Jesus saves, but Moses invests.

I spent some time putting songs into this little widget. It looks like it's pulling songs from hosting across the web, so I guess it's institutionalized bandwidth theft. ^_^ So, in creating this little play list, I guess I'm an accessory to bandwidth theft, which is mean. Most of what I put in my list, though, are grabbing songs from state universities, so I'm not hurting some poor saps. You're welcome to discuss the ethics, or just enjoy the mixtape. ^_^
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I didn't see it there, but I'm sure Fark has a great thread about it. The International Herald Tribune, among other sources, reported that Somali pirates hijacked a Ukrainian vessel carrying 30 Russian T-72 tanks. (Link)

Ninjas can't top that, so pirates are the winners.

Now, I dare not imagine what happens when the Somalis hijack a tanker of refined diesel, so that they can actually drive the tanks...

It needs medicated.

Public key encryption can make the world a very different place.

Background on public key cryptography: you have two long cipher keys, your public key for sending messages, and private keys for decrypting them. Digital signatures go with the keys to provide an identity (reputation) to each key-holder (I'm probably explaining this wrong). Friedman's purpose is to demonstrate how a completely anonymous individual can gain a brand-name reputation for criminal acts in complete secrecy. Is it possible to become a privately-contracted assassin using public keys and anonymous "onion routing", so authorities can't shut down your trade? Apparently, a contract killing business is possible. 

I love the scenario he paints in his new book:

 

( Excerpt )

 

I remember when he first outlined the hitman scenario using a public key identity, in an article from 1993. He's refined it a great deal, but today I doubt the ad would go in the New York Times.

Alternately, legions of superheroes and what-have-you can operate comfortably in this crypto-anarchic world, too. I anticipate that as nationalist democracies become more stable across the world, we'll see a crop transnational political consultants and the like work just like this. Perhaps private intelligence-journalism firms will crop up the same way. It's interesting.

I have no idea how to tag posts like this.

Playful banter is prohibited. Somebody's feelings will be hurt, no matter the topic. Stepping on a crack is inevitable.

Yep, I really can't say anything in the atmosphere of the modern world. The world is a cage, and citizens are the jailers. Society is a muzzle. Everything is wrong.

If I can't tell jokes about schemes to overthrow the world's oldest constitutional republic, what can I tell jokes about?

Just the Executive Branch, I swear.

Americans wouldn't have missed voting, right?

Details:

( The Sick Details! )
This is a true story that ought to be fictionalized in a major work one day.

Then there are the tales of my planned coups in Asia...

That was the prognosis from the doctor. Previous news of "leaking heart valves" were apparently over-hyped, and he's now told reaching the age 108 isn't out of the question.

The limp on one of my basset hounds is gone.

Hurricane Ike didn't cause a mess here. There aren't even all that many limbs (from trees, mind) scattered about.

I think I picked the last tomato for the year.

Crude is trading in double, rather than triple digits now? What gives?

I think my silly post about establishing a wildcat colony on Antarctica scared or angered people into defriending me. Methinks you're too sensitive for the real world if that's the case. For the record, I was kidding about eating the penguins, but jeez.

Despite being on the poor side, I plan to put in bids for UHF stations. TV broadcasting in the United States is going digital, so I expect picture quality to be alright. Don't buy government bonds! I might get lucky and win the rights in some odd market. How much would that be worth?

Working on my baseball game turned out well today. Spent a lot of time practicing with the knuckleball, which is a minimal-rotation pitch. I think it was working. Hitting was worse. I kept putting the ball into the ground when the pitches were below the belt. Above, I was driving them like they were on golf tees. Really, I hit them almost as well as a golf ball with a 7-iron. :) I guess I'm really strong right now.

Instead, a Google-Yahoo merger is in the mix? The New York Times writer covering it in the "Bits" blog doesn't seem to know what a news aggregator is, or how it works, which is giggles-worthy. They really think Google News is "stealing" their content by linking to it, don't they? ^_^ (I know, the writer was quoting the World Association of Newspapers, but his failure to offer a technical correction suggested he agrees)

I have a little technical advice for the New York Times and the World Association of Newspapers; add the well-known script that tells spiders not to index pages. Most crawlers, including Google's, will politely obey the code. The catch; you won't be listed in their search engine anymore, either.

Yahoogoog? GoogHoo? I anticipate them getting into banking and finance to fill the current void. I predict a bigger rally than Monday's fall if that happens.

