but brusque Koppel, "You're finished."... But I was looking forward to Round Two on Thursday, when Koppel was scheduled to be Stewart's guest on The Daily Show. Koppel never showed, and his absence went unmentioned. Last-minute scheduling snafu, or anchorman blood feud?...

Pump the positivity, politicians

From The Corner:

"So how was your day, honey?" The highlight of my wife's yesterday was provided by a teen Democrat going house to house in the neighborhood -- he came down the driveway all full of tinkie and vinegar and immediately urged her "help get rid of Bush." Not "Vote for John Kerry," but bounce W. That's the script the door-knockers are using, and for good reason: it's the essence of the Dem's campaign. As all good NRO readers already know.

So when are we going to see more positive coverage about Allawi? Anytime George W. Bush is asked to justify the war these days, he keeps talking about what a bad guy Saddam was. That's a given, but why can't he say nice things about the current prime minister?

Everybody keep it positive!

Hillary

Oh, Oxblog, you jackass! When will you lose your Hillary fixation?

Finally, here are a couple of questions that I would've asked Clinton:

1. John Kerry constantly insists that his military experience makes him uniquely qualified to be commander-in-chief. Did your lack of military experience make you less effective as commander-in-chief?

...

UPDATE: The fiendishly clever RB writes:

I would modify your question #1 slightly by asking Bill Clinton the following:

1. John Kerry constantly insists that his military experience makes him uniquely qualified to be commander-in-chief. Would Hillary’s lack of military experience make her less effective as commander-in-chief?

Ouch!

P.S. Would you like an example of over-the-top Hillary bashing? Just Google "piaps".

P.P.S. In related Hillary news, one of the possible Republican choices to run against Barack Obama in Illinois is Alan Keyes, an angry right-winger. As a Maryland resident, it will be interesting to see how he justifies running in an Illinois race after this comment:

...I think that they're counting on name recognition, they're counting on the fact that you've got the big media centers in New York that would promote her, they're probably counting on New York City and support that they think that she would get there. Also of course counting on the belief, I guess, that we are now in an era where the Senate is no longer considered in any way really to have a relationship to the interests of the states from which people come. 'Cause what claim does Hillary Clinton have to represent New York?

Who knew I was a conservative?

Greg, just to let you know: I am still a drunk and uncaring dick too. I don't plan to change, and I don't plan to move to New York.

Assholes unite!

Muddy peaks

Ever wonder why new music continues to sound shittier and shittier? It's not just because of the songwriting: albums are purposefully being mastered poorly. Find out why here.

Oscar and the Grouch

From CNN today:

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- A couple returning home from a Costa Rican vacation was ejected from an American Airlines flight because the man was wearing a T-shirt depicting a bare breast.

Oscar Arela and his girlfriend were removed from Flight 952 on Saturday after he refused to change the shirt or turn it inside out at Miami International Airport.

Or would I be "lowering the standards of civility" of the blogosphere?

P.S. to Geekfun: It appears that this post is your very first inbound link on Technorati. Don't spend it all in one place.

VAT fan

Wow.... the Republicans must really think the average U.S. citizen is retarded. Here's Drudge:

A domestic centerpiece of the Bush/GOP agenda for a second Bush term is getting rid of the Internal Revenue Service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The Speaker of the House will push for replacing the nation's current tax system with a national sales tax or a value added tax, Hill sources tell DRUDGE.

"People ask me if I’m really calling for the elimination of the IRS, and I say I think that’s a great thing to do for future generations of Americans," Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert explains in his new book, to be released on Wednesday.

I'd also like to add that the European Union has a value-added tax, and guess who's a member of the EU -- France!