Category: Uncategorized

recently posted a statement by “the Idol”, Hillary Clinton.

She makes a few valid moderate points, towards the end, but only after feeding into the collective irrational fear of terrorism. Yes, terrorism is by its very nature a surprise. So it really could come it any time, at any place. So the solution is to create an office to coordinate the powers that be in response to it? How would firemen, police officers, and increased patroling of our border with those terroristic canadians would have stopped the september 11th attacks? Those attacks were self-limiting, with modern communication technology bumping up the pace of the response. Passengers, ie citizens, not police officers, not border patrols, and not firemen stopped the last set of terrorists in that hour, and later, stopped the bomber with the explosive shoes.

Dangerous terrorists are dangerous because they are smart. Smart terrorists will go where the authorities are not, and act before the authorities can stop them. The terrorists everyone is up in arms about generally die in the process. And am I the only one who noticed that they haven’t attacked us effectively since then? I remain unconvinced that the Anthrax came from the people who brought us the aeronautical urban remodeling. No matter how much power we give the authorities, no matter how many of them we put out on the street, the authorities cannot be relied upon to protect us everywhere, all the time.

Nor is war exactly effective in eliminating terrorism. Missiles, bombs, and other powerful artillery are not going to stop a terrorist, though they may create a few out of the relatives of those killed. If you doubt me on these points, check out the current status of israeli and palestine.

Overall, my point would be that empowering the police, and other institutions of authority will not protect citizens. Then there’s bombing the brown people, otherwise known as a hair of the dog that bit you. It will simply be scratching a fresh case of poison ivy. The best first step to eliminating terrorist threats would probably be removing the motivation for the terrorists and their support networks. Another good one might be to strive for improvements in communication technology and the freedom to use it as well as universal self-defense training, ie, the very things that have already worked. But that last one smacks a bit too much of an empowered people, and there is no greater danger the power hungry can imagine than a constituency that no longer needs them.

After talk regarding Myers Briggs PTI stuff, and ideal matches at the party last night, I did a little websearching and came up with a webpage that describes how relationships work for me with impressive accuracy. I pointed the webpage (and its attendant INTJ counterpart) to , occasioning the following comment:

[11/20/2002 00:35] maxwellseq: The INTJ is not likely to choose to spend time with people who they feel don’t have anything to offer the INTJ.
[11/20/2002 00:35] maxwellseq: wow
[11/20/2002 00:35] maxwellseq: no more perfect summary exists

My interview on monday went pretty well. I think there was pretty good communication going on, and I did my best to project confidence in my ability for the task. May also have included some arrogance and impatience along with the confidence. I’m one of 5 candidates. Should hear back next week (note: while I’m out of town).

That evening I watched the Leonid meteor shower with some clinic types, and a friend of a clinic type. It was pretty, and cold. We were on a hill in the middle of some farmer’s pasture, near Mount Diablo, huddling on someone else’s blanket and under mine. This would be the second incident of trespassing I’ve performed with clinic type people. Probably saw about 40-60 meteors over the course of 2-3 hours. It was cool.

Then last night, gaming party at my place with Simon, , , and Ro. Played a game of transamerica, which was pretty cool. And then go with Josh while everyone else played settlers. I sucked it in the go game. Partially I failed to compensate for the scale difference between a 13×13, and partially my tactics blew. I think I need more practice in general. Oh well. Then a game of settlers. Settlers is a great party game because it’s social. You’re encouraged to interact with other players in the free form arena of trading. This naturally leads to trash talking, which only serves to make the game more fun.

