Guess what's new again? Racism in America! It's ugly, it's stupid, it's based in falsehood and fear. Racism is one of the most toxic things in our society, and it has long been the time to put a stop to it. If you say, or do something racist, whether you be black, white, Indian or other, you should feel shame. Think about what you're doing. Is it something you would do in front of a stranger of the race you're mocking or talking about killing? How would you feel if it were being done to you? Do you seriously think that people will think that you are an intelligent human being, and are worth anything to society? Do you think that your value to society will out-value the infection that you are spreading?
In the workplace, we have spent decades evening out the working environment to make it a place where sexual and racial intolerance were not stood for. Yet, it still creeps in every now and again... It is because we do not stamp out the little things. The jokes, the sexual and racial humor...we let it slide...then we let it slide a little more. The next thing you know, someone feels uncomfortable, and then they feel threatened..and it's back. The jokes become reality. You need to NIP IT IN THE BUD. Racism will be the new thing in 2009. And it's up to those of you intelligent enough to read this message to stop it NOW before it gets too late.
I know it's starting already. You think I haven't heard the jokes, seen the videos? The Pimp-Force One? It makes me sick to my stomach that someone I know would share that video with others and laugh about it. I'm disgusted. No, it's NOT O.K. just because the black guy in the office is laughing along with you. It's wrong, and it's virulent.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I beg of you...don't follow in the footprints of your parents and grandparents. Don't make the same mistakes they made. Grow up, wise up and Change Yourselves before it's too late. Need scriptural help? Start with Matthew 7:3-5. Look in to yourselves and change yourselves to act with righteousness so that you can be an example to your children and your neighbors.
That's my random rambling for today..
November 16, 2008
November 11, 2008
Proud Owner of a Kindle
I am the proud owner of a new (used) Amazon Kindle. So far, I am impressed by its capabilities, its ease of use and its potential. I very much like the built in dictionary capability, as well as the search capability. Finding text in a book is extremely simple, and the keyboard is very easy to thumb-type with. The really nice thing is the built-in basic web browser which has made it very easy to find and download compatible Project Gutenberg texts. For my first forays into electronic ink, I have chosen:
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Homes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The American Crisis - Thomas Paine
3. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
4. The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama (only $4.50 or so...my first Amazon purchase)
5. Cabbage and Kings - O. Henry
6. The Call of Cthulhu - H.P. Lovecraft
7. Common Sense - Thomas Paine
8. I, Robot - Cory Doctorow (I didn't realize it wasn't the original until I downloaded it - I may read it anyway)
9. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
10. The Rights of Man - Thomas Paine
11. When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - Cory Doctorow (a salacious title beckons...)
The only complaint so far is that I fall asleep while reading and in so doing, my finger rests on the 'next page' button too easily, losing my place. Holding the Kindle differently may stop me from doing that. I'll report on more experiences later as I enjoy it.
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Homes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The American Crisis - Thomas Paine
3. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
4. The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama (only $4.50 or so...my first Amazon purchase)
5. Cabbage and Kings - O. Henry
6. The Call of Cthulhu - H.P. Lovecraft
7. Common Sense - Thomas Paine
8. I, Robot - Cory Doctorow (I didn't realize it wasn't the original until I downloaded it - I may read it anyway)
9. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
10. The Rights of Man - Thomas Paine
11. When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - Cory Doctorow (a salacious title beckons...)
The only complaint so far is that I fall asleep while reading and in so doing, my finger rests on the 'next page' button too easily, losing my place. Holding the Kindle differently may stop me from doing that. I'll report on more experiences later as I enjoy it.
November 10, 2008
Secret Excel 2007 Tip #2098126.23
Using Excel, I had data that was presented as a percentage, but the source data was not output in decimal notation. Thus, 67.53% was in the original data as 67.53. I wished to graph a pivot table of this data, but didn't want to go through the extra steps to convert the data by dividing it by 100 and re-graphing it.
