D. Glenn Arthur Jr.'s Journal

5:24AM - QotD

Mar's Law: "Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker." (via Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design; thanks to eo1_sat for linking there)

5:24AM - QotD

"Misogyny - it's what the Super Bowl is really all about. I was watching with my daughter and about every third commercial we would share a WTF look with each other. Finally she turned to me and said 'Men really hate us this much for making them put the toilet seat down?' I had to reassure her that most men don't even want to own a Dodge, much less spend their time cataloguing all the ways in which living with a woman is SUCH. AN. EMASCULATING. TRIAL. *hand stapled to forehead* -- archanglrobriel, 2010-02-08

5:24AM - QotD

cos, 2010-01-03:

The "invisible hand" works well in these conditions:

• a commodity with a large number of sellers and buyers
• (relatively) low barriers of entry
• all information about the commodity is freely and equally available to everyone
• consistent rules of fairness, binding agreements, and lack of fraud are well enforced

When you have corruption, or a relatively small number of dominant players, or vastly unequal information among buyers and sellers, or a variety of other things that upset the above formula, the invisible hand's power grows weaker and weaker, and other effects take over.

It's not that the invisible hand doesn't work or doesn't exist, it's that it doesn't apply to everything, and too many people are under a near-religious belief that we should pretend it does.

8:34PM - An Uneasy Emptiness Where Football Ought To Be

Dear CBS,

Like a great many of my countrymen, I am in the habit of watching each year's Super Bowl broadcast. Lately, I watch as many Baltimore Ravens games as I can, and then the Super Bowl regardless of which teams make it that far. During the years when I was performing most Autumn weekends and devoting my remaining weekend time to my then-girlfriend, the Super Bowl was sometimes the only football game I got to watch (and it was while watching the game together -- she was watching just for fascinating commercials -- that she began to appreciate the sport itself, ultimately becoming an even bigger fan than I am). And like a lot of people, I'm usually interested in seeing what especially clever new ads are unveiled then.

So the Super Bowl has been, year after year, an event I've looked forward to and made sure nothing would interrupt.

But this year, I simply find myself unable to muster any enthusiasm for the annual spectacle, neither for what will probably be an exciting match, nor for the chance to see what cleverness ad agencies come up with that folks will be talking about next week.

The controversy over the ads accepted and rejected for this year's broadcast, especially in light of the recent past, has left too bad a taste in my mouth for me to enjoy the game -- or the rest of the ads. I had not reached the point of staging a conscious one-person protest, nor of explicitly joining some sort of boycott, but as game day drew nearer, I simply found myself un-excited, even a bit disgusted. Today, as kickoff time approached, all I felt was distaste.

The last time your ad policy raised a stink in my community, it was when you used the excuse of not wanting to air controversial ads or "issue ads" during the game, as a justification for refusing an ad from a church -- a church -- that wanted to make the point that it welcomed gays and lesbians along with hets. It rang a bit hollow then, but at least was not so blatantly hypocritical as this year's decision to accept (and if what I've read is accurate, even help to fine-tune) an advocacy ad for one side of the right-to-abortions issue while again kicking sand in my community's face by rejecting an ad for reasons that amount to homophobia. Is there any issue in American politics today that is more controversial than abortion? And if you've decided that controversial ads are okay now, then is there any greater insult than telling a whole segment of the population, "the fact that you exist and may actually seek romance like the rest of us is too offensive to show during the Super Bowl"?

I haven't even had the stomach to spend much time reading about, or talking about the game these past several days -- not even to look at what others in my community have been saying about yor decision. I did happen to catch a preview of the "too offesnsive" ad on the evening news one night -- note that it wasn't too offensive for ABC to air as news during dinnertie -- and was struck by how very vanilla it was. Just some kissing, nothing explicit, presented lightheartedly.

Note that what has left me feeling queasy about what used to thrill me is not simply that you're airing (and helped create) an ad for the anti-women's-autonomy side of the decades-long abortion debate; nor simply that you have yet again decided that queer folk are too controversial to acknowledge. It's the combination of the two, the juxtaposition, the blatant homophobia that simply can no longer be whitewashed with a coat of "we don't do controversy during the Super Bowl". Rejecting the Mancrunch ad while maintaining your "no controversy" facade, I would've just grumbled quietly to myself about but could still have probably enjoyed the game. Airing both, I would have considered reasonable, and just scowled at the anti-choice ad while it was playing. Accepting the one removes your cover for refusing the other, and makes explicit that it's not fear of offending your audience or a notion that the Super Bowl is no place for controversy, but simply a case of, "oh, ick, teh ghey".

So yeah, I guess it was slow to sink in, but after a week or two of this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, the message is finally sinking in: you don't want people like me, or many of my friends. Maybe I should've gotten the message after that trans-misogynist skit on The Late Show with David Letterman regarding the appointmnt of Amanda Simpson to a post in the Commerce Department (Hey, was there ever an apology for that? I failed to keep up.), but I keep trying to apply the dictum, "never attribute to malice what could be adequately explained by stupidity," when I should be using "once is accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action," instead. Fool me twice, shame on me ... but I learn eventually.

