Octopodial Chrome

Tonight is the night freedom in Colorado dies. Tomorrow is the day the Californication of our once-fair state quickens. You should be ashamed, all of you who have banned smoking from bars, pool halls and bowling alleys. The sad thing is that there’s very little chance the ban will ever be repealed. This is how freedom ends: not with a bang but with a whimper.

There was recently an interesting article in the New York Times (no, really) about the impact of PRK on the Navy, specifically the Naval Academy. The most favoured spots are those which require good eyes (e.g. aircraft pilots); in the old days excellent candidates with bad eyes (which I should note is a relative term—folks with truly bad eyes don’t get in at all) might go on instead to become submariners. But with the incredible rise in PRK procedures (349 out of the 993 midshipmen of the class out ’06, compared to 50 in the class of ’01), more and more men are qualified to become pilots. This would be cool (more candidates means being able to choose better candidates, right?), except that this means that the best overall candidates (physically, academically & militarily) are becoming pilots, while the other branches are getting less-qualified candidates. As an example, the rate of those washing out of nuke school—a prerequisite for submarine service—has been steadily increasing over the last five years.

I don’t know what they can do to solve the problem. There’s an undeniable romance to flying which is a strong motivator; I don’t think anything else has quite the panache. Very few kids saw Top Gun and wanted to be a SWO—and no-one has ever watched Das Boot and decided that subs are the way to go. The Navy is offering bonuses to those who go into subs, but that just attracts those who like money; it doesn’t do much to grab the truly motivated. Of course, one wonders how motivated someone who wanted to be a pilot but had bad eyes would be either…

The world changes in strange ways!

I recently discovered these republished versions of classic brewing & distilling texts. This fellow scans in the originals, typesets them appropriately and re-prints them in hardcover. They look just great; I’d really like to get the complete set.

I just happened upon the greatest 80s quiz ever. I am a confirméd child of the 80s, despite my younger brothers’ epithet earlier in life. In fact, most of the items made me shed a tear or two for the long lost world of my youth…

There’s an excellent radio station a co-worker introduced me to: Radio Nigel. Just point your streaming audio tool at stream.radionigel.com, and Bob’s your uncle.

I don’t believe that I’ve pointed this out before, but 80s new wave really is the pinnacle of musical development. Thousands of years of years of musical development starting with the first caveman to hit two rocks together to get a beat going, and it peaked with synth-pop. Everything after that has been just…sad.

Recently I had to put together a list of essential new wave for a friend. The final playlist—formed after much consultation with my co-workers, all of whom were young men two decades ago—was:

1. Dead or Alive: You Spin Me Round
2. Dream Academy: Please, Please, Please Let Me
3. Madness: Our House
4. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: If You Leave
5. New Order: Blue Monday
6. Heaven 17: Let Me Go
7. The Smiths: How Soon is Now
8. Thompson Twins: Hold Me Now
9. Modern English: I Melt with You
10. The Church: Under the Milky Way
11. When in Rome: The Promise
12. Depeche Mode: Just Can’t Get Enough

Anyone who doesn’t like these songs is that much less than human.

Steven Hilton has posted a very cool map showing the current state of the software wars. Microsoft is under attack on all fronts, with Windows XP in particular having to divide its forces to face foes as diverse as Google, Mac OS X, Linux & Solaris.

I just happened upon a page full of folks from the 1970s. This is the sort of thing I watched as reruns as a boy. Dear Lord in Heaven fashions were ugly then. OTOH, some of those gals are kinda cute…

Here’s a great YouTube video about the SCA, taken from some news programme or other. A bit more emphasis on fighting than I’d have (I was always more interesting in partying & shopping than in fighting), but still a very good picture of what the war side of a large war is about (there’re also the classes, and the merchants, and the whole social side). It manages to convey how there are those times when one can suspend belief and persuade oneself that there’s actually an actual fight going on, when one’s hair stands on end and it all seems very real. You should watch it!

A dishonest Florida Today report faults repeal of that state’s helmet law, but their own numbers reveal a far different situation. They lead off with the fact that unhelmeted fatalities rose from 22 in 1998 & 1999 (before the repeal) to 250 in 2004. That sounds serious indeed: a tenfold increase! But of course before the repeal, it was illegal to ride without a helmet, and so it was much rarer—perhaps almost unheard of. And there are many crashes which are fatal whether or not a helmet is worn. Another factor to consider is how many people are riding: more people means more accidents and thus more fatalities.

And in fact the number tell an interesting story: total motorcycle deaths have increased 67%. But motorcycle registrations have increased 87%. This means that fatalities are 89% of what one would have expected with an increase in the motorcycling population!

