No one.

"Be responsible for your own life. No one can make you feel anything or any way without your permission."

— James Arthur Ray

What I've Read - Glasshouse is the best book I've read in a while.

I was going to review this by saying that Glasshouse is the best hard SF book I've read in a good long while, but the honest truth is it's really just flat-out the best book I've read in a long while.

It's hard to sum up what it is exactly, easily. Take one part Total Recall, one part A Scanner Darkly [that's two parts P.K. Dick, right there], one part The Stepford Wives and one part something else entirely wonderful... and then you'd come close to defining Glasshouse.

The Wikipedia page tags its Major Themes as:

Self-concept, self image, the "self", peer pressure, conformism, problem of other minds, redemption.

And all that's true. But it's also about people and their relationships with one another.

Just exceptionally well written. Stross has been on my list of authors whose works I want to pick up, and Glasshouse puts him at the top of that imaginary list I keep in my head. And on Amazon.

...and it has a happy ending. So there.

Plus, if you read it just before bed, you'll have dreams where you surf through a wealth of different identities. Which is just cool.

The Charles Stross FAQ:

"Glasshouse is a claustrophobic far-future helter-skelter ride through an experimental archaeology project gone horribly wrong... As the cover flap says:

"Hi, I'm Robin. When people ask me what I did during the war, I tell them I used to be a tank regiment. Or maybe I was a counter-intelligence agent. I'm not exactly sure: my memory isn't what it used to be."

When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It's the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of something his earlier self knew.

On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse. Constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture, participants are assigned anonymized identities: it looks like the ideal hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof environment Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him at the mercy of the experimenters, and at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche...

Like "Accelerando" before it, "Glasshouse" was shortlisted for the Hugo award in 2007. It also received the Prometheus award for best SF novel from the Libertarian Futurist Society and got an honorable mention from the Tiptree award folks. "

All you have to know to get ready for "Watchmen" in 4 minutes.

The visuals in this movie are looking brilliant. I am cautiously, but very, optimistic.

MMA Highlight 2008.

This was exceptional.

2008 part 2
by allenpork

Via Fightlinker - Your Fight Community - fightlinker.com

"Everything works out right in the end..."

'Everything works out right in the end. If things are not working right, it isn't the end yet. Don't let it bother you, relax and keep on going.'

- Michael C. Muhammad

I don't know if there is a god, but I do know that *your* god doesn't exist.

[Okay, I don't know about *your* god, personally, whoever is reading this, but I will say that the god of the Abrahamic religions, as he is commonly understood in the middle eastern and western traditions - yeah, he's just nonsense.]

This is really long, even after having cut it down to the parts I particularly thought were on point - you can click over to see the full length - but it's well worth a read, imho. In fact, I think it's rather brilliant.

Italics and boldface are mine.

Thornton's Guerilla_Blog: The sacred and the superstitous. . . .:

"...I am not going to spend too much time addressing the believers who are so certain of their own religious dogma that they actually claim not just to know that there is a god, but to know what that gods name is, what his thoughts about human behavior are, and what our over-all purpose is. These believers are so far out of the realm of adult thinking, the only thing we really can do is more or less exclude them from the conversation.

...if someone says they know for sure that Jesus is the son of god, or that the Koran was the last true revelation from the one true god, it is perfectly reasonable, and in fact I think important, to ask why.

There are some common responses you will find when dealing with these types of religious believers. For example, for people who are born again Christians, a common answer tends to be that they have had some sort of experience which showed them that Christ was indeed god; the age old argument from personal experience.

The first question I usually ask is whether or not they had considered that had they been born and raised in India, they might have seen, or felt, Krishna, instead of say, Jesus. Or had they been born in Saudi Arabia, had they considered that they may have felt the prophet Mohammed.

Believe it or not, it is actually quite easy for some people to overlook this fact, especially if they have never spent much time traveling in their life; or if they have little, to no real education in the field of comparative theology, or more properly put, mythology. The reality that believers from other parts of the world believe just as strongly in their gods, for the same exact reasons, using the same exact arguments, doesn’t always occur to them.

