Political Brain Stew

Someone close to me insinuated that the American people are getting what they wanted, and that what they want is socialism, and that the Presidential Office is going to do its best to deliver.

I am not a socialist.

My thought is along the lines of, "So what if we become a socialist country?" Let's change that statement to, "So what if we become a series of nomadic tribes?". My feeling is that if the people want it, then why not let them have it? If the majority votes for laws that require us all to wear purple bow ties on Tuesdays, then that's what the people want.

Secondly, look at the crap that's been carried out in the name of "preserving our way of life". We can't be bothered to pay higher prices for renewable sources of energy. We can't be asked to carpool. We can't be asked to lay aside our differences and stop a 2,000 year old holy war. We can't stop watering our lawns. Our way of life is destructive to individuals, to countries, to culture, and to the planet we live on. We suck. Our "way of life" is short sighted.

Yes. Many good things have been done to preserve our "way of life".  Fighting for freedom, for the right to be represented. These things are paid for in the blood of Americans. But the things that aren't on the ladder of things we need, maybe it is time we stopped fighting over those things and explored a way to compromise.

Sad Face

I've been waiting 10 years for my high school reunion. But the RSVPs on Facebook only have Jenny and Sarah on the "Yes" list. I was hoping to catch up with everyone all in one spot. So to all you FHSers out there who haven't said "Yes", get you stuff in gear.

Pants Stance

Will: tomorrow, drunk bus
Will: bring your game face
Lara: I plan to
Will: should I wear pants? or no pants?
Lara: start the night with pants
Lara: and see how it goes

For clarity, Lara has no interest in seeing me sans-pants.

Student Council

Politics. I hate politics because I learned first hand in fifth grade just how bound any one person's hands are. I knew going into it that even if I was president of the newly indoctrinated Hillside student council, I could not do things like "mandate that homework is optional". Some things are just not within your power.

Then there's things that are within your power, but you need agreement from your fellow council members. And then there's a tiny sliver of trivial stuff that you can get done on your own.

That's why it's hard for me to hear criticism about any political office, why it is hard for me to get jazzed up about a politician who claims to make a change. It's just hard. There's too many moving parts, life is too short. I'm amazed anything ever gets done in government actually.

Don't get me wrong, I think the system works quite well despite it's inability to change. I think it is fairly reflective of people as individuals and our own stubbornness - and that's what government is all about: representation. All I really want from a politician is someone who will do his best to represent the concerns of the people in his district, that's it.

The Failure of Awesome

Josh sent me this link to a touch interface for desktops. It's pretty awesome (and pretty vapor-ware), but it'll meet the same demise of all input device innovation: lack of software.

Apple got it. Multi-touch hardware, and a whole lot of software that leverages that functionality. But if I hook up a multi-touch input  pad to a Windows box, what benefit do I get? Not much, maybe none.

It is very much a chicken and egg problem. Developers don't want to write (or don't get paid to write) software that is for a minuscule slice of the market. They write for the masses. So that means you have to get everyone to buy a multi-touch input device. But consumers aren't [that] dumb. They want to buy stuff that adds value, and if there's no software, they're going to spend their dollar elsewhere.

Apple had a compelling story with the iPhone. It wasn't just, "Hey look! Use your fingerS!!!!" It has a big ass screen with a great viewing angle. It had the best web browsing experience of any phone on the market. It went out of it's way to make your life easier, and oh by the way, "...we do that with multi-touch". It's the same reason we got mice in the first place - input is just a thing, not the thing.

Fencing

The Purdue Open was this weekend. It is always an interesting beast to me. The Fall one is almost always better attended than the Spring, but the Spring one is always better organized.

This year, looking at pictures that the other fencers took of the event, it made me miss fencing. I don't know that I've missed it before now. I thought about getting back into it, wondering where I might find a good fencing home around here. Really it was about the people.

I could spot Big Joe Landin in his black socks from a mile away. I knew the twist of Sam Noonan counter attacking. I knew the call of Josh Williams. It is more fair to say I missed the people, and that fencing was the vehicle we all car pooled in.

Beep beep.

Name Tags

[caption id="attachment_1800" align="alignleft" width="470" caption="Hello my name is Inigo Montoya"][/caption]I don't understand why people insist on doing a piss-poor job of using name tags. "I'll just write my first AND last name, "Baczakeo Demyanakowskiwitz, on this three inch space... oh,and cursive sounds nice."

WTF? Really? You may as well have drawn a big black line on the tag and called it good.

Or there's always the guy who uses  a very thin, blue ink, ball point pen, the one that should have been thrown out a year ago, but he still likes to chew on this one. Jackass, I've seen darker lemon juice.

So here's the rules: Use a sharpie. Print your first name only. If your name is much more than seven characters, just use a nick name and stick it in quotes. "Anna" is way better than "Annastaslinkakola"... it'll be alright if a stranger calls you Anna for the night, it is way better than the crap the rest of us will try to make up because we can't read your ill prepared name tag.

Matt was looking for a blog

So I wrote one while "droppin' a log".

Cheers.