Author Archives: Jean-Paul

On creating stuff

I’m new to this whole writing things for the whole world (all fifty of you!) to see.  Writing a blog is something that I’ve been talking about for a long time.  Like years.  That’s just how I roll; talk about something forever and then dive in like I have any clue what I’m doing.

With that in mind, it’s interesting to hear how other people relate to creation.  A few things have crossed my radar this week that are worth sharing.  The first is from my friend Katie who writes about the need to explore our creative abilities.  She calls that need “The Nudge“.  It’s well worth reading and we would all be wise to heed her advice.  Then go and buy her art because the world needs people like Katie to create more awesome stuff.

The other interest thing to cross my path is the latest comic from The Oatmeal.  The Oatmeal is always fun to read and this comic is no exception.  Creating web content is both very freeing and very demanding but still gives you almost zero respect from society.  Also, be sure to check out his book “How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you.”  It’s 130 pages of pure comic fun.  Although, if he were being totally honest, the book would be only one page and it would say this:  Is your cat alive?  If you answered yes, your cat is plotting to kill you.  The end.

I used to like John McCain

Prior to 2004, I thought John McCain was a pretty stand-up guy.  Reasonable politician.  War hero.  Sane.

Then, of course, the re-election campaign of George W. Bush happened and all those adjectives I once used to describe him fell, one by one, to the wayside.  I have read many articles since then saying that John McCain was never the person that I once believed him to be and that his image was sculpted to make him look stand-up.  I don’t know if I was just naive or if he actually did change since then, but boy is it disappointing.

The latest episode in “How is John McCain disappointing me now?” comes courtesy of the Benghazi non-troversy.  He has been the most vocal member of the Senate on the need to get information about what happened in Benghazi this past September 11th.  So what do you do when you want more information?  You skip the classified briefing on the issue, of course!  You see, if McCain actually went to the meeting he’d  have to stop complaining that there isn’t enough information about Benghazi.

John McCain has become the archetypic Republican.  White.  Male.  Old.  Angry.  Or maybe that should be stereotypical.  He has turned into (or always has been) a man who doesn’t care about anything except hurting the man who, as far as McCain is concerned, usurped the presidency from the rightful heir.  Him.

Back in 2000, I would have gladly voted for John McCain if he were the Republican candidate.  Now, I’m glad that I never got that chance.  I cannot think of anything worse than a vindictive man as President of the United States.

Places I won’t be travelling to anytime soon

I have read a few articles about mysterious deaths in Thailand recently.  All young women from other countries, all apparently poisoned, all died horribly.  On top of this, authorities don’t really seem willing to get to the bottom of this.  This is most likely because of the hit the tourism industry would take if it were publicized.  Thailand looks to have a serial killer on its hands and the authorities are complicit.  Stay away for now.

What to expect from Obama’s second term

As the dust settles from the election, events are taking shape that give us a glimpse into what to expect for the next four years.  I believe these will include the following:

  • Detonation of the Austerity Bomb (aka the Fiscal Cliff) – The lame duck session is almost guaranteed to not get terribly much done and Boehner will have a tough time selling anything Obama has to offer before the new year.  The good news is that, despite the scary names, January won’t see us suddenly in a giant hole that we can’t get out of.  What we will probably see is a severe downturn in the stock market that will be a great buying opportunity for people with money because we will have…
  • A “Grand Bargain” budget deal in January – Grand Bargain is in quotes because Obama will get most of what he has been asking for for over two years.  Tax rates for the very rich will go up, tax rates for the rest of us will stay the same or go down.  Corporate tax rates will go down.  Various loopholes will be closed.  Lots of wasteful programs will be cut or eliminated.
  • Comprehensive immigration reform – This will be to his second term what Obamacare was to his first term.  In a word, HUGE!  Major Republicans are already talking about the willingness to compromise on an immigration bill.  This is mostly because this election has taught them that they can no longer rely on white people to win elections and that demonizing brown people and attempting to suppress minority turnout is antithetical to winning the Presidency.  I don’t think this legislation will pass until after the midterms, though, because there will be a…
  • Status quo midterm elections – Republicans will probably keep their numbers in the House and gain a few seats in the Senate.  This is mostly because Republicans have done an awe inspiring job of redistricting at the state level to preserve House seats and the inordinate amount of Democratic Senate seats that will be up for grabs.  There is also the fact that this election will be the last hurrah for the angry white contingent of voters.  The midterms are usually more about anger than about policies and Republicans excel at fomenting anger in their constituency and Democrats can’t be bothered to turn out in large numbers.
  • The economy will markedly improve – The signs are all there that the economy will continue to improve.  I expect it to pick up after a year or so and the Great Recession to be in our rear view mirror by the end of Obama’s second term.
  • The housing industry will grow quickly – Since the housing bust, construction of new homes has fallen way behind population growth.  As the economy improves, we can expect a mini housing boom to get us back to the level we need to be to house our growing population.  This looks like it may have started already.
  • More of the same stellar performance from the stock market – The first four years have been very good for people in the stock market.  I expect the next four to be the same with the economy continuing to grow.
  • Obamacare fully implemented – This is a no-brainer, but deserves to be mentioned.  The world will not end.  The United States will be just as socialist as it has been since Roosevelt.

All in all, not a bad eight years for a Kenyan anti-colonialist socialist.

I hate you, Neal Stephenson

No I don’t! I take it back! I still love you!  Please don’t leave me!

