9.17.2001
I don't know. How much of a response is enough without being cruel and murderous? What's the right answer, the one that will keep this from happening again? Wipe the Middle East off the map? Tempting, but wrong. I'm so tired of those fucking savages. I'm tired of all the violence, not just against us, but against everyone.
This is supposed to be a civilized world, fer fuck's sake. We don't need to bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age, they're already there. We need to bring them forward into the Information Age. All these little religious fanatics (Falwell and Robertson included) need a wake-up call of their own. Hate and violence will not help us "see the light," it only makes more hate.
Enlightened and tolerant as we are, (which is far from as enlightened as we could/should be) there is no reasoning with terrorists. Talk to them in terms they can understand: Violence. They understand that. We may experience a moral twinge, but in this case I think the ends justify the means: An end to terrorism.
I've been sticking my head in the sand, trying not to decide where I stand, but it's finally crystallized. Violence should be a last resort, but we're there, baby. Diplomacy has failed, embargoes and economic controls have failed. The U.N. has failed. The mere threat of NATO retaliation is not enough. It's time to crack skulls.
16:37
9.12.2001
Like everyone else, I've been glued to the TV for the past day. I just can't even imagine what it must have been like for the passengers on those airplanes... To know what was going to happen, and be powerless to stop it. If it turns out to be true that passengers on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvannia were able to thwart the hijackers, I hope they are awarded medals of honor.
How does this happen? Three airports, four breakdowns of "security." How long has this been planned? How much money was devoted, and how many people were involved? There had to have been at least some flight training. I can't imagine any pilot, much less four, allowing hijackers to force them into these crashes. If I had been a pilot on any of those planes, my response would have been, "So kill me. I won't do it." The hijackers would have to fly the planes themselves. I can't even imagine the kind of preparation needed to carry out these attacks.
I say, require pilots to carry guns. Station police on board. Improve the cockpit security. Construct the auto-pilot such that it cannot be taken over by any attacker.
Most of all, hunt down those responsible and show the world that we will not tolerate this kind of violence. It's time for terrorism to stop, all over the world. Everywhere.
10:17
8.30.2001
Whoo-eee. I just spent another $200 on computer stuff. This time it's RAM: 512 to be exact. So now I have four times the memory I had yesterday. So far I only notice applications opening a little faster, and have yet to put it through the whole PhotoShop gauntlet. Really, I've done it in preparation for OS X in a week or two...
20:27
8.29.2001
I got one of these yesterday, which has renewed my interest in a project that I abandoned a few months ago: Converting my CD collection to MP3, and then burning it all back to CDs. See, in MP3 format, my whole collection will fit on 15 CD-Rs. Sweet.
Plus, I must say I love the idea of being able to drive to Valdez and back on one CD, never hearing the same song twice...
15:58
I wanna go! I only need one-way airfare!
15:03
8.25.2001
What a fantastic photo.
14:03
8.17.2001
I'm in a frenzy of cleaning, and now have the cleanest computer stuff in the building. I finally found some good laptop screen cleaner here in town, and bought some other computer cleaning things as well. See, I love my G4, but when it's closed the screen touches the keyboard, resulting in smudge marks on the screen. Ew.
15:17
These arrived yesterday for various office members, and we're all running around exclaiming how neato they are.
You wouldn't think that a carabiner handle is that cool, but you'd be wrong...
15:13
This seems like a great resource. It's aimed at students, but if you ever want to know how to do just about anything, this is your site.
09:36
Photos have come in from my birthday boat trip last week...
From left to right: Me, David, Justin (my 11 year old brother), my mom, and my cousin Jennifer (visiting from... uh, not here.)
09:29
8.14.2001
Wow, there's a blast from the past.
16:34
Found this while cleaning today:
What if Dr. Suess wrote technical manuals?
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
If you cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icons put your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situations hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!
If the label on your cable on the gable at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel to another protocal,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall...
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM,
And quickly turn off your computer and be sure to tell your mom!
--Anonymous
15:07
Maybe I should eat lunch sometime today...
13:12
Seriously, despite brutal disappointment at the Hollywood offerings this summer, I find myself nearly in a frenzy antincipating this. Ooooh... another trailer!
11:59
