Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Kovar up

Best research paper ever.

H/T Eric Barbour. You know, it's a bad world in which only nastyminded loons are worth reading, but you already know that, hey?

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Bombs

In Israel's concentration camp, they are using bombers.

They are not fighting Hamas. Let's be clear. That is not the intention here. The intention is to reduce the will of the Palestinian people to support Hamas (or worse, to provoke all-out war between the Palestinians and Israel). Israel's aim is, as it has been for many years, to enfeeble the Palestinian people to the point at which they will accept a settlement that allows Israel what it wants: all the best land, all of Jerusalem, all the water.

All the hope.

We should not support cryptofascists just because they hold elections (we did not, one should note, support the legitimate winners of free and fair elections in Palestine). And what else are people who believe their right to an ethnic state justifies murdering unarmed people? What else is a state that uses racism to deny justice?

Now Israel is likely to invade Gaza again. But to what end? Israel will never have security while it refuses to give justice. Its bleating about how Iran -- a nation that has not attacked its neighbours -- is a vicious monster will remain meaningless while it continues to murder civilians, as it has in Lebanon, in the West Bank, in Gaza, and if it is not restrained, in Iran. And why should Iran not want it gone? Here is the question that the West will not answer. Why would a Muslim nation not want a regime that murders Muslims because they are Muslims gone?

It's easy to -- and I expect to be seeing at least one commenter do it -- claim that Israel is just responding to Hamas missile strikes. But that is given the lie by the targets of Israel's bombs: people not rockets. It's as clear a falsehood as the suggestion that America attacked Iraq to punish those responsible for 9/11. Each hopes to use the sympathy for their victimhood in a crime as cover for its own much greater crime. We should not pretend to accept the cover story, and even though we condemn the crime they have suffered -- and I do not condone Hamas' attacks on Israeli civilians -- we should not permit it to be the excuse for much worse.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Playlist

I am listening to Pioneers, Tunng's cover of the Bloc Party song.

I am trying to write a couple of courses, one on fraud awareness, the other on a housing scheme.

I don't enjoy authoring. I have some sort of mental block that makes it hard. Recently, my boss said she would give me more money for authoring, which is nice.

I prefer to be on autopilot. I've played a lot of poker that way. That's probably why I'm not very good at poker. I mean, compared with you, I'm good (unless Daniel Negreanu happens to be reading this), but in the big scheme of things, I'm not.

I could probably make $20 an hour playing poker. That's a bit so near, so far when it comes to my goal.

***

I am listening to Cosy in the rocket by Psapp. It's the theme from Grey's Anatomy, if you watch that.

Why is it Grey? She's American, right?

The other day, I was looking at my arm, and I started thinking about the bones of my forearm, and for a moment, I could see them. It's unpleasant to remember that you are made of blood, bone and stuff.

I would prefer to be entirely digital, made from ones and zeros. Then I would not decay so long as I was backed up.

Which makes me wonder. My mp3 collection was damaged by the disk it was on falling over. But I've mostly reassembled it. What could be made of us if we were broken and remade?

***

I am listening to Never content by Air France. This is not my itunes on random; it's a playlist I made the other day to try out the CD player in my car. It's all unobjectionable stuff that if Mrs Zen hears it, she won't freak out.

The problem with poker is to figure out the best route from here to where I want to be. It should be possible to get there. I simply need to rid myself of the fear of success.

LOL. I made that sound easy, but it's like saying "I simply need to fly".

It wouldn't be sustainable in any case. I realise that. I'm too old for dreams. They are ground down by reality, to the point that all you have is a palmful of dust.

***

I am listening to Like a call by Architecture in Helsinki. I don't listen to it closely enough to grasp the lyrics, but it is the sound of loneliness to me.

I know loneliness. It is a constant in my life. I suppose I could do things to be less lonely, but none of them seems the answer somehow. It seems to me you can be lonelier when you are with the wrong people than you ever were on your own.

I used to talk a lot to S, and felt a lot less lonely when she was around. But it was a mistake to invest so much in someone so borderline and so deeply selfish. A person cannot be a good friend if they do not understand that even if they don't want to, they have to give you what you need some of the time. In any case, I used to be able to delight her, and I enjoyed having that ability, but it waned, for whatever reason, and I don't feel she enjoys my company at all any more. That and an obsession with roleplaying on websites have led her into a wilderness where I cannot reach her any longer.

