Journals of a Modern Barbarian

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Darth Barb
Getting in touch with my inner Sith Lord, thanks to a friend. I hope this creates chaos around the world.

From Darth Barb
The Top Ten April Fools' Jokes -- For Nerds...

Here are the top 10 tech-related April Fools' jokes to play on friends and co-workers. The best geek pranks make a gadget or a co-worker's computer appear "broken." Watch with glee as the unsuspecting victim goes mental trying to figure it out.

Remember, jokes are supposed to be funny, so don’t really break anything.

1. Re-map the Keyboard of Your Excitable Co-worker
Every company has a sales rep who uses exclamation marks excessively ("C'mon guys!! We can do better this quarter!!!"). Use a program like KeyExtender, a registry hack that re-maps their keyboard so that exclamations and question marks are switched. They may begin to question their sunny outlook in life: "C'mon guys?? We can do better this quarter??? Guys??"

As they paw helplessly at their keyboards, sidle up and 'fix' their problem. Don’t forget to smile.

2. The Speech-to-Text Platform Joke
You'll need a wireless keyboard for this. Set up a meeting with a colleague to teach them a speech-recognition program (you'll need a plausible reason why the company needs this). Then, right before the meeting, connect your keyboard wirelessly to the victim's computer. Explain to the victim that the program will have to be trained to recognize their voice, and give them a sample sentence to try out. As they do this, have a co-worker a few desks away type gibberish into the program page ("Boomshakalaka!).

The poor guy will make a fool of himself talking louder and changing his pronunciation to try and make it work.

3. Desktop Havoc on the Mac
A London design firm called Troika has produced video of an amazing computer "virus," which may or may not be publicly available. It's probably just a clever art project, but it's too good not to mention here. Nonetheless, Troika's Newton Virus is a Mac bug that rearranges the desktop icons using the accelerometers built into recent MacBooks. When the unsuspecting user picks up their laptop, all the icons and menu items fall to the ground as though under the influence of gravity.

4. Optical Mouse Confusion
This is an update of the old mouse-ball-removal trick: A small piece of tape over the laser sensor on an optical mouse will cause it to go haywire. Just color the nonstick side of the tape with a Sharpie and then tape it over the lens.

5. Change the Language Settings on Google
When a co-worker leaves her computer unattended for a minute, quickly go to Google's home page and click on "Preferences." There, you can choose the interface language of the search engine. Klingon, Hacker and Yiddish are all excellent choices, but Elmer Fudd is our personal favorite. As Elmer, you can use the Google Diwectowy, perform a Google Seawch or find out if you're ‘feewing wucky.'

You'll be amazed how few people realize you can do this. The change-the-language trick also works well on cellphones.

6. The BlueScreen of Death Screensaver
The BlueScreen of Death error in Windows has driven lots of users to the fringe of computer homicide. Tap into the river of pain by installing the BlueScreen of Death Screensaver on a friend's machine. It's available at Microsoft's IT website Technet, but there are several others out there. Just make sure it doesn’t have a real virus.

What’s likely to happen? The victim will reboot his machine by hitting the restart button. Hopefully, they didn't save their work!

7. Splitting Monitor Cables
This is one even software geeks won't easily figure out. Open up their monitor cable (don't worry, it's safe) and wire the RGB lines to different colors -- this will totally warp the image on the screen. Everyone will assume it's a software problem. You're so clever. You can thank us later.

8. The Old Screenshot-as-Desktop-Wallpaper Gag
This classic is as good as gold. Take a screenshot of your friend's desktop and make it their desktop wallpaper. You'll have to minimize applications, hide all of the desktop icons, and set the Windows task bar to auto hide. Pull up a comfortable chair and pretend to feel their pain while they click like mad and rail at the gods.

9. Change Autocorrect in MS Office
People are too reliant on some common programs that help them cheat, such as the Autocorrect feature in MS Office. Capitalize on their laziness by adding a few of your favorite "alternative" spellings.

Common words like "about" or "together" work well. Even better, try subtly adjusting the spelling of your victim's name. It's so hard-wired into most people's fingers, they hardly look at it. Right, Mr. Dumass?

10. Remotely Monitor a Friend's Webcam Spy on your best buddy at work through his webcam (think American Pie), record the feed, then show a compilation of his brow-furrowing and nose-picking at the next staff meeting. This is why they like you.

