It’s nice to know my kids want to keep me around. (Cartoon by Travis Kremer, the eldest)
Response to a Response to The History of Torture
2011/08/26 By 1 Comment
Here’s a comment I made on a friend’s blog (FoundOnWeb) that I wanted to save as fodder for future thoughts (FFFT) and to point back at the original post. The FOW blogkeeper is a fine thinker, otaku, and part-time gent (because who wants to be one all the time). More people should read his posts to learn, if nothing else, how to cook oatmeal. You’ll also get an unabashed fan’s view on anime and one insider’s views on systems science, national security and other ratholes, and economics.
Here’s his post:
The History of Torture — Misses the Point
Here’s my sketchy response:
[Hard to encapsulate a response to such a well summarized damned difficult topic in a comment box rather than over beer and earnest conversation. Forgive the leaping round.]
I can’t think of a period of time in which an enlightened western government didn’t practice torture. Us. Current friends. Former enemies. Paragons of cultural virtue, all.
It’s not just a moral failure, it’s a huge intellectual failure. We’ve been outsmarted or outplayed, by terrorists and by factions in our own government. We try to extract info out of people willing to martyr themselves, their families, and their unwilling culture. Who generally work in isolation. Who are often, it seems, tortured stepladder fashion to learn who their handlers are, and so on.
The torturers also become victims of their own practices, and pass the tradition on to others. They write papers and make policies, all very bloodless.
I also think I see why history.net lumped brutality and torture. Both may require you to see the target as less than human or, at least, less than you, for you to command or perform the act. Look outside the bounds of western torture to the practices of tribal armies in Africa or outside of military and government to gang violence. At some level you have a person or organization in power (or seeking power or retribution) and another suffering, whether they actually are the intended target or a stand-in. We can outlaw torture of any sort by our government and stand tall, and it won’t make a difference wherever the practice is accepted–including in our own country.
As a thought experiment, what if torturing another being also cost the torturer their life–not as legal punishment but personal cost? As part of our biological architecture? Would we continue with rewards for martyrdom? Or would it simply never occur to us to seek it as a solution? (That assumes that other parties could take violent actions that did not cause them to self-expire.)
The filmmakers should have titled it, A History of Torture.
Feckless no more?
2011/05/27 By Leave a Comment
Ah, my ASUS “Black Diamond” wireless router just arrived–this means that by Monday (Memorial Day) I could have a wireless network at home that I don’t describe using words like feckless. And I can attach our printer and a centralized backup/media drive to it. And our Wii won’t say “wha?” when I ask it to stream. And I can even use WPA2. And, hopefully, I will be able to connect to HTTPS domains from home using my work laptop.* It’s my little slice of nerdvana.
* Said machine is a new Lenovo Thinkpad (or Stinkpad) running Windows 7–a sturdy, reasonably fast laptop that is in mysterious wireless conflict with my wheezing wireless router when WPA is enabled. I’ve never had this issue before and don’t have it with the nearly as new netbook (running both Win7 or Linux). It’s a valuable but frustrating lesson when tech fails to work.
Update: The router took me less than an hour to set up that same night, including connecting a printer. The reviewers all love it, but warned that its admin screens are more complex than most routers to configure. Not compared to the admin panel for the router it replaced. And my goodness it’s fast.
Update: The conflict with my older router was related to DNS at my workplace and a Windows 7 update. It’s annoying to step back 10 years and have to update the local hosts table manually, but that’s what it took to fix the problem. Still love the router.
Objects On My Desk
2011/04/06 By Leave a Comment
Empty 12 oz. clear plastic cup with the dregs of a matcha** green tea slurpie and stamped round with a “floral motif representing the earth in bloom.” The bloom recycles but the underlying description has an initial cap and full stop, separated by a 10 mm translucent void. The message is clear as the cup: pictographs rule, words drool.
Also, an old cell flip phone that loses signal often enough to remind me not to rely on convenience, a gloomy black digital desk phone that semi-randomly forwards my calls (out of boredom?), an old photo of young Debby in beret and Travis in bunting at the beach when Trav was 6 months (still one of my favorites), two computer monitors, a wireless keyboard that also doubles as a crumb collector, a Dundee marmalade jar that has been my pen container since 1992, a lamp with a long thin neck bent like the swan’s when he tried to look three ways at once, infrared wireless headphones (I can’t have infrared vision, but I can have infrared hearing), a brown ceramic head of a French–really, Gallic–gnome to which I’ve taped a phome rubber beret phormerly attached–as they say–to a phone headset, a rumpled 4×6″ napkin the color of brown rice, and a homemade family photo collage printed on white card stock.
