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Best casual language description of just what Trump did, why it matters, how stupid it was.... A friend brought up the idea that there was going to be a divide in LGBTQ+, with LGB on one side and TQ+ on the other.

It would be unfortunate if the cultural line was drawn with Gays and Lesbians comfortably now in the "acceptable" line, and collaborating to redraw that line with other folks out - especially given the Transwomen who were at the heart of things like Stonewall.

It reminds me of this clip from Chasing Amy, where "Hooper X" (a gay effeminate-presenting black man who has to code switch to a fierce Black Power cliche for the sake of his comic) complains about the 90s acceptance of white lesbians relative to his demographics:


Overall, I think the lines are clear: either you leave it to trust people to figure out who they say they are and who they attracted to, trusting their insight more than your outsiders view, or you adopt a prescriptivist, authoritarian sense of who they must/should be.

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Still strolling through "The Master and His Emissary" - about how our brain's left/right lateralization is a crucial key in understanding ourselves and cultural trends. (I've been reading this book since March! Though often in daily conjunction with another, easier read.)

McGilchrist is getting into written languages - pictographic vs idiographic vs phonetic. And he points out that even among phonetic languages, many (like ones that don't write out the vowels) depend on context more than others; I'd put it that you have to read more holistically to know what each word actually is, rather than a more reductionist system where each word more or less stands on its own.

(English gets a lot of "self-deprecation" from cosmopolitan first-language speakers of it for not being so elegant sounding, and for its spelling inconsistencies. But those inconsistencies reflect a larger than average draw from other languages. My understanding is that English is a pretty easy language to pick up the basics of (maybe because of that "reductionist" mode, without so many conjugation rules critical to making oneself understood) but also it has one of the largest vocabularies - a fluent speaker has a lot of near synonyms to choose from, each with a different nuance. (Like in that opening sentence, I chose "strolling" over walking, jogging, crawling, sauntering, ambling, puttering, moseying, cruising, etc))

I think a new thought I've had - bringing these ideas in line with my ingrained sense of the supremacy of consensus over personal preferences - is this contradiction of the left hemisphere (that McGilchrist argues is more reductionistic, and I'd say more prone to fury when the holistic world doesn't conform to its simplified, manipulable models) with its monopoly on language is the gatekeeper to learning about views outside our own experience! I think McGilchrist and many others over-romanticize the right hemisphere, the wisdom it carries from ingrained experience. It's a creation of its environment and its past as much as everything else is, but somehow carries a gravitas of Truth. But language - written and spoken, the ability to capture complex ideas and share them with new generations, to learn things from the experience of others without the risks and costs of doing everything ourselves - is a big part of what makes us unique as a species. Not to denigrate the interesting bits of language showing up in other species, but we do it on a scale this part of the universe hadn't seen, and that deeply informs my own practice of secular humanism.

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Using the following as an excuse to say Arun should come over and keep my company as I attempt to build a flatpack TV stand...
Listened to a podcast with ethicist Peter Singer. He brought up the "sheriff problem", where a law enforcement officer has the option to prevent a sure riot or lynching of multiple people by framing one innocent person. (Damn it, come to think of it I listened to the podcast and made a note to write about it before the killing of George Floyd, which gives the racial aspect in that scenario a different frame.)

For a utilitarian ethicist like Singer, things boil down to a numbers game: if the sheriff can save 4 of the 5 by unfairly declaring one in the group the known guilty person, he should do so. Furthermore, he might pick the sacrificial candidate based on, say, which one had the least amount of years to live.

Many people are troubled by this conclusion... and I think they're right. As with other variants of the "trolley problem", these setups rely on perfect knowledge for the actors, or general complete faith from the story listener that the conditions of the story are absolute - and that's just not how the world works.

