I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
I like Jeff Atwood a lot. Come to think of it he may be my very favorite tech blogger. He has a lot of good stuff on a lot of topics, and having run social media platforms for several years (heard of Stack Overflow? He's a cofounder) he's got a lot of thoughts about how human beings interact, both on the internet and in general. And his latest is a thing that takes a lot of digesting, because it's about why we're all so terrible to each other.
I've been trying to come up with a cogent summary of his most recent post without just regurgitating half of it, but instead, I'll say this: If you liked that one amazing MetaFilter thread about emotional labor, you know, the one that I spent two weeks reading comments on, that dethroned the 10-year reigning champ for "best thread on the entire internet", that one - if you care about how humans treat each other on the internet, why they're bastards, why we seem to be meaner to women than men - basically if you're any of the hundred or so people I think actually read my LJ on any kind of regular basis - carve out 10 minutes to read this damn thing, consider reading the links on the thing, and expect to spend a few minutes when you're done just going "well that was kinda heavy."
Have you ever played Call of Cthulhu? Of course you haven't.
So there's this game, and it's in the same "pencil and paper RPG" category as Dungeons and Dragons, except, instead of playing valiant heroes out to save the world and gain treasure, you're playing everyday schmucks trapped in a universe that does not give a shit and will probably not even notice if it steps on you. The winning strategy in Call of Cthulhu is to stay the fuck home and remain ignorant until the day you die, which hopefully will be relatively quick and without pain. I mean, this is a universe where there's this one entity that sometimes shows up in front of people and says "hey I've got a deal for you, how about I implant these eggs into you, and over the next couple months they'll eat you alive from the inside and drive you insane, and consume your body and mind for sustenance until they eventually erupt from inside you, killing you, but don't worry be then you'll probably be too far gone to notice," and you say "hm, I'm not sure how I feel about that, what are my other options?" and it counteroffers with instant death. Fun, right?
But if you wanna be super intrepid, and gain a tiny smidgen of power - not enough to do anything except maybe lord it over some poor schmuck who has taken the aforementioned winning move - you can go out and find some truly dangerous books and learn magical secrets. The problem is, you were Not Meant To Know these things, and learning them really will drive you permanently mad, by reducing both your current sanity score, and your maximum permanent sanity score. Becoming a sorcerer of any real power requires you to a) be willing to make yourself permanently nuts and b) get really lucky on your permanent-sanity-reducing rolls. (This is a problem in a game where even just *looking* at most Weird Things can push you towards madness.)
Today I confirmed some terrible things about a particular Oracle driver I'm using at work, and it's an interface that's implemented SO BADLY that I feel like I have lost sanity points just for learning about it, and forcing myself to work around it. If you're into databases, the description is here. If you're not, then really all you need to know is that it's sort of like a firearm that has a safety switch that doesn't do anything. It's not technically *guaranteed* to cause trouble, but it probably will make someone somewhere relax their guard and something will get a fresh hole blown in it.
So I came across this thing a couple days ago. You probably know that sometimes we do stuff that generates radioactive waste. When we do, we need a place to put it. One of the places we put it is about 25 miles out of Carlsbad, NM, and it's called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and it's going to be radioactive for about ten thousand years. That's about 400 generations of humans. That's about twice as long as it's been since anyone anywhere on the planet invented writing. And there's some people who have been thinking about what to do and how to mark the site in a way that'll last all ten thousand of those years, and be resistant to all the dangers that will happen then. Erosion (easy), silt dunes (less easy), culture drift (hard), and the extreme likelihood that future generations of humans will loot anything valuable, and/or conclude that anything that looks like a fortress must be guarding some kind of treasure (impossible, but maybe we can solve this with creepiness)?
It's a pretty fascinating read. If you liked the Millenarians when you read Anathem, you should read the crap out of this. If you didn't like Anathem, well, I didn't either, and I still found this article plenty fascinating.
I like people who know who they are, and who are unrepentantly themselves. This washes over into my music, too.
For the last decade or so, two of my favorite bands have been Sonata Arctica and Nightwish. Both metal bands from Europe, specifically Finland. And I perceive a pretty big culture difference between European metal bands and American ones, because the latter are all infused with a need to seem cool. The former are more often infused with a desire to BE AWESOME, and clearly give no fucks if you like them or not. And it was a disappointment to me when both bands have come out with two lame, weak albums in a row: Dark Passion Play (2007, Nightwish), Imaginaerum (2011, Nightwish), Stones Grow Her Name (2012, Sonata Arctica), and Pariah's Child (2014, Sonata Arctica). The Nightwish albums were okay, and they were majorly focused on their lead singer, who they lost in 2005, so a stumble was natural. I have no idea what Sonata Arctica's problem is, but they still seem like they're having fun, even if I'm not having that much fun along with them these days.