...[they also] have no idea just how powerful the mind itself can be. The reality that our everyday subjective experience is created and sculpted through the nervous system, and within our brain, isn’t something that every individual has come to grips with yet. One of the more positive benefits of hallucinogenics is the fact that they can help reveal to the individual just how important our own brain can be in altering our view of what reality is. And to be clear, I am not advocating for or against their use in this piece. But I do think it is pretty obvious that individuals who have tried mushrooms, or LSD, at some point in their lifetime will have a leg up on those that have not, in so far as it relates to understanding the effect our own chemistry can have on our perceptions.

...Christopher Hitchens has written eloquently about the respect and care he has for religious icons, architecture, and symbols. It was not atheists who blew up mosques, desecrated temples, or blasted millennia old Buddhist statues out of existence, it takes a believer to do that.

As a skeptical person, I obviously believe that the evidence on this matter is pretty clear. People have visions, or emotional responses to various stimuli, or circumstances. It’s not surprising that the nature of those visions or feelings tends to be associated with the religious superstition of their cultural upbringing.

Or stated another way, which is more likely, that despite all evidence to the contrary, there is indeed a personal god. In fact, that gods name is actually Allah, or Jesus, or Jehovah, or Krishna, or (insert deity here) and that he/she/it chose to reveal themselves through a very subjective, private feeling.

Or, that human beings are prone to have emotional, and even hallucinatory experiences under certain circumstances.

The answer is self evident for anyone honestly looking for the truth.

...If we value the truth, if we believe that the truth is something worth pursuing, in and of itself. Then we must not give up. We cannot concede to the ignorant arguments of the religiously brainwashed, simply because we can’t be bothered to correct their absurdity. The negative consequences can be seen throughout our world when we do. Whether its stem cell research, birth control, or suicide bombers, ideas for which there is no evidence can harm more then just the individual believer.

...I can tell you that most of the time they have absolutely no idea how crazy, or far out there, their own religious beliefs are. Do you really think that most kids raised in a Mormon community, by Mormon parents, with Mormon friends, have stopped to fully realize how insane the teachings of a con man like Joseph Smith actually are? Until they step outside that bubble, the idea that the garden of Eden is located in Missouri, and that God is an old guy living on a planet, seem perfectly normal.

Likewise, for the child of Jehovah’s Witness parents, the belief that a spirit being called the devil was hurled down to earth in 1914, or that the Earth was covered by a world wide flood less then 6000 years ago, seems perfectly sane. It is only if they are introduced to the world of facts and science, and even then, have the strength of mind to be able to subject these ideas to the floodlight of rational thought, will any of them come to understand just how loony the nonsense that was taught to them truly is.

Remember there can be strength in numbers. For example, to most Catholics I am sure that the belief that mumbling some mumbo jumbo over a bowl of frosted flakes would turn the cereal into the body of Elvis, would seem like something only a lunatic would believe. But when millions of them believe that a cracker transforms into the body of Christ, that seems rational. Sometimes it takes someone who is willing to compare those beliefs with other things that are equally rational, such as say the belief in the literal existence of the god Apollo, or the belief that Elvis is alive and well, selling slushys at a 7/11 in Modesto CA, in order to reach them.

...Because we don't know something yet, or because science hasn't reached a great consensus on a topic related to the universe yet, does not therefore mean we should then fallback and say that must mean Apollo, or Zues, or Jesus, or any other make believe god did it. That is the silly god of the gaps argument. When our ancestors didn't understand where rain came from they assumed it must be related to god. It's sad people still do this simply because the breadth of our questions has grown.

...Helping religious believers to compare the ideas of their own superstition with that of any other superstition that is not their own, is often very helpful in breaking through to them. After all, no Christian is compelled by the evidence Muslims offer that the Koran is the final true word of the one true god. And to date, I have met no Muslim who believes that Zeus is actually responsible for lightning. And why should they be? When we calmly demonstrate to them that their own long held beliefs hold an equal amount of evidence, which is to say, none, there is nowhere for their minds to go except back to the faith argument.

...It is in fact the mechanism by which very bad ideas get passed down from adult to child. It is nothing more then the circular reasoning believers offer to themselves and each other when reality tells them the truth, that what they believe is simply false. In the same sense that the tooth fairy is false, or the idea that Earth rests on the back of a giant turtle is false.

