Shorthand for Nothing

I have apparently neglected to write about THE FRIENDLY TOAST which totally merits the all caps. It is precisely what a restaurant ought to be: a place with cheap coffee and enormous portions of delicious food. It features a menu filled with tasty options, enough kitschy, bizarre, and terrifying decorations to make anyone feel like they have walked into a movie, and the young indie kid service (usually) which make the experience feel more or less exactly right.

I have yet to eat something at the Friendly Toast that was anything less than wonderful. Today I ordered the Drunkard’s French Toast, which comes with a Grand Marnier and strawberry sauce, which is amazing. It looks like a cartoon caricature of French toast: the toast is thick and enormous, the sauce is a lively pink color. In sum, it looked more like French toast than French toast does. Today I ate the Platonic ideal of French toast. It is also very veggie-friendly, and fatty-friendly.

As might be expected, the atmosphere of the place changes quite a bit from brunch to evenings. While it is bustling and busy for the brunch crowd, come evening, it’s fairly quiet and empty. It is easier to talk and admire the terrifying décor. It is even possible to hijack wireless from a neighbouring establishment, enjoy the coffee, and do some interwebbing.

I have heard rumor that they ar e hoping to get a 24-hour license for Cambridge. This would truly be a great day for all of Cambridge. It would stop being useless after midnight-ish.

(that one kind of fell apart at the end)

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Those of you who have known me for some time probably know that my favorite band is and has been Harvey Danger for quite some time. Sean Nelson is a brilliant writer and lyricist, supported by talented musicians, creating the sort of intelligent and melodic music that I particularly enjoy. This is to say nothing of the fact that he has an amazing voice and their live shows are never anything short of spectacular. (This blog derives its title from a Harvey Danger song.) Unfortunately, the band has announced the dates for their farewell tour, which, while I hope to be able to purchase a plane ticket to see one of their last shows, I’m certainly not relying on. I’m sad to see them go, but I certainly reaped the benefits of being a local fan, and I’m thankful for that. I hope you will indulge me while I reminisce. (more…)

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Recently, Mancow Muller agreed to be waterboarded, hoping to prove that it wasn’t torture. A Gawker tipster writes that it may have been staged as a cheap publicity stunt. (Full text, and relevant videos, which you should read, are through the link.) In this case, I’m inclined to believe the radio host when he says it was torture.

It’s entirely possible that he went into it hoping for a half-hearted attempt, sitting through it for thirty seconds, and then saying “It’s not that bad.” That would be better publicity for a right wing radio host. He’d have the support of all the right-wing pundits, mocking the liberals. The liberals would be calling it a fraud. And it’s very possible he was hoping to make it deceptive in appearance. But now that I’ve watched him on Olberman, and another instance of waterboarding, I think his response is legit, whatever else happened before.

The biggest reason is this: if it is entirely fake and he wasn’t under any displeasure, or that displeasure wasn’t that bad, he has no reason to say that it’s torture. He would try to downplay it. I don’t think anyone was questioning its efficacy, so he doesn’t stand to gain from going on and proving “yeah, it’s bad and will make people talk.” No, a victory for him would be to go on the air, get waterboarded, and then be able to say “eh, it’s not that bad.” He didn’t. And I really appreciate that.

My biggest question, really, is how is it people can simultaneously believe that something is “not torture” and that it is an effective interrogation technique that involves subjecting someone to an unpleasant experience they want to avoid so much that they confess to whatever they know. That’s what torture is, isn’t it? Torture is subjecting someone to something that will make their will break. There isn’t a way to make it mild. It has to be unbearable. It can be psychological, it can be physical, it can be social, but in the end it’s all torture.

And you know what? If you think it’s okay to torture terror suspects, that’s really your right. Just stop pretending that it isn’t torture. It is. What they do to the students of SERE is torture. My father, a naval aviator who completed SERE training, once told me he would have turned in his wings rather than go through it again. If you want to talk about the effectiveness of these interrogation techniques, if you want to defend them, do so with the full understanding of what they are doing. If you really want to say that we need to torture these people, or that they are bad people who deserve it, do so with the full understanding of what we are doing to them. Watch the damn videos of people getting waterboarded. Listen to them talk about it. Read about it.

Because when the Bush administration authorized it, they knew. This wasn’t a decision they made lightly. It was a deliberate authorization. They weighed the options. They considered the morality. And they decided that their objectives were more important than that, that it was worth becoming monsters to pursue our goal.

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I have finally rediscovered the joy that is Nethack. Sadly, there is still no new version available, but I’ve gotten back into the swing of things, remembering some old tricks, trying out a few new ones, sending tourists down to their deaths. It’s fun, simple, and while it is a great way to kill time it is also easy to leave and forget about. Perfect for killing time before some sort of event later in the day, for a mindless activity whilst suffering from insomnia, or for just having fun, because it is the best game ever made.

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Though Mac OS continues to resist being installed on my Macbook (sigh), I have installed Ubuntu on it now, which is less likely to make me go insane than the XO, since the screen is not tiny and not designed for human eyes and the hardware can actually run more than one tab in Firefox at a time, without crashing horribly. I might even be able to run music!