I am sad about that, but not so much that I dwell on it.

***

I am listening to Up a tree by the Beloved. It's a session track that they did for John Peel, before they went all dancey. They were, I suppose, New Order copyists and I liked them a lot back in the day. But the arc of their career headed upwards and the amount I liked them downwards.

I feel sadder about Sharon. I let her slide and I don't know why to this day. I do that though. I can't be bothered, or can't convince myself that others are bothered about my bothering. It's easy to spiral into loneliness when you are the kind of person who needs to know they are wanted, when you want to please but do not know how to.

***

I am listening to Ghosts by Ladytron. The album, Velocifero, was a bit disappointing, but Ghosts is ridiculously good. It's like someone used the Dr Who theme as the basis for a huge pop song.

Do you ever ask yourself, what would I change? And do you also ask yourself, what would make me happy?

I rarely ask either question, but I think I'm aware that they are meaningless unless you can ask a related third, would what I would change make me happy?

One question I would like an answer to is this: what is possible for me at poker and when will I achieve it? It's a more complex question than it looks, because it has several answers, I think, not least because there are stages that I could attain. I'm more interested in this answer than I am in knowing how I can get there. (Which is obviously part of the answer, I suppose.)

I'd settle for knowing that I could sustain, say, 12% at the 11s, or at the 12s, or whatever.

Don't confuse yourself though. It's not simply a matter of playing 5K 11s and getting there. That would take ages! It's a matter of knowing now what I should pursue.

***

I am listening to I stand corrected by Vampire Weekend, which is followed by 1234 by Feist. I'm a sucker for literate pop. I'm actually pretty fond of illiterate pop too, because I've always liked a good choon.

BTW, I've stopped moderating my comments. Because it is the season of goodwill, I am going to allow those I've made unwelcome to post comments. Of course, if you were smart enough to realise how boring it is to be onedimensional and try to troll me/upset me/whatever it is you are trying to do by posting dull/spiteful/unreadable comments, you wouldn't have been banned in the first place. So I don't expect any improvement.

I like reading comments though.

***

I am listening to The broads by Minotaur Shock. It's Naughtyman's song.

He is wearing orthotics in his shoes and splints on his feet at night. He visited a podiatrist and she prescibed them. He has a funny loping walk that I suppose they will "fix", but she says that he is probably in pain whenever he walks, and his hips are out of whack, so it's for the best.

He is astonishingly beautiful. I don't know how you can not damage a boy like that. He is gentle one moment, wild the next, hard to understand, sensitive.

He is a junior Zen. I suppose I will consider it a triumph if he does not lose his boyness and become a shell of a man.

But so many of us do.

***

I am listening to Katy song by Red House Painters.

I feel sorry sometimes that I am not the person people want me to be. But other times I feel sorry that they do not want me to be the person I am. And other times again, I feel that I am not the person I am either, but who else am I if I am not?

I noted that Father Luke posted that one should be true to oneself. But I do not have a self to be true to, or if I do, I do not know what it is. I think that is the only thing I lack, but no one is likely to give me it for Christmas.

My playlist is ended now. I don't know why I think I would feel better if I went home. Maybe home is a broader concept than just an island off of Europe.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Clearing the mental bins

I'm sure I got vodka from the shelf, but when I unloaded the car, I had brandy. I checked the receipt. Yes, I had bought brandy. The bottles aren't even close to similar, not even the same colour.

So I reached for vodka and came away with brandy. I didn't want brandy, wouldn't even subconsciously have preferred it to vodka. I do not know why I have brandy.

I do drink brandy, and I enjoy it, but I have some at home already, and I don't drink it often enough to need more.

Did I get vodka in another universe? Is it possible that I was sure enough of what I was doing that I looked away for an instant and ended up missing my aim by a few inches?

***

I also mislaid a bottle of red wine. I simply don't remember drinking it. It's possible I did, but I don't recall it at all. I've been mostly drinking beer recently and I think I would remember this wine: it was Wrattonbully, and even though it was cheap, I should remember my impression of it, because I was expecting it to be decent.

Should I be worried that I'm losing my mind, or should I welcome it?

