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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Al Petterson's LiveJournal:

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    Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
    10:54 am
    A funny
    This came from newsfromme.com via one of the blogs I read (eschaton or somebody). Video of a song from Woodstock, very mildly NSFW (except that you'll also laugh a whole lot).( Read more... )
    9:39 am
    Appealing to the intertubes
    So. We missed taping the season finale of a few shows we watch. I find them on bittorrent and get them (I am a bad person and do not support megalithic media empires by downloading their free copies instead).

    Now I have .avi files. I have a freeware .avi player I downloaded. I can see and hear shows fine.

    Spouse doesn't like tiny screen on laptop. Wants to watch on TV. Bought cable to attach TV to computer. Figured out connection easily enough (laptop autochanges resolution when I attach it, but that's okay, if weird).

    Fire up freeware player. Get video on laptop, black window on TV.

    Weird. But not defeated. Yet. ( Read more... )
    Thursday, June 26th, 2008
    8:58 am
    Bang bang
    When Bush was elected, my reaction overall could be boiled down to "I think this is going to be terrible -- for the economy, for the environment, for the world. But many people I respect, to some degree, disagree. After the manner of a scientist, I now get to see the experiment run and find out if I was wrong."

    It seems like I get to say that a lot.

    I get to say it again today. The Supreme Court has made a 2nd Amendment ruling. Perhaps this will not increase the number of violent crimes. I think it will, but after the manner of a scientist, I now get to watch the experiment run and find out if I was wrong.

    There are reasons to think I might be wrong, even if my underlying assumption (that availability of guns has a causative correlation with amount of violent crime) is not incorrect: it's not like it's actually difficult to buy a gun, most places, as it is. I note that it is easier to buy a gun in the South than in the rest of the country, and the South does have a higher murder rate than the rest of the country, but perhaps the conservatives are correct when they claim that that's just because people in the South are intrinsically violent and stupid, not that they have more access to guns.

    So. What I really want is for people not to be killed or criminally threatened (whether with guns or with, say, television sets). What I really don't care about, at least in the abstract, is the number of guns that happen to be around that don't ever get used for crimes. (I think the argument that more guns do not cause more crime is as specious as the argument that since I can personally drive my car without an accident, increasing the number of cars on the road does not lead to more accidents. But others believe differently. Maybe they're right.)

    Therefore, I will fervently hope, now, that I am wrong.

    (There is also the argument that more guns will mean more crime, but that this is a worthwhile price to pay for living in a society that maintains well-regulated militias protecting it from being invaded -- that being the reason the 2nd Amendment gives to justify itself. I will give that argument every single bit of respect that it deserves.)

    Violent crime descended sharply when Clinton was president. Presumably, since Clinton did not get any credit for this, Obama will not get the blame if violent crime increases while he's president. Presumably, pigs fly.
    Saturday, June 7th, 2008
    1:08 am
    Phantom Of The Opera
    I assume it's not a spoiler to post a review of it. Still... ( Read more... )
    Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
    10:26 am
    Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and...
    Any Clinton supporter who is at all tempted to...
    - not work their butt off for Obama
    - not vote for Obama
    - vote for McCain

    (to descend the circles of perdition, more or less) needs to be handed a copy of John Paul Stevens' birth certificate, preferably on the original papyrus.
    Saturday, May 17th, 2008
    10:36 am
    Throwing cold water
    So. What does it take to repeal a constitutional amendment in California? Just a majority vote on a proposition? Tbat's how we get constitutional amendments to begin with, yes?

    Or is it supermajority? I direct this question to those who know more California law than me. If anyone has a friend of a friend who can answer this definitively, I'd like to know.

    It will have a lot to do with whether I celebrate this six-month period when we briefly have marriage equality, before the November constitutional amendment shuts it down definitively. Can we get the amendment repealed as soon as the state finishes converting 13% who voted in favor of a gay marriage ban five years ago but have to change their minds to overturn a ban now? Or does Prop 13 screw with this?
    Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
    10:03 am
    Is this connected?
    So I was listening to the opening repetitive pattern of Holst's Mars, and for some reason I was also thinking of the opening notes to Styx's Grand Illusion. And I realized they were interestingly similar.

    So just for fun I listened to the rest of the tracks of each album.

    Huh.

    The frenetic opening synthesizer in Fooling Yourself was more than a little like Mercury, though the meter is different... the "You And I" long notes in Superstars reminded me a little of Venus... Miss America, though faster than Saturn, still had some similar chords and themes... the minor key and loud chords of Man In The Wilderness paralleled those in Uranus... the quiet reflective nature of Castle Walls was very much like Neptune...

    There's not much to say about Come Sail Away and Jupiter beyond the fact that when you hear either one, your reaction is "dude, this song pwnz". Still.

    Am I just having a 70s drug flashback despite having taken no drugs? I must be... because if there were more to this than a completely coincidental rude mapping that no one sees but me, someone else would have pointed it out years ago. And there's nothing that seems to connect Holst and Styx in Google beyond a lot of people having both in their personal CD collections.

    So am I just making connections where there is none?

    Current Music: Styx and Holst
    Friday, May 2nd, 2008
    9:15 am
    "Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
    ...so you're scared, and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young any more...

