This week the song "Battlefield" by Jordin Sparks was on So You Think You Can Dance, and I was struck by the lyrics. The singer asks, "Why does love always feel like a battlefield?" The answer: because you're doing it wrong.
Romantic relationships prompt conflict. Loving someone means letting them have their way, even when your way is better. Then you can take it to the next level: each partner competes to put the other first. As a result each person's needs are met.
People not in a relationship call this "being whipped."
2009-07-25
Arora
This week I started using the Arora web browser. It's a lightweight, pre-1.0 quality browser that was started as a wrapper around QtWebkit, which is the Qt library's wrapper around Webkit, which is Apple's fork of KHTML, which is the HTML engine of Konqueror, which is KDE's default web browser. Next October, Kubuntu 9.10 might make Arora its default browser, and even though Konqueror will still be available I thought I'd try out the new kid on the block.
After two days of use it's not bad. It's crashed a couple times, but it's only existed for a few months so that's to be expected. It has a privacy mode that's useful in preventing web sites from building an advertising profile about you. It doesn't have much ad blocking capability, which is a huge step back in functionality from Firefox and Konqueror. It doesn't appear to have per-site script disabling functionality like Firefox with NoScript.
I'll consider making it my default browser when they get all of the Kubuntu 9.10 browser requirements implemented, but without NoScript I can't see myself using it exclusively.
After two days of use it's not bad. It's crashed a couple times, but it's only existed for a few months so that's to be expected. It has a privacy mode that's useful in preventing web sites from building an advertising profile about you. It doesn't have much ad blocking capability, which is a huge step back in functionality from Firefox and Konqueror. It doesn't appear to have per-site script disabling functionality like Firefox with NoScript.
I'll consider making it my default browser when they get all of the Kubuntu 9.10 browser requirements implemented, but without NoScript I can't see myself using it exclusively.
2009-07-19
Battlestar Galactica
It's been several months since the final episode of Battlestar Galactica aired. In it, the hardy Colonial fleet of human refugees, fleeing the robotic Cylon menace they created, wins a major battle, discovers Earth and lives happily ever after.
Well, almost. They discover Earth (approximately 150,000 years in our past) and decide, in the words of one character, to "leave their baggage behind" by sending their fleet and all of their technology into the sun. It's a happy ending with some sad moments as characters die or vanish into thin air (it's a long story) and people set out to build a new home with the stone-age natives that they've discovered they can interbreed with.
I wonder how long it took them to realize that this new paradise world did not have any toilet paper.
I wonder how long it took before they realized how hard it was going to be to grow food. (These are people who by now have lived in spaceships for years.)
It probably didn't take long to find out that the natives were a lot handier with a spear than they were.
My guess is that in less than a year the adults were dead and the surviving children were taken in by the neanderthals.
So while the show was portrayed as having a happy ending, in fact it did not: the military failed in their struggle to preserve the lives of the 40,000 or so civilians that survived the Cylon genocide. Their society collectively gave up and died.
I'm not sure what is worse: that, or the fact that it's portrayed as a good thing.
Well, almost. They discover Earth (approximately 150,000 years in our past) and decide, in the words of one character, to "leave their baggage behind" by sending their fleet and all of their technology into the sun. It's a happy ending with some sad moments as characters die or vanish into thin air (it's a long story) and people set out to build a new home with the stone-age natives that they've discovered they can interbreed with.
I wonder how long it took them to realize that this new paradise world did not have any toilet paper.
I wonder how long it took before they realized how hard it was going to be to grow food. (These are people who by now have lived in spaceships for years.)
It probably didn't take long to find out that the natives were a lot handier with a spear than they were.
My guess is that in less than a year the adults were dead and the surviving children were taken in by the neanderthals.
So while the show was portrayed as having a happy ending, in fact it did not: the military failed in their struggle to preserve the lives of the 40,000 or so civilians that survived the Cylon genocide. Their society collectively gave up and died.
I'm not sure what is worse: that, or the fact that it's portrayed as a good thing.
2009-07-04
The Transporter
I recently had the "privilege" of watching The Transporter and its sequels, Transporter 2 and Transporter 3. I resisted watching them for a long time because the titles were so stupid. My intuition has turned out to be correct.
The Transporter movies resemble the Bourne movies, except that those are good. Jason Statham plays Frank Martin, a one man messenger service who charges enough to afford a BMW. Naturally the only people who can afford his rates are Bad Guys.