...And just to be clear, despite my opinion that some things can only be accomplished with bluntness, I don't think that is the route everyone should take, most of the time. I think there is a time and place for all of us to be blunt. And I think it is important that some people, such as Dawkins and Harris to remain blunt and lead the charge. But for the rest of the community I would simply advocate what they did with the gay rights movement. Make no secret of your non belief. Be open about it. And then lead a good, loving life alongside the believers. Just being out there is enough. Knowing that you are a non believer, and knowing that you are open to converse with them on the topic should they wish it, you create an open door that a few brave believers may have the tenacity to breach. But in order to do that you have to be honest about what you believe, whether you adopt the agnostic or atheist tag, it does us all good when you are open about it...

[on religion being a motivator of good works]...name one act of charity, goodness, or kindness that can not, and is not also performed by non believers. As of yet, nobody has been able to do that.

Now here is an even easier follow up question, name an act of destruction, suffering, or evil that can be directly traced to a form of religious belief.

As we all know, that list is almost infinite.

The belief in the end times, in demons, devils, and sky gods, the bronze age edicts against things like homosexuality, birth control, etc, these are clearly all destructive beliefs. And as our knowledge of science and technology increase, making things like weapons of mass destruction easier to create, these belief systems become incompatible with human survival. It is conceivable that you will soon have a Muslim fanatic who actually does believe that his murder of innocents will warrant him a great sex life in heaven, who holds a PHD in biology or physics, and decides to perform the obvious in accord with his own deeply held "faith".

The idea that any groups "god" is the one true god, is in and of itself dangerous. As is all form of superstition. And no form of good ever requires the belief in things for which we hold no evidence.

...A lack of a belief in something is not a dogma or philosophy. I don't believe in the tooth fairy either (for the same reasons I don't believe in Apollo, Odin, Quezecoatal, or Jehovah), yet my non -belief in the tooth fairy does not constitute an "anti-tooth fairy" dogma.

...I don't think pretending to know answers to things that nobody truly knows answers to is healthy. I don't think labeling a young child a mormon, a muslim (or any other such thing) makes anymore sense then labeling a child a conservative, or a liberal. And of course, I don't think we need religion in the year 2008 anymore then we need the belief in witches, or that Zeus is the cause of lightning.

...the growth of religion, particularly of the fundamentalist kind, threatens all of us. And that is true whether we participate in the belief, or not. Not all religions, not all beliefs are equally dangerous. But any belief that is not supported by evidence poses a potential threat to us if we allow it to enter the public discourse of adult decision making.

...questioning religion, superstition, dogma, belief, and especially the very idea of ‘faith’ itself, is never arrogant. It is in reality, a required step for all seekers of the truth.

True arrogance is the religious mind, the mind which not only claims to know that there is in fact a god, but also claims to know what that god thinks, wants, and is named...

“Faith” that you know something about the nature of the universe, something which is in reality based on no evidence whatsoever, and therefore requires the use “faith”, is in truth, the highest form of arrogance known to man.

...There are far better reasons to treat others well, to help alleviate the suffering of others, and to be “good”, then an imaginary sky god and his ever present make believe security camera.

...You don’t have to cling to imaginary things in order to go into the laboratory of your own relationships. Discover for yourself the different perspectives and truths that can alter your life for the better. And question all of it with the full light of human reasoning."

"Nanny State 2008."

Hoping for a better 2009.

"Honor means nothing more than prickly infantile vanity dressed up, usually, in desperate class-consciousness."

Well said.

Fred On Everything:

"I read that America must find an “exit strategy” from Iraq that will bring “peace with honor.” My God. Honor? I’d rather have infected hemorrhoids. These at least are not a mental aberration. Well, depending on where your head is.

Honor means nothing more than prickly infantile vanity dressed up, usually, in desperate class-consciousness. Of all the symptoms of a weak ego, honor is the most embarrassing, and the most harmful. In a right-minded society it would be made a capital offense...

This irrational behavior finds a place in international affairs. In fact, it comes close to being international affairs. One sees it often in the unwillingness of countries (read: psychological short men in charge of countries) to back down when nothing important is at stake, or to cut their losses when hobbyist wars go awry.

As noted, today our thunder-thump patriots say that we must find an honorable exit strategy from Iraq. This means that if we can’t steal the oil, we can at least pretend we won the war gloriously. Again, honor is ego: We aren’t going to swerve. Better that we bankrupt the country, fill the hospital wards with paraplegic and blind teenagers, kill who-cares-how-many Iraqis, than blink. Mine is longer than yours. It is, it is, it is.

