There’s a lot that’s gotten to feel old with my Acer Aspire One. I hate the pitifully low screen resolution and it doesn’t even have enough oomph to run KDE netbook. But one thing I DO like about it - it has lots of USB ports. I hear many of the newer computers are aping apple and reducing ports.

So, this paper in Nature reveals that sex is much more complex than just having XX or XY. I think an awesome followup would see if trans and/or gay/lesbian people had more of these chimeric conditions. Although, everything has potential for evil, I think this would be super helpful to parents of kids who were going to end up trans to educate themselves in order to be more supportive.

Listening to Jim Gaffigan talking about raising 5 kids in a NYC apartment and suddenly found myself thinking - I could have 5 kids! I have a whole house!

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In my Homeland review, I mentioned that many of Doctorow’s novels post-Eastern Standard Tribe are depressing reads; especially Little Brother, Homeland, and For the Win. Since he’s trying to spur people to action by making them realize how the world works, they can be pretty dark. Thankfully, while Pirate Cinema did have some moments of depression, there was some hope. While Homeland describes the world as it is - the dirty tactics used to arrest protestors and keep us from expressing ourselves as outlined in our constitution/Bill of Rights - Pirate Cinema describes the world as it could be. So it’s possible that, with some work, we can prevent Trent’s world from coming about.

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t know what’s different this time. Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s Sir Pratchett. This book just never seemed to have a climax. Had the journey not been sufficiently fun I might have scored it 2 stars.

This book reminds me of what was to be Five Iron Frenzy’s last album. The ska band had its fair share of joke songs - at least one per album. For its final album it had one song that tied together all the joke songs and references from the past decade. Similarly, this book seems to have a cameo or mention of everyone you’ve ever seen in the Discworld. Anyone who is in Ankh-Morpork makes an appearance. From the newspaper guys to CMOT Dibbler to the Wizards. The main plot even references Small Gods. I would have to say that this is the first Disworld book that cannot be enjoyed if you haven’t read most of the old ones.

I can’t believe I’ve been blogging on here for TEN YEARS! Here’s a link to my first post. Time has really flown by! Ten years ago I didn’t even think blogging would still be a thing in ten years time. So far I’m still on Wordpress, although I finally moved away from the server. prefix in the domain name. I still enjoy expressing myself and I still love when I get engagement from my readers.

I’m not letting near-freezing weather stop me from eating awesome food. Pre-heating the BBQ for some ribs!

The most important paragraph in Corey Doctorow’s essay:

No, the worst part is that, like the lady who had to swallow the bird to catch the spider that she’d swallowed to catch the fly, any technical system that stops you from being the master of your computer must be accompanied by laws that criminalize information about its weaknesses. In the age of Google, it simply won’t do to have “uninstall HAL9000.exe” return a list of videos explaining how to jailbreak your gadgets, just as videos that explain how to jailbreak your iPhone today could technically be illegal; making and posting them could potentially put their producers (and the sites that host them) at risk of prosecution.

I haven’t seen Gone Girl, but my wife condensed the 2 hour movie into a 30 minute play-by-play summary. There are three things I don’t like about the plot. (In case it’s not obvious….spoilers ahoy)

1. In a world in which women already have a hard time getting their rape allegations believed, the plot point in which she fakes a rape to ruin her ex is quite damaging. Not quite Rolling Stone “we made up a story  because it was too perfect to fact-check” sort of damaging, but still provides a frame of reference for everyone who doesn’t want to believe a rape victim.
2. It remains to be seen how well this works for anyone in practice, but I can imagine defense attorneys mounting the “my wife is Gone Girling me” defense in mariticide. At the very least, it may be just enough to create a shadow of a doubt in juries given how popular this movie is and how much it’s penetrated the popular culture.
3. This is the least offensive point as it can be used against anything: movies, video games, books, etc : It’s probably given some of those less balanced members of society ideas they may not have had. Just as playing Team Fortress 2 or any other shooter hasn’t made me shoot up the world, most normal people wouldn’t act on this movie (starting with the fact that things need to go perfectly correct for this to play out well in real life), some people out there might now be planning some interesting scenarios.

At the end of my interview about starting the Kickstarter project, Brian Mazzaferri of I Fight Dragons opened the door to speaking with him about the process when it was all done. It was, as is the case with many Kickstarter projects, very exhausting and we only recently had time to actually do the interview. In the interview I briefly mention the delays in the vinyl album. This actually a pretty big problem in the music industry at the moment. Demand for vinyl has increased to a point where the record pressing plants can’t keep up with demand, but not yet to the point where it makes sense to open a new factory (with all the upfront costs involved). Even The Protomen’s new album The Cover Up has had its vinyl release delayed due to production delays. Of course, the new old tech is cassette tapes, so perhaps vinyl demand will fall a little. Time will tell. Without further ado, the interview: