Subjective Morality

Archive for the ‘Non-fiction’ Category

Synthetic organisms who commune to make every decision and giant, octopoid robots that destroy all life every 50,000 years? Those are mostly original. Big insects are not. Plus, biologically speaking, giant insects couldn’t survive in normal gravity because their exoskeletons would be too heavy. This is why insects are so small today; when they lived in the water, millions of years ago, they were much bigger.

Mass Effect 2 basically tries to justify the Collectors by making them genetically modified Protheans. Yeah, whatever.

And those scions are fuckin’ annoying.

Voice to text is one of the many new features being touted by Google in its much-hyped Nexus One, but let’s take a breather here and just think about this scenario. Let’s say it’s the future, and everyone has voice-to-text on their phones. Let’s imagine that you and your friend are talking. You’re both using voice-to-text. Wouldn’t it be better to just call each other? Wouldn’t it?

Wouldn’t we all be better off if we just talked to each other like we used to? Back before texting and IMing and email? Wouldn’t it be better to have some sort of human interaction with each other rather than saying something into our phones and sending it off to be read?

Technology will progress, and there’s a good chance that in the future voice-to-text will be the dominant way that we communicate. Not likely, but it could still happen. And I can understand where voice-to-text could be great for those who are unable to type or have bad RSI or something, but for us normal folk who have perfectly working fingers, I don’t understand why’d we’d ever use it.

The Finder: It’s long been the bane of power-users. It’s been criticized for being slow, buggy, and ugly, but it’s still part of the “Macintosh Desktop Experience.” Here’s what’s wrong with it:

It’s Schizophrenic

The Finder can’t seem to decide what it wants to be: A spatial file manager, or a navigational one. That little capsule-like button on the upper-right of Finder windows switches it between the two modes, but it’s definitely not the best solution to the problem, and it ends up making both modes less usable. Spatial file management is basically what the OS 9 Finder did: each window is tied to a folder, and each folder opens in a new window. Windows retain their size and other appearance properties so that the user can create a “nest” wherein they memorize the window positions and attributes of their windows, and can instantly tell folders apart based on these attributes. The solution to this problem is simple: Apple just needs to have an option for spatial mode. Get rid of that damn capsule, and just give us a toggle in Finder’s preferences that’ll enable or disable spatial mode.

.DS_Store Files

.DS_Store files are a scourge. The Finder uses them to remember windows’ positions, sizes, and other things. They’re a scourge because the Finder creates one for every folder it visits. Apple needs to come up with a new way to store this information so that the Finder doesn’t have to create a new file in every single directory you visit.

View Preference is Global

In the Leopard and Snow Leopard Finders, when you switch to a different icon view, every folder you visit is also switched to that view. The previous behavior in Tiger – down was to save that view option for each folder, so that if you had one folder in Icon View and another folder in List View, those folders would always open with those view preferences. That is the way it should be.

No Cut Command by Default

Cut, the bastard child of Copy, is not turned on by default in the Finder’s context menu. You can’t even use the keyboard shortcut. Luckily, there is a preference hack you can use to get it there:

defaults write com.apple.finder AllowCutForItems 1

No Dropdown List for Back Button

If the Finder is going to take a more navigational approach and eschew its spatial roots, it should at least use basic browser conventions, like having a dropdown menu come down when you hold the Back button showing the history.

No Tabs

This is also an old one, and somewhat of a power-user’s complaint, but, hey, if the Finder wants to be more like a browser, why not implement tabs?

No Location Bar

Also another navigational feature missing from the Finder, a location bar located somewhere in the window would be nice. Typing in a path can sometimes be easier than double-clicking folder after folder. There is a keyboard shortcut (cmd-shift-G) that will allow you to go to a folder by typing in the path, but this isn’t as convenient.

No “Up” Button

I can’t tell you how much I wish the Finder had this. When you open a folder that is way out of range of your home folder, you aren’t allowed to go back, and then you have to click on the sidebar, which is cumbersome. There’s a keyboard shortcut for this too: cmd-up, but still, I’d prefer a button.