So now, during what I'm guessing is the second quarter, I'm blogging and editing photos of the snow, rather than paying any attention to the game. I'm not even in a room that has a television in it, though I may wander back to tune in the second half of The Sound of Music after I post this.

The CBS eye logo has until now elicited warm reactions when I see it, because I associate it with the various flavours of CSI and NCIS, The Mentalist, and Craig Ferguson, all of which I watch consistently. But for the past week, seeing that logo has made me flinch. Examining my surprising-to-me lack of enthusiasm for tonight's game has allowed me to put my finger on the reason: I now associate your network with homophobia and transphobia. As a trans person with lots of trans, bi, lesbian, gay, and otherwise queer friends -- for that matter, just as someone who believes in treating minorities fairly and respectfully whether I've got friends among them or not -- your network smells like bigotry, and your logo whispers, "we don't want your kind around here".

I don't know yet whether I'll be able to kick the CSI habit, but at the moment I'm not feeling all warm and fuzzy about the thought of tuning in tomorrow night for CSI: Miami either. Fortunately ABC has Castle on in that timeslot if I really want to watch some television then. But hey, if I don't come back to the various CSI shows -- which I've watched every episode of so far -- be sure to tell your advertisers that you chased a way a pair of trans eyeballs so they don't have to worry about selling their stuff to as many GBLT people, okay?

Man, I miss getting all excited about the Super Bowl. Not giving a damn that it's on is a strange feeling. All of my adult life and most of my childhood, watching the Super Bowl has been a pleasing ritual. But I'm not going to force myself to watch it just for ritual's sake this year, when even thinking about it turns me off thanks to your taking a stand against people like me with your ad policy. (Not even your own content, but what other people offered to pay you for the privilege of showing!) Maybe by next year CBS will have managed to redeem itself -- I hope so, because I want to be able to enjoy the big game again (and keep enjoying your fine crime dramas and Mr. Ferguson) -- but if you're still kicking my community like you did a few years ago, only more blatantly now, that hope is a faint one.

5:24AM - QotD

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2008-08-28:

"A bike trip is a metaphor for life, complete with a beginning and end, and the hope that one doesn't topple off in the middle." -- William Golding

(submitted to the mailing list by Mike Krawchuk)

5:24AM - QotD

"Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while." -- Kin Hubbard

5:24AM - QotD

"Really, though, [the pre-snowfall grocery panic] has nothing to do with the weather: it's a cultural holiday. We buy and prepare traditional foods, have a day or two off, and follow elaborate rituals of celebration and catharsis - the snow isn't really necessary, it's just window dressing." -- melannen, 2010-02-05

5:24AM - QotD

"It seems to me that the feminist objection to evolutionary psychological ponderings about the relationship between men and women can be boiled down to this: Just because (some) men think that the most interesting thing about women is that they (the men) want to have sex with them (the women), it does not follow that women think the most interesting thing about themselves is that men want to have sex with them." -- aquaeri, 2009-08-18

5:24AM - QotD

"Journalists are taught to believe that truth is made entirely of opinions, and that a fact is just an opinion held by a powerful enough majority. The very principle of science is really hard for them to understand. All they've worked out is that scientists can be used for an appeal to authority, but they have a compulsion to undermine it because it really bothers them that a person can somehow become an authority by some mysterious means other than popularity and/or force." -- ceruleanst, 2010-01-15

5:24AM - QotD

"The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its prediction and then disappears." -- Bill Vaughn

Blessed Imbolc and Happy Groundhog Day!

And for University of Dallas folks, another look at Groundhog Day:

"Quand je bois du vin clairet,
 Ami tout tourne, tourne, tourne, tourne,
 Aussi désormais je bois Anjou ou Arbois,
 Chantons et buvons, à ce flacon faisons la guerre,
 Chantons et buvons, les amis, buvons donc!
-- from "Tourdion (Quand je bois du vin clairet)", either written or collected by Pierre Attaignant (some sources list him as composer and/or lyricist; others merely credit him with popularizing the tune in his role as a music publisher or possibly creating an arrangememt of it -- ingjeb.org credits it, "Anonyme-publié en 1530 par Pierre Attaingnant")

Rough translation (with some liberties for scansion and probably some just plain errors 'cause my French is rusty):
 When I drink too much Claret
 My friend, everything spins round and round and round
 From now on I'll just drink wine from Anjou or Arbois
 Let's sing, and let us drink, wage war upon this bottle
 Let's sing, and drink, my friends, so come let us drink

5:24AM - QotD

"Hello from above our magnificent planet Earth. The perspective is truly awe-inspiring.... I have seen some incredible sights: lightning spreading over the Pacific, the Aurora Australis lighting up the entire visible horizon ... the crescent moon setting over the limb of Earth. Every orbit we go over a slightly different part of the Earth. Whenever I do get to look out, it is glorious. Even the stars have a special brightness. I've seen my 'friend' Orion several times. ... I feel blessed to be here representing our country and carrying out the research of scientists around the world. ...Thanks to many of you who have supported me and my adventures throughout the years. This was definitely one to beat all. I hope you could feel the positive energy that beamed to the whole planet as we glided over our shared planet. Love to all, Laurel." -- Mission Specialist Laurel Clark, e-mail to family and friends during space shuttle flight STS-107.

