Blackmoor Vituperative

I could not be more be more surprised if a Chevy Volt fell out of the sky and into my living room: GM paid back its eight billion dollar loan.

Now, GM still owes the US taxpayers some $45 billion — most of GM’s stock is owned by us. And I still think the various bailouts were bad for the United States and, frankly, an abuse of government power. But to get anything back at all is a pleasant surprise.

My hat is off to you, GM. Well done.

I successfully completed the physical agility test. Yay! I was winded afterward, but not debilitated.

Waiting for the test was the hardest part. I felt like Will Smith in the beginning of Men In Black — surrounded by young, physically fit men and women, most of whom obviously had military experience. Except I am a doughy, forty-something computer geek instead of Will Smith.

After the physical agility test, I was interviewed briefly by Lt. Sears, the Animal Protection Supervisor. I liked him: he was professional, but friendly. Naturally, I blathered on more than I probably should have. I said two things in particular that I almost regret.

First, when were talking about why I would want to change careers from IT to Animal Protection (which is a genuine branch of law enforcement in Henrico County), I could not help but talk about the personal satisfaction I have felt when working on projects that I felt made the world a better place (the Partnership For Peace, supporting the US Coast Guard, creating web sites for the Mariners’ Museum, and so on). That sounds incredibly corny to me, and I am the one saying it. I am sure it sounds at least that corny to other people, and maybe even like I am blowing smoke. I wasn’t, but if I heard anyone else say what I said, I would assume they were just making it up to sound earnest and “socially aware”, or some such nonsense.

Second, when he mentioned that some people apply for both Animal Protection and the Police Department, I said that I did not apply to be a police officer because I did not feel it suited my temperament. What I meant was that I would not want to interact with criminals (or “suspects”) every day as my primary profession. Despite my veneer of cynicism, I basically think that people are good, and I would like to keep thinking that. I am not sure how well I would cope with seeing people at their worst, day after day. That’s what I meant. What I am afraid of is that it may have sounded like I was dismissing what Animal Protection does as not being “real” law enforcement. That’s not what I meant at all, but my experience is that people sometimes take offense when I do not mean to cause any. He also might have concluded that I am too averse to confrontation to be trusted with what is in fact a law enforcement position. There is some truth to that, I suppose — I do not want to seek out confrontation if it isn’t necessary. But I do not think that this is the same thing as being cowardly, which is what I am afraid he may have concluded from my comments.

Ah, well. It is what it is. I may not have phrased things as diplomatically as I would have liked, but I was honest, and if that excludes me from further consideration, then it does. There is only one open position, so my chances are pretty slim, anyway.

In the meantime, I have a packet of background forms to fill out that is nearly as thick as the stuff I had to submit to get a Secret clearance at Joint Forces Command. Now, what was my address in Fullerton, CA in 1986…?

TechRepublic has a question-and-answer thing they do. One of this week’s questions is from a young person in high school in New York, asking if going into software development would be a good idea.

I was getting ready to write a response explaining why I would not recommend any young person go into IT, particularly software development. I was going to talk about how things were back in the mid-1990s, when I started, and how they have changed.

And here is Jake Leone, who has written it for me.

Well, done, Jake. Well done.

So I was reading today that the Obamas pay $1.8 million in federal taxes. And I got to thinking, “Wow. They pay more than 45 times in taxes what an average American earns in a year.”

I know that a lot of people felt (and probably still feel) that Barack Obama, due to the ethnicity of his ancestors, was more in touch with them than the previous umpteen generations of rich old men who had been elected President of the United States. I questioned that perception at the time, and I still do. I just don’t think that someone whose taxes are 45 times what I earned last year has much in common with me, regardless of where his — or my — ancestors were born.

He did not grow up in downtown Newport News and get bussed a half-hour to a high school in what was then the nice part of town. He didn’t eat government cheese and get vaccine shots at the free clinic. He did not get a job at the shipyard straight out of high school.

I am not complaining. My life has been good, and I have few complaints. I’d rather be me than him, any day.