This emotional freakout brought to you by the book “Reamde”, Neal Stephenson’s latest.  Neal Stephenson is, arguably, my favorite author depending on whether I’ve reread a Vonnegut novel recently.  Why?  Because he writes sentences like this: “The young woman had turned toward him and thrust her pink gloves up in the air in a gesture that, from a man, meant ‘Touchdown!” and, from a woman, ‘I will hug you now!”  Even his worst books have nuggets of gold like that.

So why am I so angry at Neal?  Because he stole my idea.  The main character in “Reamde” creates a new MMORPG where the world is based on advanced algorithms that actually mimic real life world creation with plate tectonics and continental drift, etc. instead of the human generated worlds with incongruous landscapes and massive creative liberties.  In this world, called T’rain, players can actually dig into the terrain (T’rain, terrain, get it?) and mine for gold.  The society is feudal and players pay based on how much fun their character is to play.  Miners and farmers are free, wizards and warriors cost money, etc.

Reading about the world of T’rain was like reading my mind.  It was freaky.  Almost every aspect of the world has been floating in my mind for over a year now.  I have been reading about how the Earth was formed and trying to come up with ways to mimic it for a computer generated world.  I have been thinking about how to create a world that is actually round and not demarcated by server boundaries.  I have been toying with simplistic economic models that would be usable as a stable MMORPG economy.  For over a year now, I have been thinking about T’rain!

Then I start reading “Reamed” and find out that Neal Stephenson has beat me to it.  I can only assume that Neal is a mind reader because there’s no way that hundreds of geeks the world over have thought of the same thing as me.  No sir!

Of course, there’s a reason why the world of T’rain doesn’t exist yet.  There are still lots of technological hurdles that Moore’s Law hasn’t quite allowed us to accomplish yet.  But Neal Stephenson’s putting the idea of T’rain to paper means that not only are there hundreds of dorks that thought of this on their own, but now there are tens of thousands who are now thinking about it.  Many of them are much smarter than me.  So I doubt I’ll be getting rich the MMORPG route now.

There is a certain smug satisfaction, though, knowing that your favorite author thinks at least somewhat like you do.  That little voice that is my id telling me, “Good job!”  Then there is that littler voice that is my super-ego telling me, “Why didn’t you write ‘Reamde’?”  I, like most people, spend far too long listening to my id.

I’ll have a review of ‘Reamde’ in the year 2214 when I finish reading it.  Like most of Neal Stephenson’s books, it can be used as a murder weapon.

How segregated is your city?

This Flickr site would be pretty cool if it weren’t so depressing.  Who am I kidding? It’s REALLY cool despite being depressing.  Almost every major metropolitan area in the United States is incredibly segregated.

Partly, this is because like calls to like, sure, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.  I’ve seen white flight first hand.  I’ve seen gentrification (which is a polite word for rich white people kicking out poor colored people) first hand.  I’ve seen property taxes rise disproportionately higher in poor areas with little justification.  These issues can’t be blamed on like calling to like.

There are no easy answers to these problems.  Heck, I can’t even come up with good questions to address the problem.  All I know is we’ve now had 50+ years of cramming poor people into low rent high rises with disastrous results.  Most cities seem to realize this, but the answers are often tearing down the high rises and leaving the poor with no place to go but the suburbs.  This is not a step in the right direction.

We need local laws that require landlords to set aside 10% or so of their units for subsidized housing.  We need to stop being able to tax people out of their homes.  We need to repeal the property tax and find some other ways to raise the lost revenue.  We need to do…something.  Because those maps don’t just represent an awesome blend of statistical analysis and data visualization.  They also represent a serious social failure.

Book Review: Jitterbug Perfume

Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars

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Happy Veterans Day!

It is strange to use the adjective “happy” when talking about Veterans Day.  It is, in my mind, the saddest of U.S. holidays.  Partially, it’s the weather.  It’s November, it’s normally cold and grey.  But beyond that, I think it’s because this is the only holiday that celebrates the still living.  It sound like it should be a happy occasion except for the fact that we fail our veterans so miserably.

Veterans Day has become a way for us non-veterans to feel good about ourselves.  Oh, look at me, I’m thanking a veteran, my work here is done!  This is not nearly enough.  Veterans face issues, both visible and invisible, that most of us cannot possibly imagine.  Thank yous don’t fix these problem.

What can we do?  Well, the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans is still over 10%.  We can do things like call our Republican representatives and senators and tell them to stop blocking jobs bills for veterans.  We can contact our representatives and ask them to increase funding for research into prosthetics.  We can tell them that, when we send our people to war they should be accompanied by armies of psychologists and we should make counseling for soldiers in the field mandatory.  We can volunteer in shelters and soup kitchens and other places where veterans are disproportionately represented.

Veterans are sent to war by a political class that doesn’t think about the repercussions of war.  They are used in war by generals that, by necessity, think of them as tools in a toolbox.  They are spit back up by war into a society that hasn’t changed while they have.  We owe it to them to give them politicians who have something to lose by a declaration of war.  We owe it to them to give them the tools they need, both physical and mental, to survive the wars we send them to.  We owe it to them to provide them the support they need when they return from war.

We need to redefine Veterans Day.  Let it no longer be a day of thanking veterans.  That should be every day.  Let it be a day of looking inward and asking ourselves what we have done in the past year to support those that sacrifice so much for so little.  This year, we have failed them.  We have a year to go.  Let’s get to work.

Movie Review: Skyfall

Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate even though I’ll try to keep the spoilers to what can be seen in the trailers.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars

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I was going to write a blog post summing up the election…

But Ta-Nehisi Coates has already done so better than I ever could.  No surprises there.

By the way, if you don’t read everything Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, you are a horrible human being.