You can do this through remote-monitoring programs, such as WebCam Monitor on Windows; and even do it through an iPhone using Telekinesis, an iPhone app that allows you to take pictures on a Mac laptop using its built-in iSight camera.

Current Mood: Sith

In no particular order because I'm a fucking INSOMNIAC!!!....
Bunch'a stuff to tell.

So below are a couple of missives that went out in email recently. Now, to be honest, I should have put more thought into the first one before sending it. In my defence, a Lady I'm becoming pretty attached to (we'll get to that. It's not easy) was conked out not 6' from me and the clicky thing was causing her relaxed snoring-like-a-buzzsaw to start to change octave into sleeping-lightly. I've learned that with Asian women if they snore loud enough to rattle the windows it's a good thing. For them. For me, I've learned where to buy earplugs.

Ok, here's the convo; (note, my data is all orginial or if edited specifically done. That of 3rd parties is edited only to remove specific phrasing that would mark them out)

Duri to Lots'o'Lady Friends in the US:
"It might become important in the not too distant future for me to be able to provide a referece check from some of the women I know. I'm not asking for any sunshine blowing. I know my own flaws well enough. And it'll be from my perspective a blind test; I won't know what anyone is saying. But many of the local women have been so habitually lied to that their pretty paranoid. Given what I've seen I can't blame them, but it's starting to get on my nerves and wasting my time. If any of you are willing to state what you think of me as a man, lover (if relevant), human being etc, I'm thinking of short-cutting the process a bit by providing some emails to allow them to check my resume. They might even want to make a Skype call to you. This won't cost you anything and is transparant from your end (just looks like an "Unknown" phone number, and you only get billed your regular hours).

I know this sounds bizarre, but goddamn it, I'm just not in the mood to spend the next 6 months trying to jump through flaming hoops proving that I'm not an asshole who wants to treat a woman like shit and then "Forget her". Some of the people on this list I haven't even dated, but you've probably got a pretty good read on my character as a person, and if regardless, just call it like you see it and I'll live with the results. As the Thai's put it, it's "Up To You" (national motto).

To make it easier for everyone, only reply if specifically NOT interested, and don't worry about implications. That way I just provide a blind email list and tell'em to go to it. I'm not sure what will happen, but from what I've seen they're not especially shy about calling up names they find on your cell phone and trying to get the lowdown. It's a little like dating a cross between the KGB and Siamese cats. Fun, but you need to understand the rules.

Be honest. Really. I own what I do. The only feedback I get will be the results. I'm just trying to cut through the bullshit. Consider it an amusing social experiment and laugh about it with your friends.

Oh, and on the off-chance that they decide to contact you via Skype or other voice, be aware that though their spoken English is often shakey, their comprehension is usually fairly good. If in doubt, use simple tenses and shorter words.

Best,
Duri

(technical notes: All the people this is being sent to are women. Many I've never dated, just known as friends. Yes, I've filtered a bit if I thought that I didn't like someone after dating them. Yes, if asked, it's ok to say that. Yes, this is anal, but I am a fucking software tester by trade and I do this shit socially in my sleep as well, so... deal. Loves. Duri)"
****

Most of the responses, if there were responses, were amused or requesting technical parameters. A couple were not so amused. The concern appeared to be that I was trying to short-cut the process of getting to know someone by extracting outside references rather than acting as I was and letting the Thai Ladies figure it out for them selves.

Fair enough. The flaw is probably in a lack of context provided by me.

The Lady sleeping (and snoring like a buzzsaw. Sign of respect) right nearby has been raped, and almost surely gang-raped at some point in her life. It is absolutely typical for a Thai man to lie through his teeth to his GF or wife about pretty much everything as far as I can tell. They often go to one of the local Go-Gos, get laid, and then call it a "Business Trip". I've been trying to adapt to local ideas of what is ok, and sometimes it's not easy (HA!). It's also typical for taxi-drivers to take a single Lady off to a dark and secluded space against her will (I've been asked to provide taxi-escort more than once), or for Farangs to play various extremely nasty games. Given the level of shit they've dealt with, I have tremendous respect for their reslience. The well be a posting on this later, because I think there's much to learn from this ability to bounce back (and I'm not talking about just the sex-workers).