There will always be vast amounts of uncertainty in the relation between our actions and the outcome, and no situation lives in a vacuum. These hothouse flowers of morality tend to expire when exposed to the real world. If the sheriff was to placate the angry mob this way to prevent a riot, say, he's not just diffusing this situation in isolation; he's helping to set a precedent for how the world conducts itself. And we are compelled to struggle for world that leans towards justice, and the faith we should have is not in the people setting up a fake-y thought experiment like this one, but in the idea that a more just world is a better world.

Another Singer story is if about seeing a kid drowning in a pond - you're the only one who can save them, but you're going to ruin your expensive outfit. Should you do it? Most people would say yes, of course you should. Singer then parlays this into a question, if you'll sacrifice a few hundred dollars worth of nice clothes to save a kid, why aren't you sacrifice less money to anti-malaria campaigns that are almost guaranteed to save multiple kids?

Singer labels that disconnect as the "identified victim effect", and goes on to imply that it's clearly wrong. I put it in the same category as the observation that we feel more compassion (as measured by willingness to open our wallets) when shown a picture of a single suffering child than when shown a picture of that child with her brother - and the wallet clamps up further when shown a picture of the whole classroom full of hungry kids.

I guess I am more forgiving of that reaction than Singer. The "identified victim effect" relies on the reframing of a situation: from a distinct case where I an uniquely able to help, to "well that's the way the world is, and probably will remain, despite my efforts." I'd take that further: there are too many good causes out there! In Singer's logic, we probably should all become martyrs of self-sacrifice. Unless of course the libertarian stance is more correct, and intervening in patching bad situations just leads to people taking advantage of your kindness.

I'm no libertarian... but I would say you should often look to fix underlying causes and systematic problems rather than only dealing with symptoms as they emerge. And overall I have to admit, most everyone has more room to take more positive action than they are, and they should think about what fraction of their comfort might be usefully sacrificed in a way that has great net utility.

Finally, Singer talked about our squeamishness in dealing with hopeless cases of babies with spina bifida. (I believe he got deplatforemed in New Zealand for this) In the worst, most tragically helpless cases a doctor might suggest not intervening. But actively ending a life is generally off the table both legally and morally. Or in a similar note, Melissa and I were watching Seth Rogen's "Hilarity for Charity" for Alzheimer's support. It got us talking about end of life decisions, and why euthanasia is often in the realm of unthinkable for many people, despite the overwhelming burden on families and the fact that the victim is at a point where they can't possibly be getting any happiness out of life.

And again, it's because these situations don't happen in a vacuum. There is a wise hesitation before granting permission to use all the life-ending tools we have, because even if the cases seem obvious and clear-cut and on the side of preventing suffering now, it means we now have a powerful and dangerous option in the world, and can imagine the argument shifting in ways we know are unacceptable. "Why this group of people aren't REALLY people... they can't be happy with this demi-life they are 'living'... we should do us and them all a favor and end things."

I'm in favor of pragmatism and maybe even utilitarianism and looking to maximize happiness, buta ny system of philosophy and morality has to take the uncertainty and interconnected/precedent setting nature of their conclusions into account, or else it's not a very good system. (This might be an argument for why long-lasting systems of morality - like religion - should be regarded with more respect than modern jerky atheists with their clever thought experiments and hypotheticals would grant them.)

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I recall a discussion somewhere of Singer's drowning-child example that pointed out that by Singer's own reasoning, you should actually let the kid drown and save your expensive suit so you can sell it and give the money to UNICEF.

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Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.

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Two sentence horror stories

Pressley: How many extremist murders has the FBI linked to Black Lives Matter or similar black activist groups?

McGarrity: We don't work Black Lives Matter it's a movement. It's an ideology. We don't work that.

Pressley: So the answer is none. Can you just say that for the record? There has been no killing that the FBI can link to black Lives Matter or similar black activist groups, to your knowledge.

McGarrity: To my knowledge--I'd have to go back--but to my knowledge, right now, no.

Ran into this song in a Coors advertisement I think - instantly I know I love it. Like from just a few bars of the percussion. Can anyone who is better at categorizing music - even beyond genre (motown?) but to like instrument and rhythm name, tell me what it is I'm responding to?

