wallace winfrey

You’ve heard of Web 2.0, right? It’s all this Ajax crap. Ruby On Rails. Fun duo-syllabic names for web companies.

Supposedly Web 3.0 is the “cloud”, but I’m reading that’s also Web 4.0.

Just for kicks, google web 5.0.

Interestingly enough, Web 6.0 is just far enough out there that it’s still an amusing punchline.

All this, pardon my french, tells me that Web X.x is actually utter crap, which probably explains why I still get so much mileage out of Web 1.0 destinations.

Update: Oh yeah, I just realized this is the 200th post on this blog in almost 7 years. Tearing the blogosphere a new one, ain’t I?

Well, I purposely avoided blogging right after election day, mostly because I wanted it to sink in for a while before I posted something.

I’ll be straight up honest with you: I find myself more saddened by the passage of Proposition 8 in California than I find myself elated by Obama’s win. I know that might seem odd to some, and my sadness should, in no way, be a reflection of any lack of enthusiasm I have for President-elect Obama. I just felt really strongly about defeating Proposition 8, and in fact, it was the only political campaign I gave money to (I gave $50.00).

Why would I, a straight, married, father of two in Colorado, give a shit about the legal status of gay marriage in California? Well, it’s pretty simple: I believe that discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation is wrong. Writing it into the California state constitution, of all places, strikes me as a great moral failure. The fact that the “Yes On Prop 8” campaign was massively funded by the Mormons, of all people, disgusts me.

I’ll come right out and say it. I hate Mormonism. I think it is a false religion, a cult of the worse kind. I do not hate individual Mormons. I feel pity for them, mostly — because they are brainwashed. I am also not saying that they should not be able to practice their religion; I am a firm believer in freedom of religion. However, I will say that I disagree with their faith and the practice thereof, and that I would like to see the Mormon Church lose their tax-exempt status.

The really sickening thing about the Mormon Church underwriting Prop H8, I mean, besides their own extremely fucked-up views and history with marriage to begin with, is that, in my opinion, it didn’t really have anything to do with California residents.

I think the Mormon Church would not give two shits if the gays were marrying each other in California, if they could be ensured that Utah would never be forced to recognize gay marriage. But, as they say, “As California Goes, So Goes The Nation”. They (correctly) viewed legal gay marriage as a threat to their theocracy in Utah.

Yes, I said theocracy. Anyone who doesn’t believe that the Mormon Church controls the state of Utah lock, stock and barrel is delusional. They see Utah as the “holy land”, and California’s legalization of gay marriage would eventually force Utah to recognize it as well, and given the importance they place on marriage in the Mormon religion, that was just too scary a thought to contemplate.

Non-Mormons probably don’t understand how important marriage is in the Mormon religion, but really, in many ways, it is the absolute centerpiece of their spiritual beliefs. When a Mormon couple are “bound together in the temple”, it’s for this life and the next. Mormons believe that when they die, they’ll be given a planet to rule over, and their earthly wife will be “First Wife” in the afterlife (I’m pretty sure plural marriage is accepted in the Mormon afterlife). The whole religion is extremely patriarchal, and the marriage contract puts the man firmly in charge.

Now, given that one can be excommunicated from the Mormon Church for being openly gay, why would the Mormons give a shit about non-Mormons marrying each other? Again, it’s because Utah is a theocracy, and if (when) the state is forced to recognize the social contract of gay marriage, it will be seen by the powers that be in that state as an abomination; a defacement of the temple, so to speak.

Most people think Utah is just one of 50 states, but really, while they pledge fealty to the United States and the federal government in Washington DC, a Mormon’s first allegiance is not to the US, but to the Mormon Church. If Utah were it’s own fucked-up little country — hey more power to ‘em. But they’re not — they’re part of the United States, and subject to our laws and constitution. The fact that they are meddling in the business of neighboring states to protect their religious beliefs is disgusting, especially when the net effect is to enshrine discrimination into the state constitution.

