Munchies: the silent crime

This is pretty ridiculous, but it's not something that I would be surprised to find some of my high school friends doing if they got stoned and fielded a bad case of the munchies...

Star Trek Thesis

Seriously, this stuff is awesome. Not because it's dorks writing about dorky stuff (although it is), but because it's taking a frequently overlooked section of society and seriously applying academic research and study to it, and yielding (surprise!) really fascinating results. Things like star trek and their ilk are simply another way of reflecting or questioning the society around us, and (although I'm not a particular fan of star trek) it makes me warm and happy to see somebody taking a scholarly interest in them.

Hybrid Cell Service

This may be the coolest thing ever... at least, for dorky/cellular/internet telephony

Israel vs. Lebanon? both terrorists?

As usual, once I get more deeplyentrenched into the details of some foreign policy, I find it essentially impossible to distinguish between the victims and the victimizers. A very interesting perspective of support for the Lebanese point of view can be found here. More food for thought, but my typical response is welling up; which is to say, I pretty much just want to figure out some way to fence off the entire region and let them kick the crap out of each other until some sort of peace is worked out...<sigh>

Blue Cross - Blue Hezbollah?

I had no idea that they were purveyors of social programs as well as terrorism. That certainly changes the tack that I would take, were I to be in Israel's shoes...

A brief hiatus

As you can tell by the lack of blog entries, I've been sort of out-of-commission for awhile. My work schedule has been shifted such that I am on watch every day, and then the weekend days that I'm not on watch I'm traveling and interviewing, making amusing attempts at trying to convince companies to hire me. Such is the nature of life, neh?

For that matter, this will continue to be the case for the next month or two, as I travel to Seattle and climb Mt Rainier, philadelphia for job interviews, home for canoeing and running amock in the woods, and perhaps annapolis to tease yuppies with sailboats.
So I apologize in advance for the lack of posting sure to come...

but on a lighter note: We're not even going to get into what I *thought* this story was about at first, before I read the text...

Melinda and Melinda

Woody Allen. The name alone seems to conjure up bizarre scenarios, unexpected slapstick, and self-deprecating tirades of ironic detachment. But for all of that, he has produced some wonderful films. Melinda and Melinda turned out to be a really interesting and well-balanced piece, to my mild surprise and interest. I think he is probably at his best poking fun at social interaction in the intellectual vein, and this is an exercise in exactly that. What can I say, I like sticking my finger in my brain and poking around.

Castro Goes Down?

I'll be honest, I see alot of potential in the unusual ways. As a for instance, I think that with Cuba's capability of maintaining a dictatorial state but refocusing its development on other things, they could really make a good example of their country. Starting over, as it were, essentially from scratch, would allow them to build infrastructure and business structures that could follow the trends of China and its bizarre stepchild: Hong Kong. The consistency of policy possible with a relatively forward-looking dictator has the potential to bring a country through upheaval with a powerful momentum of change. This is not to say that democracy cannot work, but democracy is such a delicate thing, and is rarely practical in such a scenario. We see this over and over again in countries around the world where the bygone theme of "nation-building" has all but been quietly discarded with the majority of such projects ending in basic failures. Democracy can thrive in a country already rich in infrastructure, education, and resources, but it can be equally doomed in a nation without these things. It may not be a very popular view, but I think that in the long run democracy is an unlikely fit for every country. I think of it alot like religions: one religion isn't for everybody, and never will be. The exceptions will always exist to your cookie-cutter mold and the balance of varied government types provides part of the impetus to make each kind work, almost in defiance of the competing ways.
I suppose in the long run there is no easy answer or solution for the questions you can pose, but in most things in life, a moderate balance of alternatives will usually provide the most successful, realistic solution to a problem.