hawkeye’s thoughts of tomorrow

Good news everyone! Japanese girls are getting even hotter.

[via Reddit]

I saw an article over at ArsTechnica today about a report released by The World Economic Forum. It shows the US falling way behind in the NRI (Network Readiness Index), which sounds like a bullshit indicator to me, but let’s go with it for the sake of argument. I can’t get FTTH, I have to pay unbelievable amounts for cable, we’re easily years behind most of the developed world in cell-phone technology, we’re extremely dependent on fossil fuels, and public transit is almost non-existant (except for a few select cities), so let’s just assume for a minute that the U.S. is a little bit behind the rest of the world. I think there’s a few reasons behind this, but let’s start with the one that jumped to mind first:

The average age in the 110th Congress is 62, the youngest of which is John Sununu at 43 years old (Wikipedia). Currently you must be 35 for Presidency, 30 for the Senate, or 25 for the House of Representatives (Wikipedia). However, in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, the age you can be elected is 18. They seem to be doing pretty well overall. I’d say it looks like the 18 year olds aren’t ruining the government with their “inexperience”, so what’s the point of restricting government offices to older people? Sure, I don’t want an 18 year-old to be in charge of the country, but how bad would it be to see a few of the younger generation shaking things up in Washington? Perhaps someone who would question things like the DST change benefits, giving massive subsidies to already profitable oil companies, and “The Surge!”. In my experience 18 year-olds are much more likely to question things than their older brethren, and it sure would be nice to see Washingtonians squirming as they have to explain their hair-brained schemes to someone who doesn’t just see things differently, but lives in a different world entirely.

How many 60 year olds do you know that have a firm grasp on copyright law, the internet, foreign policy, or modern economics? I’m certainly not saying they can’t understand these things, some people stay knowledgeable and “hip” into their 80’s and 90’s even, but those are not the normal case. There’s a place for the older generation in politics, but I don’t think they should so thoroughly dominate it.

We currently have politicians in office that think the telecoms should be allowed to rob the government for billions of dollars with no recourse. That giving a contract to Diebold for unproven voting technology just because it has the word “electronic” is a good idea. That sending a miniscule percentage of extra troops to a country in a civil war is going to defeat an ideology. I’m willing to see what the alternative is to that kind of psychosis.

Gerald Ford died today, which of course brings up two things.

The Simpsons:

Gerry: Hi!  Pleased to meet you, I just moved in.  My name is Gerry
Ford.
Homer: [gasps] Former President Gerald Ford?  Put her there!  I'm Homer
Simpson!
Gerry: Say, Homer, do you like football?
Homer: Do I ever!
Gerry: Do you like nachos?
Homer: Yes, Mr. Ford.
Gerry: Well, why don't you come over and watch the game, and we'll have
nachos?  And then, some beer.
Homer: Ooh!
[they walk across the street]
Gerry, I think you and I are going to get along just --
[they both trip]
Both: D'oh!

and SNL.

He may not have been perfect, but he was definitely one of the better presidents we’ve had.

According to a new study apparently 95% of Americans have had premarital sex.  The one issue I’d take up is it doesn’t mention the rate of people who abstained, got married, got divorced, then had what would presumably be called premarital sex.  I’m not sure if that falls into the definition, but I’ve never heard the term postmarital sex, and it’s presumably premarital eventually.  In the same line of thought, is it premarital sex if the person never gets married?

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, defended the abstinence-only approach for teenagers.

“One of its values is to help young people delay the onset of sexual activity,” he said. “The longer one delays, the fewer lifetime sex partners they have, and the less the risk of contracting sexually transmitted disease.”

I call bullshit on that, or at least the reasoning behind it.  It sounds to me like he’s implying that they just plain run out of time, which if that’s what he believes, is scary.  Now if he means when people wait longer they tend to make better choices in mates (due to maturity), that’s at least a little bit better, but I’m disinclined to believe that capability of lateral thinking from one in the current administration.  I’d say another possibility could be that people are just significantly more prone to settle (this person’s “good enough”) as they get older.  That said, both safe sex and abstinence should be taught as a public service.  Advantages and Disadvantages of both laid out in a fair and balanced way.  Abstinence Upside: Reduces chance of getting and STD by 99.99% (there’s other ways to get STDs, despite the moniker), Reduces risk of pregnancy 100%.  Abstinence Downside: Duh…No sex!.  Safe Sex: Reduces risk of STDs by between 1-100% depending on which statistics you believe, Reduces risk of pregnancy significantly, Reduces risk you’ll become a useless weight on society, etc, etc.

Yay, Google Spreadsheets was updated, it finally supports OpenDocument format too (which is super handy since OpenOffice is most excellent), here’s the rest of the changes.

• support for Open Document Format (handy for those who use linux-based machines and Open Office products)
  
• a way to force multiple line text in a single cell (like a street address in, say, a spreadsheet for planning a wedding)
  
• currency symbols in addition to $
  
• an option to create PDF files that will print nicely
• the ability to share a spreadsheet with anyone who receives the URL (without having to specify their email address).

Just in case you didn’t already know, hack a day is run by a bunch of lunatics (the good kind).  Here’s a Microwave Oven Arc Welder for your viewing pleasure.

Wow. Apparently Ken Kutaragi bombed at TGS, like really bombed.  Like bombed so bad that people got bored enough to actually use PictoChat for something.

PictoChat summary of Sony Keynote
Trainwreck?

That combined with all of the cool news from Microsoft (Trusty Bell, Lost Odyssey, DOAX2, Lost Planet, Blue Dragon, Contra, Track & Field, Viva Pinata, Guitar Hero, Symphony of the Night, Lumines, and HD-DVD).  MS is using all of their resources to kill the PS3, but no matter how hard they try Sony is still doing better…at killing the Playstation brand…

The article says for an IT promotion but they pretty much all apply no matter what job you’re in.  I don’t like hearing some of them but I know they’re true.

20 tips that got me an IT Promotion

Ask Metafilter can be super interesting, especially when people ask good questions.  Or do stupid things.  Or ask about awesome people.

Some of these tips are pretty good, probably nothing you haven’t seen before, but reinforcing positive ideas is always a good thing.

Five Tips to Increase Your Likeability