There are three lawsuits proceeding: According to New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Leonard,

All three suits proceed on essentially the same theory - that because the amendment alters the fundamental equal protection rights guaranteed by the state constitution, as they were identified by the Court last spring in the Marriage cases, it constitutes a “revision” of the constitution rather than a simple amendment. Under the California Constitution, a voter initiative can lead to a simple amendment, but not to a revision. In order for the initiative to revise the constitution, supermajorities of the legislature must propose it to the people for enactment. The idea behind this is that there should be a broad political consensus in the state before revising the fundamental charter of government, not merely a simple majority vote of the electorate as a result of a measure placed on the ballot through the petitioning process.

Let’s hope our gay brothers & sisters in California find some relief with these petitions.

And to the Mormon Church, and it’s believers I say: you are welcome to practice your religion as you so see fit, but when the free practice of your religion becomes a threat to what I believe is a fundamental right for all Americans, that’s when we must say there are limits to how you will be allowed to protect your theocracy.

That’s the bottom line: the Mormon Church’s opposition to gay marriage in one of the US’s most liberal states has nothing to do with “protecting marriage”, and everything to do with preserving their right to run Utah as a semi-theocratic state.

I doubt it will happen, but I would love to see the Mormon Church lose their tax-exempt status over this shit.

…you get way too caught up in the discussions on a web forum, and then let somebody who repeatedly calls you “trash” and your mother a “c**t whore” press your buttons and get you to stoop as low as them, and respond in kind. It’s kinda debasing. I didn’t really want to

grow

up to be

be a debaser

I coulda been spending all that time hanging out with my kids. I really wish I knew how to quit these damn internet discussions. Shit. It’s like alcoholism.

Seriously; I’ve heard enough cooing and fawning to last me a lifetime. I don’t give two shits about the accelerometer, the iPhone apps store where you can buy a $4,000.00 PNG image of a jewel or an overpriced MIDI controller.

I don’t care that you can watch YouTube on the thing. I don’t care you can switch from portrait to landscape. I don’t care about all the gee-whiz gestures. It’s a fucking phone. Get a hold of yourself. Get back in your goddamn Prius and drive yourself down to Barack’s speech on Thursday and call someone who gives a shit, cause I certainly don’t.

When it’s not $600 to buy that overpriced gadget so one can use it with a non-spying-on-your-shit cell provider, and when it supports UMA so I can make and receive phone calls over my wifi network at home in the mountains, and when it actually has a freaking keyboard, I’ll pay attention. Until then, all your stupid phone says is “hey look, I can spend money!”. It doesn’t say that you’re cool, or awesome, or have good taste. It just says you can spend $200 for the privilege of being ripped off on your monthly data plan for the next 2 years.

Note, if I happen to be fond of you, then please ignore everything I just wrote. I know I have some very good friends and very dear co-workers who bought these things, and for you, “Wow, that thing is SO cool!” Everyone else though, PLEASE SHUT UP. Everyone knows that your stupid iPhone is just a toy while all us people who REALLY want to get shit done with our phone are using Blackberries. Research In Motion FTW, beeyotch!!!!

This one involving Ron Paul:

Long story short: one tooth grew in sideways, bottom wisdom teeth were impacted for year, finally broke through and immediately started showing signs of surface decay. Meanwhile, part of the biting surface of my upper rearmost molar is pressed up against another tooth, started to decay, badly. Can't see the decay though, but a month ago I started to feel it. 1 week of awful tootaches later, I find myself at the oral surgeon getting three teeth extracted. Only problem is, I can only get local anesthetic. Doc was quite good and managed to extract the teeth without cutting them, but being awake during something like this sucked. Mouth has been sore ever since, but less so each day. Hurt really bad after infection developed in socket but antibiotics cleared it up.

At any rate, here's the teeth I got pulled. The one on the right left shows extensive decay. No, I'm not proud of this, but the tooth was screwed up to begin with (growing in sideways, etc.) and since my mouth is pretty crowded as is, one less non-functional tooth doesn't bother or embarrass me.

Gary Gygax, who along with Dave Arneson, created Dungeons and Dragons, died this morning at the age of 69 at his home in Lake Geneva, WI.

I am very saddened to hear of his passing. I cannot put into words how influential Mr. Gygax was in my life. He not only taught me to use my imagination, he taught me how to apply it within a system of rules and boundaries. That experience, more than any other, I believe is responsible for whatever moderate amount of success I have achieved as an adult.

Thanks for everything Mr. Gygax. I hope you find the lands of your dreams in the afterlife.