5:24AM - QotD

"...Outer space, once a region of spirited international competition, is also a region of international cooperation. I realized this as early as 1959, when I attended an international conference on cosmic radiation in Moscow. At this conference, there were many differing views and differing methods of attack, but the problems were common ones to all of us and a unity of basic purpose was everywhere evident" -- James Alfred Van Allen (b. 1914-09-07, d. 2006-08-09), after whom the Van Allen radiation belts are named

5:24AM - QotD

"Sittin' and starin' out of the hotel window.
 Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again
 I'd like to get some sleep before I travel,
 But if you got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in.
 
 Busted, down on Bourbon Street,
 Set up, like a bowlin' pin.
 Knocked down, it get's to wearin' thin.
 They just won't let you be."
 
  -- The Grateful Dead, "Truckin'", American Beauty, 1970

[Yeah, this should probably be quoted tomorrow instead of today, but I wanted to use a space quotation tomorrow.]

5:24AM - QotD

"As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree' -- probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on." -- Woody Allen

[Like thoroughbred horses, trees share an official birthday. It's tonight/tomorrow. (Er, that is to say, 15 Shevat, not 30 January; it just happens to coincide with 29-30 January this year.)]

5:24AM - QotD

"The explosion of the 'Challenger,' after twenty-four consecutive successful shuttle flights, grounded all manned space missions by the U.S. for more than two years. The delay barely evoked comment. . . . But contrast the early history of aviation, when 31 of the first 40 pilots hired by the Post Office died in crashes within six years, with no suspension of service." -- C. Owen Paepke

5:24AM - QotD

"Panicking is when a novice is in a situation that requires expertise and they don't have the expertise. John F. Kennedy Jr. was over his head at dusk. He couldn't do intrument flying. He wasn't an experienced pilot.

"Choking is the disease of an expert. It is when an expert is in a situation where they lose control of their access to their expertise. And I did Greg Norman's famous meltdown at the '96 Masters.

[...]

"What happens to -- when you choke is that you -- things that were unconscious and automatic become conscious and deliberate. So his expertise is entirely unconscious. When he hits a beautiful golf shot, he's not thinking about it anymore. He's done it so many times that he's in this rarefied world.

"But now all of a sudden when the pressure's on he starts to think about things and to deliberate about things that he's never deliberated about for 25 years on the golf course. And he becomes a novice again.

"So what happens when you look at him in the final day on round four in the back nine when he just completely falls apart, what you're seeing is Greg Norman as a 12-year-old again. He's playing golf the way he did when he was learning the game."

-- Malcolm Gladwell (b. 1963-09-03), on the PBS television program Charlie Rose, 2009-11-11

5:24AM - QotD

"It's my goal in life not to die of stupid." -- Sheepie

5:23PM - Still^H^Hcky Life

A beautiful black mirror
Bottles and jars seem to sink within it
Shiny, still, perfect
Techno decorator aesthetic
Until you realize it's sticky
Spilled molasses, wasted sweetness
Creeping across the counter.

At least I found it before the ants did.

2:11PM - Seeking The Other Half Of An Electronics Clue

I need an intervalometer. (It can be all electronic -- no solenoid -- because the *istD has an electrical shutter release connector.)

Is þe olde 555 chip and a cookbook circuit still the right way to go, or should I look up something else? (Or have off-the-shelf intervalometers gotten cheap enough that I won't save much by buying a chip, and SCR, and a few resistors and capacitors at Radio Shack?)

Right now I'm using the timer function on my cell phone and pressing the shutter button on the camera each time the annoying sound rings. (I don't need precise timing for what I'm doing now, so the variation in how long it takes me to walk over to the camera and then reset the cell phone isn't hurting anything.) It'd be nice to be able to just leave something running for forty minutes and go do something else ... and this isn't the first time I've found myself wanting an intervalometer.

Unlike a lot of other "I ought to be able to build it myself" electronic project ideas, I expect the hardest part of this one to be soldering a cable to the darned sub-mini (2.5 mm) TRS phone plug that goes into the camera. Maybe I can find a dead pair of stereo earbuds that failed someplace other than at the plug, and just splice that cable on instead of screwing up more bare sub-mini phone plugs than I've already ruined in my last project.

5:24AM - QotD

"They sell us the president the same way
 They sell us our clothes and our cars
 They sell us every thing from youth to religion
 The same time they sell us our wars"
-- from "Lives in the Balance", by Jackson Browne (b. 1948-10-09), released on the album of the same name in February 1986