Most importantly, there’s a small charm to ward off the Evil Eye (and certain management)–a flattened shiny round stone with a gravity of 9.6 m s-2 and viscosity of 3-6 • 1019 Pa·s painted to look like a piercing sky blue eye, with a small hole drilled at the top of the sclera and strung with a short lanyard of matching sky blue: a gift from a friend’s visit to Turkey, along with a long gone box of addictive Turkish delight. My friend, who had no wish to bewitch me, gave me the ward first, then the candy. I also just noticed that my coffee mug, which I can only describe as the orange eye socket of a whale, is decorated with variations of the same charm.
I’ll end our journey across the tableland at the edge of my 2 drawer file in the tangle of a steadfast succulent vine (esculentus stabilis) that is older than at least one of my children. I won’t bore you with the walls, floor, small bookcase with its trail of river rock and sand dollars left by my daughter, or the contents of the file–which would give too much away.
** As in, “Matcha wattah wit me! Matcha wattah wit you?”
Netbook, Part 2: Baby Comes Home
2011/02/27 By Leave a Comment
Well, it’s not the netbook I thought I would buy–which was to be the spanky new dual core ASUS with USB 3; instead it’s the Samsung NF310, also dual core, higher res screen and wider keyboard (with a bit more responsive keys and touchscreen buttons), and USB 2.0 only–but it was $140 less than the ASUS (special deal at the local Fry’s).
The bad news on the Linux front is that this model’s new enough and netbook configurations are unique enough that that no Linux flavor supports all the necessary hardware features yet–so for now I’ll stick with this Windows 7 Starter OS, strip off all the extra crap that came with it (including Office lite and a 60 day subscription to that PITA Norton Internet Security), install OpenOffice.org and PageFour, and put it to work right away–as my primary writing tool.
Overall, I’m very happy with it. Typing is no problem, the screen is bright with high contrast, the sound is terrific for a laptop, and it has these sexy clamshell curves that I can’t stop caressing with my eyes. Those crafty engineers at Samsung. And the battery life’s great–I’ve run it now with full power to the wifi and screen for well over 6 hours. Reducing brightness and wifi power is supposed to give me about 9 hours. And there’s the little popup telling me that it’s time for both of us to recharge.
Adventures in Netbooking
2011/02/09 By 2 Comments
Thanks to the IRS savings plan, we’ll get enough money back this year to pretty up the main bath, make some necessary car repairs, fix the front porch roof, and, more importantly, buy a netbook for me. My precious, not for sharing.
Specs
The Asus Tripoli* PC 1018P w/ Intel Atom N550 Dual Core CPU, 2 gb RAM, 250 gb hard drive (enhanced hamster, not SSD, which unfortunately is out of budget), two USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 ports, and a card reader. And a neoprene sleeve for transport.
It comes with Windows 7 “starter.” I plan to wipe the drive and install CrunchBang Linux. My son’s SO has been using C! on her netbook for about a year and has been very happy with it. C! doesn’t have the pretty UI provided with (K)Ubuntu, but it supposedly runs faster and has fewer issues. And fewer distractions. I like Win7, but also like the idea of using an OS that’s currently less subject to attack, has less system overhead, and keeps me focused. I also “grew up” on UNIX and Windows systems, so shifting back and forth is fairly easy.
Writing tools for Linux
I’m buying the Tripoli to use as a very portable, moderately priced writing tool, that can also handle e-mail, browsing, and playing multimedia files. I’m willing to trade screen and keyboard size for portability/weight (which is minus one pound–the anchor comes with it). For home use, I’ll eventually get a larger screen and keyboard.
I will miss my two favorite, distraction-free writing tools for Windows: PageFour and Scrivener. I’ll install OpenOffice to handle compability with MS Office files, but I stopped using Word for personal writing projects waaaay back in ’09. So I’ll be evaluating tools like FocusWriter, PyRoom, q10, KWord, Writer’s Cafe, Celtx, and, for desktop publishing, Scribus. There are also full featured text editors, but I want writing tools that provide a little more lift without much adjustment. If you know what I mean.
I hope to have the netbook in my grubby little hands in three weeks or less. I’m getting the white clamshell, though, so I best wash up first.