Better FTP

Networking has long been the weak point that many Finder-haters kick at with glee. It has gotten drastically better with Leopard and Snow Leopard, but FTP access is still read-only, which just makes no sense.

The Finder, for all its quirks and bugs, is still an “OK” file manager in my opinion. It’s not spectacular, and it’s not overkill. There are alternatives like PathFinder, but I think those are overkill. The Finder could be a lot better if the development team behind it would just get some vision and listen to the concerns of Mac users.

While looking up how to run Safari 2.0 on Snow Leopard, I found this neat web page called Multi-Safari that offers self-contained applications for Safari 1.0 all the way to 3.2.1. The original webkit frameworks were kept so that web developers could test older versions of the rendering engine on their sites and each icon has a little badge that shows what version it is (and so you don’t confuse them with the current Safari icon). The versions from 2.0 up will run on Snow Leopard and Leopard, even the tiger versions. If you try running anything below 2.0 on Leopard, you’ll get a message telling you that it’s not compatible with your version of Mac OS X.

I think it’s really interesting to run these old browsers on a modern operating system.

Chris Pirillo is a very popular techy. He’s the first Chris on Google, he’s broadcasting his entire life on the internet, he makes YouTube videos, and I am officially sick of him.

It’s not that I hate him; I just can’t stand him anymore. He’s a little boy at heart, and it shows a little too much in his videos for my tastes. What really put me over the edge, though, were his new grammar nazi videos. So you know what I’m talking about, I’ve embedded one below:

Chris, these videos are insulting, annoying, and don’t solve shit. Someone who’s making these grammatical errors is not going to change their ways because a hairy Italian imp yells at them, and this is why I’ve unsubscribed from you. I would rather see some interesting tech news than this shit. Bye-bye.

Below is a list, in alphabetical order, of some of the common and not-so-common acronyms in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

General Acronyms

A.C.D.C. = American Council of Disseminators of Cable

A.F.R = Les Assassins des Fauteuils Roulents (Wheelchair Assassins.)

ACOA = Adult Children of Alcoholics

ACOG = Adult Children of Gamblers

ACONA = Adult Children of Narcotics Addicts

ALGOL = ALGOrithmic Language

ATHSCME = It’s not clear what it stands for. It’s a company that makes really big fans.

B.S. = Before Subsidization (Before the subsidization of time, wherein companies purchased the rights to name a year after a product, i.e. Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, Year of Glad.)

B.S.S. = Bureau des Services sans Specificite (The Québécois acronym for O.U.S.)

C.T. = Charles Tavis (Hal’s uncle and the headmaster of ETA after Hal’s father kills himself with a microwave oven.)

C.U.S.P. = Clean U.S. Party (The party of President Gentle.)

E.T.A. = Enfield Tennis Academy

E.W.D. = Empire Waste Displacement

HmH = Headmaster’s House

M.G.M. = Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts

M.O. = Modus Operandi

O.N.A.N. = Organization of North American Nations (The new country formed by the combination of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.)

O.N.A.N.C.A.A. = Organization of North American Nations Collegiate Athletics Association

O.N.A.N.T.A. = Organization of North American Nations Tennis Association

O.U.S. = Office of Unspecified Services

P.A.C. = Political Action Committee

P.G.O.A.T. = Prettiest Girl Of All Time (A.k.a. Joelle v. Dyne.)

S.A.S. = Substance Abuse Services

SOP = Standard Operating Procedure

TP = Teleputer

U.H.I.D. = Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed (A group that Joelle joins after her face is marred by her own mother, who accidentally throws acid in her face while trying to mar herself.)

