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Parochial jingoistic fucks
jpmassar |
12th November, 2009. 5:47 pm. They've finally outed me
The ad banner just now for my Livejournal page had a picture of about five presumably hunky looking men, and screaming text advertising a Gay, Exotic Caribbean Cruise!
I've noticed some targeted ads before, on various sites, and probably took no notice of plenty.
But I can't recall any of that particular category previously. It would be interesting to know exactly what triggered it, since I've been posting about and visiting sites concerned with equal marriage rights for quite a while now.
When computers can distinguish a belief in equal rights from sexual orientation given one's postings, site visits and Google searches is when I will start worrying about bowing to our new electronic overlords.
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jpmassar |
12th November, 2009. 5:35 pm. Lies, Damned Lies, and Smoking
Various reports today trumpeted a rise in the percentage of adults who smoke in the US. E.g.
Cigarette smoking rose slightly for the first time in almost 15 years, dashing health officials' hopes that the U.S. smoking rate had moved permanently below 20 percent. -- Associated Press
after a new report on smoking was released by the CDC (the same bunch of crazies who brought you the H1N1 virus hoax).
The report noted that in 2007 19.8% of adults queried smoked, while in 2008 20.6% smoked. Approximately 22,000 people were surveyed. Wikipedia says we can estimate the margin of error of a simple random sample very simply by using 0.98 / sqrt(n). (At a 95% confidence level).
That produces a margin of error for a sample of 22,000 of 0.66%. Since the total difference between the two rates is only 0.8%, there's no way a reputable news organization should be reporting that the smoking rate went up without any qualification. (Often, when political polls are close like this, news organizations will report 'a statistical tie').
It's more probable than not that the smoking rate increased a bit, but that's about all you can say, unless you're a certain major news organization.
Reuters got it right, simply noting
"Overall smoking prevalence did not change significantly from 2007 to 2008," CDC researchers wrote in the weekly report on death and disease.
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jpmassar |
12th November, 2009. 2:08 pm. Only in Berkeley?
The scene... was striking... A gaggle of fifty- and sixty-something activists railing against Mayor Tom Bates' vision to turn West Berkeley into a green-tech corridor. It was as if they were in a time warp, convinced that all developers and corporations are just greedy bastards who must be stopped -- even if those very same developers and businesses might actually help ward off the greatest environmental disaster ever known.
The hypocrisy was equally startling. People who for years have derided suburbanites for living in tract homes, driving SUVS ... were now arguing for policies that would block green-tech ... and thus spur more suburban sprawl, longer commutes and increased greenhouse gas emissions...
'We do not want to see radical changes.' said one apparent former radical.
-- The Wall Street Journal The East Bay Express, p 7, Nov 11-17, 2009, an extremely liberal alternative newspaper/zine.
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whipartist |
12th November, 2009. 12:20 am. It's been a while
I've been so busy boring you with running stories that I haven't bothered to bore you with kitten tales. They both have a tendency to follow me around the loft and hang out wherever I am. If I'm at the computer they'll hang out under my desk or nearby. If I go upstairs to bed, they'll hang out up there. If I go to the bathroom, they poopervise.
Boo is turning into a right proper moose-- he's huge. He's also quite affectionate, and when I get home he generally comes over and meows at me until I pick him up and put him on my lap, or at the very least pet him. He's happy to curl up in my lap, and he likes being brushed. When he purrs, it sounds more like a wheeze.
Peek is more distant. She's sometimes quite happy to be petted, and sometimes runs off when I get near her. She's content to be close by, though. I'm typing this from the bed, and she's curled up on the bed at my feet purring.
They're both still pretty skittish, though. Sometimes they'll run and hide when I come near them, though not always. I probably shouldn't say this for fear of jinxing myself, but they seem remarkably good at not being troublemakers.
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whipartist |
11th November, 2009. 9:42 pm. W3D1 in the bag
Week 3 day 1 of C25K goes like this:
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:
* Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
* Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
* Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
* Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
The session always ends with a five-minute cooldown walk. I'd originally planned to repeat week two, but after my "Hi! I'm an overachiever!" performance on W2D3 (which, in all fairness was W2D3.5, since I was over halfway through W2D3 when the treadmill broke) I decided it was worth moving up.
Problem: the treadmill is still broken. Problem: I'd rather remove my left eye with a spork than run outside. Problem: I hate going to the gym.