The Farangs are often worse. They claim to be rich when they're not, claim to be poor when they're rich, and seem to have an attitude that "The Little Brown Women Aren't Really People". They'll have 2-10 Ladies that they're seeing and making promises to. The Ladies aren't fucking stupid, so they take it with a grain a salt, but it's like building up a callus; the more it happens the less they trust anything with a dick.

The Thai Lady response is to establish an intelligence network that makes the KGB or CIA look like a bunch of fucking posuers (ok... that's not -that- hard). Your cellphone WILL be checked. If they give you a cellphone it's a sign that that they like you, but it's also a trap. They will know how it works and that 2 minute shit you take will be enough time to allow a spot-check on the phone. Your email is not your own unless you log out EVERY TIME you use it. They think nothing of getting your phone, wandering off, and calling up the entire call list and asking "Who are youooooo?".

Honestly, at previous times this would really piss me off, but under the circumstances I can't really blame them a bit.

But the situation that created this behavior is starting to seriously piss me off, and gladly, I've found out I'm hardly the only ex-pax nausiated at the behaviour of some of my fellow invaders.

I've been what the locals call a "Butterfly" (I like to play with more than one woman) all of my life, but I've always tried hard to be honest about it up front and not cause harm. I think in the West we'd call this a "Playboy", but thats not really accurate either, since it implies I don't give a shit and will fuck anything that moves. I do give a shit and am carefull about who I fuck, so I don't box easily.
As a result I give myself some latitude on what most people would consider aberrant behavoir in relationships, conditional on being honest about it. I don't always even succeed at that. I'm not perfect. I'm just me.

Qouting myself in response (because it was a good reflexive response:
"I'm trying to overcome cultural and language barriers that are pretty steep, and one of the things that works around here normally is that the Thai women will cross-check you with the other Thai women. No problem for me. Except that I'm new here, and most of my possible references are in the US. I figured that it might make sense to allow them to check -those- references is they wanted to. It really does run kinda like a background check here. And they get a LOT of bullshit from men who claim to be one thing (rich, poor, married, unmarried, perfect, whatever) and are another. They have no way of checking.

I have nothing to hide. I've fucked up in the past, ((omitted detail for security)) but that's life. So if I can make it -easier- for them to learn what they want instead of having them scroll through my cellphone while I'm in the toilet or try to read my email address list when I run to 7-11 then thats what I'll do."

They really do this. There is an upcoming entry on the Thai Lady Inelligence Service (TLIS) that will give some details, but I swear, if I needed spies, I'd know where to find them. Ever hear of a "honey trap"? I live in the middle of a few million of them. And they're smart as hell, all know eachother, and when they don't want you to you will NEVER know what is going on inside that pretty little brown head unless you're paying very close attention.

Fortunately, though I'd make a lousy spy, I'd make a goddamned good spymaster.

Man, this is NOT one of the things I'd thought through before coming to Thailand or SEAsia in general. However, if I can learn these Jedi (ok... Sith) skills I can do some interesting things. And oddly enough, they're willing to teach if you're willing to learn.

Thog: A 6'3 Yoda.

Current Mood: Cultural Adjustment
Current Music: Anything that will block out the snoring

In other news, I've decided to become a monk
I've successfully caused massive chaos between about 3 Thai Ladies due to a fundamental lack of understanding of Thai culture and a general desire not to lie through my teeth.

Go me.

So I've decided that until I get my shit together I'm going to just play with myself, an act at which I've become a Jedi Master over the last year, and otherwise work on finding work.

Strangely, one of these Ladies just invited me to her annual company holiday (she works at a bar as a manager) with the rest of the company. 4500 baht (about $120) for 3 days and 4 nights, all included, and her understanding that I didn't want to get laid. The bar in question is a great place in Pattaya with some of the best Psytrance I've heard outside of guys like Infected Mushroom, Halluciogen or GSM (*). You can always tell a good company of any kind, because 1) the people who work there are having fun, and 2) they're making money. The owner makes a regular habit of taking the entire staff out on a 3-4 day holiday every few months and paying for it. I got along well with most of the people who worked there and the owner, and apparently I'm on the short list of non-employees to invite. Thats pretty damned cool.

I don't know if I'll have the money, not be in a Thai prison or not be working when this happens (feb 17th), but if I can go, I will.

If you ever get to Thailand, look up "The Tropical Bar" on Soi 2.