Are you afraid of the task? Why? Does it have a knife pointed at you? No. You're afraid you'll do a lousy job. Well, you're gonna do an even worse job if you don't get started.

I always dig reminders of stoicism. Also, that is a great weekly email newsletter.

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Leaving this here for anyone who thinks a one sentence short story can't break your heart: Tiny Jumping Spiders Can See the Moon

Re Orlando: fuck fundamentalism of any flavor. When you "know" you have the answers before the questions are even asked, you're part of the problem. If your doctrine is more important than basic humanity, you are the problem. Anyway, then off to march with Brass Republic at Boston Pride: (and after School of Honk at Arlington Porchfest)

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My friend Sarah who is great with 3D printing and the like helped me make the Problems are Inevitable / Problems are Soluble thing I modeled up ( http://kirk.is/2015/03/19/ ) into a tangible object



It's a bit lighter than I had in mind, and I think I want to adjust the font of the B, but overall it's a great prototype! A fluffy little piece on my devblog: Arrange Icons by Face.

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Also on my devblog: Thank Skew Very Much. Man if I had actual graphics design skills I'd really be a force to be reckoned with.

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The end result of that last post:


This is an animated GIF scene from a rap battle parody -- the video was a kind of clever parody, pointing out how subjective the "winner" of a battle is, it's all about the belief your entourage has in you...

Love that guy looking like he's losing his mind, and the clever splicing of the video...

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I realized my life would be so much better if there was an easy way of embedding a browser (to make a UI) and maybe a tomcat-ish server as a standalone Java app. Any thoughts?
THIS GUY
--via BB. Amazing. Man I wish I could hulahoop.

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The most daring thing to do with your life is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

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Sorry suckers. Being an adult isn't being a joyless bitch. Eat cupcakes, wear sneakers, read comics and FUCK THE WORLD. RT THAT

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If you watch NASA backwards, it's about a space agency that has no spaceflight capability, then does low-orbit flights, then lands on moon.

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loveblender de juin, il est arrivé!

Kirk and Amber, sittin' in Paree--
b-r-u-s-h-ing their teeth!

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Note to future self: ignore radio shack guy, fuse should be same amps, voltage can increase. (Also: why do subwoofers need fuses?) From a 1978 essay by Philip K. Dick: How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later:

However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe--and I am dead serious when I say this--do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.

I think I should add this to mortality guide quote page.

In the essay, he toys with ideas like sneaking into Disneyworld and replacing the fake birds with real ones. Bill the Splut pointed out a 1999 article that thought Marcel Duchamp's "Readymades" may be just that - rather than manufactured items being rebranded as fine art, they may actually be hand constructed things pretending to be manufactured items being rebranded as fine art. What an odd hoax that would turn out to be!

One my favorite bits of readymade art is performance art: when I see one of those vending machines with the glass front and a "nestled spinning spirals" dispensing mechanism, and one of the slots is empty, I'm always tempted to put in money and select the absent product in order to turn the act of trying to dispense a snack into a bit of lovely and hypnotic-- if brief-- mechanical dance, rather than a crass act of commercialism.

But, most of the time I end up just buying a Snickers instead.

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If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything.

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http://www.slate.com/id/2220302/ - Slate on how the recession can put a strain on friendships. Money can be so annoying- especially in its absence

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Biased against http://bing.com because I have much more "kirk israel" Google Juice than Bing Flow-- stupid other kirk israels! (And my résumé is more interesting than my site? Bleh.)

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http://www.bemboszoo.com/ - charming typography animal fun

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Thinking how I like writing haha rather than LOL; a bit of old school snobbery, but also you can write "HAHAHA" vs "hehe"- some nuance there

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My informal "cold call emails from recruiters" barometer is pointing way up this past week or so. Good sign? So Miller, my former housemate, is looking for a new housemate. $500+utils gets you a good sized bedroom (the other rooms are furnished already for the most part) and offstreet parking in a great neighborhood, Arlington Center (Starbucks and a bookstore down the street, a ton of fantastic restaurants on the block, within shouting distance of Spy Pond and the Minute Man Bike Trail) which is also pretty damn near Cambridge/Somerville etc.

