Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Don't let idiots vote.

This article over at the NYT explains how dumb some Americans are, specifically in the area of science. Not much of a surprise to me -- the article says that 20% of Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the earth, mmm ok. As anyone who has seen Jay Leno's street interviews knows, stupidity is a universal constant which crosses all national, racial, and gender barriers.

This is the very reason that I propose a simple intelligence test before people are allowed to vote; does our democracy really need morons deciding who is best suited for the presidency?

Deny Suffrage to Idiots! Please join my national and growing campaign to curb the power of stupid people by sending me $25 via cash, check, or Paypal before the retards ruin our country.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Did Political Correctness kill Free Speech?

This post over at the Volokh Conspiracy is right on target. Let me quote:

You can't think seriously about criminal justice and crime control without recognizing the racial disparities in crime. You can't think seriously about the causes of disproportionate representation of men and women in certain fields without at least considering whether men and women might on average have important biological differences that might explain some of this disproportion. You can't think seriously about what public health strategies are needed to fight AIDS ... without knowing the data about the demographics of HIV.
Apparently, Eugene was getting grief for pointing out that homosexual sex is much riskier than straight sex.

It's Harvard's Summers incident reborn: free speech for everyone, unless we don't like what you're saying.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

2005 AIAA GNC

Well, I'm here at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco for the 2005 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference. So far I've been impressed with the talks; yesterday I saw some interesting things being done with receding horizon control; wherein optimization is performed over some fixed horizon and the tail of the optimization cost function is estimated with a pre-computed value function.

Also I was happy to see my doctoral advisor here, Randy Beard, and we were able to lunch together yesterday at a delicious little Thai place next to the hotel. I also bumped into my friend Wei Ren, who another of Randy's students, and he's just nailed a professorship at Utah State University -- congratz Wei!

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Hollywood screws Windows Vista

There's a great post over at Freedom-to-Tinker about how Hollywood is screwing over Windows users in the upcoming Windows Vista. Check it out for yet another example of how we all pay for our Luddite intellectual property paradigm.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Master Plumber

Who's your daddy? I said, who's your daddy !? I am. Yes, you may now refer to me as Master Plumber in addition to Will or Dr. Curtis or 'hey you' or ... ok;
So the sink and faucet are installed and the leaks are gone -- thank you, thank you, no applause please. Actually big props to my buddie Kevin who gave me the intel I needed to fix the problems.
On another note, my wife and I have been watching the West Wing season one (courtesy of my friend Bit, of course) and though I'm not a liberal I really like that show -- its also great to be able to watch the episodes in order, without commercials, and all at once.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Randomness

I know, I know, you (my faithful readers) are like -- where has he gone? Why must we endure the excruciating agony of life without new technoutopia posts?
Relax my friends, you pain is over.
First of all, can I say how much I hate plumbing? I wasn't feeling well yesterday so I took the afternoon off in order to rest. After I get home, I see that the people have come to install our new Corian countertops in the kitchen -- so, you guessed it, I end up spending 5 hours on my back under our sink installing the new faucet, replumbing the disposer, and trying (in vain) to plug two leaks in copper pipes. Apparently I'm going to have to re-solder the fittings, which in case your wondering, is guaranteed to be a major pain in the rear...
Anyway, I have a huge soar throat today and I feel like shite, but I hate posts with no links because they're like dead-ends for addicted web-surfers, so here ya go suckers:
try this
or this
or maybe even this (which is interesting yet misguided)

happy surfing.