Nor am I criticizing the Obamas for being wealthy. I am sure they’ve worked their asses off to get where they are. Kudos to them. But I am not under the delusion that this President has anything more in common with me than any other ridiculously rich politician elected to high office.

Serendipity is a strange thing.

I am working on my homework (I am in my twenty-third year of a four-year degree), and listening to music. I have a sizeable music collection, but for variety, I was listening to the “Blues” music channel on Comcast cable. “Never going back to Memphis” came on, and I thought, hey now — this is good. Who is this?

Google told me that it was Shemekia Copeland. Another quick search brought me to a lyrics page — hosted at a site called Spinetingler magazine, which is a site as much about the craft of writing fiction as it is about the fiction itself.

Which, as it happens, is something that had been much on my mind for the past few days.

Serendipity.

With the release of leaked versions of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), opposition to the drafting process continues to grow. Recently IFLA issued a statement arguing that while it is appropriate for governments to act to stop commercial counterfeiting, the copyright and patent issues at stake in ACTA would be better addressed through the World International Property Organization (WIPO). They also object to the secrecy of the negotiations. The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has also been active in its opposition to ACTA, most recently joining in a letter complaining about provisions in the leaked text and issuing a statement of LCA concerns. Earlier, Janice Pilch had prepared an issue brief on ACTA for the LCA.

(from Will ACTA end the purchase of foreign titles by libraries?, LibraryLaw Blog)

As if libraries needed anything new to worry about. They already have inadequate funding for the technological demands placed on them, and inadequate space to keep classics on the shelves. Now this?

The entire concept of drafting a treaty in secret in a republic such as ours is repugnant to me — and that is assuming that the treaty itself has some merit or reasonable purpose. This treaty has no such merits. If your treaty is so hostile to the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals that even the overtly anti-freedom “World International Property Organization” (WIPO) is not invited to the table, then you have gone beyond even the everyday abuse of power and perversion of the legal system by the media robber barons to which we have become accustomed in the United States (and elsewhere).

Aaron Shaw argues that “ACTA would create unduly harsh legal standards that do not reflect contemporary principles of democratic government, free market exchange, or civil liberties. Even though the precise terms of ACTA remain undecided, the negotiants’ preliminary documents reveal many troubling aspects of the proposed agreement,” such as removing “legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers” in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions. Shaw further says that ACTA “would also facilitate privacy violations by trademark and copyright holders against private citizens suspected of infringement activities without any sort of legal due process”.

So, who is really to blame for the involvement of the United States in this travesty? You are. Now go do something about it.

I love the Godzilla universe. It’s a place where a boardroom full of old men in suits can watch footage of a space station being destroyed by large rocks, and then have one of them comment, “We can only speculate that it was some sort of […dramatic pause…] huge monster.”

Because in the Godzilla universe, a huge monster is a reasonable guess if you have no idea what actually happened.

At yesterday’s show at the Raceway, two people from New York came into the show. They went to several vendors and at least one private seller, trying to buy a gun. They were turned away each time.

One private seller went to the show manager and asked if it was legal to sell to them. When he was told no, he returned to the people and said no way. After the man had been turned down by Dark Sun, the woman tried to buy a gun from them.

By that time the police had been notified…

(from See, Bloomberg… no gunshow loophole, Old Virginia News)

As others have pointed out before, the same laws apply at gun shows as apply everywhere else. There is no “gun show loophole”. It’s a myth.

I am watching You Kill Me with Ben Kingsley and Luke Wilson. This is pretty funny. I kind of wish we had a family business. It might give us a sense of belonging, of being a part of something. I am glad that it’s not the Polish mob, though.

I view this as good news:

New Zealand’s parliament is preparing to vote on a major patent reform bill that will tighten the country’s standards of patentability. One of the most significant changes in the proposed bill is a specific patentability exclusion for software. If the bill receives parliamentary approval in its current form, it will broadly eliminate conventional software patents in New Zealand.

(from New Zealand patent reform bill says no to software patents, Ars Technica)

You may also find this interesting:

Are Software Patents Evil?