U.S.D.D. = United States Department of Defense

U.S.T.A. = United States Tennis Association

V.D. = Victory by Default

WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

W.H.I.N.E.R.S. = Wounded, Hurting, Inadequately Nurtured but Ever-Recovering Survivors

Y.D.A.U. = Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

Eschaton Acronyms

AMNAT = American Nations

CONFORCON = Conventional-Force Concentration

INDDIR = Infliction of Death, Destruction, and Incapacitation of Response

INDPAK = India + Pakistan

IRLIBSYR = Iran + Libia + Syria

LIBSYR = Libia + Syria

MAMA = Major Metro Area

REDCHI = Red China

S.A.C. = Strategic Air Command

SACPOP = Strikes Against Civilian Populations

SOUTHAF = South Africa

SPASEX = Spasm Exchanges

SUFDDIR = Suffering of Death Destruction, and Incapacitation of Response

SSTRACS = Sites of Strategic Command

Barbers had a few more jobs than cutting your hair in the Middle Ages, during the time of the plague: they also served as de facto surgeons because of their skills with a razor. Bloodletting was a popular practice back then and people actually believed it worked. The barber would slit the person’s arm and let the blood flow into a basin while the person held onto a stick, to dilate the veins.

People couldn’t read back then, so businesses used signs that showed what they did; a barbershop displayed a sign of a hand with blood running down the arm in a spiral. Hence the modern version: a white and red spiral running down a pole.

Nifty, huh?

My English teacher taught us about Dante’s Inferno today, and he used this diagram of the levels of Hell. I thought I’d reproduce it for all you fine people:

(It goes without saying that you should click on it if you actually want to read anything. Excuse the typos.)

So, a breakdown and elaboration on the diagram is below.

Objects in descending order:

Gate of Hell: Self-explanatory.

Antechamber – The Neutral: Those who were neither good nor bad are chased by stinging insects through a field of maggots while a constantly changing banner flies overhead.

Acheron: The first river of Hell; newly-dead souls are ferried across by Charon.

King Minos: Judges each new entrant into Hell to decide where they go.

The levels of hell are divided into three main groups: incontinence, brutishness, and maliciousness:

• Incontinent: This section is reserved for those who lose control of their emotions.
• Brutish: Reserved for those who are attracted to sin.
• Malicious: Reserved for those who misuse reason for evil.

C1 – Limbo: Where unbaptized babies and virtuous pagans go. There is no torture. Kind of a boring place, really.

C2 – Lustful: The lustful are blown around by perpetual hurricanes to symbolize the whirlwind of their passions and excesses.

C3 – Gluttonous: Just as they acted like pigs in life, the gluttonous are forced to acts like pigs in death, made to wallow in a vile slush of all the yuckiest things you can think of.

C4 – Avaricious (greedy): The greedy wasted their time on Earth by hoarding useless money, so they are doomed to doing useless manual labor forever, much like Sisyphus.

C5 – Wrathful/Slothful: On the shore of the river Styx, the wrathful are forced to fight each other forever. On the bottom of Styx, the slothful perpetually drown in the swampy water.

Styx: Swampy river, filled with a bunch of nasty stuff.

C6 – Heretics: Heretics are trapped inside burning tombs, symbolizing their disbelief in life after death.

Dis: The city of Hell. The name makes sense: disrespect, dishonesty, disillusionment; it’s a very negative name.

C7 – Violent: Divided into three sections: the violent against man, self, and God:

• The violent against man are submerged in the river Phlegathon, which is a river of boiling blood. The level of submersion is relative to the level of bloodshed that person committed.
• The violent against self are turned into trees that can only talk when they are hurt, as Dante learns when he breaks off a twig of one and then hears a tale.
• The violent against God (blasphemers) are stuck in a desert of flaming sand while fire rains down from above.

C8 – Fraudulent: This circle is called the Malebolge, or “Evil Pockets.” It’s divided into ten bolgie.

• B1 – Panderers: Forced to march while being whipped by demons.
• B2 – Flatterers: Steeped in human excrement.
• B3 – Simonists: Inverted with their feet burning.
• B4 – False Prophets: Have their heads turned around on their necks, representing the way they mislead people in life.
• B5 – Corrupt Politicians: Immersed in a lake of boiling pitch.
• B6 – Hypocrites: Forced to wander around in lead robes.
• B7 – Thieves: Forced into a pit of snakes, the bite of which transforms them into other creatures.
• B8 – Evil Advisors: Encased in flames and can’t be seen, as their thoughts couldn’t be seen.
• B9 – Sowers of Discord: Forced to mutilate themselves over and over again.
• B10 – Alchemists: Afflicted with horrible diseases.