***

I watched Reservation Road last night. It was terrible. About halfway through, I said to Mrs Zen, this is really bad. And it then got worse. The acting was atrocious: they were aiming for stagey but hit wooden pretty hard. That's if you can consider high emoting wooden, but I can't think of a better word. If you are imagining wooden puppets with their mouths going clack clack clack and a highpitched shrieking noise emanating from their persons, you have it right.

I was openmouthed at some points, just astonished that the director had been satisfied with it. Its main problem is lack of narrative drive. Things happen, but there is no plot as such. There is a premise and a sort of unravelling, but that's the sum of it. (Okay, there's a twist but one so predictable, so leadenly foreshadowed, that it feels like it isn't even there.) At least an hour of its two hours is wasted on scenes that add practically nothing, if anything at all, to the story, to character development (well, let's be honest, nothing develops here: the characters are as static as the film).

Joaquin Phoenix is bad and Mark Ruffalo seriously miscast, but they are both topped by Jennifer Connelly, who struggles with a terrible part, which sells her very short, to the point where you want to beat her agent with a stick. Actually, the screenwriting is awful: the dialogue creaks and strains, often feeling underwritten.

Also, the death of children is never really watchable in a film. So I don't recommend it.

***

So Bush predictably robbed TARP to pay the automakers. I think that the American political establishment is between a rock and a hard place with the car industry, and it's somewhat reminiscent of the decline of British Leyland. Obviously, American automakers aren't making products that people want to buy, and should, in a free market, go to the wall. But that would mean a lot of people out of work (it's not just the guys who make the cars, it's people like the rubber firm that makes the trim for Ford cars: probably, over time, it will have shed other clients, so that now its whole capacity goes to Ford).

I note that Bush attached strings: exactly the kind of punitive treatment of carworkers that the Repugnicunts tried to stick the Dems with in Congress. The union says it will try to have Obama rewrite the agreement but I simply wouldn't expect him to: it's better with him to write your expectations down to, say, 1% better than Bush, and hope to be surprised.

Clearing the mental bins

I'm sure I got vodka from the shelf, but when I unloaded the car, I had brandy. I checked the receipt. Yes, I had bought brandy. The bottles aren't even close to similar, not even the same colour.

So I reached for vodka and came away with brandy. I didn't want brandy, wouldn't even subconsciously have preferred it to vodka. I do not know why I have brandy.

I do drink brandy, and I enjoy it, but I have some at home already, and I don't drink it often enough to need more.

Did I get vodka in another universe? Is it possible that I was sure enough of what I was doing that I looked away for an instant and ended up missing my aim by a few inches?

***

I also mislaid a bottle of red wine. I simply don't remember drinking it. It's possible I did, but I don't recall it at all. I've been mostly drinking beer recently and I think I would remember this wine: it was Wrattonbully, and even though it was cheap, I should remember my impression of it, because I was expecting it to be decent.

Should I be worried that I'm losing my mind, or should I welcome it?

***

I watched Reservation Road last night. It was terrible. About halfway through, I said to Mrs Zen, this is really bad. And it then got worse. The acting was atrocious: they were aiming for stagey but hit wooden pretty hard. That's if you can consider high emoting wooden, but I can't think of a better word. If you are imagining wooden puppets with their mouths going clack clack clack and a highpitched shrieking noise emanating from their persons, you have it right.

I was openmouthed at some points, just astonished that the director had been satisfied with it. Its main problem is lack of narrative drive. Things happen, but there is no plot as such. There is a premise and a sort of unravelling, but that's the sum of it. (Okay, there's a twist but one so predictable, so leadenly foreshadowed, that it feels like it isn't even there.) At least an hour of its two hours is wasted on scenes that add practically nothing, if anything at all, to the story, to character development (well, let's be honest, nothing develops here: the characters are as static as the film).

Joaquin Phoenix is bad and Mark Ruffalo seriously miscast, but they are both topped by Jennifer Connelly, who struggles with a terrible part, which sells her very short, to the point where you want to beat her agent with a stick. Actually, the screenwriting is awful: the dialogue creaks and strains, often feeling underwritten.

Also, the death of children is never really watchable in a film. So I don't recommend it.

