7 January 2005, the wee hours
This article, In Praise of Attrition was in the December issue of Harper’s—well sort of anyway. Basically, Harpers just took sentances here and there from the essay and stuck them together to make a shorter essay. I wonder if they do this all the time in their ‘Readings’ section?
There is no indication that the essay they present in the magazine isn’t the essay I linked to here. Harper’s mentions in the magazine that their essay is ”... from In Praise of Attrition, by Ralph Peters…” as opposed to actually being In Praise of Attrition. Haper’s took bits and pieces throughout the essay to make a new one—that doesn’t sit right with me. I would think that if you are quoting from another work, which is really what Harper’s has done here, you would select some contiguous block of text as your shorter ‘essay’. There are no ’...’ to mark where text is missing; we are simply shown what looks to be a short essay on war. The essay Harper’s presents is the equivalent of a Hard Copy or Daily Show interview.
Mind you, both articles are fucked up. To sum up the essays, the military stratergy the US needs to adopt is: killing as many people in as violent a fashion as they can.
This essay does not suppose that warfare is simple: “Just go out and kill ’em.”
Trust me, it does. This essay is all about how killing is the only effective means in which to win a war. I suppose that should really be thought of as some sort of axiom of war.
Consider our enemies in the War on Terror. Men who believe, literally, that they are on a mission from God to destroy your civilization and who regard death as a promotion are not impressed by elegant maneuvers. You must find them, no matter how long it takes, then kill them. If they surrender, you must accord them their rights under the laws of war and international conventions. But, as we have learned so painfully from all the mindless, left-wing nonsense spouted about the prisoners at Guantanamo, you are much better off killing them before they have a chance to surrender.
This quote was cut from the Harper’s essay; the emphasis is mine.
[1] Politics | Interesting Links
5 January 2005, the wee hours
Two episodes in to the new television series Lost and I am pretty impressed. The production values seem awfully high for a television show. The cast is also pretty impressive, featuring plenty of people you have seen all over the place, from the oldest brother in Party of Five to Lana’s Zombie boyfriend on Smallville. I’ve been told the show takes a bit of a dip as the level of tension seen in the first two shows is a bit hard to maintain. I’m curious as to how long they intend to keep the show running. Right now it is really good, but I mean, I’d hate to see it turn into Gilligan’s Island.
update: And episodes 3 and 4 were equally good. The plot twist with the character Locke was great. If you haven’t been watching Lost you really should.
update: And now at episode 9 I still think this show is good, though I hate how some of the episodes end in lame ass montages. The back stories for some of the characters is quite interesting.
[1] Television
3 January 2005, the wee hours
I usually make it a point to make up my own mind up about movies. So I ignored Rishi’s reservations and mixed reviews at rotten tomatoes to watch Touch of Pink with Carvill today. Sometimes this doesn’t work out well. Today it did. Carvill and I both enjoyed the film. Touch of Pink is about an Indian boy living in London who is hiding his homosexuality from his mother who lives in Toronto. His mother comes to visit him at the start of the film and hilarity ensues. Also, the boy has an imaginary friend who is Carrey Grant. The movie was funny and at times quite touching. The actress who played the mother in the film is great. She did a great job at being your typical demanding and neurotic Indian mother. The Carrey Grant character was hilarious. This movie also featured a kick ass soundtrack. I recommend the film, it was quite good.
The official Touch of Pink web site
[4] Movies
2 January 2005, early evening
Elf was an enjoyable film. The movie is ridiculous, and worth watching in that regard. Will Farrel is a funny guy, and it is fun watching him act like a little kid. The fact that he is this huge 6 feet tall dude adds to the absurdity of the film. The movie is about a human, who was raised by elves, who returns to New York to meet his father, a grouch of a man. The movie is better then your average Christmas movie, though hardly exceptional.
The official Elf web site
Movies
2 January 2005, mid-afternoon
Woman on Top is a charming comedy about voodoo, food, and romance. The film stars Penelope Cruz as a ravishing young lady who can cook like no other, but suffers from some serious motion sickness. The only way she can overcome her motion sickness is to be the one in the drivers seat at all times—hence the title of the film. Her husband cheats on her at the start of the movie, sick of never being on top, so she runs off to San Fransico which is where the film really begins. The movie has an amazing soundtrack. If you like bossa nova music you should definitely check this film out. The movie moves a bit slow, but is enjoyable to watch.
