Appreciate

I call for the complete and immediate censoring of President George W. Bush until he agrees to stop using the word "appreciate." I'm watching his news conference on CBS right now and does he know of any other way to respond to questions? Jesus... he did it again as I'm writing this. [insert expletive deleted]. Please Lord, help our President to learn new words to use.

Political Compass: Part II

I took the test. My results were:

Economic = -5.38
Social = -3.54

I expected the social value, but not the economic value. A few days later, I took the test again but this time carefully reading each question. I believe I misinterpreted a few questions the first time. Additionally, I think I was answering them too idealistically than I really believed. Sure, I would love corporations to actually give something back to society but do they have an obligation? I don't think so but I do think they should take it upon themselves to do so. I don't believe the government needs to regulate it. So my results the second time made a lot more sense to me. They were:

Economic: -2.13
Social = -4.36

That seemed more like it. I used to call myself a Republican because I value a smaller government and less economic regulation but that stopped after Bush got into office and "compassionate conservatives" took over the party. My voter registration card says I'm registered as a Democrat but truly, I've consider myself a Libertarian. This only confirms what I thought.

So I decided to see what my friends and family thought. I emailed them a link to the test and asked them to send me the numerical results so that I could analyze and graph the data. It was interesting to say the least. Click on the image to enlarge.



It was really interesting to see how much of an anarchist hippie Wayne really is but I didn't expect him to be so far right economically. I expected that the Somma twins would be closer together than they were and I really expected my friend Kyle Potter, a US Marine, to be much more right wing.



I'll leave everyone to make their own conclusions about the data and the test. I don't think the test is perfect and all but one of the people I surveyed are under the age of 25 (thanks Uncle Dan for submitting your entry), but the data definitely makes one big point - Neither major party is accurately representing my demographic (white 18-34). I find it funny that most of the people I surveyed and claimed to be Republican, had results in the Democratic Party range and those who claimed to be a Democrat, had results in the Libertarian and Green Party range. Perhaps we should pay more attention to Ralph Nader and David Cobb.

Political Compass: Part I

I ran across a site the other day that really caught my attention. The site is Political Compass.

Taken from their site: "Welcome to The Political Compass.
There's abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left' , established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher?"

I agree. There is more to a person's politics than their economic beliefs. In any event, the site offers a roughly 60 question test for determining your political beliefs in a two-dimensional form. There is the traditional left and right for the economic scale, but the addition is up and down for a social scale.

Therefore, I decided to plot out where the current American political parties are located. I took educated guesses and used the site's information regarding political leaders to determine the locations. Click on the image to enlarge.



I decided to plot the site's information about current and former world leaders, both national and religious. I found it interesting to see how close John Kerry was to George W. Bush. If John Kerry was labeled as a left wing liberal during the 2004 Presidential election, then I must be a communist. Or perhaps, that was all just propaganda. Click on the image to enlarge.

Bill Maher & General Motors

I've started watching a lot of "Real Time with Bill Maher" since moving into my apartment and having HBO. Check it out sometime, it's really a great show. Unfortunately, its airs on Friday nights but I typically catch it later during encore broadcasts.

Anyway, he has this section towards the end of every show called "New Rules." Basically, he spends the remaining ten minutes of the one hour long program bitching about whats on his mind with a dose of comedy and satire. Well, one of the "new rules" this week really struck me hard. It managed to affect because I'm an advocate for environmental issues, I've grown disgusted with America's obsession for SUVs, and partly because I curse at the horrible situation General Motors has driven (oh I love puns) itself into these days (coming from somebody who interned at GM and whose father has worked there almost entirely... well that says a lot). To paraphrase my father, "GM is in some shit right now, more than you know."

Anyway, here's the "new rule" from Bill Maher:

And finally, New Rule: Because it's Earth Day, I get to ask this question: How come we have cars with global positioning systems, satellite radio and voice-activated web access, and we still power them with the black goop you have to suck out of the ground? Well, I hate to tell you this, folks, but gas doesn't cost too much; it costs too little. Ooh, I know, I know. I know you hear about gas prices over two dollars a gallon and it makes you nearly choke on your four-dollar latte.

