OMG, I am delighted by how things just went down with the Hobart LX18H, Seneca's dish sanitiser. It's because I'm crazy. You don't care. So here's a related rant to keep you entertained. Or not.

When loading silverware into the dishwasher or sanitiser, always put the pointy ends down. Because people trip and fall and gore themselves on pointed-up utensils and get blood all over the nice clean dishes. Sad. They also cough (covering their mouth) and pick their noses and have colds while/right before taking the clean dishes out. You want them touching the handle of the silverware you're going to use, not the part that goes in your mouth. (Note: if you just picked your nose, wash your hands, and if you have a cold, shunt this job off to someone else, even if the silverware is properly loaded.)

Anyhoo, in addition to this, the small silverware container we use is shaped thusly:

 _______
| |__|__|
|_|__|__|

So I like to sort things. Easier unloading. The big section is for miscellany--sharp knives, spatulas, etc. Then knives go in one of the middle sections, and either forks or spoons in the other middle one, reserving the last two for whichever is more plentiful: forks or spoons.

Usually spoons win after breakfast and forks after lunch. For dinner during interim, it's probably forks, but when meals are prepared it can go either way.

On Friday at lunch, I was a bit insane. We had lots of spoons and a paltry three forks. Things fit properly, but I was saddened by how empty the fork section was. We needed to use some forks! Luckily, Michael used one, which helped slightly.

Today, though! Just now! We had lots and lots of spoons and ZERO forks. All three of those things are filled with spoons spoons and more spoons.

But the tray wasn't full. We had all the silverware we needed, but not enough plates/bowls/cups, a very unusual situation. Usually there are half a dozen to be found.

Anyway, I grabbed some dirty cups and ate a bowl of cereal. Result: an essentially full Hobart tray with three sections of silverware and zero forks

This is big.

Okay, it's not that big.

Okay, so it's totally lame. But I totally own that kitchen, and the Hobart. I make my own excitement on the weekend.

Well, it's official: they've succeeded in replacing a parking lot with eight stories of people who own cars. What could possibly go wrong?

My tiny one-way street now has two layers of cars parked on the far side, and by 'far side', I mean the right lane and the centre lane.

I've never double-parked. It always seemed like something only a complete asshole or someone in an emergency situation would do. You're a college freshman. You can walk one goddamn block.

My response to the title question¹ was essentially 'Somewhat, yes', at which point I felt the need to define it as best I could.

Time is a full-sized dimension for which causality, for the most part (as we typically perceive it, and as it causes our perception)² is uni-directional.

Traditionally I thought of space-time as four dimensions through which we were travelling at a constant speed, and where we would by default be travelling that speed one direction through time. But recognising the causality of perceptions made me realise that's really stupid. (My excuse is that it's from my high school days or earlier. No excuse for not moving well past it years ago. I did kind of move past it, but didn't completely abandon it.) Obviously we're not 'moving through time' (or maybe we are because, well, that's how we define movement), but because my current state is caused by my past state, the past appears to me as, well, the time.

In metaphysics, we discussed timeslices and how this stuff doesn't degrade into nominalism. (My position was that it does and that it's good that it does because nominalism is the view that actually makes sense.)

This newish line of thought lead me to determinism. It always seemed baseless and strange to me what people say that if determinism is true, that Laplace's demon can calculate not only the future, but also the past. Clearly, were determinism true then a given timeslice of the universe could lead only to one outcome, but why could there not be multiple timeslices that can cause a given timeslice? Consider Conway's Game of Life. The blank board, for example, can be caused by:
* The blank board
* The blank board with exactly one cell, located at at 0,0
* The blank board with exactly one cell, located at at 0,1
* The blank board with exactly two cells, located at at 0,0 and 47,42
* And so on.

This doesn't only apply to the blank board, of course. Any board causes by board X can also be caused by board X with one lone cell added apart from all the others.