***

So Bush predictably robbed TARP to pay the automakers. I think that the American political establishment is between a rock and a hard place with the car industry, and it's somewhat reminiscent of the decline of British Leyland. Obviously, American automakers aren't making products that people want to buy, and should, in a free market, go to the wall. But that would mean a lot of people out of work (it's not just the guys who make the cars, it's people like the rubber firm that makes the trim for Ford cars: probably, over time, it will have shed other clients, so that now its whole capacity goes to Ford).

I note that Bush attached strings: exactly the kind of punitive treatment of carworkers that the Repugnicunts tried to stick the Dems with in Congress. The union says it will try to have Obama rewrite the agreement but I simply wouldn't expect him to: it's better with him to write your expectations down to, say, 1% better than Bush, and hope to be surprised.

Sometimes only "wat" will do

wat

Starve the world

Among the many interests President Obama will serve is the ethanol lobby, which will be pleased that he has put Vilsack in as agriculture secretary.

America's "green" policy is a parody of what is needed. Bush, like most Australians, favoured "clean" coal (which is as sensible a concept as clean mud), but other neocons have pushed ethanol hard. They see it as a route for America to become self-sufficient in fuel.

But ethanol is not green at all. Burning it emits more carbon than burning petrol, and the demand for corn has pushed prices up to the point that much of the world can no longer afford it. This, plus NAFTA, has devastated rural Mexico, helping to fuel the immigrant problem that exercises many Americans.

The more conservative Obama supporters say "don't judge him, he's not inaugurated yet", as he shafts the left again and again. But, you know, the time to judge these charlatans is before they do damage, so that they do not feel they have a mandate to pursue an agenda that will hurt us. These "Third Way" politicians are particularly dangerous, because they preach conciliation, bipartisanship, a "new politics", but what they pursue is nothing more than a new road to put the profits into the pockets of the rich. Tony Blair didn't renew the UK: he refreshed the bank balances of the super rich.

I hope I'm wrong about Obama, but I don't think I will turn out to be. He's not Bush, for which we can be thankful, but he's Blair. The day even the most fervent supporter should have woken up to the truth was when he voted for the new FISA.

Starve the world

Among the many interests President Obama will serve is the ethanol lobby, which will be pleased that he has put Vilsack in as agriculture secretary.

America's "green" policy is a parody of what is needed. Bush, like most Australians, favoured "clean" coal (which is as sensible a concept as clean mud), but other neocons have pushed ethanol hard. They see it as a route for America to become self-sufficient in fuel.

But ethanol is not green at all. Burning it emits more carbon than burning petrol, and the demand for corn has pushed prices up to the point that much of the world can no longer afford it. This, plus NAFTA, has devastated rural Mexico, helping to fuel the immigrant problem that exercises many Americans.

The more conservative Obama supporters say "don't judge him, he's not inaugurated yet", as he shafts the left again and again. But, you know, the time to judge these charlatans is before they do damage, so that they do not feel they have a mandate to pursue an agenda that will hurt us. These "Third Way" politicians are particularly dangerous, because they preach conciliation, bipartisanship, a "new politics", but what they pursue is nothing more than a new road to put the profits into the pockets of the rich. Tony Blair didn't renew the UK: he refreshed the bank balances of the super rich.

I hope I'm wrong about Obama, but I don't think I will turn out to be. He's not Bush, for which we can be thankful, but he's Blair. The day even the most fervent supporter should have woken up to the truth was when he voted for the new FISA.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Stimulated/tuning fork

So the government gave us stimulus, and that's cool, because I had zero money for Christmas. It also presented the opportunity to get a new CD player for the car. My tape player broke, so it's nice to have music again, and not have to wear my iPod.

On the subject of iPods, why is it that I can't find earphones that sound as good as Apple's own, but Apple's own break after only a couple of months' use? Are they engineered to be rubbish so that you'll need more?

I also bought a new hard disk, which is a new home for my itunes music. That means I can keep the old portable disk (I say old, but it's only a couple of months old, obv.) as a backup, at least of what I have now. I didn't rescue everything from the broken drive, and in an annoying fuckup, managed to delete some of the stuff I did rescue, but I'm mellow with the whole thing now. I have plenty of music and if something is missing, never mind. "Missing" just means it's not to hand, not that I actually miss it.