C9 – Traitors: This circle is divided into four sections: Caïna, Antenora, Ptolomaea, and Judecca. The sinners are immersed in a lake of ice known as Cocytus.

• Caïna – Traitors Against Kin: Named after Cain, sinners are submerged in the ice of Cocytus up to their necks.
• Antenora – Traitors Against Country: Named after Antenor of Troy, sinners are submerged deep enough that they can’t bend their necks.
• Ptolomaea – Traitors Against Guests: Named after Ptolemy, captain of Jericho, sinners lie supinely, submerged in the ice except for half of their faces.
• Judecca – Traitors Against Benefactors: The deepest level of Hell. Named after Judas Iscariot, sinners are completely encapsulated in ice. Lucifer exists at this level, buried waist-deep in the ice. He’s described as a giant, shaggy demon with six wings and three faces, each a different color: red, black, and yellow, and each chewing on a specific traitor: Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. He continually cries and beats his wings for escape, but the wind from his wings only freezes his tears and traps him further.

Hero—a word that conjures up the best in humanity; those who save frightened (and not all-together bright) kittens from trees, those who dive into a lake to pry old men from the seat of their sunken cars (seniors are notoriously bad drivers, after all), and those who go off to fight wars in far-away countries and kill those who would wish to do harm to those in said fighter’s native country. These examples could be heard by anyone asking passersby on the street what they think of when they hear the word hero. Like everything in the world, the conception of what is heroic changes over time, with the moods, fads, and advancements of society. What people considered heroic in the 10th-century is not what they considered it to be in the 14th-, and certainly not what they consider it now, in the 21st-. The stories of Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the author’s sister, provide a good contrast to these different concepts of hero.

Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon heroic poem written sometime between the 8th- and 11th-century. It tells of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose mead hall, Heorot, is besieged nightly by a monster named Grendel. Beowulf comes to aid Hrothgar from his native land of Geatland, across the Baltic Sea, and waits for Grendel to come to Heorot. When the door of Heorot bursts open and Grendel appears, Beowulf takes no action until Grendel eats one of his Geatish comrades, watching how the monster works, and then when he (Grendel) reaches for Beowulf, grabs Grendel’s arm and, showing incredible strength, rips it off:

[Beowulf] kept him helplessly locked in a handgrip. As long as either lived, he was hateful to the other. The monster’s whole body was in pain, a tremendous wound appeared on his shoulder. Sinews split and the bone-lappings burst. Beowulf was granted the glory of winning; Grendel was driven under the fen-banks, fatally hurt, to his desolate lair.

Grendel is driven off to die, and Beowulf plus a troupe of Danes and Geats go after him, where they find that he has died in his mere, and Beowulf is highly praised for his deed:

Then away they rode, the old retainers with many a young man following after, a troop on horseback, in high spirits on their bay steeds. Beowulf’s doings were praised over and over again. Nowhere, they said, north or south of the between the two seas or under the tall sky on the broad earth was there anyone better to raise a shield or to rule a kingdom.

Beowulf does many more heroic deeds in his life, including killing Grendel’s mother and fighting a dragon, where he meets his match: “[Beowulf] had survived every extreme, excelling himself in daring and in danger, until the day arrived when he had to come face to face with the dragon.” Beowulf is killed by the dragon, punctured by its poisonous fangs: “Then the bane of that people, the fire-breathing dragon, was made to attack for a third time. When a chance came, he caught the hero in a rush of flame and clamped sharp fangs into his neck. Beowulf’s body ran wet with his life-blood: it came welling out.” Beowulf slays the dragon with the help of his young relative, Wiglaf, and then dies and is buried in a tumulus by the sea.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is the tale of Sir Gawain, a knight of Arthur’s fabled Round Table. In the tale, there is a knight who is entirely green, from his armor down to his beard, and he challenges Gawain to strike him with his axe, if he will accept the same blow in a year and a day. Gawain agrees and cuts the knight’s head off:

On the ground the Green Knight got himself into position, his head forward a little, the bare flesh showing, his long and lovely locks laid over his crown so that any man there might note the naked neck. Sir Gawain laid hold of the ax and he hefted it high, his pivot foot thrown forward before him on the floor, and then, swiftly, he slashed at the naked neck; the sharp of the battleblade shattered asunder the bones and sank through the shining fat and slit it in two, and the bit of the bright steel buried itself in the ground. The fair head fell from the neck to the floor of the hall and the people all kicked it away as it came near their feet.