Clearly, the universe is not governed by the rules of Conway's Game of Life, but it seems as if the principle should be similar. (I suppose my examples should have been selected to agree with the conservation of matter and energy, but that's more complicated. Still entirely doable, though.)

As I wrote this, though, something I missed earlier struck me: the verificationist would claim that 1. the claim that those vanishing cells exist/existed is meaningless and more importantly (because 1. is addressed by my comment in my previous parenthetical) 2. the claim that a given timeslice that could cause our current one existed and that another potential causing timeslice didn't is meaningless.

I have a lot of sympathy for verificationist. But they're so very annoying, don't you agree?

¹ Not that anyone asked it. It just popped into my mind.
² Initially I went with 'for normal matter', but I didn't like that at all.

Last interim, every night before bed I would think to myself, 'Oh! We have a mouse!' So I would dash downstairs and put away all the loose food on the island counter. Then I'd wipe it off. Then I'd sweep.

Then I'd go to bed.

Unhappily, all this occurred around 9pm, long before the rest of the house slept, so every morning when I awoke, I'd find chips on the floor. Plates of crumbs on the counter. Perhaps an open loaf of bread. And every morning I'd spot a mouse fleeing the scene up, the exhaust vent or dashing away behind the microwave. 'Curses! Foiled once again!' I'd exclaim, being sure to use plenty of exclamation marks.

You see, I had a dream, last interim. I had a dream that one morning I would come downstairs to hear our little mousekins bemoaning the state of our kitchen. 'Oy vey!' he'd grouse. 'There's never any food around that I can get my furry little paws on. I guess I'll just move next door.' Then the following evening I'd come home to find Michael on the orange couch complaining that mice have mysteriously appeared in New Guild's kitchen.

Alas, this dream never came true, because I go to bed at a ridiculously early hour, leaving plenty of time for messiness to abound.

Rumours have it that another interim is nigh, and I've resumed my futile nocturnal cleaning ritual, but it will merely be another dismal failure should food magically appear after I head off to bed. This morning I had, among other things, half a bagel for breakfast, as it was sitting out on the counter. For my plate I used one I found also on the counter, covered in crumbs. (The other plate I found, filled with veggies, was allowed to stay out for our rodent friend. I'm not entirely heartless, after all.)

Forget to wash your dishes--it happens; no matter. Eat all the yoghurt leaving me with naught but half a stale bagel for breakfast. But please, starve this cute little mouse. Why should he eat like a king whilst my ribs still show.

I just saw The Dark Knight at the IMAX. It was good. Afterwards, I was tempted to be a complete asshole and shout to all the people in line for the next showing 'Hey, Bruce Wayne is Batman!' Completely spoil the movie for them. But I didn't. I'm too nice.

Anyway, this isn't much of a blog post, but I needed to post it. Trying to make sure I get a full 12 dollars of utility from that ticket.

I probably did. Good film. Mediocre blog post. Answer other than 'washed dishes' for when people ask me if I did anything fun over the weekend.

I don't know why some people think washing dishes isn't fun.

Yesterday Bush declared that the economy is 'strong and growing'. It took my friend Michael several minutes before he could stop laughing.

But that Bush is insane is nothing new, and neither is his ability to make us laugh whilst dooming us to the grave. I'm here to talk about something else.

Senator Jim Bunning is insane. This might be news to you because who the heck has heard of Sen. Bunning? He's the guy who had this to say about the proposed Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac buyout option:

When I picked up my newspaper yesterday, I thought I woke up in France. But no, it turned out it was socialism here in the United States of America and very well, going well. The Treasury secretary is now asking for a blank check to buy as much Fannie and Freddie debt or equity as he wants. The Fed purchase of Bear Stearns assets was amateur socialism compared to this.

I'm very glad we have Senators protecting us from the Red Menace, but perhaps there's a different sort of red menace facing us than there was thirty years ago. If Frannie and Feddie go down, it's not just people who signed mortgages they can't support who get screwed. We all go down with the economy.