...None of this is necessary. Perhaps the greatest military thinkers in history are Fredwitz and James P. Coyne, in that order. Dr. Coyne’s proposed exit strategy is simple: “OK, on the plane. Now.” Should this seem unfathomable by its complexity, it could be reduced to four words. But no. What general, what president who has said “Mission accomplished,” is going to admit that it didn’t work so well? We must leave with honor. Not necessarily with all our body parts, or all the soldiers we came with, but with honor."

"First, you have to know, not fear, know that someday you are going to die. Until you know that, you are useless." - Fight Club.

Tony Horton's Blog Spot: You Are Going To Die!:

"...your life on this earth is precious and shorter than you think. Turning 50 this year proved that to me. I swear it feels like I was in high school ten minutes ago. Turns out that was over 30 years ago! As we get older change can become more daunting with every passing day. You don't have to be at midlife for this to be true. Teenagers get just as stuck as people in their 50s and 60s. I've seen people give up and thrown in the towel at all ages. We've all been an eyewitness to the tragedies of misguided lives. The hope and optimism of childhood gives way to despair and disappointment with one bad experience after another. It's the saddest thing in the world. Maybe you know what I'm talking about.

Is there hope for the fallen? Can we turn it around after years of wasting time, procrastinating, plenty of hardship and waiting for the right moment that never comes? Hell yes! The good news is that you can have the life you dreamed of as a kid without meds and therapy. Step one is moving. Turns out that it doesn't really matter how you move. What matters is that you do. Step two involves eating healthy food. Whole food that feeds the body, spirit and especially the mind. The garbage this country eats most of the time is killing us. Junk food and fast food (AKA food porn) does NOT fuel our desire to grow, learn and change. It keeps us in a state of flux and despair. If you have problems, procrastinate and feel stuck in general, odds are you're overweight, out of shape and eat junk. The deck is stacked against you if you're overweight and out of shape. Your brain can't function to solve problems properly if your feeding your mouth tons of sugar and grease. If you like a life of quite desperation then continue to spend endless hours sitting and laying around. If procrastination, sadness, depression, low self esteem and a state of malaise fits your lifestyle then continue to eat candy, cupcakes, high fructose corn syrup, fried food, saturated fats, soda pop, processed carbs, hot dogs and tons of cheese on your pepperoni pizza. Nobody gets away with making lame choices in this world. Sooner or later (turns out later comes sooner than you thought) your bad behavior will ruin your life.

Good behavior can and will save your life..."

"An excess of reason is itself a form of madness."

From Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson. Having a time trying to get into this book - the bureaucracy of science is just painful to read about, and the characters haven't grabbed me - but this is a money quote.

Training 264-6/P90X 32-4.

Days 264-5/P90X 32-3 were a wash, diet and exercise wise. Two days at baachan's, eating whatever she was kindly enough to make and/or serve. And no PT.

Today - 266/34 - Kenpo X, 1.5L water, one big meal @ end of the day.

Hard work, the only thing that's gonna make a difference:

From 2009-01-03

New Year's Day.

The Adachi clan eating the osechi.

From 2009-01-01

Japanese folks in the 21st century. Loading up the webcam and Skype to conversate halfway across the globe.

From 2009-01-01

Kawabata-san is adorable.

From 2009-01-01

82 year old Baachan owns the internet.

From 2009-01-01

Obligatory walk to Odori koen [park] and shrine.

From 2009-01-01

From 2009-01-01

From 2009-01-01

This turned out well, I thought.

From 2009-01-01

From 2009-01-01

From 2009-01-01

Jan 2nd, at the very crowded [so I was told, I stayed home under the kotatsu - which I definitely needed since Baachan put the air-conditioning on by accident...] Iimori shrine.

From 2009-01-01

From 2009-01-01

New Year's Eve.

It's Japan. You stay in to watch the fights. [It's why I came to Japan. MMA and kickboxing on national broadcast TV.]

From 2009-01-01

But there's also alcohol.

From 2009-01-01

And cards, of course, Sandy being who she is.

From 2009-01-01

Jon is classy.

From 2009-01-01

Sandy greets the tequila.

From 2009-01-01

Ah, the self timer rules.

From 2009-01-01

On to karaoke.

From 2009-01-01

Freely dispensed New Year's Eve poppers.

