Cringely stupidity

Sometimes Bob comes up with a real boner.

My hobby is building small airplanes and one of my favorites is a Davis DA-2A, winner of the Outstanding New Design contest in 1966, the same year my Oldsmobile (and my current Thunderbird convertible) was built. That little Davis can teach us a lot about cars.

I didn't build my DA-2A, but I am rebuilding it right now and know it intimately. My Davis is an all-aluminum two-seater with an 85-horsepower engine. The engine was built in 1946, the plane in 1982, and the whole thing cost under $4,000 at the time, though today I have more than that invested in the instrument panel alone. The plane weighs 625 lbs. empty, 1125 lbs. loaded, has a top speed of 140 miles per hour and can travel about 600 miles on its 24-gallon fuel tank.

Why can't I buy a car like that?

Um, because a fender-bender would kill everyone, stupid!

Cars used to be made like that airplane of yours. Then Ralph Nader wrote a little book called "Unsafe At Any Speed," and the fit hit the shan.

The threat model for airplanes and cars are entirely different, which requires entirely different priorities. Cars need to be crashworthy, because crashes are very, very frequent compared to airplanes.

Those who can't, teach. Those too stupid to even teach, commentate.

Livin' the dream

Ok, Democrats. You're in the driver's seat now. You guys said that you'd make it all better. And now, you've got no excuses and no one to blame but yourselves if in 4 years time we're not in Ronald Regan like nirvanha.

In fact, the comparisons are pretty apt. The country was in bad shape, both at home and abroad at the end of Jimmy Carter's term as president. The country voted for change with both feet and elected Ronald Regan. He presided over the biggest peacetime economic expansion the country has ever known, and over the demise of soviet communism. Well, at the end of the Bush presidency, the country's in the shitter again, and the country has voted for change once again with both feet and elected Barack Obama. It will be interesting to see where we are 4 and 8 years hence in comparison to where we were in 1984 and 1988 relative to 1980.

I think either way it'll be telling. If things do improve, then it proves that the republicans and democrats really are highpopalorum and lowpopahighram, just like Huey P. Long said they were. If things don't improve, then I'll look back and say, "See? They said that if I voted for John McCain, the country would still be in the shitter and they were right: I voted for John McCain, and the country is still in the shitter." (with appologies to the old saying about Goldwater and the Vietnam war).

AP screws up statistics, film at 11

From this story about a deadly helicopter ambulance accident, comes this little tidbit:

It was the sixth fatal crash involving medical helicopters this year, according to federal data, including one just last month in Maryland that also killed four.
[...]
On Sept. 28, a medical helicopter carrying traffic accident victims crashed in a Maryland suburb, killing four of the five people on board. On June 8, a copter crashed on an isolated ranch in the Sam Houston National Forest in Texas, killing a patient and three crew members. Those and other crashes have raised questions on whether medical ambulance flights are overused.

Really?

Six incidents and you're ready to question the safety of medical ambulance flights? How many people die every year in four-wheeled ambulance accidents? I'd rather question whether or not perhaps helicopters are underutilized as ambulances if I were merely inclined to make judgments on accident statistics in isolation.

Stupid AP. No cookie for you. Instead, you get the Golden [Citation Needed] award.

OJ

So OJ was found guilty on all counts stemming from his involvement with a wacky scheme to retrieve stuff that he says was his.

My my my.

Let's say that that stuff really was his. How did it come into the hands of this other guy? Could it be because OJ was trying to hide assets from the Goldmans?

Let's FURTHER presume that the whole thing was on the up-and-up. If you were in OJ's shoes, wouldn't your next step be to call either the cops to bust the other guy for possession of stolen property, or call a lawyer to sue?

But most importantly, if you were going to be forced to spend the rest of your life in a rather intense tabloid spotlight, wouldn't you try to be sure to be on your best behavior? Is a scheme involving other guys toting guns in any way compatible with that concept?

I'm pretty sure that OJ was guilty of something. It may not have been exactly what he was actually convicted for, but it's probably pretty close.

Hasta.

The financial crisis - what's old is new again.