Note: I was writing this list of tools as I was looking them up. It turns out that Windows is the starved platform. Kind of like eating the same thing for years out of a well stocked pantry and suddenly noticing a plain but well built little door along the baseboard that, on opening, leads into a gourmet deli.
Update: Several people have asked why I didn’t consider an iPad or wait for an Android tablet. They said that the netbook market is shrinking and will soon vanish, squeezed between cheap repackaged last-gen notebooks and the sexy new, ready to go out of the box, tablets. Err, no. At least, not anytime soon. Those cheap notebooks are still heavy and large, and the tablets are still appliances, not tools, and are more expensive than netbooks. The iPad has lousy wifi connectivity and, without buying an external keyboard, doesn’t cut it as a writing tool. I’ve spent a fair amount of time with tablets and appreciate them for what they are and will be, enough to know they won’t serve my needs anytime soon. I also don’t care if the netbook market dries up. It’ll continue to be a very useful tool until it stops working. I don’t know if Kurt’s world is the real world. But it’s real enough for me.
*Tripoli reads nicer and carries the weight of history while Eee sounds too much like a shriek, and I don’t want no computer that makes me shriek. Anymore.
Cuff Links
2011/01/31 By Leave a Comment
His wife showed him silver cuff links the size of coins. He asked why. She pushed them into the cuffs of the white dress up shirt he’d slipped on. “They’re for Thursday,” she said. “You want to look your best.”
He asked what was special about Thursday–it being only Tuesday, he worried that he’d forgotten an engagement.
“Your memorial service,” she said. “Now hold still,” and she fastened the links. “There.”
He wasn’t shaken by her words. He wondered if that meant he was going to die on Thursday or, the service being planned, he was already dead and that she was simply doing what she always did, helping him get ready in advance.
Note: I had this dream on a Tuesday–it went almost just like the description. I woke up feeling apprehensive about Thursday until Friday morning. And then, I patted myself. That was last week. I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be a premonition for any Thursday. Although this Thursday I’m going to the dentist.
Sorry about the header text color
2011/01/16 By 2 Comments
I changed my theme, added a clipped photo of Noah and Sophie from our visit last summer to the Octopus Tree and light house at Cape Mears, and then, not being a graphic artist, used the WordPress and theme options for overlaying header text. Not so happy with the textual results and will find a better solution. Unfortunately, this theme doesn’t come with a readymade semi-opaque pane to slip between the header title and image.
Eulogy Tunes
2010/11/06 By Leave a Comment
Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is de rigeur for modern funerals. I love that song, like most Cohen tunes, but recently a friend gave me a better idea. When I go, I hope they play Johnny Cash: for the service/memorial, Burning Ring of Fire, about a love that never dies. Deborah. Add his Give My Love to Rose and cover of the Nine Inch Nails tune, Hurt. Hell, play the entire Man Comes Around album, and get the grieving done with. But for any wake, please, play the Benny Goodman Orchestra live version of Sing, Sing, Sing; the Latin cover by Pepe and the Bottle Blondes; and the glorious riff Sing, Sang, Sung, by Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band. And anything else that might make the right people smile and that fussy people would find inappropriate.
I don’t plan on going soon (or maybe never if that damn Singularity arrives soon enough), but I’m feeling contemplative in the midst of all this writing and wanted to stick this bit of info where someone would find it. Because, like diamonds and kidney stones and like me, this blog will be around for at least another half century.
Small victories
2010/10/26 By 1 Comment
Well, when you run your own WP install, you can’t depend on simple services like e-mail notifications just working. I’ve had to check my admin pages to review comments, leaving my rabid fan base dangling like lonesome apostrophes while I got my act together.
I finally looked up the problem and found I had to install a plugin to configure SMTP mail. I found one better (aptly named Configure SMTP by a guy named Scott Reilly) that handles SMTP or Gmail configurations. Gmail’s easier for me, so I set it up, tested a comment and before I could squint, the little e-mail notifier extension in Chrome turned red and hiccuped with a new message.
Don’t hold back on those cards and letters, kids. Although, come Nov 1, I’m likely to disappear from this place till after Thanksgiving, and if I don’t, your job is to shame me. I don’t think that shaming a writer is a particular form of abuse, done in a civilized manner. You know, with a chin raise and a sigh and a tut tut while lighting one’s cigar and palming a properly decanted glass of port.
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