Reviews of Woman On Top at Rotten Tomatoes
Movies
30 December 2004, lunch time
The BBC has a in-depth section on the tsunamis that have killed thousands of people in South Asia and East Africa. A few days ago I noted with shock that the death toll was over 68000 people. Today that number is 114000. I imagine tomorrow it will climb higher still. Rex Murphy explains quite succinctly why we are quite lucky to be living in the West. The problems Canadians as a whole face are fairly trite when compared to those faced by the rest of the world.
Feeling motivated, I donated a $100 dollars to the Canadian Red Cross; the amount was fairly arbitrary. After donating I realized that I waste more then that eating out and buying crap on eBay. I apparently am not the only person who has come to the realization that it is easy to blow money on junk in our consumer culture. If you would like to donate there are plenty of organizations collecting money. I am quite impressed with Amazon, who have made it so easy to donate to the American Red Cross. More then that, I am impressed with the amount of money that is streaming in through their site. People actually can be quite selfless.
My intention was to donate to the tsunami relief effort, but I ended up marking the money for “Where Help is Needed Most”. People are still being killed in Dafur. There are still people displaced by the hurricanes from last year. It is all human tragedy. Of course, it doesn’t effect me in the least. It is amazing how insulated the West is from most everything ugly in the world. I wonder sometimes how different my life would be if my parents had stayed in Sri Lanka.
[3] Life
28 December 2004, early afternoon
I’m a really big Wes Anderson fan. Thankfully he did not disappoint with his latest film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The movie is about an aging Jacque Cousteau type figure who is trying to make one last film about the ocean before retiring—a film about the Jaguar Shark that supposedly ate his best friend. Like all of Anderson’s movies, this film is quite surreal; probably the most surreal of his four movies so far. His last three films, the ones I have seen, all feature estranged fathers and sons, estranged husbands and wives, and plenty of widows. Personal loss and tragedy seem to be a subject that Anderson is very interested in. There is a sort of subtle tragedy that permeates all his movies. None of his movies are sad per say, but there is definitely a sadness to them. I think this may be why I enjoy all his comedies so much. Like the rest of his films, this movie has a strong cast. Bill Murray is really a joy to watch, as are Kate Blanchett and Owen Wilson. Anderson frames and composes each shot so well. The scenes are really a pleasure to watch. Enough gushing from me, go watch the film and tell me what you think.
The official The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou web site
[2] Movies
27 December 2004, terribly early in the morning
After a reasonably long day of boxing day shopping my friends and I returned to Scarborough to watch a movie. We ended up watching Shaun of the Dead. Despite plenty of DVD player mishaps, we managed to make it through the movie. As an aside, old PS2s suck at playing DVDs. Shaun of the Dead isn’t your typical zombie film. The movie is about a slacker who has to rise to the occasion and defend his friends and family from rampaging zombies. The movie is quite funny; the gore is quite gory; the acting is top notch. All in all this is a very solid film.
The official Shaun of the Dead
[2] Movies
23 December 2004, lunch time
Matt mentions Shima’s hourglass figure, and my mind is reminded of Shoop by Salt-N-Pepa.
Felt it in my hips so I dipped back to my bag of tricks
Then I flipped for a tip, make me wanna do tricks for him
I’m not quite sure why. I guess it’s the “hips” in the lyrics. Very Necessary is a great album. I bought it used from a CD shop in downtown Toronto sometime in the late 90s, many years after it had come out. I was still in high school. I don’t remember why my friends and I were downtown, only that it was the summer. Very Necessary is a classic Hip Hop album. Salt-N-Pepa probably don’t get the respect they deserve. Pepa rhyming about how she can rap in PG in Break of Dawn is excellent. You should check this album out.
[1] Music | Lyrics
22 December 2004, the wee hours
My Yashica finally arrived today. Shopping on eBay, while quite cost effective, lacks the instant satisfaction one gets from going to the mall. Camera shops in Toronto seem to sell cameras for much more then eBay, so I am willing to put up with less them prompt service. The camera looks great; I wasn’t sure what to expect. I still need to track down some sort of battery for the beast so I can give it a run. Most everyone is quite favourable in their reviews of this camera: Matt’s Cameras, Photoethnography, Yashica Guy, Alfred’s Camera Page, Nikonian Discussion.