Nightwish lost their new lead singer mid-tour, and got an emergency replacement who was incredibly good, and who they later decided to bring on permanently. They released their new album on Tuesday. I was really doing my best not to be invested in it, after four disappointments in a row from my two favorite bands, each worse than the last. But the new singer is really really good, and they brought on a guy who does uillean pipes, also a former guest star on previous albums. And the thought of hearing Nightwish at full blast again was pretty awesome. What they delivered has pretty well blown me out of the water.
Nightwish has always produced music that's entirely free of shame, but this album has done a whole other thing. It's made out of the polar opposite of shame, of a thing that annihilates shame in a burst of energy like matter does antimatter. The songs are centered around evolution, the extreme unlikeliness of life ever having existed, and the extent to which that makes whatever life does exist inherently amazing by contrast. The title of the album (and one of the songs on it) is taken from a quote from Darwin's On the Origin of the Species:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
...and really, that spirit infuses the whole album, and is close to the core of what I love about both bands: some of the things they sing about are wonderful, and some of them are terrible, but the spirit with which they engage those topics is universally, wholeheartedly, full-throatedly life-affirming.
The whole thing is fantastic, and there's not a bad song on the album, though for sure I like some more than others. Special mention, though, has to be given to the last track, which is an orgiastic edifice of amazingness. It clocks in at 24 minutes and 1 second. Surely at some point in the process someone must have said "Do you really want to go there?" The response, clearly, was, "We will not merely 'go there', we will drastically change the labor allocation of entire nations with which to build a 'there', and a shining public transit system to 'there' which, alone, could rival any of the Ancient Wonders, and we will see to it that free tickets on this system are delivered to every person now living on this glorious earth." And lo, for the interloper then said, "I don't know, doesn't that seem silly?" and humanity is richer for that person having been ignored. It is the entire band, now a sextet, ejaculating pure prog-rock-symphonic-metal all over your face for almost a half an hour, and I for one am pleased to greet our new rock-bukakke overlords. Indeed, LSD and other substances may well have come into existence primarily so they could one day be consumed prior to listening to this song.
Some day, I will be dead, and so will you. But for now, we are alive, and where there is life, there is at least the potential for joy, and that is a great and wonderful thing.
Lastly, folding a fitted sheet is the great problem of our time. These helpful instructions simplify the task a lot: http://thedoghousediaries.com/4491
He's one of the few real role models I had as a kid. He was, for a long time, the exemplar of "there is clearly something off about that man's brain chemistry, but he's turned it into an asset." As someone who has the former, but not the latter, knowing that sort of thing was possible for me was... a star in the sky to navigate by. A thing to check in on, every now and again, to remind myself that however slow progress seemed, and however unlikely I was to ever actually reach it, that there was a destination, a thing to go towards and not just things to run away from.
His death changes none of that. That he achieved it, showed me it was possible, will remain meaningful for the rest of my life.
Last night, the House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) lost in the Republican primary. He spent $5 million in the primary (which is insanely high) and lost to a guy who only spent $200k. Normally when someone this famous gets primaried, they think about running as an independent, but Cantor's whole shtick is tied to being Totally A Republican, so that seems unlikely.
This is super crazy, and not a thing I ever saw coming, and so far the news suggests no one else did either. I don't think any House Republican slept well last night, and I wouldn't be surprised if Paul Ryan stayed up all night trying to figure out how to snag the Majority Leader position in January.
I visited my grandmother last night, and she spent a good chunk of the time I spent with her talking about coupon-related shenanigans she'd engaged in, and how cheaply she'd managed to acquire various things. None of them were quite so impressive as her "I got them to pay me to take this food away" stories (triple coupons FTW), but they were still pretty awesome.
It may not be entirely a good thing, but today's SMBC is a comic I identify with pretty strongly. Like many SMBCs, the real punchline is in the red button: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3296#comic
That intercon thing is happening. It's apparently the con I always forget to arrange logistics for.
If you have any interest in helping me get to or from the con on Friday/Sunday or in helping me not have to pay for a room all by my lonesomes, please let me know and that'd be swell.