One of those three things had to give. The treadmill ain't gonna get fixed immediately, and I'm not quite ready to be monocular, so I decided to see if I could get over my aversion to gyms. As it turns out, the real problem with gyms for me is that I'm not motivated to get past the overhead of actually going somewhere to work out-- that's why I have fitness equipment in my loft. Since I seem to have developed an unexpected and truly frightening well of motivation for this, a gym isn't quite as horrible as it could be.
I love location-based web search. There's a 24-hour Fitness not too far from me, as well as several other gyms. Somehow, though, the big national chains weren't speaking to me. There was another option, though-- there's a place called Bladium in the old Alameda Naval Air Station. I checked out their site, and they looked pretty decent. Plus, they have a 7-day guest pass.
The place seems to be primarily for indoor socker, hockey, etc., but it also has a very nice fitness center and a bunch of other stuff that I really have no interest in investigating. It lives in an old aircraft hangar, and the place is absolutely huge. When I got there all of the membership folks had just left for the day, so I filled out a form and she sent me off to work out.
The club doesn't seem to be populated by hardcore hard-bodies, at least not at 8:30 on a Wednesday night. The fitness area was almost all women, and there was at least one ass that made mine look small. The cardio area overlooks the soccer fields, which I suppose would give you something to watch if you were interested in soccer. I'm not, so I'd loaded up the new phone with episodes of This American Life.
So, we've arrived at W3D1. On week 3, you start having the option of time-based or distance-based metrics. I opted for time-based, since I know that I'm sloooooowwww and I don't care to mess with that. However, at the end of the second repetition I wasn't quite ready to be done. (Is this sounding familiar?) I added another 90-second run, this time just a little bit faster than before. Though I'm fairly tall for a woman I have short legs, so my extra-fast jogging pace is a whopping 4MPH, and my normal one 3.3-3.5MPH. I'm in no hurry! Interestingly, I've found that I time my runs by counting steps, and I just use the treadmill's timer for backup. Something about the act of counting makes it easier for me.
I really like the pacing of this program. It's exactly the right level of challenging for me-- I have to work at it, but it doesn't feel impossible. I also finish up feeling less sore than I used to. My left knee still alerts me to its presence pretty consistently, but it's just background-level annoying rather than worrisome.
The 7-day pass will be good just about until the time I leave for vacation. The hotels in New York and Glasgow have fitness centers. The one in London doesn't, but there are two gyms very close by and I think the hotel may have a deal with one or both of them. Once I get back I can sort out fixing the treadmill and/or buying a gym membership.
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jpmassar |
11th November, 2009. 6:41 pm. Mourn For the Future Dead, For Those who Need Not Fall
It was the eleventh hour of the 11th day of November. 91 years ago
World War One, the 'War to End All Wars', ended with 2700 men killed
between the time the armistice was signed and the silencing of the
guns.
It was an inevitable war fought over nothing of any significance,
resulting in almost 7 million combat deaths.
Time after time, masses of men went 'over the top' on the Western
Front at the behest of their generals, to be gunned down by machine
gun fire. Then those same generals ordered their men to do it again,
the same way, into the same withering fire. And again.
140,000 Allied soldiers died at Ypres in 1917 to push the Germans back
five miles, only to have that absurdly small bit of territory
recaptured five months later without resistance. The entire battle
was fought on the erroneous belief that its success would have
crippled the German's U-Boat threat -- a massive failure of
intelligence.
In World War II, with new toys at their disposal, a later generation
of generals became and remained convinced that air power delivered via
massive bombardment could bring our enemies to their knees. Dresden
and the Tokyo fire-bombings were a couple of the consequences of their
ill-informed actions, and little or nothing of aid to the war effort to
show for the tens of thousands of civilian casualties.
And in the 60's, the best and the brightest listened to another set of
generals convinced that we could bring North Vietnam to its senses by
raining ever more bombs down upon a barely industrialized country;
convinced we could win a war with yet one-more surge in troops levels.
56,000 died before the country recoiled.
On this day, we are asked to remember the veterans of these and other
wars. But in future days, we will be asked to trust the generals yet
one more time.
More troops, better armor, a new strategy; these will create victory
in a land that has seen no foreign victors in 2000 years; an influx of
foreigners will yet turn the tide against an enemy who largely exist
precisely because foreigners occupy their country.
And the unfortunate truth is that they will probably have their way
again.
Mourn not for the dead of wars past, though they deserve their honor
and remembrance. Mourn for the future dead, for those who need not fall.
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