I’m caucusing for Barack Obama on Tuesday. I’m going to allow myself to hope that this man can bring the change this country so desperately needs. I’m doing this for my kids’ future.

My mind is made up. Watch this video, and you might make your mind up, too. I feel cheesy for even writing this, but man - this video struck a chord.

“Vote Republican. You can wreck a country in 8 years, but it takes 12 years to kill it”

(Hat tip to Sadly, No!)

Not kidding:

Cheeseburger in der Dose

I dunno how I feel about eating a canned cheeseburger on my next backpacking trip, but I’ll bet that when you pull it out, it looks nothing like the example cheeseburger on the product page.

Only 3.95 euros, if you’re interested.

Link via Gizmodo, via William Gibson’s blog, who says, “GOT YOUR FUTURE RIGHT HERE”.

So, lately I’ve been listening to a lot of speed garage. Around the time most of this stuff was coming out I was so deep into other musics that I heard speed garage a couple times, decided it was too “hand-baggy” for my tastes and never really listened to it again. Of course, speed garage would go on to mutate into 2-step garage, introducing breaks into the mix, 2-step would turn into grime as the MCs became more prevalent and the music started to shed the house elements, and finally, evolve into the conventions of what we now call “dubstep”.

The Story Of Stuff

Nothing really ground-breaking here if you’ve been following this sort of thing for a while, but the presentation packs a punch in it’s succinctness. As with any distillations, some things are kinda brushed over, for instance, the part about the computer’s motherboard only needing to have it’s chip replaced when the rest of it is just fine is a gross oversimplification. It ignores all the supporting technologies needed to realize the speed gains of that newer chip. Also, she might like that she’s still using that ole cathode-ray tube monitor but the fact is, LCDs consume way less power and are healthier for one to use than the old CRTs. Those things aside, she makes a good point. We have a linear production-to-consumption process on a planet with finite resources and an ever-increasing demand for consumer goods. It’s not sustainable.

Personally, rather than throw out those old shoes, broken lamps, broken monitors, old computers and crap into a landfill, I’ve been taking them to CHARM, and while it’s not exactly cheap, it’s way of voluntarily reclaiming the externalization of the price of those things.

Also, when I was growing up I learned to never take anything for granted, and never throw out something useful. I’ve still got an 9-year-old Dell XPS T600+ workstation, running Ubuntu Linux. Despite the fact that it tends to hang when the room temperature gets too high, or when it’s asked to perform a particularly CPU-heavy compile, it still gets the job done. I am a huge advocate of squeezing every last bit of life out of a computer as possible. Before we got the T600+ in 01 (it was originally my work computer when I worked at Active.com, purchased in 99), we were using Missy’s old computer, which she got from her dad, and he had purchased it in 1993, I believe. I had replaced the motherboard and put in an AMD K6+ of course, but the PSU, case, etc. were still all the same.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/25/bushplanforiraqwouldbea_first/

“President Bush’s plan to forge a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could commit the US military to defending Iraq’s security would be the first time such a sweeping mutual defense compact has been enacted without congressional approval, according to legal specialists.

…

At a House hearing on the pact on Wednesday, Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California and a former Reagan administration official, accused the Bush administration of “arrogance” for not consulting with Congress about the pact. If it includes any guarantees to Iraq, he said, Congress must sign off.

“We are here to fulfill the constitutional role established by the founding fathers,” Rohrabacher said, adding, “It is not all in the hands of the president and his appointees. We play a major role.”

…

“A commitment that the United States will act to assist Iraq, potentially through the use of our armed forces in the event of an attack on Iraq, could effectively commit the nation to engage in hostilities,” Biden wrote. “Such a commitment cannot be made by the executive branch alone under our Constitution.”“

It’s just one thing after another with these guys. It’s not enough to do all the damage they can in the 8 years they hold office. They’re gonna try to force their insane policies on the next (likely Democratic) administration as well.

Ultimately it will go to the courts, and how it ultimately winds up will depend on whether Justice Kennedy sides with the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas unitary executive theorists or with the Souter/Ginsburg/Stevens/Breyer separation of powers adherents.

Hopefully by the time that the Supreme Court hears this case, Clinton or Obama will be in office and the current unitary executive proponents will be having second thoughts about advancing that power to a Democratic administration.