We bitch about gas, but adjusted for inflation, it's the same price it was back when the Pope was a Nazi. And that's not the fault of ExxonMobil, either. That's like Kirstie Alley saying her problem is that Arabs control all the fudge. Anyone who's been to Europe knows that the price of gas over there is just a picture of an arm and a leg. And that's because they tax it heavily and we don't. How come we Americans accepted that you could do that to cigarettes - overtax them because they were bad - but burning oil into the atmosphere is okay? You can't smoke in a bar, but you can drive through a restaurant?

A little smoke from a cigar is intolerable, but a lot from a Hummer is no problem? Of course, the Hummer is made by General Motors, the owner of other gas-guzzling F***-You-mobiles - like the Escalade and the Suburban. And they just lost a billion dollars in one quarter. Because it suddenly got a lot less sexy to drive one of these fake macho vehicles now that it costs a hundred bucks to fill it up. Yeah, nobody's dick is that small.

Plus, does anybody remember the '70s? GM did this before. They got filthy rich selling giant cars that suddenly people didn't want because gas went up. Cut to the Japanese gloating, as they are again. Because they own the patent for the hybrid car. GM could have had a piece of it, but they said it didn't make economic sense. Hey, you just lost a billion dollars in three months. You don't have any economic sense.

What ever happened to all the research that went into the GM EV1? GM was first to bring out an electric car. Sure it flopped but that was because no one wanted to plug in their car every night. How did GM not see the future of hybrids. Furthermore, why haven't they reacted faster to the Toyota Prius? GM has been steadily losing market share for decades, and Toyota has a three month long wait list for the Prius. Do I need to spell it out any more clearly? Ok, here it is GM... take your fledgling Pontiac G6, rip out its V6, offer a manual transmission, and give it a hybrid or diesel engine. I recommend starting with Saturn's 1.9L SOHC or Chevy's 2.2L Ecotec. Or, ask Opel for some help. If you manage to succeed, you'll have something better than the Prius because the G6 isn't quite nearly as ugly.

Now, I've recently made comments similar to these a few months ago to my dad when I went with him to the Detroit Auto Show. I complained that GM didn't have any hybrids that were available and that they were missing the boat. He responded that GM instead focused on developing hybrid buses for nine metropolitan areas that collectively have saved more gasoline than all the Prius' combined. Thats all well and good, but that doesn't help GM sell cars. Nobody rides a bus and thinks, "hey, this bus is really nice... I need to go buy a GM car!"

Get with the program GM. Its tough love time. I'm in the market for a new car and I really want to buy something from GM. My discount is fantastic and you've been good to my dad but if you don't offer me something that I'd like to buy soon, you'll just force me to buy a Civic because I can get it with an hybrid engine and a manual transmission.

What is my hometown?

I am always confused whenever I have to fill out forms that ask for my hometown. What is my hometown? You see Dictionary.com states that definition of hometown is:

home·town      noun.
The town or city of one's birth, rearing, or main residence.

Now the problem is my town or city is different for my place of birth, rearing, and main residence. Furthermore, I have two "rearing" addresses and my current driver's license is from a completely different state than my current 'main residence'.

• My city of birth was Pittsburgh, PA
• My 1st city of rearing was Troy, MI
• My 2nd city of rearing was Downingtown, PA
• My driver's license says my city of main residence is Munhall, PA
• I consider my city of main residence to be Lake Orion, MI
• What about my college address?

So, what is my hometown? Is it where I currently live or where I was born. Its a tough choice and the dictionary just makes it harder. The problem is that the word 'hometown' no longer applies to our society and is no longer important. With every passing year, less people grow up in one city. More and more people move around as their mature and age. Its a norm for our mobile society. So, since our society has evolved I think our language should as well. Therefore, hometown should no longer be used because it has become too vague and has lost its relevance.

Or... maybe I'm wrong. What do you think?