[6] Photography | Interesting Links
17 December 2004, lunch time
I bought Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity, a few weeks ago. I would have to say with a title like that I had some high expectations. Joel on Software is a popular website on software development, and this book is a collection of the more interesting essays posted by Joel on his site. Having the essays in a book was very convenient. I would read the book on the subway in the morning. More so, some of the longer essays were much easier to read in a book then they were on a computer screen. I had read a few of the essays before, but for the most part this was all new material to me. Here are a few of the essays I thought were quite interesting: Back to Basics, Big Macs vs. The Naked Chef, In Defence of the Not-Invented-Here Syndrome, Strategy Letter I: Ben and Jerry’s vs. Amazon and How Microsoft Lost the API War. The book was a very enjoyable read. I would recommend it to any computer scientists out there. I feel like starting a company now that I’ve read it. My only beef with the book would be that it is a bit too Windows-centric. However, Joel is far from a Windows zealot, so his focus on Windows isn’t obnoxious.
[10] Comics and Books
16 December 2004, lunch time
I wonder if companies would pay Google for a corporate version of GMail ; a version they could run on their own private web servers. I get a lot of email every day. Being able to search through it the way I search through my GMail would be quite handy. My project manager must get ten times as many emails as me at the very least. I’m sure he would also love a private GMail. If Google added a calendar/scheduling system to GMail, so one could book meetings, GMail could be a very competitive product in the corporate sector.
[2] Technology
15 December 2004, evening time
When programming in C a programmer must use the malloc function to request memory on the heap. In C++ one can use malloc, but generally the proper thing to do is use new, and for arrays new[]. The new operator, when successful, returns a chunk of memory big enough for the object or array you wish to store. Unfortunately, sometimes new and malloc will fail to find any memory.
Read the rest of this post. (410 words)
[7] Code | Computer Science
14 December 2004, lunch time
Canada won’t have a referendum on same-sex marriage. I thought this quote in the Globe and Mail on the reasoning was quite good:
The idea met even stronger opposition from Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP Leader Jack Layton. Both argued it is wrong to subject minority rights to a majority vote in a referendum.
“We are speaking of rights. These must not be submitted to referenda,” Mr. Duceppe said. “A society has to be excessively vigilant of the rights of its minorities.”
PM rejects same-sex referendum by Campbell Clark
I also thought it was nice that even Stephen Harper, leader of Canada’s conservative party, has come out against the idea of a referendum on the matter.
John Stuart Mill used the term tyranny of the majority to refer to the idea above, subjecting a minority to the will of the majority.
The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power.
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
[1] Politics
I’ve got a Dungeon Master’s Guide
I’ve got a 12-sided die
I’ve got Kitty Pryde
And Nightcrawler too
Waiting there for me
Yes I do, I do
—In the Garage by Weezer
12 December 2004, late afternoon
Like many a nerd before me, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons. I stopped sometime in the beginning of high school, but didn’t stop buying the books for my favourite campaign setting, Dark Sun, till some time in the middle of high school. AD&D books used to be quite expensive; I imagine they still might be. However, they can now be purchased in PDF format for almost nothing. More so, I was surprised to learn that Wizards of the Coast, who bought TSR, the original owners of Dungeons and Dragons, let the fan site The Burnt World of Athas take over development of the Dark Sun setting. The group has released several ‘official’ expansion packs for the Dark Sun setting for free, including a conversion of the system to the new AD&D rules. Wizards of the Coast actually did this for a few of the less popular game settings, like Dragon Lance for example. Was anyone else aware of this? It seems quite progressive. I suspect many companies would have simply maintained control of what is by all rights theirs, simply let the settings dwindle and die, and sued fan sites that tried to develop anything with the settings.
[3] Life
9 December 2004, late evening
Closer was amazing. I had high expectations for the film, and it really delivered. This film is basically about infidelity. There are four stars in the movie, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen, Jude Law and Julia Roberts. The film follows their relationships. Clive Owen is absolutely brilliant in this film. Natalie Portman is also amazing; this is a role I could never imagine her playing. Rather then present how the relationships develop in a neat linear fashion, the director has opted to show the audience bits and pieces here and there. The audience is never told how much time has passed between scenes explicity, which I thought was really neat. Some scenes are separated by years, and others by minutes or days. The movie is very cynical. The characters use love and sex like weapons throughout the film as a means to hurt one another. I don’t want to go into any details, so I won’t. Watch the film; as I said, it’s amazing.