Work report. It seems that I was correct when I intuitively said that a point observer with linear motion cannot uniquely determine the location or motion of a point target of linear motion, even given that the motion is linear. I’d back tracked later, thinking there was insufficient evidence, but I was right the first time. There was also the question of whether “phi” is pronounced ‘fee’ or ‘fie’. I say ‘fie’. Ro says ‘fee’. We compromised by saying ‘fff’, but I dropped the compromise. When brought up at the gaming party, ‘fee’ was more popular. I want the opinion of a greek speaker (not that I’m going to actually _change_ my speech patterns, mind)

“As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life
— so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop
so you can meet girls.”
— Matt Cartmill

Old friend of mine from cmu, who went to MIT, and now lives up near burlington vt with yet another gay Josh. Anyway, I was cruising around on google to check if a websearch turned up the current url for my homepage (the answer is ‘no’), and ran across an archive of posts in a flamewar between a homophobe college republican and Tom. It includes such gems as:

may not be funny to those without context

I was going to call the people at berkeley about the part time job this morning, but they beat me to the punch. Interview this afternoon. Yay! =)

“[redacted] is considering taking out a hit on your sister and family so we can
monopolize your time.”

It’s good to be loved.

I have hopeless crushes on a few medics. (No names or identifying features will be included.) This is probably because they constitute most of my gay social contact these days (with the possible exceptions of , , and ). Medics and trainees aren’t supposed to be getting it on, which is totally fine by me. The idea of sex frankly leaves me feeling a little bleh right now (maybe it’s something about working at an std clinic). And I totally feel like everyone I’m attracted to isn’t attracted to me (which always brings up the chicken and egg question). Or that the rapport thing just isn’t/doesn’t/wouldn’t happen.

Echoing ‘s earlier sentiment, I said that I could get off any time I really want to, but the holding myself in my own arms while I sleep just doesn’t work. Chris (I think, it might have been Daniel) thought that was pretty poetic. They be good people.

So, what I’m wanting these days involves rapport (which involves putting myself out there in a pretty major way), lots of physical affection, and sex being postponed.

Celibate over a month. And not all about changing that. So it goes.

Maintaining my swearing off of gay.com. And net cruising in general. Did recently put an ad out on planetout, so, maybe I’m not doing all that good, but I haven’t done anything about it, and I’ve recieved few replies, none appealing.

So where do I meet guys who think enough like me to provide much bandwidth, yet differently enough to keep it really interesting, look pretty, and are willing to wait? Oh yeah, I’d like an order of fries with malt vinegar, and no salt to go, in a purple bag. And a pony. BLEH!

More to the point, why do I meticulously avoid the things i want most? Why do I assume that people I like will have problems with touch until informed otherwise?

wheeeee

The whorehopping webpage lost my entry after I canceled an accidental print command. Brief summary of a summary: I had a really freaking eventful, socially active weekend, alongside clinic training stuff, and severe sleep deprivation. I am overall pleased with it. Though it involved a number of miscarriages of plans. And a rather pronounced annoyance to Abram (which I feel pretty guilty about).

Also made a few plans for the near future.

Work 40 hours on vision shit this upcoming week. So I can pay the bills.

See Leonid meteor shower for the last time that will possible during my lifetime. (thereby losing even more sleep).

Finish my paper for political economy from may. New topic: The relationship between various sorts of inequality and economic growth. Have useful references to get it started.

Apply to the Berkeley school for public policy again. Must dig deep in ass to find references.

Today I flubbed an informational interview with a sociology professor of relatively high standing within the department. I was disorganized and incoherent. I was polite, he was polite. His information was a step shy of uselessness. His view of sociology is that it is a purely descriptive science, with no application whatsoever. Talk about despair inducing.

Meanwhile, I’m almost half enjoying the work I’m doing with Rohan. It’s stupid math tricks, with someone whose company and ways of thinking of I enjoy. The work environment is open and flexible. And we spend a lot of time talking about intentional communities, plans for the future, group organization, social structure, etc. I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen over the course of the next couple of years.

And it’s inherently temporary, it’s a contract that will last no more than another year or two at the outside. It can pay my bills and reduce my debt. It won’t make me rich. It won’t even allow me to completely eliminate my debt.

Smart people become deadbeats too. I could go that way. I’m intimately aware of that possibility. And very afraid of it. I’m just not sure where it is I want to go.