Current Mood: Yes?
Current Music: Psytrance

Thai Lady Territorial Markings
Usually this consists of doing things like leaving behind jewelry, magazines, watches, small personally identifiable object and clothing, and usually in out of the way places that another Thai Lady will immediately check as soon as you go to the toilet. This is not an accident. Nor is it an accident when they listen VERY CLOSELY to anything you say on the cellphone. It doesn't matter how much English they speak. What they're listening for is a Thai name. Also, guard your shirts closely. Those are trophies.

Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that this isn't limited to Thailand.

In some ways, it's pretty familiar. In other ways, it's like moving to Mars.

But if you want to get some perspective on the situation I'd suggest watching the otherwise stupid and amusing movie “A night at the museum”. It'll help if you're perspective is in some way altered by drugs or booze, but you can do it sober.

Part of the reason I came here was for a complete change of context. I've never been afraid of moving to a new and weird place, because my mother was insane and we moved all the time. Its one of those things where once you've done it about 20 times the remaining 30-40 or so aren't such a big deal.

But, I must admit, sometimes I'd like to snuggle up to a Burger King and sleep the night without wondering what THE FUCK was going on around me.

I guess I'll sleep when I'm dead. I'm predicting Tuesday.

In other news, I really need to go to the gym. I went dancing again last night and absolutely cannot move. At all. Did you know that most Thai food consists of grease and about 200 calories?

But I have a job interview in a couple days, assuming that I don't get imprisoned and buggered for life tomorrow when I go to Immigration and apologize for missing my visa deadline. If successful, this will give me money to live on until I can get a software testing company set up here (or somewhere else on Mars... I mean Asia), which is looking increasingly doable. And I get along with the Thais just fine. They like my sense of humor (maybe. I think mostly they have no idea what I'm saying but they laugh along anyway and thats good enough for me), they think I can dance well (because most people who come here are from Britain), and they like to watch me pick up large objects (my local nickname appears to be “Giant”). Not a bad life. Hope I don't get buggered.

This post is delayed because Monkey-Net is flinging poo.

Current Mood: Mars
Current Music: Actually, some damned good House

Thai TV
Watching Thai TV with a Thai Lady and a couple of beers is much like watching MSTK 3000 on LSD. Not that I've done LSD. I'm projecting. Still, I think the effect would be similar. I am greatly amused. The Thai Lady is mostly confused as to what I'm babbling about but generally laughs along with me or ignores me with mild annoyance. And I understand the movie perfectly (for me).

It's a cheap date and I can entertain myself for hours.

Victory.

There are many things I like about being an ex-pat...
But a few that kinda suck. One is that any Weird Al reference is completley lost on anyone not born in the USA. Listening to Weird Al go off on "The Sage Begins" gives me chub. Unfortunately, trying to explain or demonstrait this to any Thai person will result in them deciding you are absolutely insane. They smile, nod, and back away slowly, keeping their hands and their sides and making no sudden movements, not sowing any teeth, until they are out of reach and then they run. Probably a reasonable reaction, but it's as close to homesick as I've gotten as late.

This LJ Temporarly Closed for Repairs
If you think you haven't seen anything here for awhile, you're right. I haven't posted for months. I'll get back to it, but have decided that for the moment LJ was having the negative effect of encouraging me to play by the rules. Right now, that's not what I should be doing. So when I get back to it you'll get my best memories of whats been happening, but in the meantime I need to not worry about what the rest of the world thinks. See you all on the flipside.

D

Stupid LJ question
Is there a way to search your own journal by keyword? This seems like a basic requirement, but I cant find anything offhand.

Need an eBook reader for Palm 4.1 OS
I now have a usable writing device for traveling and would like to get an eBook reader for it. Unfortunately like everything else there are many options clarified by marketing materials.

I'm on a very short time frame, having only a few days before I leave my PC behind, so though I'll keep doing research on my own my time is better spent packing my backpack, storing my data, burning CD's, getting clothes, bandages, maps, passport photos, etc. So if anyone can find me an eBook writer for the Palm OS 4.1 (NOT OS 5), let me know.

That PDA Thing
As mentioned, I've been trying to find a PDA equivalent to travel with and allow me to do my travel blog. However, since the Palm Vx (the apex of the PDA world in my opinion) the damned things have just gotten more expensive, less reliable, more difficult to use and generally turned into DancingBearWare. I don't want Bluetuuf, don't care about watching movies, don't need an iPod, and if it doesn't come with a blowjob (generator) I'm not inclined to spend $500 on it.