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Camera Gimmickry of the Moment
It's surprising what goofy digital fun you can have even without photoshop, with some of the color modes of a Canon point and shoot... Color Accent. You know, I was kind of poo-pooing black and white digital photography, since I know b+w film has better dynamic properties than color film, but I figured b+w photos are just the color version minus the color information. But this photo I took in that portrait class makes me reconsider; maybe some of the appeal of black and white is letting the eye see the subject differently, free to examine texture and light and shadow without the "distraction" of color.

Color Swap. JZ getting ready for his Blue Man Group audition. Or maybe he just really likes the smurfs.

Quote of the Moment

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

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Chewing gum on the sidewalk should be a jailable offense. Singapore went too far with an outright ban, but I say Bring On The Canes-- grrr.

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yow, just carried $310 worth of coins to coinstar... no fee amazon gifts certs ahoy!

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The corner packie (booze store, for you non-NEers) sells individual ping pong balls -- must be for your beerpong playing convenience! So like NYC, Boston has had a free paper they hand out at the subways, the Boston Metro. And recently it gained a rival, "Boston NOW". Which I enjoy because sometimes the guys will call out "Free Boston Now!" which is clearly a chant you can take to the streets.

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Image and Project of the moment

--The Mr. Lee CatCam project is lovely and brilliant... a tiny digital camera on the collar of an outdoor cat. Views from the secret life of cats!

Zen Koans and Quote of the Moment

"Does a dog have Buddha nature?"
"Woof!"

"Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?"
"I don't care."

His response is labeled as the absolutely perfect answer

But let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.

The other expression that sticks in my head (which is claimed to be Cervantes) is "comparisons are odious". That's a fairly bold philosophical Zen statement, that things should be taken as they are, and that relative comparisons aren't worth the hassle. Finally Con Air bubbled to the top of my Netflix queue, which has been on my "to see" list ever since someone said I look like the canibal in that movie. Turns out that the canibal is Steve Buscemi, and I guess I can kind of see the resembalance. He's scrawnyish but we share the lips.

Anyway, that's possible because this movie has an insanely overpowered cast. Dave Chappelle was a surprise, but mostly I liked the long awaited encounter between Nicolas Cage and John Cusack... a pair way at the top of the list of "actors that most people can easily tell apart but Kirk keeps mixing up".

Overall it's a weirdly over-the-top movie, but it never wants to wink, it seems to take itself pretty seriously. But I think the visual image of the sports car trailing behind the plane like a kite tail makes it all worthwhile.

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Baby Photos of the Moment
Seperated at Birth?

Evil B's offspring, Catherine	Tom Everhart's Lucy's Scream (Did Schulz know?)

OK, I guess "seperated at birth" is kind of unlikely, Evil B probably would have caught that, but still.

News Commentary of the Moment

This was clearly a planned event, not a spontaneous event [...] I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.

Wow... whoever thought that the "crack Suicide Squad" from "Life of Brian" would become a reality?

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Video of the Moment
The Lord of the Rings reunion overdubbed with very dumb voices made me laugh, at least at the end. (via Boingboing)

So the other day I was driving in Brookline and I saw a building with signage that indicated it was of the "Assumptionists". I googled it, turns out there some kind of Catholic Sect, Augustinians of the Assumption.

Man, I bet they hate line about "well, you know what ASSUMING does, don't you?"

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Dialog of the Moment

"We'll be okay, unless we have to stop for gas, again! There wasn't much more'n a gallon in that gas can."
"In a one-gallon gas can. Huh."
"I cannot believe I just said that."