I will also need to buy a new monitor, because this one's fucked. It works, but if it's turned off (which means if I turn off my PC), it doesn't always work when the PC, and it, is switched back on. I have no idea what's going on, but I do know that it's impossible to get a PC repaired in Brisbane. The "repairers" I've encountered, with the honourable exception of the guy who fixed my laptop, have been chancers, with little more idea of how a PC works than I have. They all want a ton of money just for coming out, and very few do "no fix no fee" (and those who do will mostly not even try to fix anything beyond the completely mundane).

It's always the way with money -- there's always some way to spend it as quickly as you get it.

***

Someone who will remain anonymous tipped Meursault to me. I never realised the Proclaimers had taken up chip music. If that sounds unappealing, yes it is. It's one of the mysteries of this world that one person's ear candy is another person's earache.

***

If you like that whole folky sort of tronica thing, you might prefer Juana Molina. I'm not sure about it. Sometimes electronica is just a cover for bad songwriting, and the jury's out on Sta. Molina.

Definitely my cup of tea though is Tunng. I remain mystified by the bad reviews the Tunngsters sometimes get, usually from the same people who hideously overrate American "folk" bands like the Fleet Foxes (meh), Animal Collective (muh) and god I can't go on, there's tons of quirky, folkly bollocks made by guys with beards.

Why did I just type "guys with bears"? I'm betting not one of them owns a bear.

***

Nearly forgot. The "new" thing I am enjoying is Port-Royal. Postrockatronica anyone? It's a different angle from the Errors (postrock meets cheesy techno), Pyramids (three bands rehearsing in the same room) or Genghis Tron (metalatronica). Mostly it's your regular postrock with an electronica overlay, but it sounds a lot better than that promises to.

On Warren

You know, I have to say a little something about the Rick Warren thing. I didn't think Obama was a particularly good choice for the Democrats, although of course I'm pleased that he won the election, but I think the "progressives" who made out he was some messiah of the left now need to stfu and probably should apologise to the rest of us for boosting him.

Having Warren speak is a huge fuck you to the left, and of course to gays. It's no use Obama saying he's an advocate of gay rights, blah blah, and we must embrace those who disagree with us. What he is doing is sending out the message that there will be no gay marriage on his watch, and I'm not sure what the political calculation is there.

And I don't understand why we have to embrace the people who disagree with us. For the past eight years, they've been fucking the place up. They didn't embrace anyone or anything that they don't like, and they sure as shit aren't going to start.

As others have noted, it seems that Obama has no problem reaching out and hugging up to homophobes, but is not having anyone from the Klan at his inauguration.. I'm going to take a stab at why: he simply doesn't think that gays or liberals form a constituency he has to please; but to some extent blacks and conservatives are. I suppose the message to blacks is "I agree with you that God thinks gays should not be our equals" and to conservatives "I'm not really all that liberal, so you should not try to block the (limited) legislation I plan for the next few years". He's not reaching out to racists because they wouldn't support him anyway, no matter what.

I say fuck the people who disagree with us. In Obama's shoes, I would be flooding the place with new measures, legislation, whatever. I'd force the Republicans to block measure after measure that helps ordinary people. I certainly wouldn't be consulting with them. Some of them deserve jail, not reward, after all.

abc

So I was talking to P. about someone and she said something about how I think this other person is a bitch. No, I said, she's more of a cunt than a bitch.

Well, what's the difference, asked P.

So I answered:

Hmmm. It's hard to put into words. Bitchery is mostly insincere, and wouldn't on the whole make me angry. It implies indifference to others, or lack of concern for their feelings in a sense that implies you do not really know that others have them. Cuntery implies indifference to others' feelings because you simply don't think others' feelings are of any importance, or you actually just want to fuck with other people, or want your own shit so much that you'll walk over other people. That kind of thing.

You have to try to be a bitch. A cunt is something you mostly just are.


***

Does it mean anything that I can't call a man "a stupid bitch"? Not really. It's not that we think men are robots, or can't be bitchy. It's that we don't forgive them for being ditzy, I think. You might call a man a "stupid bastard", but I think that's probably way down the invective scale.