Why would fatalities decrease? It could be due to a number of factors: shorter trips; less frequent trips; or more careful riders. It’s a well-researched phenomenon that protective measures can actually be unsafe: someone with a helmet on his head can engage in riskier behaviour, despite the fact that his torso and neck are as unprotected as others, while a bareheaded rider is more careful.

The example I like is SCA combat. Few sane men would allow others to hit them with rattan rods unarmoured—but put them in armour, and they are only too happy to play. And then they incur injuries they never would have suffered before.

This is what it has come to: amateur chemistry is becoming a crime. When I was a boy, my chemistry set had cyanide and cobalt; now it’s all balloons and rubber balls! It’s absurd.

A Virginia police officer shot and killed optometrist Sal Culosi for the crime of gambling. Naturally, the state chose not to press charges. Of course, if a citizen had shot and killed a cop who had broken into his home, then he would have a 50-50 chance, not just of being charged, but of serving time.

Ariel Alonso & Jonathan Conrad were a pair of old men who practised alchemy at home. They built a lab, financed with credit cards, and started a small business selling elixirs on the Internet. The DEA destroyed their labs, their lives and their business. When will this madness stop?

Students at George Washington University suspected that campus cops lied when they said that they weren’t using facebook.com to sniff out parties, so they laid a trap, creating false intelligence about a supposed blowout party. When the police arrived, they found shots glasses brimming with chocolate cake, Beirut cups filled with frosting, and partygoers loaded up on sugar rather than alcohol. Score one for the good guys!

So I went over to my folks’ place tonight ’cause I wanted some advice on a decision I need to make at work. They were actually quite helpful with that, and I think that I now know which choice is the best. Afterwards, though, it devolved into their standard catalogue of everything they dislike about me, which is not all that bad to tell the truth. They’re even correct about some things—although despite my flippant attitude, these are actually things I’ve been thinking of already.

But then it turned from mildly annoying to full-on nasty. My father started castigating for introducing my kid brother to smoking—which might be fair were it true. The facts are somewhat different: he learnt it from his co-workers and I discouraged him from smoking cigarettes once I found out that he was addicted to them—discouraged him quite vigorously, to the point of annoying him quite a bit. I did encourage him to smoke a pipe, in part because I believe that in moderation it is a pleasant past-time with essentially no negative side effects and in part because it has been found to be an excellent way to quit cigarettes. Additionally he was the one who inspired me to buy my hookah, rather than vice-versa.

My parents are very intelligent people, but in some few ways they are complete fools. You know how often I smoke? One pipe a week; perhaps once a month I have a second one. The last cigar I had was at the beginning of April. If that is a dangerous addiction, I don’t know what isn’t. Quite simply, there’s nothing hazardous about four or five pipesful a month and two or three cigars a year. In their defence, I think they believe that it’s impossible to be a once-a-week smoker—but my own example disproves that idea (in college I smoked 4–6 pipes a day, and in my first few years after graduation I smoked most days of the week).

I fanned the flames by saying that I’ve little respect for non-smokers, which was rude and upset my father more than I would have expected. But it’s also true: a non-smoker is like a man who walks around with his eyes closed, adamant that colour doesn’t exist; if only he’d open his eyes he’d see a world of beauty and delight.

What I didn’t say (because I was hot under the collar, and in no mood to be conciliatory) is that I also have little respect for smokers (by which term I mean addicts). Addiction is an ugly thing and a sign of weakness. It’s absurd to be cranky and short-tempered simply because one hasn’t indulged in some pleasure; worse, it’s childish.

Speaking of, I guess I’m growing up: a year ago, right now I’d be smoking a pipe out of spite, but tonight the only aroma in my condo is the night air drifting in from my balcony. I’m more sad about the whole business than angry at my parents.

These guys offer kegerators to rent. Where oh where were they when I was in college? What a great business idea, BTW. Wonder if they need some investment capital?

Jonah Goldberg certainly thinks so.

An experiment conducted at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Centre has demonstrated that even in moderation trans-fats (partially hydrogenated oils) lead to weight gain and increased abdominal fat—said abdominal fat is an indicator for diabetes.

Monkeys were fed a diet in which 8% of their BTUs (calories, for you French unit users) came from trans-fats and 27% came from other fats; another group was fed the same diet, but with mono-unsaturated fats substituted for the trans-fats. After six years, the trans-fat group had gain 7.2% body weight and had 30% more abdominal fat than the mono-unsaturated group, which had gained 1.8% body weight.