    ...when you call me, you can call me Al...

    ...though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true...

    ...children growing up, old friends growing older...

    ...but I'm in it till it's over, and I just can't stop...

    ...welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

    ...well, I got up this morning, I don't need to know no more...

    ...catch your magic moment, do it right here and now...

    ...I thought that they were angels, but much to my surprise...

    ...the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems...

    ...well show a little faith!
    Thursday, May 1st, 2008
    3:36 pm
    Iron Man - May 2
    Speed Racer - May 9
    Prince Caspian - May 16
    Indiana Jones - May 22
    Hulk - Jun 13
    Get Smart - Jun 20
    Wall-E - Jun 27
    Hellboy - Jul 11
    Dark Knight - Jul 18
    12:24 pm
    Now this was way too much of a hoot
    Faux News was discussing Clinton's suggestion that she and Obama engage in some unmoderated "Lincoln-Douglas" debates. So of course Faux needed to put up a related graphic. Click on 'Read more'. Really. You won't believe it. ( Read more... )
    Friday, April 18th, 2008
    11:35 am
    Bleat. Meme. Nicked from [info]liralen.

    This is Alology, or perhaps iMageology. ( Read more... )
    Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
    5:43 pm
    This is the transcript of the original speech that Will.I.Am set to music. The WaPo has the speech video online but they cut the most moving words from it (fortunately they're in the music video).

    I know a little more than a little about American history. I have listened to a lot of speeches. And to my mind, this one should stand as a classic; one of the all-time greatest speeches by an American politician. It's simple, it's moving, and dammit this is why I'm an American.( Read more... )
    Sunday, April 13th, 2008
    10:51 am
    It's pretty cool that humans actually went to the trouble of making these things just so I could look at them a couple thousand years later.
    Saturday, April 12th, 2008
    10:44 am
    Inspired by [info]yessod to post my own connection to Americana.

    Both sides of my family came through Ellis Island within 15 years of 1900 - I have found my entire mom's side of the family (it is interesting to note how much one's family tree starts not forking once you go back about a hundred years), as well as my paternal grandfather and great-grandfather, from the EI online data.

    If my mom's family had any Mafia connections, they're not telling. But their old family photos sure make it look like they did. I guess any sepia-toned pictures of Italian-American families looking stern and serious would pretty much look that way.

    My dad fought the Battle of Waukegan as a member of the National Guard, keeping the North Koreans away from the shores of Lake Michigan. As far as I can tell, you have to go back to the Vikings before you find my male-line ancestors actually involved in shooting (or, well, hacking) wars.

    My paternal grandparents were influential in the Salvation Army, and once gave money and support to the KKK, since those were after all good god-fearing folk. Both of which are significant pieces of Americana in their own way.

    My dad hitchhiked across the country in the late 1940s and was picked up and driven through Texas for a bit by Lyndon Johnson. My mom was the treasurer for the pretty-much-hopeless Democratic candidate for Congress in our district for two elections in the 1970s. The father of my best friend in high school ran for the same seat in 1980.

    My high school civics teacher regaled the class with a story about me sitting on his lap in 1968 (when I was all of two) explaining cogently why he should vote for Humphrey instead of Nixon.
    Friday, April 11th, 2008
    9:26 am
    "About a third of Clinton supporters say they'd back McCain over Obama, and about a quarter of Obama supporters say they'd back McCain over Clinton."

    Holy flying $#@#^. I realize some of that is just campaign rhetoric that'll be forgotten by November, but holy flying $#@#^, who the hell thinks like that? "Obama's preacher said some rude things, so I'm going to vote for four more years of insane and ruinous policies -- that'll teach him!"
    Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
    11:36 pm
    I've read somewhere that we actually have 4, not 3, sorts of rock - that meteoric rock, despite its compositional similarity to igneous rock, counts as a different rock type.

    So my question is whether we really stop at four. Amber, coral, pearl, petrified wood, ivory, kidney stones. Do these count as igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic, or "not rocks"? Are there any geologists or amateur geologists who bother to classify these?

    How about concrete? Are chunks of concrete considered "rock"? Hardened mud from archaeological digs?

    Is there anyone who retorts "meteoric, organic, synthetic" to "igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic"?
    Friday, March 21st, 2008
    10:47 pm
    Back. Read [info]silkiemom's journal for lots and lots of trip blogging.

    I might have some sensible things to say on [info]rosevilleptolus tomorrow.

    Current Mood: refreshed
    Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
    10:32 am
    Page 2 of my 1st Edition Players Handbook is signed by E. Gary Gygax, when I met him at Winter Fantasy '82.

    My life would have been very very different if he and Dave Arneson had not wondered what their miniatures were doing between battles.

    requiescat in pace, dungeon master.
    Thursday, February 28th, 2008
    10:47 am
    Stark


    from Brad DeLong.
    Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
    3:30 pm
    Suppose I wanted to set up a small community to discuss Ptolus with people who might be in a ptolus campaign (for example [info]space_parasite, [info]marith, [info]silkiemom, [info]diony, [info]yessod, and dave). How would I reasonably set such a thing up and make it accessible to those people, and bring it to their attention, and allow them to post to it too?
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