Enter the AlphaSmart Dana: http://www.alphasmart.com/products/dana-w_In.html

Anyone know anything about this? Looks perfect to me. It's a little large, since it's the sive of a keyboard, but it's light, rugged, runs on rechargable batteries for 25 hours, and does basic PalmOS stuff as well. I'm pretty sure I can get one cheaper on eBay or something, so the price is doable. Hmmm.....

The simplier device they sell, the Neo, doesn't do any Palm stuff and only holds a couple hundred pages of text (still a lot), but runs for 700 hours on 3xAA batteries.

There's also these guys; http://www.quickpad.com/Index.asp, selling a couple competitor devices.
http://www.quickpad.com/Item.asp?id=5&c=2
50 hours on 4xAA, no Palm but has various similar apps (addy book, calendar), USB, etc. Seems like not as good a deal at first glance.

Research Request: A Palm Pilot equivilent for travel writing
Hey all, I'm looking for a way to write Thogs Travels this time as I storm my way across the planet. But oddly, this is harder than it used to be to do.

In The Olde Days I used a Palm II or a Palm V with a foldout keyboard. It worked great. The key was that it was very quick to set up, burned batteries slowly, and had a physical connection between the keyboard and the Palm.

Now every PDA I've seen with a foldout keyboard has BlueTuuf and/or IR, burns through batteries like I do Scotch, and takes about 2-5 minutes to set up. They suck.

Requirements:
(Fixed)
- Must be a PDA or PDA like device that will store simple documents and files
- Must have a foldout keyboard availible (purchased seperately is fine)
- Keyboard must be decent sized (I'm not exactly a munchkin)
- Must have a physical connection to the PDA
- Must be able to transfer files via USB or USB adapter
- Must not be hideously expensive

(Optional)
- Disposible battery powered would be ideal. I'd rather carry and toss AA's than have to find a way to recharge the thing somewhere in Anatolia.
- Ability to handle images would be nice, but not that important
- eBook capability would rock
- Wireless networking would be ok
- Other DooDads

Ideas or suggestions welcome

Harddrive recovery service?

I just lost my primary drive in a move, including all of my critical data. Anyone know if a harddrive recovery service that is reasonably priced?

Posting Music MP3's
Is there a reasonably easy way to post large MP3's in LJ (such as a 1 hour mix, so around 200meg, tops)? Or can someone recommend a useful (and easy. And cheap) hosting service/process?

Yeah, that's why I'm not feeling the love
Bush's "Magic" Economic Formula: The Rich Get Richer; Regular People Lose Ground

By Larry Bienhart:
The economy keeps growing, as does the enormous largesse of the wealthy, while the average person makes less than they did when Bush took Office. This is Bush's magic economic formula.

Supposedly we are in a sustained economic recovery and have been since 2002.

Part of this is Bush hot air and the Republican Noise Machine, which the media quotes verbatim.
By a certain measure, however, it's real.

The economy has grown. Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Average income is up. There's lots of money around.

But the recovery has some really strange features. Oddities never before seen in a recovery.
Jobs: During Bush's first term the US actually lost private-sector jobs.

It finally improved in 2005, and now job creation is almost keeping pace with the increase in population. Still, over all, it's the worst record since Hoover, the fellow who presided over the onset of the Great Depression.
How do you have a recovery without creating jobs?

Income: Yes, average income is up during the tenure of the current administration.
The joke about average income is: Bill Gates walks into a bar. The average income of every person in the room immediately goes up 10,000 percent.

But median income, the amount that people in the middle of the group earn, barely budges. So let's look at that figure. Median income is down. The average person makes less now than when Bush came into office.
Not only that, the downward pressure on wages is no longer just a blue-collar issue, it's moved up to white-collar workers, the educated classes, even doctors.

How do you have a recovery when people are making less than before the recovery?
Cost of living: Key factors of the cost of living are much higher than they were six years ago.
In particular, fuel is up 100 percent, higher education costs are up about 44 percent, health care premiums are up 80 percent, and affordable housing is scarce.

Normally, when the cost of living goes up, we have inflation. But we've had low inflation during the Bush years.
How can the cost of living go up while the cost of money stays low?

Here's the most peculiar statistic of all: the Dow Jones index

You may have been hearing that the Dow Jones Index is at an all-time high. It's true. However, it is only 16 percent higher than the day George Bush came into office. By comparison, when Clinton left office the Dow was 320 percent higher than when he came into office.