These findings are pretty clear: avoid trans-fats as much as possible.

John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, is a former leftist hippy who became a staunch Libertarian. He makes some excellent points about the branding problems the freedom movement has; we’ve picked the wrong battles and made an insufficient dent on society. He also points out that once we are free to live our lives as we wish, we need to actually determine how we wish to live our lives—something many libertarians neglect. Many of his arguments sound similar to those of the crunchy conservatives.

Best line I’ve read in a review of Revenge of the Sith:

Wow, my date was great last night! He only spit in my face once, and even offered to give me the leftovers of his dinner to feed me! And then I kissed his moldy shoes in gratitude before he left me to walk myself home in the dark!

That kinda says it all: Revenge of the Sith was good only because it was better than the previous two.

I just finished watching Red Dawn, a classic bit of Cold War era schlock from 1984. Believe it or not, I’d never actually seen it before. What’s up with that?

It’s every awkward teenage boy’s fantasy. First of all, the Russians and Cubans invade. This is important, because it frees the heroes of adult control—and as every adolescent knows, it’s adults who are the real Evil Empire. It’s also key because it gives the boys a chance to play at being heroes (which is the secret dream of every right-thinking boy). They see their parents die, and go on to avenge them; they are given some like-aged girls to protect (I don’t need to explain the appeal of this); they roam the mountains, camping and hunting and conducting guerrilla warfare against the invaders. In short, it’s the daydream of every boy over the age of 13.

This review explains Red Dawn even better; the Mutant Reviewers also do a bang-up job. It really is a stupid film (why on Earth would Russian invaders shoot up a school?!?), but it’s a fun one, and worth the time to see and laugh at.

According to a Student Monitor study, iPods are more popular than beer—and to add insult to injury the noble drink has to share second place with facebook.com. What has come to the world when some over-priced electronics beat out hops & malted barley? More to the point, what is wrong with students today?

Found some history about the Revolutionary War I didn’t know: the British freed slaves during the Revolution. This ties into a theory of mine that the American revolutions were all about slavery: the First American Revolution against the British (successful); the Texan Revolution against the Mexicans (also successful); and the Second American Revolution against the Yankees (unsuccessful). Not that I’m in favour of slavery—on balance I’m opposed—but it is interesting that it has fuelled so much talk of liberty.

Presenting Twenty-Five Position Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS-25 for short), which involves the following positions:

1. gun
2. dynamite
3. nuke
4. lightning
5. devil
6. dragon
7. alien
8. water
9. bowl
10. air
11. moon
12. paper
13. sponge
14. wolf
15. cockroach
16. tree
17. man
18. woman
19. monkey
20. snake
21. axe
22. scissors
23. fire
24. sun
25. rock

There’s a complete list of how to pronounce the wins too.

A Floridian judge ordered two lawyers to play a game of rock-paper-scissors, complete with paralegals to act as witnesses, after they were unable to settle on the location of a deposition. How droll.

John Ringo meditates on the glory which is smoking. There is a romance to smoking which the snivelling masses will never understand, and which Ringo only alludes to, for it can never be explained—only lived. Thanks to Capt. Andrew Diedrich for the link; he sometimes posts to his brother’s blog.x

I can no more respect a man who shaves his face than one who shaves his armpits, his legs or his chest. It is the height of puerility to shave, to deny that one is a man. A grown man’s chin should be no more visible than his knees. And don’t even get me started on short pants…

Yesterday I was at my local tobacconist when a young couple happened in; their errand was to buy pipes for their wedding party and for the groom himself. They ended up with some truly spectacular specimens, six in total; by their appearance I would say $100–300 pipes. It turned out that none of the groomsmen—nor the groom—had smoked a pipe, so the clerk gave him some quick lessons. I hope that they all stick to it, for it’s a healthy hobby and one to be encouraged wherever possible.

And by the looks of those pipes, I wish I were one of his men…

Tonight my buddy Jethro threw one of his famous parties (although I will point out that they’ve calmed down a lot now that we’re all getting older); as is common, some of his pals came, bringing with them their musical instruments. This time, though, I brought my guitar, and played right along with them. Granted, I’d the volume turned almost the entire way down, but still—I played with a band!

No doubt Carlos Santana is shaking in his boots…

My brother John has returned from Greece; after a month I finally have a brother in town, and after years John will be living here again. It’s good to have brothers.

On Wednesday my buddy Rob graduated from the United States Air Force Academy. Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld gave an excellent speech, and the Thunderbirds put on a good air show. I wish all the best to Rob in his career as an Air Force officer.