Man, I LOVED that show when I was a kid, and my parents HATED me loving that show... Guest Host of the Moment
Hello, I'm LAN3, and Kirk has generously invited me to update kisrael while he's down in Joisey. I'll do my best to rip off Kirk's format and style, while still giving you those informative links, provocative thoughts, and wicked distractions that you, like me, have come to this page to see. I won't attempt poetry, I promise. As a poet, I'm a Vogon.

Music of the Moment
Currently on heavy rotation in my various players is the latest song from Interröbang Cartel, a band composed of any willing contributors who read and/or post to alt.religion.kibology. "Ballad of the Eire Canal" is a song composed originally for another newsgroup by Friend-of-Kisrael Ranjit after he was inspired by a typo. It's just these bits of unqualified genius that show up from time to time that make so very much crap on USENET worth reading. The lyrics are worth a read by themselves, but there's an instrumental version by SWT and an excellent a cappella version by JWGH, who has a wacky Interröbang Cartel codename that escapes me at the moment.

Meanwhile, the same SWT has just completed a decent-sized (15:37) synthetic symphony, which I'm about halfway through hearing for the first time. If you like video game music from the NES era, you'll adore this.

News Cycle of the Moment
Everyone's saying goodbye to President Reagan this morning. NPR broadcast the funeral in special coverage this morning, just as on Wednesday they covered, during the All Things Considered hour, the arrival of President Reagan's body at the Capitol rotunda.

Well, I wouldn't be a blogger or the like if I didn't make it about me, so here goes: I'm creeped out that they flew his corpse cross-country to lie in state. I'm not disturbed by the notion of viewing the corpse in general, but death should not, IMO, entail long distance round-trip travel.

Fortunately, I believe I run little risk of being so famous that I'll get anything other than a one-way trip to wherever my body will spend its eternal rest. But who knows where this guest-hosting gig will take me?

Where's Kirk @ the Moment?
As Kirk mentioned, he'll be attending the traveling production of "A Prairie Home Companion," the long-running radio variety show hosted by Garrison Keillor, who appears under several names in kisrael with a reasonable frequency. You, the reader, can watch the show too, thanks to the miracle of streaming media. Don't hesitate to click that link for a run-down on the netcast -- it won't start launching players on you or anything. The show will start at 6:45 Eastern Kirkles Time, and out here on the left coast will start in the yawning afternoon at 3:45. Fact of the Moment

It takes an estimated 2,893 licks to reach the center of a Tootsie Roll pop.

Update: in today's comments, Ranjit claims to have spotted a digital lick counter. Plus, it's his birthday. Yay Ranjit! Happy Birthday!

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History of the Moment
AtariArchives.org has lots of old computer magazines scanned in, including most recently The Best of Creative Computing Vol. 2, circa 1977. Interesting to see what computing was like over 25 years ago! I also have admired its sister site, the Classic Computer Magazine Archive, which has a full run of my old favorite "Antic"...MAN does seeing the covers for that magazine around 85-86 bring me back... Image of the Moment

A cute tugboat from the docks by my new job.

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Link of the Moment
Ranjit was disappointed that yesterday's ditributed computing link missed out on YETI@Home...

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Quote of the Moment

The period and the comma are the only lovely marks of punctuation.

Ever wonder why popcorn is the appointed "king of all snackfoods" at the cinema? I mean that stuff can be loud if it's a thoughtful movie.

Quote of the Moment

"So tell me Rico, what is the meaning of life?"
"...It ends."

A supremely stupid movie, but a point that might not be as trite as it sounds. I also saw that Charlie's Angels remake last night. I admired it for being so aggressively stupid. I admire the song "It's Raining Men" ('Cos tonight for the first time / At just about half past ten / For the first time in history / It's gonna start raining men) for the same reason.

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Art of the Moment
From an article on the artist Jan Saudek at Salon... I just wanted to say this is about the sexiest picture I have ever seen:
I like the artist profiles Salon has. A suspicious number of them involve skin. But sex and art go hand in hand (so to speak) these days. I think. In any case, both are good to look at.