It's a very rough measure of course, and there are many others. But by that measure, during the Clinton years investment in America's leading business had grown more than three times over. Under Bush it's only grown 16 percent in six years. Since the consumer price index is up 18 percent over the same period, when the new all-time high is adjusted for inflation, growth is effectively below zero.

How can there be a "recovery" in which not even businesses grow?

When a government wants an economy to grow, it throws money at it.

The administration did that with spending on pharmaceuticals, homeland security, and a couple of wars. But their most important weapon of choice was tax cuts for the rich, especially on unearned income, capital gains, inheritance, dividends, and interest.

This was sold, and accepted, on the myth that the rich -- the investing class -- are the most creative and daring members of our society. Just unleash them and they will march off into the wilderness -- actual, urban, or cyber -- with sacks of cash over their shoulders and they will build things!

Factories! Airlines! Housing! Toys! Computers! Undreamed wonders! Entire new civilizations! With jobs! jobs! jobs! Like an Ayn Rand novel!

But that's not what happened.

Because a shortage of cash was not the problem. The country, the world, is awash with cash.
The good, old, risk for rewards version of capitalism -- the burghers invest in a daring sea captain sailing to the Indies -- still exists. In recent years, it's given us FedEx, Wal-Mart, Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

But alongside it, over the last 50 years, the economy of credit has grown up.

In vastly oversimplified terms the credit economy works like this:

You own a house. It's worth $100,000.

Someone buys the house, no money down. They borrow that money. Let's say it's a straight-line 8 percent, 30-year mortgage. Forget closing costs, points, and any other complications -- that's a $220,000 debt. It goes on the bank's books as an asset.

Now you have $100,000. The bank has $220,000 (on paper). The buyer has a house worth $100,000. The bank has a lien on it, but the buyer will be gaining equity, plus he can get a second mortgage and home-improvement and other loans on it.

Again, this is a vast oversimplification, but that transaction has "created" something like $420,000 that is now "in play," as part of the economy.

No "thing" has been created -- no new business, no product, no jobs, no idea, no intellectual property, no entertainment.

But money has been created.

If you buy a dress on your Visa card or organize a consortium to buy a company, the same thing happens -- debt creates money. In every transaction, there's profit to be taken off the top.

A perfect example of the transformation of our society into a credit economy is the change in the way we finance higher education. States, and even cities, used to be in the business of building universities that were free, or nearly so. These were financed, up front, with tax money as an investment in our human infrastructure. Then, in 1965, the student loan program was invented. This changed the higher education business into a debt creation business and created a whole new creditor class, college graduates, who, were handed, along with their diploma, debts of ten to fifty thousand dollars or more.

The number one industry in America today is the money business -- debt swapping. In a closed economy, that might have a positive effect, as people look for something to do with their money.

Not, perhaps, as a general rule, but in an economy like ours, handing out money to rich people is the least effective way to make a healthier, stronger economy that benefits society as a whole. There are two reasons.
The first is that the Ayn Rand fantasy is a fantasy. For the most part, when people with millions of dollars get an extra hundred thousand, or several hundreds of thousands, or even millions, they invest it passively, in financial instruments and real estate.

So we get, for example, a real estate bubble. Which is worse that a dot.com bubble because a dot.com bubble is symptomatic of the excitement of investing in new, high risk, but high reward enterprises that are producing new things. A housing bubble is symptomatic of lots of money floating around with nowhere productive to go. The other reason is that insofar as investment does go into business, in terms of our society, there's a hole in the bucket. The hole is called globalization.

I'm writing this on a Mac. When I bought it, the money went through American Express (which took a few points) to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, where Steve Jobs dipped in his ladle, then the rest poured out though the hole in the bottom to China, where it was actually made.

That's the economy that the statistics describe.

Lots of money is moving. As it passes through the company, the company profits. The company isn't going to build anything, so profits are spent on executive compensation. The actual work is outsourced (the money flows out), and no jobs are created. Nor does the actual business grow very much either, except as a middle man, taking American money and passing it on to foreign businesses (and oil producers).

At the same time, this creates downward pressure on normal working people.

Remember those old movies, with 200 men at the factory gate? A foreman inside with three jobs to give out, saying, "You. You. And you. The rest of you, go home." Those three lucky stiffs didn't demand health insurance, pensions, or job security.