The Green Knight was not dead after this, as he lifted his own head up and reminded Gawain to honor his promise and come to the Green Chapel in a year and a day, where he will be waiting. The rest of the tale involves Sir Gawain traveling to find the Green Chapel and fulfill his end of the challenge. He comes across a beautiful castle, owned by Lord Bertilak, who informs him that the Green Chapel is only two miles away and that he should rest in his castle until the anxiously-awaited date comes. Bertilak also proposes a game wherein he will go hunting each day and give Gawain whatever he catches for that day as long as Gawain gives him whatever he has earned the same day, at the castle. While Gawain rests in his room, Lady Bertilak makes a habit of trying to seduce him, but they never exchange more than innocent kisses, which Gawain gives to the Lord after he returns from his hunts, bearing his kill for that day. The first day yields a deer from Bertilak and a kiss from Gawain and the next day yields a boar and two kisses. The third day, when Lady Bertilak comes to seduce Gawain, she gives him a silken green sash and tells him that as long as he wears it, “No man under Heaven can hurt him.” That evening, Gawain accepts a fox from Bertilak in exchange for three kisses. The next day, Gawain travels to the Green Chapel wearing the green sash, where he finds the Green Knight sharpening an axe in preparation. Gawain bends over to receive his blow, but the Green Knight holds back twice, and on the third time, strikes softly, merely leaving a scar on the back of Gawain’s neck. It is then revealed that the Green Knight is really Lord Bertilak and that Lady Bertilak was pretending to seduce Gawain. The strikes corresponded to each day that Gawain and Bertilak exchanged what they had earned; two feints for the days that Gawain gave Bertilak kisses, and one soft-strike for not giving Bertilak the green sash on the third day. Gawain feels shameful for not honoring his pact with Bertilak, but Bertilak tells him that he is the purest soul he has ever met, saying, “I’m convinced you’re the finest man that ever walked this earth.” Bertilak admonishes Gawain to remember their encounter as he goes forward in his adventures.

The author’s sister is a single-mother living below the poverty-line whilst struggling to graduate college and find a better job. Currently, she has a tough life, and the author is truly humbled every time he sees what she has to go through. The author recently asked her several questions about heroism:

AUTHOR: Would you consider yourself a hero, modesty aside?

SHELBY: No, I really don’t believe I’ve done anything in my life to warrant me being called a hero.

AUTHOR: Would the modern definition of hero include perseverance in the face of incredible hardships?

SHELBY: Yes, I think a big part of someone being a hero is to have perseverance and face hardships head-on without fear.

AUTHOR: How would you define hero?

SHELBY: A hero is someone who is perseverant, determined, selfless, and also flawed in some way and willing to admit when they make mistakes, because how else will they learn from the mistakes they make? Also, a hero is someone who can be looked up to; someone other people can admire.

AUTHOR: List three things that you’ve done in your life that you consider to be heroic.

SHELBY: Working at Heartspring for the past 5 years, educating children with autism and special needs. Being a single-mom of a three-year-old and supporting myself. Being the first grandchild to graduate from college. [The author would like to point out that technically she will be the second grandchild in the author’s family to graduate from college, as the author’s cousin, Cammie, had already graduated, a fact that the author did not want to mention at the time of this interview.]

AUTHOR: What are some of your duties at Heartspring?

SHELBY: Educating special-needs and autistic students so that they can be more independent and show more socially appropriate behaviors in a classroom setting. I also mentor other staff and new staff in the residential house that I am assigned to. [Also, the author would like to point out that this “educating special-needs and autistic students” sometimes involves the changing of adult diapers, which, if nothing else, displays a courage that the author can scarcely imagine having himself.]

