Reading (For Dummies)

GI Joe: Resolute review

I grew up in New Jersey, which means that as a child I watched entirely too much television. In September of 2001, I decided that I wasn't going to own a television anymore -- I thought that analysis of events at the time was zooming in on retarded.

I'm known to watch shows on Youtube or DVD from time to time. I recently watched a reboot of one of those shows that (in a silly way) entertained so much when I was young.

When GI Joe was one of my favorite shows as a kid, I had no hope of understanding it. It was at best a thinly veiled propaganda piece about communism: COBRA was the centrally controlled government that operated in a strictly top-down manner. When it's leaders made a mistake, everyone suffered. COBRA was not the Cult of Personality. Their leader was unnamed, "COBRA Commander." Their leader was also a bit full of himself, ignoring input from suboordinates often to everyone's peril.

Central control didn't work out so well for the real-world Ruskies either. Examples can be seen in their wheat crop production in Kazhakstan. Production was great, but the government had not thought through supply chains, and had no way to transport wheat to where it was needed.

Joe's team operated militarily, yes, but also somewhat democratically. Joe's suboordinates often raised concerns about a mission. Sometimes Joe would ignore them, but would often come to understand the wisdom of lower-ranked people by the end of the episode. The Joe team was all about the democratic process (handled a bit militarily, but nonetheless present). The premise was that if we at least listen to each other's votes, we'll come to a workable solution in the end.

The United States faces new and weird threats that we still don't really understand. This new breed of GI Joe reflects the world. Episodes 1-11 are available on the Tube. They depict a surprise attack by COBRA, stunningly coordinated. Their first attack, perhaps as an homage to the original GI Joe, is to destroy Moscow while paralyzing the only people that can help. The Joe team is alarmed and disturbed at this.

The Joe team relies heavily on their support staff of scientists and analysts. This is something that we haven't seen in the 80s version of the program.

In its eventuality, the Joe team ends up fighting COBRA on US soil, as it turns out that that is their secret location. I could read too deeply into the sequence: COBRA uses a facility in Springfield, USA (Simpsons jokes aside) to attempt to destroy Washington, DC. Joe comes in to save the day, by turning COBRA's ultimate weapon on itself -- the Joes use COBRA's weapon to destroy Springfield, where a trapped COBRA Commander is (hopefully) killed.

Using an enemy's weapon upon them is nothing new. In fact, you need only look at the current headlines to see what we've been up to: terrorizing terrorists through the use of torture and "alternative" interrogation techniques. What we're really doing when we do that is destroying a bit of ourselves (like Springfield). In the end, COBRA gets away, making us wonder why we went down that path to begin with. But, now we know, and knowing is, as a popular cartoon told me when I was young, half the battle...

Toorcamp used my photo!

I'm somewhat flattered. The folks at Toorcamp appear to have used my photo (though they're violating CopyLeft, all images on this site are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike license)! Here is their Talks Page, and here is my old blog post where their image came from. Groovy!

I'm planning to attend Toorcamp, so if you're an old hacker buddy and want to go, give me a call or send me an email (or even if you're not an old friend). I'm planning to bring a few little kegs of beer, an arduino or two, and have lots of camping gear (several sleeping bags, tents, and foam pads) if you need a place to rest your weary head...something about a bunch of computer dorks getting together in an old nuclear missile silo seems very promising.

And it looks like I may run into some old acquaintenances...

Tea Party

He wore a "IRS Ribbon" made out of a dollar bill on his lapel

I live in a rather...well...Red area of the United States. It's an unusual thing for me, being a yank that protested the US entry into the Iraq War, and one who actually enjoys paying taxes. I decided to take a gander at the Pullman-Moscow Tea Party yesterday. It claims to be an apolitical movement aimed at bringing Fiscal Responsibility back to the government. About all that I can ask is: where were these people for the last eight years?

Not bad for a town of 20,000 (mostly college students, few of who would come to something like this)

Political movements are generally dumb. Even my involvement with protesting the Iraq war was. Protests are by their nature single-issue and tend to ignore what doesn't fit into the ideology of that single issue. One protestor had a sign indicating that their representative wasn't representing them...I asked who their representative was, and they did not know. More troubling was that there was no mention of the Constitutional Convention to bring about the Balanced Budget Amendment. There was no plan put forth at all by the speaker, just complaining about the way things are now (no mention that this is how they've been for 8-10 years). There seems to be a wide margin between "Deficits don't matter" conservatives, and the libertarians of the Tea Party. With all the infighting, maybe I'll be able to get married sooner rather than later.

Passover

Yum!

Laura and I celebrated Passover last year, and tried again this year. We were a bit less successful (me especially so) with the hustle and bustle of the everyday that seems to have taken over our lives. Laura did whip up some good not quite kosher matzoh balls (they have some tofu to hold them together, which isn't kosher to something like 90% of Jews). It was a nice attempt, though.

Laura is slightly Jewish, in that her father's parents were (holocaust survivors, then Judaism deniers, so it goes). I kind of like these weird religocultural festivals, which is odd in that way in which I really like churches (the buildings, that is) -- I absolutely abhor religion, especially the organized variety, but these little cultural shows that they put are in oh so fun, especially to participate in. It's like being an alien observer...what's not to love?

Novara Fusion Update

The internets work in mysterious ways. Since my last post on my new bicycle, interesting things have been afoot. Steve Gluckman, the Brand Manager for Novara, dropped me a line about my blog post. I'm still not 100% sure what Brand Manager means, but it seems to be a corporate liase-type thing with the ability to send neat toys to customers in the mail to fix problems with bicycles.

Steve sent me a SRAM Flak Jacket, which is a interesting cable-enclosing system designed to "keep crud out." The system includes a pair of steel cables (for front and rear brakes), a long run of cable housing, and assorted flanges for the cable. The flanges are like typical cable ferrules, but they have long thin tips that stick through the cable stops on the frame. A solid plastic shield fits over both these new ferrules' tips at the top and bottom of the cable run, keeping out water and other junk (the wire cable runs inside the tube). I'm sure that no cable brake system can ever be 100% watertight, but I think that with the Fusion's fenders, there is minimal possibility for water to get into the Flak Jacket (or similar sealed cable brake system).

The installed system...

It's been kind of an interesting experience for me. This blog is down to about 600 unique visitors per day (not even a C-list blog), but somehow I've ranked pretty high on a google search for the Novara Fusion. What has been more interesting is REI -- I got an email only a couple of days after making the blog post, so REI must have some folks scouring the interwebs for information on their products. I've got to say that I'm pretty impressed with REI's response -- there is no legal disclaimer in their email saying that I'm not allowed to repeat what I'm told, no NDA to sign, nada. A free cable kit to try to fix things is never a bad thing, either. My hope is that REI offers the kit to everyone that owns a Fusion, as it could save quite a few irate customers, and maybe even a life.