From 2009-01-01

From 2009-01-01

Sometimes, it's painful. Clearly.

From 2009-01-01

And that was New Year's...

Experts... aren't.

Worth remembering. Also, avoid doctors and hospitals to remain healthy.

Second Opinions | Mark's Daily Apple:

"...I find that this happens all too often in many other areas (tech support from Mumbai that has you defragging your disc or reinstalling your operating system when a patch or reboot would have done), but most notably in medicine. How often do we all hear stories of expensive surgeries undertaken because a battery of tests (that weren’t that solid to begin with) “indicated” that there was a problem that needed fixing? Many prophylactic mastectomies or prostate biopsies or quadruple bypasses are probably not necessary (in my humble opinion). Yet they can severely compromise lives forever if they really weren’t necessary or if a few lifestyle interventions might have done a much better trick. How about the prescribing of multiple drugs to address symptoms or bring a few “out-of-norm” numbers back into the proper range? And then prescribing additional drugs to offset the side-effects of the first drugs - all based on sketchy diagnoses. My knee surgery last year would not have been necessary had my doctor not hastily shot cortisone under my kneecap. Long story. But, hey, he only had seven minutes of office visit time to make the (wrong) diagnosis and, hey, he was my friend. Oh well, my bad. If anyone should have seen that coming it was me.

I tell anyone who will listen that lawyers, doctors and CPAs don’t have answers. They only have opinions and sometimes those opinions are no better (and often worse) than your own instincts. This is why we at MDA are on a mission to try to help you better understand how your body works, so you can make educated, informed decisions when it comes to matters of health. Armed with an understanding of what might truly be behind your problem, that little extra you pay for a second or even third opinion might just make the difference."

Wow, vegetable oils are kind of disgusting.

Free the Animal: "Makes My Mouth Water.":

"Typically, a mixture of refined oil and finely powdered nickel catalyst (comprising 0.05-0.1% of the weight of the oil) is pumped into a cylindrical pressure reactor of 5-20 tons capacity. It is heated by heating coils to 120-188°C (248-370°F) at 1-6 atmospheres pressure. Hydrogen is pumped into the bottom of the reactor and dispersed by a stirrer, continuously, as bubbles into the oil... After hydrogenation is completed to the desired degree, the oil is filtered to remove the catalyst (which may be reused) then pumped to a storage tank; it may later be blended with other harder or softer fats or oils to make margarine or shortening."

"Yep. A regular chop licking affair. Virtually every household has this frankenfood-crap in the cupboard and as Stephan alludes, they might not if they had any idea."

Tom Cruise teaches important political lessons.

Okay, not really.

Hit & Run > One of Many Interesting Political Philosophy Questions Raised by Tom Cruise - Reason Magazine

After watching the new movie about the plot to kill Hitler, Valkyrie, Bryan Caplan asks: why are people so squeamish about tyrannicide?

I'm amazed that people who don't think twice about killing conscripts (or even civilians) are so reluctant to justify violence against serial killer statesmen. What could be less objectionable than trying to stop mass murder by killing the specific individuals most responsible for it?

If the philosophical case for tyrannicide is so strong, why do so many people - including the members of the 1944 plot against Hitler - have such strong moral qualms against it? My best guess is that (a) there is a high correlation between moral virtue and obedience to authority, and (b) political leaders are very reluctant to support tyrannicide because they're worried about retaliation and/or setting a precedent. But I wonder if that's a little too conspiratorial.

New Year's Eve Karaoke Madness.

More to come.

From 2009-01-01

Sandy?

Overheard in New York | He Would Get the Last Laugh in Ebonics Scrabble Later That Night:

"Thuggish 12-year-old kid: I can so beat you at UNO.
Thuggish 10-year-old brother: Fuck you.

--L Train"

Self knowledge is the key.

Overheard Everywhere | I Was Thinking More A Piece of Pizza:

"Guy: You know what you need? You need your asshole licked.
Girl, deadly serious: I've had my asshole licked. That is not what I need.

Planetfest 2008
Jacksonville, Florida

Overheard by: Raynay"

Worth trying in the New Year.

"...most everybody is looking around and vibrating in response to what they are seeing. So, what is the solution? Look around less. Imagine more. Look around less. Imagine more."

- Jerry and Esther Hicks