Once upon a time, a song was written to commemorate a government bailout of a public company. I still like that song, and in the situation where we find ourselves today, it is still applicable. Just a few words in the chorus need to change.

All together now!

I am changing my name to WaMu
I am going down to Washington D.C.
I will tell them all as well, man
That what they did for Alan Fishman
Will be perfectly acceptable to me
I am changing my name to WaMu
I am headed for that great receiving line
So when they hand a million grand out
I'll be standing with my hand out
Yes sire I'll get mine

P.s. Yes, I know that Washington Mutual has been (largely) acquired by JPMorgan Chase rather than being directly bailed out by taxpayers, but of all of the banks that have been mentioned, WaMu fits into the meter of the lyrics the best. Arlo Guthrie has been singing it lately changing Chrysler to Fannie Mae, but I'm not sure how that would work. Besides, it's not really his song, anyhow.

In San Mateo, Poker < Prostitution

You'll recall I blogged about San Mateo County Sheriff's deputies busting a home poker tournament. I've found yet more proof that law enforcement priorities are messed up in San Mateo County: The SM County Sheriff and his undersheriff were recently busted in a Las Vegas massage parlor raid by Las Vegas Police.

Chris Hanson says, "So, what are you doing here?"

Piracy boosts popularity, film at 11.

According to this /. article, the music industries own studies have affirmed the idea that it is better for bands and for the music industry to just give away MP3s and let the resulting increase in popularity drive concert ticket sales.

Gee, you think?

Isn't this the exact same concept as allowing music to be played, more or less, for free on the radio (yes, radio stations pay for music rights, but the amount that they pay is virtually negligible - it certainly pales in comparison to the amount of money spent in promotion) spurs concert ticket sales? According to everything I've ever read about the music industry, bands pretty much just make records for free in the hope that album sales drives concert ticket sales, which is where the average band actually makes their money. What they get out of the "big record deal" isn't money from album sales, it's promotion from the record company that, yes, drives album sales for the record company, but also drives concert revenue for the band.

As for me, the last CD I bought was National Lampoon's "That's not funny, that's sick," which was actually a record first released in 1977. I bought it about 3 years ago, promptly ripped it into iTunes and filed the plastic in the garage. Apart from that, for about the last 5 years or so all the music I've bought has been either DRM-free iTunes plus AACs from iTunes, MP3s from Amazon, or when absolutely necessary iTunes DRMed tracks (but only when there is software available to easily strip the DRM. And, no, burning a CD and ripping that doesn't count).

San Mateo county home poker tournament busted up by police

Clearly having solved all other higher priority issues on their to-do list, sheriff's deputies in San Mateo county raided a home game and arrested two people and took a 13 year old away from his parents. According to the complaints, the tournament proceeds were being skimmed by the organizer (he denies this), and a "refreshment fee" was charged the participants, which amounts to an illegal rake for a home game.

Congratulations, super cops, you've clearly made the world a better place by not allowing our neighbors to play poker at home for low stakes.

There is, however, a lesson to be learned. If you want to advertise a home game outside of a circle of personal friends, take some time to familiarize yourself with the law. If you don't want to be stuck with the bill for refreshments, make a point of describing the event as BYOB. Never ever rake the pot in any way, don't open the game to minors, and do whatever you have to do to make sure that the game is completely honest (if someone catches someone cheating, the cheater can ruin your life if they claim you were in cahoots with them).

The cops will have a much, much harder time justifying wasting the courts' and DAs' time with your home game if there are no grey areas they can use to hassle you.

Pave BAREC

Silicon valley has outgrown its agricultural past. The state finally saw the reality of the situation when they decided to close the Bay Area Research and Extension Center - a small plot of land run as a research and educational farm. The question now is what to do with the land. The answer is obvious. The bay area is one of the most expensive places to buy a home in the country. Despite the overblown talk about a housing crisis in this country, it's clear to me that the best use of that land would be the use proposed by measures A and B - part affordable senior housing and part park.

Those opposed to this plan want to keep this land as some sort of "urban farm" experiment. In actual fact, their motives are clearly less pure. Look for the "NO on A & B" signs in Santa Clara - they're concentrated in the southeast corner of the city near the site. This is NIMBY, pure and simple.