Why don't I think it's meaningful? Because I don't think humans have concepts that they then find words for. I think they have the words that have arisen, and use concepts that fit them somewhat. We know that there are things for which there are no words, and I think we are perfectly aware that the words we do have are not necessarily a good fit with the things they name. Sometimes we use the same word for different concepts and are quite content to do so (although who among us has not stumbled over the "love trap", in which we find ourselves forced to point out that loving someone is not the same as being in love with them -- a clear case for having a new word, because the concepts are quite different).

***

Is it fair though that we despise what people are so much more than we do what they do? The other side of the coin is that we also reward what people are much more than we do what they do. The world is constituted to continue to privilege the privileged, but privilege is something about you, not something you earn, on the whole. (I know that you think you earn it, but if you were in a luge on a downhill course, how much credit do you think you should have if you are going at 100 miles an hour at the bottom of the course?)

***

I know, in the ideal world, I would be all peace and love, and wouldn't call anyone anything. Well, this is a problem, I suppose, with invective, and with displays of passion on the whole. You can be taken for caring a lot more than you do, just because your demeanour seems to indicate it. Me, I have a constantly shifting view on things, a mind that doesn't stand still and wait for anger and bitterness to accrete, so the expression is most often all there is.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

About lying

Here's the thing about lying. I'm angry that I was caught out blatantly lying, and not even because I fucked up. Because when people lie to me, they usually forget that I have a decent memory, and then they do this: they tell a story that is different about the same thing they have already told a story about.

And the thing they are thinking is that it's okay because they're claiming the story is now the truth. Yeah, okay, it's good to come clean, but the fact now is that you are stone cold caught as a liar because you told diametrically opposite stories. And I'm not keen on lying: I sort of feel the world becomes harder to live in if we do it too much, because at base we only have each others' stories to depend on as descriptions of the world, and of ourselves (and consequently, because the seed of the image of you as liar is planted, the image will flourish and you will never be taken to be correctly describing the world for others again--it's of course the moral of the Boy who cried wolf). So yeah, I do prefer a hard truth to a softsoaping, and I rarely lie to others, even when I know it would benefit me. I think that it has been one of the worst facets of the past four or so years, that I have found I've had to lie, including sometimes just living the lie, iykwim, and I had been so strictly honest in the years preceding.

Well, what good did either do me? Honesty brought me a life in which I had sold myself short; and dishonesty simply undermined my integrity, making it harder, bizarrely, to get away with lying when it became necessary, and worse, much worse, making me unsure what the truth is, so that I did not only mislead others but cast myself adrift.

Now I cannot, I feel, return to rectitude, because the outcome of it is too likely to be bad, but I regret straying from it. Not that I feel I could have done differently, but it is easier to suffer when you feel you are an honest man in a cruel world than it is when you feel you are no better than anyone else.

Friday, December 05, 2008

Trypto nowhere

It's weird looking at your own brain, so I didn't spend too long doing it. Anyway, there's nothing to see: it's an ordinary brain (the scintillating brilliance doesn't show up on a CT scan). And shock horror! I don't have narrow arteries (hardly likely to because I obv. don't eat much cholesterol).

So the doctor says maybe you drink too much (because I have an elevated enzyme of some sort) but he's grasping at straws somewhat, because my blood is pretty much okay. What he does say that makes sense is that I might not get enough tryptophan, which is the amino acid precursor of serotonin. Unfortunately, because a hooky Japanese firm poisoned a few thousand Yanks, you can't easily get tryptophan here, but you can eat it. Unfortunately, the best sources are all meaty and fishy, but if I'm willing to spend my waking hours nibbling sunflower seeds, I will get plenty.

A lack of tryptophan makes sense. I probably don't eat as much protein here as I did in the UK, and I do sometimes have mad cravings for cheese, which is a source of it. A deficiency of tryptophan can cause depression etc etc, and the vertigo could well just be an outcome of low serotonin (maybe being a bit low on tryptophan makes serotonin hard to replenish?).

Anyway, blah blah. I don't feel well but there's nothing specific, just that feeling that you're not firing on all cylinders.

***

More cheerily, I can't believe I've never heard Air France before. If you like inventive pop, you'll love it. It's like the bastard child of the Avalanches and Lindstrom. If that doesn't sound good to you, go find some Avalanches and Lindstrom, and change your mind.

Air France:


Lindstrom: