http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/ Aaron Hildebrandt explains the world en aaron.hildebrandt@gmail.com Copyright 2008 2008-12-04T00:44:00-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/aaron_scott_hates_the_coalition/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/aaron_scott_hates_the_coalition/#When:00:44:00Z So, the major political parties have banded together to attempt to overthrow the ruling party in Canada. Their main argument is that, together, they represent a greater majority of Canadians than the ruling party alone. And, if you're mindlessly spitting out numbers, they're right. If you add the numbers of votes for the Liberals, NDP and Bloc together, it's greater than the number of votes for the Conservatives. It's also asinine and wrong. First, let's deal with the numbers. Sure, if you add the three parties together, it's a pretty big number... assuming every voter for every party would vote for a coalition of the three parties. Of course, this won't always be the case. Let's say I was stuck deciding between the Conservatives and NDP, but sure as hell was opposed to seeing the Liberals back in power. Before the coalition, I cast my vote for the NDP. After the coalition? Well, my vote would naturally go against the Liberals, so it'd go conservative. They're operating on the assumption that adding their parties together strengthens them, when in reality people are so fickle about their political parties that a NDP supporter would waver when seeing their party in bed with the Liberals, or a Liberal supporter would turn and walk away when they see them shaking hands with the Bloc. This won't result in a dramatic shift in the numbers, but if there's even a 10% defection rate, we'd be looking at a Conservative _majority_. And it doesn't really work the other way: people aren't going to vote for a coalition just because a party they didn't vote for joined up with parties that you wanted to vote for even less. But the biggest problem is the claim that somehow, magically, a coalition would "represent more Canadians" than the Conservatives, were they to gain power. Let me pick that apart with a weak analogy. Let's say everyone in Canada had to vote for their favourite colour of Smartie (which is a hilariously Canadian example to use, since "Smarties in Canada":http://www.smarties.ca/ aren't even remotely the same thing as "Smarties in the US":http://www.smarties.com/). The results come in: 40% like blue the most, and 10% vote for each other colour (except brown). Naturally, the blue Smartie is declared the winner. You can operate on the assumption that the blue Smartie represents the country better than the other Smarties. "But wait!," says the other anthropomorphic Smarties. "Combined together, more people like Smarties _other than blue_ than people who like blue!" And somehow they derive from this that what people _really_ want is a pack of Smarties _devoid_ of blue. The people have spoken! "This is a terrible analogy!," you cry. "Perhaps," I reply. Oh, wait. This is a blog. I can just respond directly: Perhaps. But I warned you about that going in. "But why would you do that? You're only saying that in order to shrug off people who try to discredit the analogy. Own your words, you weak-willed blogger!" And to that I reply: This is my blog. I can drudge up whatever logical fallacies I want. But seriously: _considerably_ more people voted Conservative than any other party. In the last election, the Conservatives did even better than before. Single-handedly, they _best represent_ Canadians. If a coalition were to gain power, they would essentially represent everyone except the _largest group of voters_. That's not better representation. It's like saying you "best represent" computer users by representing everyone who isn't running Windows. Now, then. I hate the Conservatives. I don't like having them in power. But I feel pretty much the same about the Liberals and slightly less for the NDP. But we already had an election, and the Conservatives won. More people wanted them in power than anyone else, and I don't think we should kill the government just because the other parties don't like that. Maybe the events of the next few weeks will change my mind. I doubt it. Because as an NDP voter who would rather vote Conservative than Liberal... this coalition really isn't my thing. 2008-12-04T00:44:00-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/monopoly/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/monopoly/#When:19:50:01Z This almost perfectly mirrors several games of Monopoly I've played with friends in the past. Not quite sure if that's absurdly funny or profoundly sad. (Okay, funny.) 2008-11-21T19:50:01-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/one_plus_one/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/one_plus_one/#When:00:12:00Z "Lindsay":http://runlindsayrun.blogspot.com had her baby -- Briony -- yesterday morning. It feels like I'm officially an uncle now, almost like there was only half a baby before (that is, Jessie's baby, Chloe). It makes sense, I guess; the two events were so similar and intertwined that it almost feels like a single instance. Caitlin couldn't see Briony, unfortunately. She came down with a bad case of laryngitis this week, which means she can't be around the babies (or my mom for that matter, who just started radiation this last week). She stayed back at my apartment while I went to the hospital, which felt pretty weird. She's been such an important part of everything for quite a while now, and it felt weird not having her there. But that's a good sign, right? I took some pictures for her. I know it's not as good as being there in person, but at least it was something. Anyway, if all goes well we'll have a good seventy years to heckle Chloe and Briony. It had never occurred to me before this very moment that at some point I'm going to be sixty-five and Briony and Chloe will be forty. They're potentially going to be around for three-quarters of my life. Suddenly, it's become a lot easier to think of them as family. I like it when thoughts like that catch me off guard. Note to self: get off lazy butt and finish writing "After the End". I think the only thing holding me back from spitting out the last page is fear that everyone will hate it. That's a fear I need to get over, though -- this was written for me, and I, as the audience, love it immensely. I know it's weird. Oh, and this weekend I was hit by a bus. That is, my car was hit by a bus, while I was in it. Good times. Randoms: * "Why I Copyfight":http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/11/cory-doctorow-why-i-copyfight.html, by Cory Doctorow. A fantastic piece on why we should care about the copyright battle, written by the figurehead for the movement. This is an issue that I've become really passionate about over the last few years (and how could I not, as someone who works in creative media?). * As part of my continued rediscovery of music I loved in high school: "Gorecki":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-f8PDZvPYs, by the group Lamb (Like it? You can "download it here":http://www.zshare.net/audio/500687355db9d351/). Trip-hop is the one music genre that I'd be more than happy to see make a comeback. * "XKCD":http://www.xkcd.com/505/ contemplates eternity with awesome results. * It came out that Focus on the Family is about to see major layoffs. Apparently, painting Obama as a child pornographer and homosexuals as the children of Satan doesn't bring in as much money as it used to. 2008-11-18T00:12:00-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/a_rant_on_semantic_web_development/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/a_rant_on_semantic_web_development/#When:22:59:01Z I wrote this on another site in response to people advocating the use of table-based layouts on the web. I think that semantic web development is an important aspiration, regardless of W3C recommendations, and using table-based layouts is in direct conflict with that goal. CSS is necessary for separating content from presentation, and separating content from presentation is important for accessibility, SEO, aggregation, copy editing... the list goes on. The internet is no longer about presenting a single piece of content a single way. It's about mobile browsers, feeds and aggregators, embeded information -- it's about the content. For years we tied the content directly to the presentation, and table-based layouts grew out of that. But the content is separate now. It stands on its own. And we should be approaching layout design as crafting one way in which that content is presented, rather than being part of the content itself. I know a lot of people are staring at this comment with wide eyes, saying "... But it's just a little site that I was paid $50 by my uncle for. Why should I care about semantic design?" It's simple. It's not that people should care about semantic design. It's that shoehorning presentation into content isn't something that we should be doing, at all. Mashing them together shouldn't be an option. Semantic design is just how things should be done. We're not there, yet. HTML and CSS still haven't quite come of age, and inevitably presentation will still leak into content. But we shouldn't be advocating it. We shouldn't tell people to mash their content and presentation together because it's "easier", because it's really not. It's just different. And, in my opinion, wrong. 2008-11-12T22:59:01-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/important_internet_theories/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/important_internet_theories/#When:23:21:00Z *Godwin's Law* (Mike Godwin, 1990) "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." The Greater Internet F**kwad Theory (John Gabriel, 2004) "Normal person + Anonymity + Audience = Total f**kwad." 2008-11-07T23:21:00-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/unabated/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/unabated/#When:18:45:02Z "Obama just won the US election":http://www.barackobama.com/. People decided to vote for hope over fear, freedom over constraint, tolerance over hate. The most despised President in US history is no more. California's "Proposition 8":http://www.votenoonproposition8.com/arguments.html just passed, which _removes_ the rights given to homosexual couples. Two steps forward, one step back. "Michael Crichton died today":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27557143/. Regardless of your opinion of him as an author, he was one of the reasons I started writing. It's a tremendous loss. "My younger sister":http://blackoutphotography.blogspot.com/ has been in various stages of labour for the last thirty hours. "Anxious" doesn't begin to describe it. "My older sister":http://runlindsayrun.blogspot.com/ was due a couple days ago, now. And life continues unabated. 