In the third (and hopefully final) installment, Frank grows a pair and actually kills some of the hordes of ninjas, thugs or henchmen swarming after him. I was starting to wonder: for a mercenary with no conscience he seems to be awfully gentle with his attackers. In general I don't endorse the cartoon approach to entertainment violence. In an actual life or death situation, when people are trying to kill you and you wrestle a machine gun out of someone's hands, bonking them on the head with it is seldom the most likely way to survive.
At the end of the third movie, Frank settles down with the girl. It's nice to see an action movie endorse monogamy. Perhaps her rich powerful father provided a dowry large enough that he could stop taking jobs from people who then try to kill him. One could say that I'm reading too much into it and they're just shacking up, but that's pure conjecture.
Frank frowns on illicit drug use. I hope that doesn't imply someone thinks he's a role model.
The Transporter movies resemble the Bourne movies, except that those are good. Jason Statham plays Frank Martin, a one man messenger service who charges enough to afford a BMW. Naturally the only people who can afford his rates are Bad Guys.
In the third (and hopefully final) installment, Frank grows a pair and actually kills some of the hordes of ninjas, thugs or henchmen swarming after him. I was starting to wonder: for a mercenary with no conscience he seems to be awfully gentle with his attackers. In general I don't endorse the cartoon approach to entertainment violence. In an actual life or death situation, when people are trying to kill you and you wrestle a machine gun out of someone's hands, bonking them on the head with it is seldom the most likely way to survive.
At the end of the third movie, Frank settles down with the girl. It's nice to see an action movie endorse monogamy. Perhaps her rich powerful father provided a dowry large enough that he could stop taking jobs from people who then try to kill him. One could say that I'm reading too much into it and they're just shacking up, but that's pure conjecture.
Frank frowns on illicit drug use. I hope that doesn't imply someone thinks he's a role model.
Health Care Supply
Lately I have been reading lots of stories about a constrained supply of health care. In some countries, people have to wait for a long time for procedures. In the United States, there are often long waits in emergency rooms. A recent trend has been doctors declining to serve Medicare and Medicaid patients for financial reasons. There is a growing shortage of general care physicians in the United States, and there has been a shortage of nurses for years now. Ultimately, the cost of nonexistent health care doesn't matter.
There's no easy way to correct these problems, but there are two areas where conditions can be improved: providing health care can be made to be easier, and providing health care can be made to be more profitable.
Currently there are many hurdles to providing health care. There's lots of schooling, there's lots of paperwork, and there are many complicated laws that must be complied with. Some of these things can be simplified, but few people are even trying. Taxes on small (or all, or health-care-related) businesses can be reduced or eliminated. Requirements can be streamlined or eliminated. And so on.
There exists in the minds of some the idea that profit is objectively bad. On the contrary: profit, as a motivator, is much preferred to several popular alternatives, such as power and lust. (I prefer to avoid having to provide sexual favors in order to receive health care.) Profit is a more effective motivator, taken across the entire population, than altruism. Attempts to make health care less profitable inevitably decrease the number of health care providers.
The opposite is also true: making health care more profitable will result in more organizations competing for your health care dollars. More competition will lower costs. More providers will lower wait times.
What do I care if a doctor, or the CEO of a hospital, is filthy rich? I care about getting a quality product at a good price. If someone can figure out how to make their customers (patients) happy while simultaneously turning a profit, let them.
There's no easy way to correct these problems, but there are two areas where conditions can be improved: providing health care can be made to be easier, and providing health care can be made to be more profitable.
Currently there are many hurdles to providing health care. There's lots of schooling, there's lots of paperwork, and there are many complicated laws that must be complied with. Some of these things can be simplified, but few people are even trying. Taxes on small (or all, or health-care-related) businesses can be reduced or eliminated. Requirements can be streamlined or eliminated. And so on.
There exists in the minds of some the idea that profit is objectively bad. On the contrary: profit, as a motivator, is much preferred to several popular alternatives, such as power and lust. (I prefer to avoid having to provide sexual favors in order to receive health care.) Profit is a more effective motivator, taken across the entire population, than altruism. Attempts to make health care less profitable inevitably decrease the number of health care providers.
The opposite is also true: making health care more profitable will result in more organizations competing for your health care dollars. More competition will lower costs. More providers will lower wait times.
What do I care if a doctor, or the CEO of a hospital, is filthy rich? I care about getting a quality product at a good price. If someone can figure out how to make their customers (patients) happy while simultaneously turning a profit, let them.
Blogging Frenzy
Last night as I was falling asleep I thought of 3 or 4 great topics for blog posts.
Today I can only remember one.
Drat.
Today I can only remember one.
Drat.
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