When going in to the Axis Format and choosing Number, when I chose Percentage, it would multiply the data by 100, giving me 6753% and such on the left axis. That wasn't what I wanted, so I took a leap of logic, diving from my programming experience that I could use an escape character, and walla! It worked! '0\%' displayed the numbers with a trailing % sign without the multiplication.
When going in to the Axis Format and choosing Number, when I chose Percentage, it would multiply the data by 100, giving me 6753% and such on the left axis. That wasn't what I wanted, so I took a leap of logic, diving from my programming experience that I could use an escape character, and walla! It worked! '0\%' displayed the numbers with a trailing % sign without the multiplication.
November 09, 2008
Why Consumers Aren't Buying
Just a few suggestions as to why consumers (the ones that are left) aren't buying things. Perhaps those of us who still have our jobs don't have anything left to buy. There is absolutely nothing out on the market today that I need, apart from foodstuffs. HDTV? Got one, Blu-Ray player? Who needs it for $300, Computer? Sorry, my two year old laptop does everything I want or need at the moment. Just about anything else that's for sale is something I already own or can't see a good reason to buy.
I walked through a mall today, and apart from browsing through Target, it was full of clothing stores and video-game stores. Even Radio Shack isn't interesting anymore, as their push to sell cell phones makes them just like the 100 other cell phone stores in the mall. I don't think they even sell electronic parts anymore, do they? I'd probably be lucky to find a replacement LED if I needed one.
The consumer that has a job is BORED. He/she has what he/she needs and is just waiting for something useful to buy. We've over-engineered our lives until we are so spoiled and so capable that there's nothing left to buy. We've seen it all and bought it.
The rest of the consumers don't have jobs and are selling all their stuff on E-bay, so that's going to cut into your market-share as well. I just bought an Amazon Kindle on E-bay to get 25% cash back from an online search engine. I saved $85. Did I need the Kindle? No - but hey, a deal's a deal.
Just blabbing - not well-thought out...but that's why I call them randomblings.
I walked through a mall today, and apart from browsing through Target, it was full of clothing stores and video-game stores. Even Radio Shack isn't interesting anymore, as their push to sell cell phones makes them just like the 100 other cell phone stores in the mall. I don't think they even sell electronic parts anymore, do they? I'd probably be lucky to find a replacement LED if I needed one.
The consumer that has a job is BORED. He/she has what he/she needs and is just waiting for something useful to buy. We've over-engineered our lives until we are so spoiled and so capable that there's nothing left to buy. We've seen it all and bought it.
The rest of the consumers don't have jobs and are selling all their stuff on E-bay, so that's going to cut into your market-share as well. I just bought an Amazon Kindle on E-bay to get 25% cash back from an online search engine. I saved $85. Did I need the Kindle? No - but hey, a deal's a deal.
Just blabbing - not well-thought out...but that's why I call them randomblings.
November 04, 2008
What would be nice...
Here's one final hope for Congress. Why don't you try DE-regulating some of the stupid laws put into place by your former congressional sessions? Instead of concentrating on passing NEW laws that work for your goals, why not pay some attention to repealing stupid laws and old ideas that didn't work? How about aiming for lessening the regulatory stress of the federal government, and repeal some things, perhaps even start with The Patriot Act?
Just a thought....a new approach....some REAL change in Washington.
Just a thought....a new approach....some REAL change in Washington.
Virginia doesn't even matter
In the end, whether Virginia switches or not doesn't even matter. The race was close, and it looks like Barack Obama may carry the state, but with Ohio, it won't even matter. The nation now has it's 'Hope' candidate for President. It's going to be a long and grueling road for Mr. Obama. He's left with a mess of a country. It's going to take hard work, intelligence, compassion and some very hard decisions. I hope that his Presidency reflects a balanced path rather than a party-aligned path to correcting what is wrong with this country. I hope that the Democratic party does not over-involve the government where it does not belong. I hope that that they realize how important individual liberty is to the people. I hope that there is some real change in Washington.
