The Iron Yuppie

Jim Blizzard's Blog - Google - it's my *desktop*

Looks like someone agrees with me. It's search for your desktop, not your browser!

Marquee de Sells: Chris's insight outlet

Oops, make that two people :)

Revel in the graphics that are Half-Life 2

What primal urges must humans have such that picking up a radiator and heaving it at a character in the game is one of the most satisfying things ever? And how much more disturbing is it that heaving it at another human player is exponentially more fun than chucking it at the computer controlled characters? Maybe it's just me.

Amazon.com: Books: Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel via TMQ

I've thought that flying cars would be upon us any number of times. And certainly now that we're in the 21st century, you'd think we'd be flying everywhere! However, due to any number of problems (mostly engineering I would imagine), we have yet to walk out our door, get in our car and fly to work. However, this is an interesting book on the subject that posits that by 2010, we'll have door to door aircraft flown by professionals.

Two quick comments on this. One, why are big things always predicted to happen in years ending in zero? This is usually the first indication that a prediction is, as we like to say in the scientific realms, pulled out of one’s ass. If 2009 rolled around and the necessary developments had been made, do we really think they would not launch? Are the necessary improvements really five years and one month away? I’d be much more comfortable making a prediction on how long it would take manufacturing to ramp up, even if it meant that the prediction was going to happen in 2011 rather than the nice big round number.

Two, people need to understand how fundamentally personal flying cars will change security as we know it. Today, prisons, nuclear reactors, military bases, etc all have large open areas surrounded by miles of razor wire and fences. Which is fine, as long as you do not have a way to (fairly cheaply) get about 15 feet up in the air. Once you can fly in and fly out, what is to prevent some crazy person from staging a mass prison break? Or flying into a military base? Are these facilities going to be manned with aa guns or surface to air missiles? Suffice it to say, if you add the third dimension to things you need to care about in regards to security, the problems you now have to worry about grow exponentially.

Gothamist

* Sniff *... I miss NYC. This is a cool blog about it though... (subscribed!)

How-To: BroadCatching using RSS BitTorrent to automatically download TV shows - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Wow, this is REALLY cool. This may very well be to TV what Napster was to music. I've known how to download TV shows for some time, but the combination of ease of use here (relatively), the speed and reliability (through bittorrent) and the centralized server (through RSS) makes this quite the little killer app. Some one should still come along and slap a nice interface on the whole thing (a la napster or kazaa), but this is pretty darned good.

Media Often Fails to Distinguish Opinions from Facts » from All Things Considered, Tuesday, November 23, 2004

I heard about a fascinating study about our natural partisanship which extended an older study I had read about as an undergraduate. In the older study, where both sides of an issue are presented, people very strongly tend to think their side presented more accurate and compelling data. Of course this is not too surprising, given a person is likely to agree with those that confirm their internal thoughts. What makes it even more interesting is that when both sides are presented, one would think this would draw a person closer to the middle. I would have thought that seeing the other side would lead a person to understand the other side is presenting a rational point of view and this would lead to a more moderate position. This is exactly the opposite of what happens! Hearing both sides tends to reinforce the position someone already has and leads her to believe more strongly in their position.<o:p> </o:p>

The study covered on NPR further extends this to cable networks, where “neutral” points are presented and then the details of the study are filled in by each of the sides. However, the authors of the study were able to show that it was nearly totally irrelevant whether or not the data was present and/or how strong the data was. Instead, what you thought before or what you would feel if a particular outcome was to be the case dictated how you would feel about the incident and the data.

Needless to say, our current cable news format merely exacerbates this natural flaw in our thinking. One may say that ratings drive this… I suppose people generally enjoy hearing people yell back and forth more than anything. But even worse, the blogsphere, which is supposed to be journalism by and for the people, does not even bother with presenting the other side. It is up to the individual to seek out the other side (though I suppose it would not matter even if that individual chose to since the study says it’s unlikely that it would convince a person of the other person’s point of view). Instead, we get this vicious circle of people continuing to feed each other’s core beliefs and simply reinforcing what they already believe without even the appearance of impartiality.

My question ultimately comes down to how can we get out of this endless loop. I have dreamt that there would be some kind of actually balanced program wherein the reporter would present a set of facts and the partisans would be forced to, in some kind of cruel and unusual exercise, defend the other side’s position immediately after making her own point. However, I am not sure how this gets around the natural human behavior to believe what supports your own position and discards the opposing side’s facts. Thoughts are welcome.

D

AccessDownTown > Future Views

I stumbled across this website for my local road construction projects... actually, this is only half of the projects that affect me. The other half (in downtown Seattle) are woefully behind and poorly documented. However, I thought this was particularly cool.

Plan to move bridge

Bridge actually being moved

Especially cool that they did it just like it was planned. What an amazingly difficult project to move a fricken bridge. I know this may be the nerdiest dream ever, but I've always wanted to try my hand at traffic simulation planning on a computer. Sim City Rush Hour may do it... but I'd really like to mess around with my neighborhood and see if I can improve things. Because as commuting stands now, it is just an enormous pain in the ass.

Hospital concealment strengthens suspicion: Arafat died of AIDS

This is absolutely terrible... the worst part about this is if this rumor is overturned, which I strongly suspect it will be, the conspiracy theorists will never let this go. And every conversation an opponent of Arafat or the Palestinians will bring this rumor up forever. I'm sure that this kind slandering the dead will go a long way to bringing about peace in the middle East.

Wal-Mart knows you and they are going to get you!

Just kidding of course, but this is a very interesting article about how much Wal-Mart knows about its different customers. I remember a direct feedback loop I heard about one time, where Wal-Mart was able to change the packaging of a certain type of Roach and Ant spray because in certain sections of the country it was socially unfavorable (like the outline of the ant was on the package or some such). I love data mining... all the answers are right there, it's up to you to dig it out. Of course, the hard part is understanding what is causation and what is causality.

Democrats.org on John Ashcroft

"To those who pit Americans against immigrants, citizens against non-citizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve," Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."

To quote Mr. Berney: "John Ashcroft: Disagreeing with the government makes you the enemy."

So very scary. Whatever happened to:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"