Steppin' Razor

Matt Chambers, aka The Business, has been working with a new band called Steppin' Razor. Although, he hasn't quite reached his dream job, this group has some serious potential. You see, Matt has always had the dream of being the lead guitar player for [insert lame pop band]. He'd be overpaid, could travel the world, and be constantly surrounded by hot, drunk, & stupid chicks. Furthermore, he claims that he'd just turn his amp down and just solo the entire time on stage. Anyway, the members are:

• Johnny Myers - Lead Vocals & Guitar
• James Wuest - Keyboards & Vocals
• Matt Chambers - Lead Guitar & Vocals
• Scott Holloman - Bass
• Mark Patterson - Drums

They recently secured six gigs for this summer at Flanigan's Boathouse in Malvern. So, go ahead and check them out this summer if you're in the area.

I got a copy of their demo yesterday. The first track is a cover of a Bob Marley's Natty Dread. Its an interesting rendition, blending quite a few musical influences. The head reminds me of the Grateful Dead. Its tight notes and the sharp tone of the guitars instantly remind me of the famous band. The body on the other hand is closer to classic reggae. It has that airy caribbean and reggae essence without muddying up the mix like in a lot of current reggae music.

I was really impressed with the lead singer's voice. It has this perfect mixture of grit, pain, and clarity. The group plays really well together. The rhythm section is really tight and I loved the backup vocals. I haven't always enjoyed strong backup vocals in the past but it works so well here. My only complaint about the tune is that it needs a solo and I'm positive that Wuest or Chambers could easily whip one out that would amaze us.

Check out the tracks I posted. They are in the AAC format, so I recommend using iTunes to listen to it. The files are zipped though, so you'll have to unzip them after downloading. Enjoy!

• Track #1 - Natty Dread
• Track #2 - Heathen
• Track #3 - Positive Vibration
• Track #4 - Hands of Circumstance

Sleeping preference

When Budura is drunk, he enjoys sleeping with men. He also loves to spoon. Just look at the smile on his face. I feel sorry for Bob.

Budura loves the cock

Budura decided that he disagreed with my review of Natty Light and posted a response on his blog. Within his response, he showed the type of beer) I truly enjoy. So, revenge was needed.



This is a photo I took of Budura when we were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City last spring. Enjoy.

Natural Light

Name: Natural Light
Brewery: Anheuser-Busch
Origin: St. Louis, MO
Style: Light Lager
Alcohol: 4.20 % ABV
Rating: 1.0/5.0



Good old Natural Light Beer, or Natty Light to most college students. Natty Light is a staple at the vast majority of colleges in the United States. The beer tastes like polluted well water so girls like it because it doesn't taste like beer. At around $11 for a 24 pack of cans, the beer is dirt cheap, hence the popularity among college students. Natty Light is not a beer to be enjoyed or savored though. You don't sip and admire the taste of Natty Light. You guzzle, chug, and bong Natty Light.

The popularity of the beer in college is also quite a double standard. Although extremely popular at parties, no student would order it at a bar (especially when pitchers of Yuengling are so cheap at Penn State). In fact, I've seen Natty Light on tap only once and that was in a dirty pizza joint at James Madison University. I'm pretty sure if I ordered Natty Light at a bar, my friends would have a field day with it. It really is that bad... unless you're a broke a college student playing beer pong... then its not half bad.

Beware of Natty Light though. Drinking any amount greatly increases your chances of making out with fat chicks and drunk dialing ex-girlfriends. Please use caution.

NBA age limit is not racism

In response to NBA commissioner David Stern requesting a 20 year old age limit for the NBA draft, Jermaine O'Neal of the Indiana Pacers has suggested that his request is racist. O'Neal has said:

"In the last two or three years, the rookie of the year has a been a high school player ... As a black guy, you kind of think that's the reason why it's coming up. You don't hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it's unconstitutional. If I can go to the U.S. army and fight the war at 18, why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes?"

All I can say to that statement is "wow." Where does Jermaine come up with this stuff? Do you think he'd let me get a hit from the weed he's smoking?

First and foremost, the age limit is constitutional. It is lawful under the US constitution and the NBA's own bylaws. The NBA is a private corporation. It is therefore entitled to set its own rules as long as it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, creed, religion, or age. Although it can not discriminate on the basis of age, enacting an age limit on the NBA is not discriminatory. The reason the NBA wants an age limit is because the NBA believes an age limit will be of benefit to the league and to society.