However, I'm not going to hold my breath. The Democratic party will likely go with their plans to further socialize the United States. In some areas, this may be warranted, but readers of my randomblings will know that I don't support government forced distribution of wealth, power or privilege. I do agree that the government has so far molly-coddled big business and corporations to the detriment of the needs of individuals, and some correction is warranted. However, the Republican ticket did not do enough to ensure the American people it would address these concerns. In all, I did not vote for either major party candidate. To that end, I'm going to be a bit of an elitist here and wash my hands of the whole affair.
Whatever happens, America - you did this to yourselves. I hope you're happy.
However, I'm not going to hold my breath. The Democratic party will likely go with their plans to further socialize the United States. In some areas, this may be warranted, but readers of my randomblings will know that I don't support government forced distribution of wealth, power or privilege. I do agree that the government has so far molly-coddled big business and corporations to the detriment of the needs of individuals, and some correction is warranted. However, the Republican ticket did not do enough to ensure the American people it would address these concerns. In all, I did not vote for either major party candidate. To that end, I'm going to be a bit of an elitist here and wash my hands of the whole affair.
Whatever happens, America - you did this to yourselves. I hope you're happy.
Back to 220 and a diet
Ok, making it known that I have gained back all the weight I had lost, and I am now cutting myself off from 'diet' soda, coffee and other caffeine products (including candy). Public accountability has to be part of a diet plan. I am switching from Subway sandwiches to Subway salads for lunch, and will do my best to avoid non-complex carbs (sugars, pastas, etc.). Let's see what I can do about getting back to a healthy size again. Of course, my suits won't fit, but that will be a price I'm willing to pay. Now day 2 without the sodas....boy am I tired.
October 29, 2008
Human Efficiency?
Ran into an interesting link:
23.5 miles per gallon
This link leads to some other questions. Efficiency of the car is obviously higher because it can carry more and go faster..but what about carbon footprint? What is my output for the same mileage (or over the time frame it would take me to walk this far)? How expensive is a gallon of food/water compared to gasoline?....
23.5 miles per gallon
Created by The Car Connection
This link leads to some other questions. Efficiency of the car is obviously higher because it can carry more and go faster..but what about carbon footprint? What is my output for the same mileage (or over the time frame it would take me to walk this far)? How expensive is a gallon of food/water compared to gasoline?....
Natural Language Processing
'Pentagon!' - One word - that's normally all that is communicated between commuters each morning as they pick up riders for the HOV lanes here in Northern VA. With three riders, cars can use a special section of I-395 meant for high occupancy vehicles. It's a fast way to work and the process is known as 'slugging' here in the suburbs of our nation's capital.
After the cry of 'Pentagon!' out the window, 2 people will get into the driver's vehicle, perhaps mutter 'Thanks!' and then no other words will be spoken the entire ride until they get out at the end of the ride. Again, a quick 'Thanks!', 'Thank you' or 'Thanks for the ride!' is called out as the transaction is completed.
It's a fairly complex transaction from the standpoint of an outsider, but once the protocol is picked up, those of us who participate understand it completely. 90% of the transactions are completed with less words than comprise this sentence. Humans communicate in short bursts for many repeated transactions in their daily lives. It got me to thinking about communication, The Turing Test, computers and, oddly, my 7th grade English classes on thesis paper construction.
In English class, we learn to write different types of papers. The contruction algorithm of an argument is explained to us in simple terms {statement of hypothesis, supporting argument sentences, closing resolution/restatement of hypothesis}. We were taught how to construct sentences, how to construct paragraphs and so on....
A lot of what we do in our day to day lives is driven by our unique needs and goals. Perhaps thinking of it in terms of dopamine receptors and language centers may help us in engineering a natural language processor that would seem more human and able to pass the Turing Test. Additionally, we need to take into account concepts such as 'shame' and 'fear' to induce different personalities into our AI. I know that I put together sentences that I never utter due to these modifiers (not willing to be punched in the nose or start an altercation, saving face, etc...).