The economy is, contrary to what certain lunatics claim, not strong and growing. It's weak and getting weaker. Losing F&F would be a major blow to a thriving economy. To one shedding jobs at >50 000 per month, inflation soaring, and--oh, yeah--housing prices dropping and foreclosures exploding and mortgage lenders barely alive, it's just not an option. (And that doesn't mean 'let's not think about it and hope it doesn't happen'. It means 'Let's do something to prevent it.')

Someone--probably Bunning, but I'm unsure--pointed out out that the request for authority caused a drop in share prices of the two companies.

Duh. The request signified the Treasury Secretary's lack of confidence, which would obviously prompt lack of investor confidence. But insisting the economy is 'strong and growing' will not give any sane person confidence. What does is saying 'Oh, yeah, we see the big glaring problem right in front of us and we're preparing to deal with it', and in the long run (if the preparations aren't blocked by Commie-fearing morons) will strengthen investor confidence and possibly even make it unnecessary to follow through.

Other options should be thoroughly explored, but ranting about the fact that we're daring to consider doing what could end up necessary is stupid. Refuse to sign the 'blank cheque' if you must--I'm rarely a fan of giving Bush more authority, after all--but signify support with at least a limited amount, perhaps with only contingent authority.

Though if we do let the dollar completely die, it would show those damn Commie investors in China. Prop up our economy for us, will you? Well all your investments in us are now worthless, so there!

A few weeks ago, I finally joined MyBarackObama just so I could join the 'Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right' group. I muchly favour Obama over McCain and Hillary. I figured I'd also donate a bit of money to him iff he got it right.

Apparently, somehow the registering failed and I didn't join the group. Fail. But at least my fail wasn't epic. Obama's was.

If you live in the US, you should be aware that Obama said that he 'unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies' and that he would 'not be among those voting to end the filibuster'. And he didn't vote to end the filibuster--he was absent from the vote, even though he 'supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same'--but he did vote FOR the FISA Amendment Act, a bill giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. Gee, that phrase seems familiar.

Voting for the FAA would have done next to nothing to directly harm popular opinion of Obama. It would signify that he's not a rightwing nutjob, but most people had figured that out. Fewer than 40% of Americans (or even 40% of conservatives!) supported telecom immunity. The 30-something% who support it probably aren't too keen on Obama anyway, so he wouldn't be losing their support. Presumably he's hoping for a big payout from the telecom industry. Or maybe he thinks he needs the support of Democratic politicians, who are apparently more rightwing than the average Republican voter (probably they get their money from the telecoms, wherewas the voters don't). But those guys will support him anyway because 1) he's their candidate and 2) they want to hitch a ride on his coattails into office.

Telecom immunity isn't the most important thing in the world, to me. I care more about the government telling companies to violate our rights than companies saying 'Okay. Sounds like fun!' But it's still a big deal. Even bigger, though, is saying repeatedly and specifically that you will strongly oppose telecom immunity and then voting in favour of it.

It's sensible that Obama is moving to the centre. The standard winning move is to appeal to your base in the primaries and move to centre for the general election, and I'm completely fine with him doing that. Sure, his supporters are liberal, but the change Obama has been promising is that he's the un-Rove, and that's what we care about the most--being centrist is good.

The left-to-centre shift, however, cannot rightly be done by making specific promises to appeal to the base and then switching to the opposite position. Work out a compromise (which the FISA Amendment Act was absolutely not) and throw a bone to the right/centre where you wisely avoided making specific promises. Don't reverse on earlier promises, especially those that are both specific and important to your base.

I still favour Obama over McCain (it's the economy, stupid), but we don't win by getting someone from the Democratic Party elected. We win by forcing that person to do what was promised. Most of his supports seem to have already let him slide on one major, major issue (campaign finance). We'd have to be pretty pathetic to let him continue to lie to us over and over again. Supporters of Obama should be the first and most vocal critics when he breaks his promises, because those promises were made to us to get our support, not to McCain and his supporters.