Now it's India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico, Honduras, China, Korea, and many others at the gate. American companies tell their workers they have to be competitive. Not only do wages go down, but benefits begin to disappear.

This is combined strong anti-union and anti-worker efforts by government, supporting the anti-union and anti-worker efforts of major corporations.

This may be bad for America as a society, but the people in the money business love it.

Indeed, it is the trick that makes Bushenomics work for people in the money business. That includes anyone who invests in financial instruments. The problem with pumping out money -- printing money -- is that it can create inflation. Money lenders hate inflation. If I loan out money at 8% and by the time the creditor pays it back, inflation is up 8%, then my profit is zero. The profit margin in lending is -- in a significant part -- the difference between the rate of the loan and the rate of inflation.

Really high inflation, and worse, runaway inflation, is, of course, a threat to everyone. But moderate inflation, with rising wages, favors debtors and hurts creditors.

So how can you pump out money while keeping inflation down?

In Bushenomics you do it by keeping a lid on earned income. Even driving it down. Millions upon millions of people earning a little bit less take away from the pressure of a few people earning millions upon millions more.
That, along with, the flood of low cost goods from low wage countries, helps balance out the inflationary pressure of rising costs in certain particular industries, like oil, health care and higher education.

It's not a question of conservatism vs. liberalism. Of government vs. free markets. All economies are, of necessity, mixed. All governments are concerned with the wealth of their nation. Government decisions will always effect how business operates. The question is, does the way government spends and invests create a sounder and healthier society? Or does it merely make certain sectors and classes rich, while hollowing out our economy?

If we are to invest public funds -- through government borrowing or spending or through simply spending tax revenues -- we have to be aware that rich people running around with bags of money won't necessarily do what is good for the wealth of our nation. They may run us into bankruptcy, the way the smartest guys in the room ran Enron into bankruptcy.

ConEd
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Infected Mushroom Rocks
However, sweat-flavored wriglys doublemint gum does not.

*spit, spit*

(UPDATE: It doesn't get better if you keep chewing it)

Current Mood: *ptouey*
Current Music: Something by Infected Mushroom

A possible flaw in WWII Carrier tactics

Inspired by the History Channel.

A carrier strike is devastating, and unless you have some sort of huge advantage in numbers, skill or technology, you will get hurt badly. Carriers themselves are full of bombs, gas, and bullets. They're also usually constructed (structurally) in such a way that your dumpster would about the level of complexity of much of the ship. They're fragile. Eggshells with hammers, to steal a David Weber reference.

Tank warfare is generally stated to be won on the following principle; He who shoots first, wins. I think this is even more true of Carrier warfare. A tank is designed to stop another tanks round (hopefully). Most CV's designs thought about it too, but except for the RN Carriers they focused more on having a big dick and knowing how to swing it.

So if seeing your opponent is key, you have to send out planes (you have those) in various directions and hope to fly over an bad guy and live to tell the tale. The area of your search is essentially the range of the plane /2 plus or minus the speed of the ship it flies from. Minus a bit for safety.

But if the starting point for these planes is all centered on one point of the map you're stuck with a single circle of detection (hope we don't miss them because of a cloud). The radius of your visibility hasn't really changed, even if you add some more ships. On the other hand, if you separate your Carriers you don't really change the chance of them being killed by a heavy attack. You may stop more planes, but if they are good and you are good some will get through and that CV will be hit.

If they see it. But if you separate your carrier groups into pairs of ships, one ship for CAP (stop enemy planes), and one for attack, you reduce the chance that you lose most or all of your combat power to a single strike, complicate the enemies search and attack coordination problems, and give yourself a better detection radius. And you'll probably still get through.

This is contradictory to most military tactical thought, because it's rare that separation of forces is a good thing. But I think it is here.

At Midway the Japanese made two major mistakes. They didn't separate their forces. When we found them and landed a hit, we hit all of them. And they didn't strike first. They should have thrown the punch even if they weren't sure it would land. Never let the other bastard get the initiative. Otherwise they were just unlucky. Could have been us.

Our code breaking was mostly just to find out they were coming, and though it gave us an initiative advantage, it wasn't decisive without some other major mistakes.

"Man of the Year"
With Robin Williams is purely brilliant *.

I want to run for president.

(*Edited to add; not least because one of the hero's is a software tester)

Current Mood: Yes!