There are age limits everywhere in society and the majority of them are for the sake of society. In most states, a person can not obtain a driver's license until they reach the age of 16. This is not to say that a 15 year old is incapable of driving. But laws are not created for individuals (unless you're the Republican congress trying to legislate morality by passing Terry's Law). Instead, laws are passed for the benefit of society as a whole. It has been determined that 16 year olds pose less of a risk than 15 year olds behind the wheel.

Millions of kids grow up wanting to become professional basketball players. Many spend their youth preparing to enter the NBA while neglecting their collegiate and high school educations. The problem is that only a very small percentage of aspiring basketball players are given the chance to play in the NBA.

30 teams * 15 members = 450 players

So there are 450 professional basketball players in the NBA whereas millions of students graduate high school each year in the US. So its safe to say its more important for high school students to focus on their education than to neglect it in hopes of being drafted by the NBA. Thats all the NBA wants to do, they want to ensure that high school students with aspirations of being in the NBA at least finish high school and go to college.

Now, the NBA isn't asking for this simply for society's benefit, they believe it will also help their organization. By requiring players to go to college first, they increase they maturity and intelligence levels of their players. Secondly, it allows them to grow and develop mentally in a college environment before making the giant step to the pros. An 18 year old kid with a multi-million dollar contract living on his own for the very first time is destined to get into trouble.

With regards to racism, O'Neal's comments are ridiculous. An age limit affects all races equally. Just because the past two Rookie of the Year awards went to the black players drafted out of high school, does not denote racism because the vast majority of the league is black. If you want to argue this, come back with better evidence.

There is nothing wrong an organization that wants to implement an age restriction because it believes it will benefit society and its organization. Perhaps if this age restriction had been in place before you were drafted, you would have went to college. At college, you could have gained an education and more specifically you could have learned how to control yourself. Perhaps, this self growth and knowledge would have kept you from embarassing yourself, your team, and your city during an NBA game where you engaged in mob behavior and violently attacked fans. Think about that Jermaine.

Geeks love lame jokes

I want to debunk a myth that I came across recently. Its a myth that I initially came across when I took CMPSC 201C in my sophomore year at Penn State. The class was a programming course for engineers and scientists and revolved around the C++ programming language. The myth, very popular with non-programmers and those new to programming is:

C++ is an evolution of the C+ language and that the C+ language was dervied from C.

The problem with the myth is that there never a C+ language. This myth is the result of geeks loving lame jokes, recursive acronyms, and puns that only they understand.

The C language was developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson. It was a direct descendent of the B, a language developed at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson. It was also written by Ken Thompson, with submissions from Dennis Ritchie. The C++ language was written by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs during 1983-1985. Initially written to be an extention of C, Stroustrup initially called it C with classes.

The name was coined by Richard Martin and is one of the oldest, most popular, and longest running inside jokes in the computer industry. The name is a play on the "++" operator that exists in both C and C++. As an example, lets say we have a variable called $X (think of variables to be like the value of "x" in algebra). Now we want to increase the variable by a value of one. Without using the "++" operator, the code in C or C++ would look like this:

int $X;       /* Defines variable*/
$X = 1;       /* Sets $X = 1 */
$X = $X + 1;  /* Increases $X by one */

Now, programming has tons of shortcuts. Every language has them because programmers, like everyone else, are lazy and don't like to type more than whats really needed. The "++" operator could be considered such a shortcut. Here's how to increase a variable's value by one using the "++" operator:

int $X = 1;   /* Defines variable = 1*/
$X++;         /* Increases $X by one */

Therefore, the name is a play on words suggesting that C++ is "one" improvement over C. It also qualifies as a completely lame joke. I won't get into how it really should have been called ++C though.

Mac OS X Tiger -- 4/29/2005

Apple's newest version of its operating system, named Tiger, goes on sale April 29th. Tiger, aka OS X 10.4, is astounding with new features and capabilities. The feature I am most looking forward to is Spotlight. Spotlight is like a database and search engine built into the operating system, except without all the security problems associated with Google's Desktop Search utility. Its a really slick feature that even indexes the content within PDF files and the metadata of JPEG and PNG files. Bascially, its awesome and I can't wait to try it out when Penn State gives me a free copy. Hells yeah for the educational discount.