I guess one of my fails was epic. I failed to notice that 'change' is a synonym for 'flip-flop'. Obama, it's a shame you're not getting any public financing, 'cause you won't be getting any of my money either, and you won't get my vote either if you don't get your act together.

Last week, I was unfortunate enough to watch a bit of Fox News. It was immediately following McCain's energy speech, and they had BIll Richardson give a brief response. Basically, he kept saying McCain offered only 'gimmicks' while Obama had real energy policies.

Of course, this was a short talking point, not a real argument, so he didn't really explain himself. One central thing was McCain's prize:

McCain wants to offer a 300 000 000USD prize for a better battery for hybrid vehicles. This, says Richardson, is a useless gimmick, not a sound policy. Darn tootin'!

There are three problems with researching new technology:
* It takes a long time. (So no payout until success years off in the future)
* Your research might hit a dead-end, or another company might beat you to it. (So a possibility of no payout ever.)
* You might not be able to commercialise the resulting technology well. (So a possibility of only a small payout even if you eventually succeed.)

A large cash reward like the X-Prize, the newer NASA (+Google) Moon Landing prize, and McCain's proposed prize address only the third problem. They provide a big pay-off after you succeed IFF you succeed (and no one beats you to it). They DO NOT address the first two problems.

But an improved battery for hybrid vehicles doesn't suffer from the third problem.. You get a significantly better battery for hybrid vehicles and YOU'RE BLOODY RICH, 'prize' or not.

But it sure sounds nice. A quick 'gimmick' to sound like you're doing something while not actually addressing the problems. Take that 300 000 000USD and use it to fund the long-term, high-risk battery research that investors avoid. That addresses the problems with hybrid vehicle battery research. As it so happens, that's what Obama supports.

Rather than pushing an ineffective liberal spend-money-ineffectively energy policy, McCain should be pushing either Obama's liberal spend-money-effectively policy or--here's a bizarre idea--pushing a conservative DON'T-spend-money policy. Be a smart liberal or be a conservative--don't be a stupid liberal.

(I suspect that one of the other policies was the incredibly stupid Gas Tax Holiday, which--as every economist in the world will tell you--is too stupid and useless for words. McCain's fails economics every time he opens his mouth (autoplaying video warning).

'Do you agree with the statement "Everything happens for a reason"?'

Usually this question is religious in nature, and I disagree with it in terms of religious reasons, so 'no'.

But obviously things have causes, so 'yes'. I don't want sciency people interpreters taking my answer to mean I'm not sciency.

But quantum mechanics suggests things happen without causes, right? So 'no'.

Yes => I sound religious, and therefore unsciency.
No => I sound unreligious, and therefore sciency, but also unclassicalsciency. Will the sciency people interpreting my answer think to consider quantum mechanics?

By the way, 'karma' literally means 'cause and effect' (or perhaps just 'cause'), which I strongly believe in, and my friend's daughter is named Karma, whom I also am fairly certain exists. So do I believe in karma? I think there are causes, yes. I don't think there are mystical connections wherein doing bad causes bad things to happen to you, especially seeing as I am a nominalist and don't buy into wide content.

These questions seem simple to you simple-minded people, but they're not.

People at work were recently saying that they'd never donate sperm or eggs because there'd be a child with their genetics out there that they didn't know about. Upon my inquiring why that would matter, they essentially proclaimed that anyone who doesn't consider such a thing important is a bad parent. 'You came from my seed, but it doesn't matter.' == Bad parent.

This has some obvious logical consequences: I know of families where one child was born to them and one was adopted. They do not favour one child over the other. Therefore, ceteris paribus, they do not care that Child A has their genetics, and therefore these people are bad parents.

My conclusion is slightly different: I've observed that these people are good parents, and therefore, the people I work with are wrong (because, like most people, they've bought into the whole 'bloodline' idiocy we were supposed to have abandoned when we left the hereditary monarchy in favour of meritocracy). Genetics are a medical matter. It's the social aspects (IE, who raised you) that should matter to us socially.