"I have never managed to sit through 90 minutes of theater before. I not only did it, I had a great time." --Someone who hates theater
"When I met you last night in the hot tub, I knew you knew tons about conrunning, but I didn't know you were a god of the stage." --Someone who didn't know I hadn't been on stage in 18 years
"The last time I had that much fun at a show was when I saw Peter Schickele perform PDQ Bach in Carnegie Hall eight years ago." --Someone who was two sheets to the wind in the lobby
"The funniest thing I've seen in 2014!" --Someone with acute awareness of the show's position in the calendar year
"Here, you left your shirt behind. Also this oxygen mask." --Arisia tech staff
I've gotten out of the habit of posting links here (which is terrible, natch) but when I did, a decent chunk of them were from The Atlantic. A decent chunk of those are, in turn, articles by Ta-Nehesi Coates, who is my favorite serious journalist. I have never been the slightest bit disappointed by anything he has written, and his latest continues the trend. I enjoyed this paragraph in particular:
When not attempting to shame their enemies on trumped-up charges of racism, the conservative movement busies itself appealing to actual racists. We are into the sixth year of the era of a black president. In that time the conservative movement has gorged on a steady diet of watermelon jokes, waffle jokes, affirmative-action jokes, monkey jokes, barbecue jokes, terrorist machinations, secret Muslim plots, and dastardly Kenyan conspiracies. Three months ago, the movement reached a new low, waving the flag of slavery in front of the Obama's home. It is tempting to call this the climax of a long campaign. That would exhibit an unearned optimism at odds with history.
The overall article is about Melissa Harris-Perry and is called The Smartest Nerd In The Room. She's someone he admires, so I'll be digging around for more of her stuff.
Went to usernamenumber and preraphaelite's party, it was fun. I wanted slightly more social after it was over, so I wandered to Davis Square with my newly-borrowed book. Ran into rustycoon, volantwish, catling42, and two of their friends getting ice cream. Actually went to read my book, further ran into anu3bis, who said some excellently interesting things about watching the fireworks from a kayak, travelling to Cancun, and molecular gastronomy.
Texas legislature is in a new special session, as of yesterday. The bill you care about was referred to committee and the Senate stands in recess until next 9 July. There was some wankery about the clock being off and they were setting up to say "the clock is fast and so we passed the bill in time" but nobody bought that so it died.
There are other details, but mostly you should just read this account of what the end of that filibuster was like from someone who was actually there. Warning: It will make you cry.
There's a lot of politics this week, and my brain is very full of it. The VRA has been my favorite piece of legislation for a while now, and DOMA is near the hearts of a lot of people I know. And those are both interesting and nuanced rulings from the Supreme Court.
So I'll noodle about those later and just tell you about how Texas captivated me for hours.
Tuesday night, after 11, I finally got home and checked Twitter. And there was a filibuster of some kind going on. Not the newfangled Republican kind where you just say "nah" and it's done, the old-fashioned "you're gonna have to talk your damn mouth off" kind. In the Texas Senate, Sen. Wendy Davis put in twelve hours of non-stop talking. I turned in shortly after she stopped, so strangely I missed the entire actual filibuster. The Texas Tribune has a livestream that's basically C-SPAN Texas and I was glued to it for an hour.
Under Texas rules, three cards are put face-up in the middle and declared 'community' cards you get to go off-topic three times before they can end your filibuster. The Republicans in the room, including the chair, declared her mention of Planned Parenthood budgets, and a sonogram law from a couple years ago, off-topic. (And something involving a back-brace which seems more legitimate, maybe.) When I tuned in, Sen. Zaffirini was engaged in some impressive parliamentary tricks, in which she tied things up for ten minutes while I watched with point of order after point of order, while also making the point that there were a couple of different ways in which the rules weren't being followed. Things then got turned over to Sen. Watson, to deliver his:
closing statement prior to the vote on:
the motion to appeal the decision of the chair re:
the point of order declaring the mention of a sonogram law to be off-topic during:
Sen. Davis' comments [filibuster] regarding:
Senate Bill 5
He proceeded to speak very slowly and cover several points multiple times, burning the clock as hard as he could. I was reminded of watching 9th-inning pitching. And I find myself thinking that, from what I know of Robert's Rules, it's possible no one can stop him, because motion to appeal the decision of the chair is pretty privileged, and he explicitly has the last statement on it, and it might not even be possible to call the previous question on it. Of course, if that's true, the question is why didn't Sen. Davis set that up first, especially since she had the backing of the rest of her party. After maybe 15 minutes of this, someone else interrupts and does call the question, which apparently in this body requires 5 seconds (which he has) but does not require a 2/3 vote (since the vote is 17-12 and it passes). And this is the part where the chair really starts to lose it. He didn't do well when Zaffirini made an excellent point about whether or not they could legally end the filibuster yet, but this is where it goes off the damn rails. Sen. Weston spends some time asking if he'll get to finish his closing arguments after the vote to call the question is made, as is custom, since he hasn't yielded the floor, etc etc. The chair insists that ruling will come after the vote, which is unusual to say the least, and needless to say that ruling never comes and the discussion of that is skipped entirely just like everything else has been, and the appeal vote proceeds, and the point of order is upheld.