Presidential iPod

The President supposedly has an Apple iPod and therefore I decree, the coolness quotient of the iPod is officially gone. Yes, the President listening to My Sharona on his iPod while invading countries for oil now warrants that the iPod is no longer cool. Supposedly, his daughters gave him the iPod for his birthday. I wonder if he has the new 50 Cent album loaded. Hmm, I highly doubt it.

The reason why he killed the iPod's coolness is that Bush Jr. is only slightly cooler than his father; who wasn't cool either. Look at the man. Have you heard him tell a joke? Even worse, have you heard his laugh? He laughs like a geek at a Star Trek convention. Further coverage on the story can be found here.

R.I.P.
Apple iPod
2001 - 2005

East Lansing Police are assholes

I was at Michigan State University last weekend for the Final Four game between MSU and UNC. Michigan State lost 87-71 even though they were up by five at half time. Needless to say, nobody was happy and thus, the streets of East Lansing quickly filled after the game's end with students. Now East Lansing isn't exactly new to riots. They have definitely had their fill of riots in the past, namely in housing development called Cedar Village.



The catch here is that the crowd was suprisingly well behaved. The streets were filled with students screaming school chants and fight songs (ok ok, so Dan did try to start the "fuck the cops" chant... oh well) but nobody was rioting. Out of the three March Madness related riots I've attended (two others at Penn State in 2001), this was actually the most peaceful. Correction, it was peaceful until the over eager police starting tear gasing the crowd without any warning. Only twenty minutes had elapsed and nothing was going wrong but the Police decided it was time to break it up by completely pissing everyone off with tear gas. Furthermore, it wasn't just one can. It was reported that throughout the night, the Police deployed over 1,000 cans of tear gas and it wasn't even in the downtown area. It was everywhere. The police covered like two square miles with tear gas. It felt like a war zone... and this time it was the police who started it; not the students.

How sad it is when drunk students act more responsibly than the police. In any event, I have been maced (2001) and now been teargased (2005), hopefully, I can complete the mission and finally get arrested during next year's March Madness when Penn State wins the tournament in an utterly surprising upset.

Pfungstadter Shandy

Name: Pfungstädter Shandy
Brewery: Pfungstädter Brauerei
Origin: Hessen, Germany
Style: Shandy
Alcohol: 2.40 % ABV
Rating: 3.5/5.0

A shandy, short for shandygaff, is a mixture of one part beer and one part ginger beer, ginger ale, or lemonade. Pfungstädter Shandy is a mixture of lager beer and lemonade. Shandy, not exactly well known in North America, is very popular in Germany where it is called "radler." Anyway, I bought a case of it in the summer of 2002 from Pletchers. My neighbors and I were inviting some friends over and chillin' at the apartment's pool all day. Shandy seemed like the perfect mix: all the alcohol goodness of beer and the refreshment of lemonade. It ended up being great. Everyone seemed to really enjoy drinking it poolside. Unfortunately, the beer wasn't good enough to overcome the fact that Andy had invited Chieh. Thanks a lot Andy. Oh by the way, the bottle is the coolest thing about this brand. When the bottle reaches the prime drinking temperature, the star within the horseshoe turns blue. Pretty damn cool in my book.

Google answers questions

Google recently debuted a new service called Google Q&A. This service provides factual answers to certain queries. According to Peter Norvig, Google's Director of Search Quality:

A small percentage of queries currently trigger these factual answers, but the service, called Google Q&A, is in its early stages. Currently, Google Q&A is strong in areas such as geography, information about famous people and physical facts, such as the size of planets. Google will continually work to broaden the service's scope of topics and to improve its capability to deliver more complex answers.

Here are some good examples of what Google Q&A can do:

• What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything? Answer
• Who is Linus Torvalds? Answer
• What is the weight of Pamela Anderson? Answer
• What is the US defense budget? Answer
• What is Avogadro's number? Answer
• How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop? Answer
• Who is God? Answer
• Who framed Roger Rabbit? Answer
• What is sqrt(3)*ln(e^5)? Answer
• How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Answer
• What is the population of Germany? Answer

Source: Google Intros Q&A Service by Juan Carlos Perez