By the way, al Qaeda was unable to release a 9/11 Anniversary tape this year, and I obtained a PDF file of UBL's statements dating up to 2004. Make of that what you will.

I vaguely recall the world's first Internet-based banking closing early this year. If I could obtain it on the cheap, it would have a more solid reputation than today's banks, wouldn't it? ^_^

Wood Magazine is not a gay porn mag, I learned.

Dome construction is often considered aesthetically displeasing, but have you ever considered that if you lived in a climate controlled dome city, your home would only have to fulfill the social aspects of providing sanctuary, mostly over privacy? That means, I think, building your home would only consist of putting up plywood panels so that they enclose a private space in some aesthetically pleasing arrangement. You could live in a dress-up barn without concern for heat, cold, rain, or snow, every day of the year.

This is just one of the more superb advantages I realized a dome city would have, and perhaps this is the largest financial advantage. The differences is costs of really impressive barns and sheds and even the most simple "real" homes is enormous, and the implications of the savings would ripple through everything.

I managed to resume writing fiction. Writing dialogue still seems unnatural to me, but I seem to have no problems writing first-person narratives. I could probably blame updating this journal on that.

Perhaps we play out backyard basketball games too roughly. I always duck my head down suddenly and forcefully as I make my drive to the basket. The combination of ducking and making that first big step, which is more like a horizontal leap, is a pretty violent sudden move, and this time, I took a shot from a flying elbow right squarely in the teeth. The bottom set took the brunt, and the shockwave was so severe the back of my skull still feels it.

I've always played backyard games dangerously. :)

"The Romans built arches of triumph to celebrate the big victories won by the Roman Empire, while Hitler built them to celebrate victories he had not yet won."
-Albert Speer

Sort of funny to run into that quote after Speer's son designed the Beijing Olympic spectacle.

No, this has nothing to do with being butthurt if John Jackson beats Jack Johnson for Emperor of the Galaxy, but...

I just feel like establishing a Wildcat Colony on Antarctica for the heck of conquering a frontier. I want to plant a flag featuring my Coat of Arms on the icy rump of the Earth, put up a Fortress of Solitude, and find out how best to prepare penguin for a meal.

I'll prepare a FAQ on the fly!

( The totally sweet Antarctica FAQ! )

August 4th was the first day I recall ever seeing a flex fuel vehicle before. I didn't recognize the model, just a red tag on it that advertised it as a flex fuel car. It was a cherry red SUV of some sort, looking something like a Ford Escape. I think it was Japanese, though.

New topic:

( Baseball stuff )

"The Sun never sets on the British Empire 'cause God can't trust the Bastards in the dark."
-Bono Old Irish Joke

Hurricane Gustov poured rain down on me today as I had to crawl under a barn to save my dog, who was stuck. Messy. Muddy.

I've been relaxing and revisiting all the "bubblegum pop" that critics panned so loudly around the turn of the century. The teen pop queens and so forth from 1999 or so to very recent, and I'm not hearing what the critics hated so much. They really don't sound too different from the acts that are critically praised, besides being more polished.

Prepackaged? Well, wasn't Phil Spectre the sound engineer on a record for The Clash? :D I don't know what the criticism is supposed to mean, anyway. As I've listened to all the dance club hits the climbed up the charts in many different European countries, I observed the sounds of the highly praised dance hits were nearly identitical to the panned "bubble gum" music that supposedly signals the death throes of the yanks. Something about decadence and materialism is supposedly killing us off, and pop music is a symptom. Listen to grunge or something, for the end is high.

Grunge/"post punk" = sackcloth and ashes for a secular society

Be happy. :)
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Yesterday I learned for the first time about Jeremy Bentham's Hedonistic Calculus. I've been informally referring to "cool points" for years, but it looks like the system has actually be formalized. Now I'm curious to find out who has the highest all-time score. And on average, who would score higher, a lover, or an inventor?
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My mind has been song-writing a lot again lately, but I haven't been writing anything down. I listened to the two new L'Arc~en~Ciel singles yesterday, and was highly impressed. The drumming was superior to anything I recall from the band before.

I have no money, but at least I have time. Plenty of time to think, certainly. So I thought about what I could do that no one else would have the guts to follow, something completely empty for fear of reprisal. Something that would stung to death by a swarm of lawyers so badly no one without buckets full of panache would consider attempting.