Next comes a goddamn rockstar, Sen. Van de Putte. This is the one who missed the first part of the day because she was at her own father's funeral. She jumps in with a motion to adjourn, which won't pass, but like everything else, it's just a matter of burning the clock, minute by minute, because at this point it's eleven-forty-something central time and every damn second counts. (Also, motions to adjourn are some of the most highly-privileged motions in Robert's Rules.) Some other Senator, whose name I didn't catch, jumps in with another motion to call the question (with five seconds) and the vote succeeds like the last did, which means it's now time to vote on SB5 proper and no further debate can occur. Now comes Van de Putte with the parliamentary inquiries. And she knows exactly what the fuck she is doing, because she is the president pro tem here, and normally chairs when the Lt. Governor has something better to do with his time. "Excuse me, I moved to adjourn before that question was called. Properly, we need to vote on that before this question can be called or before we can vote on the bill." The chair says he didn't hear her. There is some back-and-forth as the chair says he didn't hear her, and she points out that the crowd in the *gallery* heard her, because, yes, the gallery is packed standing-room-only with people watching Sen. Davis' feat become increasingly legendary. (At this point, no major/national media outlet is covering this, but over a hundred thousand of us are watching the livestream, and my Twitter feed is... well, all a-twitter.) He stops answering her actual questions and just starts insisting he didn't hear her and I'm sorry but we're just going to have to do things my way. And then she busts out with the line of the evening, the one that brings the house down.
"Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry." "State your inquiry." "At what point must a female Senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room."
Spontaneous applause ensues. Now, the folks up in the rafters have been quiet all day, because they were told that disrupting proceedings would lead to them being evicted, or arrested, or what have you. But this line is way too good, and they start clapping and cheering. Video here. The applause goes on for maybe a solid minute, and then it begins to change in character. Because everyone realizes, collectively, that there's only about 15 minutes left on the clock, and they've stopped everything, and if we just keep making noise, the filibuster is successful and the day is over. They proceed to do this, and the look on LG Dewhurst's face is priceless. Just shy of midnight, they attempt to vote on SB5 anyway, and at about 12:02, the vote finishes, and he declares SB5 passed and asks for a motion to adjourn sine die, which he pronounces "sy-nee dee". (I find this a little embarrassing considering this shit is, you know, his job.) No such motion occurs, and they all just kind of wander away.
Over the next three hours, shit gets confusing. Some people claim that technically the Senate is still in session due to the lack of an adjournment. Republicans claim the bill passed in spite of the rabble. Democrats claim that the bill will be challenged since it was signed after the session ended. Somewhere around 2:30 they re-gather to caucus behind closed doors. I hope Sen. Davis was able to find some time to sit down in there somewhere, but I bet she didn't, because the adrenaline had *me* amped up and I was just watching on YouTube, and there were still hundreds of supporters to thank and be a symbol for. Eventually, Dewhurst comes back out and says that, due to when the vote passed, the session was over and the bill cannot be signed in the presence of the Senate and so can't be made into law. He doesn't say anything about the lack of adjournment, and his final words from the podium are "see you soon," implying that Gov. Perry will call another special session soon - which he since has, and it starts next Monday.
There is a video here which wraps up a lot of this. And like every other piece of media coverage I've seen, they skip the part about how filibustering is hard, or how this was a team effort, or how Sen. Davis has personal investment in this due to having been a teen mom, or really anything substantial, and they talk about her fucking shoes. Because, you see, she changed into some sneakers before standing for 13 hours, and they were pink, so naturally that's everyone's takeaway. And I wouldn't have mentioned it at all, because it's not important and too much attention has already been given here, but it turns out that the Amazon review page for these is absolutely awesome.
confused