So, if you live in the city of Santa Clara, I urge you to vote "Yes" on measures A and B. We have more need of affordable housing than we have of NIMBY agri-fanatics.

Gambling propositions

We Californians have an election coming up. As has been the case several times over the last few years, there are propositions on the ballot to once again tinker with the indian gaming setup we have going on. As is always the case, it pits two powerful sets of special interests against each other: the indian tribes on one side and nevada gambling interests, card rooms and horse tracks on the other.

And, as always, poker players find we have no dog in the hunt. All of the fuss is about slot machines and other "house games." Poker is a completely different animal from those - with Poker, the vying is between all of the players seated at the table and the house has no interest in the outcome (because they rake the pot by the same amount regardless of who wins it). In virtually all other casino gaming, the player plays not against the other players present but against the house, and the house always has an odds advantage which insures the house will be profitable over the long term. Even bookmakers don't have any interest in the outcome of the events upon which they are making book, because of the "vig" - the difference in odds between the two sides of the proposition. If you want to be a profitable book player, you need to be better than everybody else at picking the outcomes, and so much better than you can overcome not only the odds, but the vig as well. At least with poker the rake is typically so small that it's easy for reasonably good players to overcome it. Besides, with poker you have a much larger percentage of the available information at your disposal when making a decision. But this isn't intended to be a diatribe espousing the virtues of Poker over other forms of wagering.

So where do I stand? I am voting my continued disappointment with the state of the restrictions on Internet poker players we currently enjoy in the U.S. I am voting "no" on all gambling-related propositions other than those that are aimed at restoring the rights of players to easily move their money back and forth between the financial institutions of their choosing and sites that provide honest and fair Internet poker.

I urge my fourteen readers to do likewise.

Earthquake etiquette

We had an earthquake this evening. It was a 5.6.

Everybody has an opinion, and here's mine: A quake doesn't even count until it's a 4. Between 4 and 6, it's either an amusement or a nuisance. 6 and above, and you can expect stuff to actually break. A 6 in the Bay Area, and you can expect the San Francisco marina district to (once again) fall down and burst into flames. Why they simply don't pave it over, I'll never understand. It's not as if San Francisco couldn't use the extra parking. But I digress.

Of course, anytime there's an earthquake big enough to get on the news, the first thing everyone does is call us. That's the worst part of anything between a 4 and a 6 - the phone won't stop ringing. It's damn annoying.

We get it that you're concerned. Thank you for that. It shows you care. BUT...

1. If it's not at least a 6, don't be concerned. Maybe it knocked a picture or two off the mantle. But probably not.

2. If it's a 6 or better, well, then you can expect that the phone lines will be needed for much more important phone calls. People needing emergency help from fire and rescue folks, for example. Your call will be taking the place of a potentially much more important one.

So, in short, let us call you. If things have really hit the fan, we'll call someone out of town and let them relay the news. If not, we'll probably want to talk about how fun it was.

Intelligent comments on meat and adrenaline

I have a couple videos on YouTube. One of them is rather popular. One of the downsides of that is that it is a target for comment spam. Comment spam sucks. Whether it sucks more than other kinds of spam, I'll leave for some other debate, but one thing you can definitely say about comment spam is that the subject matter is far, far less varied. Virtually all of the comment spam is one of these exact topics:

• heaven


• naked chicks


• read this comment and you will die in an hour unless you spam 19 other videos


• hit F5 for the name of your next gay lover


• go sign this petition to tell the Japanese to stop slaughtering dolphins

That's it. The Nigerians are at least more creative.

The last one on the list is the topic for today. The spam decries the Japanese for engaging in a dolphin or whale slaughter or whatever and makes particular mention that the hunters involved attempt to inflict in their victims a maximum amount of fear and pain because the adrenaline released makes the meat taste better.

Now, the spam is bad enough, but the claim that frightened animals taste better than others always seemed like something rife for either confirmation or rebuttal. Well, after googling relentlessly for a minute or so, I've found the best argument on the proposition I think I could envision.