I saw something about a semantic dictionary that I probably need to look into that would help with some of the sentence/paragraph construction logic, but I think much of the work that hasn't been done is in the 'motivation' side of speech analysis. Surely to pass the Turing Test, the motivation is clear - convince the human that you are human (even though you are not). I'll need to do some research into thinking/speaking patterns used in deceipt. Maybe I can start with analyzing structure of political speeches and news interviews, working my way up [or down] to criminal defendant arguments on the stand.
A library of structure/patterns of speech need to be created that fit different motivations for speech so that language is more real to the computer, and more of a driving force in the structure of the speech itself. Hopefully the semantic dictionary will help the faux paus of not understanding hidden meaning in sentences by providing further context for the words that are used. Perhaps even irony and back-handed compliments could be detected in analyzing input (or better yet, delivered by the program itself)
Just my thoughts for today...later
After the cry of 'Pentagon!' out the window, 2 people will get into the driver's vehicle, perhaps mutter 'Thanks!' and then no other words will be spoken the entire ride until they get out at the end of the ride. Again, a quick 'Thanks!', 'Thank you' or 'Thanks for the ride!' is called out as the transaction is completed.
It's a fairly complex transaction from the standpoint of an outsider, but once the protocol is picked up, those of us who participate understand it completely. 90% of the transactions are completed with less words than comprise this sentence. Humans communicate in short bursts for many repeated transactions in their daily lives. It got me to thinking about communication, The Turing Test, computers and, oddly, my 7th grade English classes on thesis paper construction.
In English class, we learn to write different types of papers. The contruction algorithm of an argument is explained to us in simple terms {statement of hypothesis, supporting argument sentences, closing resolution/restatement of hypothesis}. We were taught how to construct sentences, how to construct paragraphs and so on....
A lot of what we do in our day to day lives is driven by our unique needs and goals. Perhaps thinking of it in terms of dopamine receptors and language centers may help us in engineering a natural language processor that would seem more human and able to pass the Turing Test. Additionally, we need to take into account concepts such as 'shame' and 'fear' to induce different personalities into our AI. I know that I put together sentences that I never utter due to these modifiers (not willing to be punched in the nose or start an altercation, saving face, etc...).
I saw something about a semantic dictionary that I probably need to look into that would help with some of the sentence/paragraph construction logic, but I think much of the work that hasn't been done is in the 'motivation' side of speech analysis. Surely to pass the Turing Test, the motivation is clear - convince the human that you are human (even though you are not). I'll need to do some research into thinking/speaking patterns used in deceipt. Maybe I can start with analyzing structure of political speeches and news interviews, working my way up [or down] to criminal defendant arguments on the stand.
A library of structure/patterns of speech need to be created that fit different motivations for speech so that language is more real to the computer, and more of a driving force in the structure of the speech itself. Hopefully the semantic dictionary will help the faux paus of not understanding hidden meaning in sentences by providing further context for the words that are used. Perhaps even irony and back-handed compliments could be detected in analyzing input (or better yet, delivered by the program itself)
Just my thoughts for today...later
October 25, 2008
Speed of Commerce Kills Big Box Stores
The speed of commerce using the Internet just kills the price models at big box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City. Today I was shopping for an 8GB micro SD card to fit my new phone. Nothing like lots of storage for video and music to take with my on my commute. More space means fewer days organizing data once I watch and listen to everything on my small 2GB card. Any-who, I looked online and see that 8GB micro SD cards are selling for around $24.00 ea (plus shipping of 5.95 about). I also see that 16GB micro SD cards are already out and selling for close to $100. Well, as I happened to be going to the mall anyway, I stopped by both Best Buy and Circuit City. $69.95 for class 2 (the slow version) 8GB micro SDHC cards. What a difference. Double-plus what I would pay online. So, I went back home and ordered them on meritline.com - free standard shipping and $28. ea for class 6 (the fast ones) cards. I bought 2. Sure, I have $70, but I wasn't that hard up to get the items today. I'll wait 3-4 days for UPS ground or snail mail.
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