AUTHOR: Describe a typical day for yourself.

SHELBY: Waking up with my daughter, getting breakfast, working on things to increase her vocabulary and understanding. Monday-through-Friday afternoon I am a fulltime mother with my daughter, and Friday-through-Sunday evening I work 40 hours at Heartspring to support us.

AUTHOR: Who are some heroes that you look up to?

SHELBY: My parents and my brother. The support-system you have at home really comes to define you as you grow older.

Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and Shelby all show courage in their various exploits: Beowulf in facing Grendel, Gawain in going to meet the Green Knight, knowing he would probably die, and Shelby by just living (and changing adult diapers). Beowulf and Gawain both severed some ligament from another being’s body, something that (as far as the author knows) Shelby has not done. Beowulf and Gawain do their heroic deeds for different reasons: Beowulf to help Hrothgar and further his reputation, and Gawain because he accepted the challenge from the Green Knight and therefore would not be chivalrous if he failed to meet all the conditions of said challenge; in Shelby’s case it’s more that she just wants to live and make sure her daughter has a better life than herself. Beowulf and Gawain both show incredible strength, as Beowulf rips a monster’s arm off and Gawain cuts a man’s head off, and Shelby, while strong enough to restrain a full-grown autistic-and/or-mentally-imbalanced person, cannot really compete as she is held to more modern standards of strength. All of them are loyal: Beowulf to Hrothgar, Gawain to his code of chivalry, and Shelby to her daughter. Beowulf and Gawain are both adept at using weapons (though Beowulf prefers hand-to-hand when he can). Shelby has at least fired a gun once in her life (that the author knows of), but she has never actually used it on another person.

The Norse concept of a hero was someone who died by kicking as much ass as possible, and kicking it courageously. Norsemen believed that the female horse-riders known as Valkyries flew above every battle, scanning the turmoil below for soldiers who fought courageously, and upon seeing one, swooped down to take them up to Valhalla (or valor-hall) where they would enjoy mead in the company of Odin, their highest god. That differs quite a bit from today’s wars where soldiers can just aim-and-click and poof! their target is gone, often without ever knowing who shot them. Today’s soldiers never have to hear the crunch! of their opponent’s bones as they run them through with a sword (or cut their head off with an axe, in the case of Sir Gawain); swords are not used anymore for warfare, now that we have the simplicity of guns. In our modern world, war is fought with a higher goal in mind than dying heroically: we want to pick off the enemy one by one or blast them away in groups, and win the greater battle; there is not that microcosm of soldiers trying to be courageous and honorable in order to get into Heaven. This dichotomy shifts the modern concept of hero away from war and more into everyday occurrences, because there is no heroism in simply pulling a trigger. The modern hero differs from the heroes of the medieval era, like Sir Gawain, in that the modern hero has a more complex and diluted sense of loyalty and chivalry that Gawain displays and so values. The modern concept of a hero is more complex: A modern hero is someone who perseveres through incredible hardships and grits their teeth and continues on, no matter the economic, socio-political, or personal conditions at the time. While there may be many different concepts of hero that have existed throughout the ages, there is something similar in all of them: A display of the extraordinary; whether it be courage, chivalry, or perseverance, all are qualities of a hero that set them apart from regular people.

Microsoft, in a not-so-well-thought-out move, has actually let this horrible, horrible, horrible advertisement for Windows 7 launch parties out of the torture chamber basement to see the light of day (not to mention the stares of disbelief and disgust of several thousand unwitting people). What do you get when you cram four people into a room, give them a script to read like mindless robots, and then have them pretend to like each other? This monstrosity:

Around the 5:42 mark (and I’m amazed I made it that far), the black guy asks, “Can you believe that Microsoft put the launch of Windows 7 in our hands?” I’ve got a better question: “Can you believe that Microsoft actually made this and then put it on the internet?” Sadly, I can, having experienced the utter strangeness of the Seinfeld ads (and MS has had even stranger ads before).

Common’ Microsoft, you guys were doing OK for awhile with the Laptop Hunter ads (not). Get it together!