blueZhift Blog

Yesterday I was thinking about the 4000 plus soldiers the United States has lost during the last 5 years of war in Iraq. I thought, wow, that’s 4000 good soldiers whose services have been lost. Have they been wasted? It certainly seems that way to me. Almost 4 years ago, I wondered here if it were time for the US to adopt a Star Trek style Prime Directive. After 4000 dead soldiers and many times more Iraqi civilians, a non interference amendment to the US Constitution seems like an even better idea.

The rest of the world doesn’t want the United States telling them what kind of government they should have and forcibly removing governments we don’t like. We are not wanted in Iraq by either the Sunni’s or the Shiites, or the Kurds for that matter. To stay now, we are only delaying the inevitable civil war and partitioning of Iraq. I still think, free and open societies are the way to go, but each culture has to decide the when and how of that on their own. That can be very messy, but I suspect far fewer lives will be lost than when outsiders try to impose their will. I hope Iraq will stand as a lesson for the limits of interference in the affairs of others for a long time. Sadly, I think Vietnam was supposed to do that too…

I always hated the fact that during college, spring break always came during usually foul Chicago area weather. And now I’m reliving that with my kids who have also inherited this dubious scheduling that probably has more to do with union contracts than a realistic attempt to schedule the break during some truly spring like weather.

So it was with some envy that I spied the many tourist out on Michigan avenue yesterday during what had to be the first nice day of spring. I actually had lunch outside in the park! Apparently, a lot of private schools are having their spring break this week following Easter. There were so many moms with cute, American Girl Doll-like girls out yesterday that the flowers themselves would have been jealous, that is if there were any blooms yet!

Of course, all pleasure must come with some pain… Today it’s snowing!

YouTube has just made more detailed video stats available to all users of the service. Now any YouTube user can see where their viewers are and how popular their videos are in a particular geographic region. It was pretty cool to see that my most popular anime music video has been seen in 31 countries around the world. In particular, it was cool to see just how your YouTube network of friends and subscribers probably influences regional popularity. I’m sure that for some of my videos their popularity in France and Spain was probably due to some friends I have in those countries. Some things are obvious, like Japanese language AMVs having significant popularity in Japan. But a couple with popularity in China and Indonesia had me scratching my head a bit, probably an extended friends network effect, friends of friends… In any case, fun tool! I’m sure the YouTube servers will be working overtime as more of my narcissistic brethren have fun with this new toy!^^

Quantum physics tells us that the very act of observing perturbs the system and affects the outcome of the experiment. On the macroscopic scale of real life we this effect is negligible, and it is probably a good thing that my every thought does not become a command for the larger universe. Yesterday while browsing books in Borders I started thinking about the Catholic grade school I went to and the cute blue plaid skirts the girls wore everyday. A short time later I passed by a book that essentially had that on the cover. Mere seconds later about 10 short skirted Catholic school girls passed me by. What a wonderful sight!^_^

It was bound to happen, Kyle Busch just won the Sprint Cup race in Atlanta giving Toyota its first NASCAR Sprint Cup win. I suppose there’ll be some purists out there complaining about a foreign name plate winning (the first since 1954), but hey, that’s competition baby! On an unrelated note, Tony Stewart just badmouthed Goodyear saying they can’t make a tire worth crap. Hmmm, wonder if that’ll bring some fines…

On an even more unrelated note, it looks like Kasey Kahne, Budweiser, Allstate, and milfs do mix! When the Budweiser sponsorship went over to the number 9 after Dale Earnhardt Jr. went to Hendrick, I was wondering if a car could be sponsored by a beer company that wants you to drink more, and an insurance company that probably wants you to drink less. I guess the answer is yes. Right after Busch’s burnout, they ran an Allstate ad featuring Kahne in his Bud emblazoned fire suit, and, of course, the milf-like soccer moms. The Bud logo on the suit was covered up after 5 or seconds by the good driver rebate check they were promoting. I wonder what Mothers Against Drunk Driving would think about this interesting juxtaposition.

Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons passed away last week. I never played D&D as a kid, but I knew a lot of guys who did and I had more than one occasion to peruse the stacks of D&D books they never seemed to be without. I was fascinated by the color and detail of it all, and ultimately it was only the lack of time that kept me from getting in on the action. I was more of a Starfleet Battles man, and heavens knows how much time that game took per move!

Nevertheless, I owe a great debt to Gygax because the fantasy worlds I’ve come to inhabit later in life, such as Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft, are based on the role playing game paradigm that he helped create. And to a great extent videogames in general. So thanks Gary, and I think I’ll skip the obligatory saving throw joke! Here’s an xkcd tribute instead!