2008-11-05T18:45:02-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/johnny_awesome_is_awesome_introduction/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/johnny_awesome_is_awesome_introduction/#When:16:37:01Z You know this book is going to be awesome. You knew that before you even read the back of the book. How did you know? Because of the cover. We didn't hide anything -- you know that there's a guy named Johnny, and that he's awesome. Also, there are going to be dinosaurs. And explosions? Almost guaranteed. 'There is no way this book could suck,' you're telling yourself, and you're right. The worst-case scenario is that this is going to be some story about an average teen who ends up saving the world. Cliché to be sure, but still awesome. But guess what? We're not going to bore you with a story about some everyman overcoming the odds. In most stories, heroes are made - not born. Johnny Awesome was not such a hero. Johnny Awesome was awesome from the start. Even so, I'd be lying if I told you that awesomeness radiated from him at birth. In fact, it took a while for those around Johnny to discover how noteworthy he really was. The reason for this was simple: Johnny found the world around him so trivial that he shied away from the normal pursuits of children. It was years before he spoke his first words (a point we'll come back to shortly). His kindergarten teacher was actually convinced that Johnny was a fairly daft child. She would hold up two cards, one red and one blue, and ask Johnny to point at the red card. He would sit there quietly, starting intently at the cards. The question posed seemed simple enough, but Johnny saw the trick within: a red card only appeared red because of the reflected light. In short, the red card wasn't red at all -- it was a rejection of red. Of course, if he pointed at the blue card, his teacher would simply pass it off as an incorrect answer without giving Johnny a chance to explain his logic. So, he simply sat in silence, his eyes locked on the cards. But back to the awesome cover. Just look at that. Rocket launchers, dinosaurs, sunglasses... 'That's going to make an awesome climax,' I bet you're thinking. And you're right, that would make an awesome climax to an awesome book. This book, however, is so much more than that. This books _starts_ with the rocket launchers and dinosaurs, and goes up from there. That's right -- at this very moment, Johnny is staring down a T-Rex, rocket launcher in hand, sunglasses glinting in the light of the volcano. 2008-10-31T16:37:01-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/murakami_on_intentional_dreaming/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/murakami_on_intentional_dreaming/#When:21:06:00Z bq. I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it's not imagination. It's just a way of watching. Sometimes it's not easy. You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o'clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that's enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue. You cannot do that while you are asleep. When the dream stops, it stops forever. You cannot continue to dream that same dream. But if you are a writer, you can do that. That is a great thing, to keep on dreaming while you are awake. 2008-10-29T21:06:00-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/why_i_still_like_vista_more/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/why_i_still_like_vista_more/#When:19:20:00Z *Open the list of applications* bq. *OSX:* Command-Tab to Finder, Apple-Shift-A *Vista:* Windows key *Open an application's menu* bq. *OSX:* Control-F1 (to turn on keyboard access), Control-F2 *Vista:* Alt *Open a file* bq. *OSX:* Apple-Down *Vista:* Enter *Browse to parent directory* bq. *OSX:* Option-Command-Up *Vista:* Backspace *Change a file's icon* bq. *OSX:* Select the file with the icon you would like to use. Command-I to open Info window. Click on the icon. Command-C to copy. Select the file you would like to apply the icon to. Command-I to open the Info window. Click on the icon. Command-V to replace the icon. *Vista:* Right-click (or Application key), select Properties. Click "Change icon". *Refresh a list of files on a network drive* bq. *OSX:* Pray. *Vista:* F5. My point is, as shiny as OSX is, it's still keyboard hell. Keyboard use is an absolute afterthought -- in some case, even disabled by default. As a result, everything is just slower in OSX. Every little thing you want to do, you need to reach for your mouse. This might not seem like a big deal; in fact, it might even seem like a good thing, a movement away from the keyboard as a primary input source. But as someone who primarily types on his computer -- writing, e-mailing, programming -- this constant need to reach for a mouse is maddening. Oh, there are other reasons, too, such the little bits of the OSX interface that just refuse to make any sense. For example, take a couple second to think about the contextual zoom button in the corner of every window that changes function depending on the window size and the size of the window content, but gives you no indication of what state it's currently in. 2008-10-22T19:20:00-06:00 http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/inner_clockwork/ http://www.andcuriouser.com/current/index.php/site/inner_clockwork/#When:23:20:01Z "It seems priggish or pollyannaish to deny that my indention in writing the work was to titillate the nastier propensities of my readers. My own healthy inheritance of original sin comes out in the book and I enjoyed raping and ripping by proxy. It is the novelist’s innate cowardice that makes him depute to imaginary personalities the sins that he is too cautious to commit for himself." - Anthony Burgess, in the 1986 introduction to his novel _A Clockwork Orange_ 2008-10-21T23:20:01-06:00