Transmissions from Pluto

Fear my new-fangled icon powers! I'm trying to break through another LJ barrier and start in with user pics. A little while back I goofed around with re-styling my journal, but in general I don't pay much attention to that part. I don't think anyone really goes to my front page. If I get the interest, I might look in to customizing a bit more, but we all know what my design skillz are like. (Or, if you don't, they're poo.) At any rate, the bread should be familiar to my AIM buddies, and many, many thanks go to kthrin for this lovely piece of work. :) [Post-post edit: By "this lovely piece of work," I mean the McCoy icon, not the bread. :)] Only time will tell if the collection grows or what.

So my big event for yesterday was catching some diner goodies with Kthrin and James (kawaiiryuko) last night, which was as fun and enlightening as always. I floated my idea of a website dedicated to a peer-reviewed/-refined utopian vision. Not sure if that's going to work out so well. :) On the upside, we did ponder Congress: The Role-Playing Game, so that might be something better to devote time to. Or not. :) Otherwise I tried to get a little more educated about how the system works (or doesn't), but predictably it pretty much turned into me sitting around going, "That's fucked up." Live and learn.

The other thing that happened yesterday is that I finished reading Gregory Maguire's Wicked (ObAmazonLink), which came recommended to me by both my sister and Janie (aplacental). So that was pretty good times. New takes on old stories...I recommend it if you're into that kind of thing. My favorite quote: "So many words, you'd hardly think the world deserved such scrutiny." I immediately thought of the Internet, of course. Perhaps even LJ. :)

After checking out some Super Tuesday news, I'm getting more depressed about electronic voting. Yeah, I'm generally against it. Not completely, but I get the distinct feeling we're heading in a bad direction here, viz less robust voting. I know the dangling chads are still a sore point, and problaby back in everyone's minds now that we're at presidential election time again, but there is an equal, if not greater, amount of stuff that can go wrong with electronic voting, and I'm of the opinion that problems are going to be harder to detect (and fix!) than with paper. The chad thing went awry, sure, but what's wrong, really, with a piece of paper and a magic marker? How apt is that to go wrong? (This hearkens back to a mini-discussion James and I had recently about over-engineering things.) Granted, that's one extreme, and there's no reason we couldn't use machines to make the voting process a little easier on everyone, but it's a mistake to rely on them completely.

The pro-e-voting arguments often run along the lines of (a) easier to use (different languages, better interface, etc.) and (b) easier to count. The anti-e-voting arguments generally center on a lack of transparency, with the corresponding lack of security and/or lack of verifiability (trustability?). It's easy enough for software developers to wax philosophical about the dangers of closed-source solutions for anything, let alone something as crucial as elections, so I won't rehash that here. I guess I'm mostly concerned about paper trails. As in, we need one. No, really. I say it's fine to have computers front as a voting interface. But it should print something out when the person is done. Seems reasonable, doesn't it? The printouts can be machine-readable (as well as human-readable) to let machines count them. The voting booth can have two machines: an ATM-like voter/printer, and a card-scanner-like reader. Use the first to select and print your votes, take your printed ballot (and at this point at least you know you've voted), verify the card in the reader to make sure the ballot will be read the way you wanted to vote, repeat the process if there's a problem (goodbye faulty ballot/hanging chad problems), fold your ballot, put it in a box, and have a nice, democratic day. I think I could dig something like that.

In other news of technology advances gone wrong, I read that Cincinnati is getting offered broadband over power lines like people have been talking about lately. I really can't help but feel like this is a bad idea. For those not tracking this story, the fear is that broadband over power lines (or BPL) is basically going to turn power lines into gigantic HF radio noise generators, which are going to interfere with ham radio and whatever other HF radio communication is being used out there. The first problem is that the HF radio interference isn't limited to the area using BPL; the interference will tend to go global pretty easily. The second problem is not (solely) that this interference will shut down hobbyists and such, but that emergency response/relief organizations (like FEMA, to name one) tend to depend on this stuff for operating under disaster conditions. Anyway, this isn't really my bag, but you can catch up on a lot of info here. If the HF interference is as bad as the doomsayers are predicting, it's going to be Bad Times if BPL takes off. I don't think I even know anyone in Cincinnati. This is just one of those things I hope people get educated about and boycott if necessary. Not that that'll happen; the major draw of BPL is that it's pretty cheap compared to existing broadband solutions. It's just one of those things where the hidden costs of it being so cheap are going to bite us in the ass.

Uh...anyone up for an advance in LARPing technology? :)

Hmm, what else. Haven't talked about drugs in a while, have I. :) Anyone remember Operation Pipe Dreams? That was when the Ashcroft Army went on this massive bust of people selling drug paraphernalia and ended up throwing Tommy Chong in jail last year. Hehehe...Free Tommy Chong! :) Anyway, I learned today that our friends are at it again, and this time we're up to Operation Pipecleaner. Yep, another paraphernalia sweep. Thank God for that, because I'd never want to smoke tobacco in a pipe or anything. Anyway, bitching aside, this latest dorky front on the War on (Some) Drugs got me to thinking, and I came up with a brilliant idea. Everybody ready?

Make bongs out of guns. That's right; you heard me. It's the perfect solution to this anti-paraphernalia nonsense. See, this is how it works...you construct a bong (or syringe, or crack pipe, or whatever) out of a perfectly usable firearm and toke (or shoot, or hit) to your heart's content. Hell, sell 'em online, see if I care. That's even better, actually...anything to get the feds to come and raid you. Then you let every crazed NRA-type you can know the awful truth: The government is trying to take away my guns! Man, you would then enlist the awesome power of those super-right lobbyists fighting on your behalf to stop the raids! It's almost too perfect. :)

Maybe that should be my new line of work. Stavro's Gun-Bongs: "Get Loaded!"

Anyway, there's happier news in the drug world, especially to those of us who already know the better way for the government to deal with vice: legalize, tax, and regulate. Sometimes I get to missin' California. :)

Well...I think I'm about out of gas. To wrap up, I'll just that thanks to pseudohermaphroditism, I may have found the perfect woman. Here's the question of the day: Could we get married under the Bush regime? :)

Later, everybody.