Well, Livejournal of course has the answer staring in our faces. What  role-players and fan fiction writers lament most about big hosting services these days is that their games and fics are purged, accounts suspended, and even their listed interests are removed whenever the parent company of a service such as Livejournal receives notice they may face civil or legal sanction from whatever interest group raises a challenge.

Role-playing accounts anywhere are suspended all the time all over the web for being too unsavory in nature to this coalition or that, and I've got to wonder what the oppurtunities are for a service that is created with the mission of not buckling under threatened sanctions, and willing to fight out extended legal battles.

I'm thinking the potential rewards could be huge for a venture that stays loyal to it's clients over the long-haul, and again, I don't anticipate major venture capital backing for any rivals. I liken what  I'm trying to do with the Mormons settling in Utah. They squated on the land because they were confident no one would follow them to such a desolate place,  but this might be more like creating a settlement in a fallout zone, because this "settlement" will slowly kill me off through inevitable scandal and torts, as if they were radiation. I'll have the sector all to myself, though where I can thrive without preditors to kill me quickly.

I'll thrive long enough to make my own fortune, anyway. :) Or end up penniless from a tobacco-style class action.

Looks like he'll play the 2009 season of the alternative league, should they actually play.

You know, Lawrence Phillips is only 33, so he could also show up.

From what I see, the league has six teams together that will likely happen, all with individual owners. Most leagues fold because they can't sustain the financial viability of mediocre teams. The first AFL, for example, sustained a single quality team staring Red Grange in New York that had to fold when no other team could keep from going under. This happened with the second AFL in the late forties, when four teams were viable, but they couldn't sustain a full league again. Vince MacMahan tried to get over that hump with the XFL by owning every team, but he couldn't swallow all the losses. The UFL is trying a hybrid, the league shouldering half the stake in each team, but I have to wonder if that will slow the expansion of the league.

So I'm wondering if there's room for non-profit football teams in the league. As a non-profit, a team would avoid the overhead of income taxes, saving a team from losing a third or more in revenue. It could establish an endowment, like a university, that would hold on to enough capital to sustain the team for years. Some smaller cities may be able to collect enough donations to create a large enough endowment.

You'll probably say "without a profit motive, there's no way management will make this a winning team." Precisely! A league would require a few sustainable mediocre teams for the great for-profits to survive. They'll provide a major asset to the for-profits in sustaining a full league, being the bulwark previous competition for the National Football League have lacked. One of the first two franchises of the sort should be called the Indomitables. :)

In any case, it would be fun to see how fans heckle them as jobs programs for washed up football players.

i received a vague email telling me not to give up. That's all, don't give up. Hmm. Perhaps it's from the future, or a psychic.

This might be the same everywhere in the United States of America, but I was reading the Oklahoma Election Board requirements, and read that they only accept checks for filing. The absurdity hit me right away that cash, which the government is supposed to enforce as legal tender, is no good when filing to run for state office.

Life is strange, isn't it?  

With the Russians in control of Livejournal, can we say anything we want about that conflict? ^_^ Seems really dumb to start an invasion the very day of the Olympic opening ceremony, to me.

I learned about it entering the hospital yesterday, as CNN just broke the news on a  TV in the lobby. I ran down a few thoughts as I saw the big red alert on the screen.

Internal system check:

1. Is Georgia one of the breakaway republics that joined NATO, like Estonia?
2. Will any American advisers be caught in the attacks?
3. Preemption: If one and two are positives, is a "first strike" coming?

Well, there was no drama of wounded pouring into the hospital. I spent a lot of time trying to finish the "Dragonlance" spin-off I got bogged down in this summer, but the pages are turning slowly. I was in a waiting room where the TV changed channels occasionally, but stayed on "Trading Spouses" for a few hours. I chortled at the program upon seeing that only one Cajun boy got subtitles, although everyone was speaking the same language.

The cafeteria food wasn't agreeable, but it was chow. I hadn't eaten the day before, so this was welcome, at least.

I've overslept all week, which is good news. My body mostly just hurts when I'm awake. :) I've wanted to vomit this morning. I was subjected to popular music formats yesterday for extended periods. To the hospital, from the hospital, and in the waiting room when "Trading Spouses" wasn't on. Mostly country music, but it all sounded like the same buzz saw to me. Sound engineers amp everything up to 11 now, jumbling all recorded noises together, and practically all songs have the same climaxing chorus in them, anyway. It all hurt my head.

This is disorganized. I feel crappy.