The official Closer web site.
[2] Movies
9 December 2004, lunch time
Remember in Mac OS 9 when you drag a window to the bottom of the screen and it became a tab. That was awesome. Actaully, Apple managed to drop a lot of good things when they moved from OS 9 to OS X. Now, OS X is also awesome to the max, but I mean, how hard would it have been to keep the Application menu? Thankfully, people are hard at work trying to bring back 1999.
[1] Technology | Interesting Links
I’ll take advantage while
You hang me out to dry
But I can’t see you every night free
I do
—About a Girl by Nirvana
7 December 2004, late evening
Rishi and Mezan claimed for quite some time I watched An Honest Dealer with them; I’m sure I would have remember a movie this good. The story basically unfolds through flashbacks, the bulk of the movie occurring during a interrogation. The film is about a drug dealer who is basically brilliant at taking control of interrogations. He never slips up or looses his cool. The movie is really well done, and definitely worth checking out.
Normally I would link to more information on the movie, but I couldn’t find any. You can grab the film at Blockbuster; that is where we got it.
[1] Movies
6 December 2004, late at night
Hackers features a killer soundtrack and the super-sexy Angelina Jolie. The whole cast is actually pretty bizarre; a dude from Trainspotting, Marc Anthony, the psychiatrist from the Sapranos and Shaggy from the Scooby Doo movies all star in the film. The film brings up all sorts of some what obscure old-school tech-trivia at times, and is in some ways quite accurate in its depiction of computers. In the movie we get to see social hacking, dumpster diving, denial of service attacks and phreaking. However, the movie is campy. So campy. Most of the time the movie is as far from real as it can get. At times it is just too ridiculous. The movie is all right. I’ve seen worse.
Reviews of Hackers at Rotten Tomatoes
[2] Movies
5 December 2004, lunch time
I saw the trailer for Good Bye Lenin! a long time ago, and thought it looked like it would be quite the comedy. The movie is funny—once in a while. For the most part however, Good Bye Lenin! is a bit of a downer, a drama about nostalgia I suppose. The film is about a boy whose mother wake up from a coma after sleeping through the fall of the berlin wall. The boy is told his mother can’t take any stress, so decides to hide this information from his mother—sometimes with hilarious results. the movie was quite good, well worth checking out.
The official Good Bye Lenin web site.
[2] Movies
1 December 2004, late at night
A lot of sites have started using FeedBurner to manage their RSS or Atom feeds. This is all well and good; I think it’s a cool service. What bugs me however, is that Feedburner lets you send the lame pictures you posted on your Flickr account as part of your feed. This is annoying. Most sites that use Feedburner don’t offer up an alternative feed which doesn’t include Flickr photos. So, I end up getting to see such classic photos as Road Trip or Oh I’m Having Fun. I’m sure the friends of these two authors loved both photos, but as a perfect stranger I really don’t care to see them. And these are sites I don’t want to unsubscribe from; I like reading them.
[1] Life | Weblogs
30 November 2004, mid-afternoon
This is of course not my first post on this site, my first post was an ICQ conversation with Gary, and probably a less then spectacular way to kick things off. I am not the first person to start a web site believe it or not. Many people before me have done a better job with their first post—well, sometimes anyway: Kottke.org, Whole Lotta Nothing, Acts of Volition, Airbag (quite funny), Daring Fireball, Mezzoblue, 1976Desgin, EvHead, Heather Champ, Jogin, Megnut, Nedward, Dollar Short (particularly good), Plasticbag, Scribbling.net (classic), SimpleBits, Stopdesign, Waxy.org.
[3] Interesting Links
30 November 2004, lunch time
So I ended my movie watching drought with the film White Chicks. Thanks-a-fucking-lot Steph. The film is bizarre, and I suppose in some ways might be worth watching in that respect; it definitely isn’t good. The film is about two black FBI agents who have to go undercover as white chicks to foil a kidnapping scheme—seriously. I really can’t recommend the film on its merits, only on the fact that it features two black dudes dressed up like freakish looking white women.
The official White Chicks site
[1] Movies