I still have a ways to go before functionality is fully restored, of course, but I am reasonably confident I’ll do fine more or less indefinitely now. If you have any suggestions for optimizing Ubuntu please send them my way!

But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the tacos the talented Rachel Mercer made this evening (they were pretty much wonderful and there is not a lot else to say about them, because I am not a food person, but man I have missed eating good tacos), and the board and card games we played. It was Settlers of Catan, which I have previously discussed (I won) and a game called BurnRate, in which you are a company in the .com boom, trying to hemorrhage money slower than everyone else, which is ridiculously fun. We won, but relatively narrowly, and I credit it to everyone not knowing the rules more than skill.

Catan was all skill, of course.

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As much as I hate actually saying that something good has happened to me, or at least doing so in a way which isn’t ironic and self-depreciating, today (Thursday? whatever) I got an acceptance letter from Northeastern. Via email! Things just happen electronically these days. I expect to receive a copy in a few days in the mail, and then a week or so later a postcard intended for my family, because they appear to have gotten the wrong address for them. This may be because I am, in fact, barely literate and probably entered the information wrong, somehow.

So, two thoughts occurred to me right away. First: it is time to throw that me-themed party. Guests will be encouraged to dress like me (bonus points if they are actually wearing my clothes) and affect my personality and mannerisms. So, you know, snarky, insufferable, pretentious, with excessively theatric gestures and a perpetual slouch. Extra bonus points if you can turn simple questions like “what’s your name?” into a five-minute explanation of the various nuances of your answer to that question. If I actually follow through with this I will appoint an independent panel of judges to judge the impostor versions of me.

Second: I need a new gimmick. I’ve been unemployed and not-a-student for so long that has kind of become my thing.

(I’m just not going to talk about why this letter confused me. I will be glad to go into it, at great length, in person, via email or IM.)

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As I indicated previously, my laptop, OK Computer, has passed on to the next life. It served me well despite having something of a rough life, with its cluttered files and general beat-up state. The keyboard was broken, and the CD tray. Various other features were out of comission or defective. Still it persevered, lovingly serving me with data and utility throughout the years. We may never know why OK Computer perished. Perhaps it was simply time. Complaining it had been awake too long, I let it go to sleep. It never woke up again.

But there is hope. Though it is yet to live again, the shell of OK Computer will be given new life as Crushd Tin Box. Though its hardware remains in a grim state its software will be new, fresh, and crisp. There is a lifetime of service ahead for Crushd Tin Box. And what’s more, OK Computer’s memory will live on in a friendly remote server, able to offer its sage wisdom to its successor. Crushd Tin Box does not yet walk this earth, but do not mourn overmuch for the loss of OK Computer. It will not be in vain.

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…my computer.

Not really sure what the problem is but it’s looking like I’m going to need a fresh install. Currently in the process of backing everything up. If everything goes according to plan it should be running again tomorrow. I guess it’s as good a time as any to get on the whole backing up my stuff and getting a fresh install. The old rig was getting a bit cluttered.

Even cooler: I will be able to remotely access my files now, so long as I am on something with a terminal and the interweb. So, exciting?

But yeah I may be a bit sparse until then.

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So, I recently answered a question concerning art and science—why is there a divide, real or imagined, there?

At the risk of writing a legitimate and informative post, this is a subject I’ve given a lot of thought to. There are a number of reasons for the art/science divide, some of which build upon each other, some of which are independent, some of which are purely social and some of which are, I think, entirely valid. (more…)

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Listen, the Free Culture movement. We need to talk. I’ve been quiet for a while about this tendency of yours, to deny that the primary function of BitTorrent is for piracy, but I think it’s starting to interfere with your life. I think it’s time for an intervention.

I don’t know if you’re being dishonest or you really believe what you’re saying—it’s sad either way—but it needs to stop. Stop with the calling Apple out of touch when it bans a torrent application from its store. You’re just making yourself look bad. And it makes me sad. I want to like you, I really do. But I just can’t date someone who is actively deranged all the time.

And I even almost sympathize. I mean, BitTorrent is a great technology for free culture, I understand that. If you want to release something for free, but can’t afford the bandwidth, torrenting is the way to go. But you need to stop pretending that this format is somehow being injured when The Pirate Bay is found guilty, or when a “remotely download torrents” program is banned from the iPhone.

But at the same time, you’re completely wrong. I’ve used many a legitimate torrent in my day. Do you know how often I’ve used a torrent aggregator such as The Pirate Bay to do so, or even required more than basic download functionality? This is a trick question, of course: I have never done so. Every single legitimate torrent that I have downloaded has been through the website offering the download. I have never needed to pick and choose the files I want from these legitimate downloads, nor have I felt that basic software is inadequate for doing so.

You’re acting like a lunatic, the Free Culture movement, and it’s starting to grate. Please stop. You’re in danger of losing my support, and if this is the way you’re acting, you desperately need people like me to support you.

Desperately.

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