I was looking at the terms for WordPress, and they talked about a 35 user limit. What is a “user” in this context? Is it a list of people who can add to the blog, or is it a viewer? If I invite 36 people to view Happycrow, does that hit Happycrow in the wallet? Is Happycrow only 35 users from getting slashdotted?
Happycrow is completely ignorant on this subject, as the idea that 35 people would want to be users on this blog seems extraordinarily unlikely.
Posted by blackpine on April 9, 2008
http://happycrow.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/question-for-the-savvy-blogger-types/
Okay. Are you ready?
Liar. No you’re not. Go get the CD, or get on youtube, or haxxor the Interweb or whatever you have to do. I’m not typing another word til you have it.
Good job.
Now play it while you read this piece of coffin surfing by Sharif.
This is my favorite part:
“The world must realize that Musharraf’s policies have neither limited nor curbed terrorism. In fact, terrorism is stronger than ever, with far more sinister aspects, and as long as Musharraf remains, there remains the threat of more terror. The people of Pakistan should not be antagonized any further for the sake of one man. It is time for the international community to join hands in support of democracy and the rule of law in Pakistan. The answer to my country’s problems is a democratic process that promotes justice, peace, harmony and tolerance and hence can play an effective role in promoting moderation. With dictatorship, there is no future.”
Okay, not bad sentiemnts per se, but compare the thrust of the piece vs. some of his earlier writings.
I haven’t picked over the full extent of the 1973 Pakistani Constitution, but his main thrust is the “Unfettered Islamic Parlimentary” system and the world be damned on their nuclear program and Kashmir. I know about the UN resolution and the stillborn referrenda, but when you look at his attempts to talk Kashmiri militants out of continuing an armed struggle back in 1999, and his new and improved rhetoric about an unswerving Kashmir policy, it leaves little doubt that he was never serious about the commitments he put his name to regarding the training, funding, arming and deploying of armed militants, some would say terrorists, into neighboring countries. Terrorism is stronger? No, terrorism was cultured into the halls of power before Musharraf got there. Now that the larger elements of it are being expelled, terrorism is metastasizing in Waziristan. Before it had all of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s not stronger, it’s just exposed, and in its exposure Pakistan has finally grasped just how ugly it is.
So now Sharif is advertising himself as Diet Bhutto, all the democracy, all the stability, only half the x chromosomes, leave your foreign money at the door when your done. It’s just awesome to watch someone who is so natural at this Olympic level of bullshit in action. It’s like watching a gazelle run.
Posted by blackpine on January 1, 2008
http://happycrow.wordpress.com/2008/01/01/first-go-get-joe-satrianis-surfing-with-the-alien/
Benazir Bhutto, the head of a substantial tribal coalition just got murdered by the factional enemies of the established but embattled military government of her country. In a gross abuse of the word safe, the safe money seems to be on tribal war. This was a blunder on someone’s part unless they know a lot more than I’ve seen. Which is probable. But it looks like the groups with the signature of suicide bombings have doubled their enemies.
So, what happens next?
ED. NOTE: PLEASE ATTRIBUTE POSTS. NEW FORMAT DOESN’T DO IT AUTOMATICALLY. k’thanks.
Posted by blackpine on December 27, 2007
http://happycrow.wordpress.com/2007/12/27/where-does-it-go-from-here/
Behold ladies and gentlemen, the topic of semantics is about to writhe under my laser-like gaze (bombast [BAM-baest] n. …].
Most arguments are lost before they start because of differences, however subtle, in semantics. Other times, there is cognitive sabotage because the person has an erroneous definition attached to a word and lack a concise tool to grasp a particular concept because of it.
Take for instance, the word technology. Technology describes the practical application of scientific knowledge. It is a process whose workings are understood by its human creator. It is rationally arrived at, improved and still improvable. It doesn’t require new material, and in fact can simply be the more effective means of using what you already have. Por Exemplo: Kung Fu and power-lifting are technologies of technique. We all have the same hands, the same heads, the same feet, but practitioners of either discipline can do some markedly amazing stuff with theirs after prolonged application of certain established techniques, be it lifting cars of breaking bricks .
As a word, it is the core of a humanist, rationalist creed, because it says that if you have the will, the patience, the discipline, and the mind, you can change or improve anything you put your hand to. It’s the drop-forged, 14 pound hammer in the mental toolbox of the practicing optimist. As a word, its beautiful. As an idea, it’s a jewel, a glittering diamond.
Technology is not, as post-modernists would have it, “the magic that works.”
I open the floor to other words that are getting semantically brutalized. Theology vis a vis Mythology is getting a work out thanks to Hitchens’ new book. Subjective and Objective get mugged every time they go for milk.
Posted by blackpine on June 15, 2007
http://happycrow.wordpress.com/2007/06/15/semantics/
It’s been a while since I posted. This will be an abbreviated personal post for the folks at home.
So. I’m working on a doctorate in Psycholinguistics. The study of cognitive differences in languages with a heavy semantic recall vs. languages with phonological links is given a nice little lab setting in a culture with a language that includes Hangul (orthographically transparent) and Chinese (semantic picture recognition). That will be my master’s and doctoral work.
To pay for this, I need a job. The options for jobs are to become a white monkey at a Korean academy, to become a white monkey at public school, become a white monkey at a the college, or teach illegally without getting caught for the next three years. Festive.
Never one for the simple solution, I decided to make my own job. I decided to start a company in Korea that would basically cater every desire I had in a job while still maintaining market viability. Maximum autonomy, no security, maximized ability to instantly exploit any and all opportunities that came my way in the current market conditions. In a (pair of) word(s), educational subcontracting.
The catch? No Confucian culture goes for any of that. As I was explaining this (over and *%$#ing over) to the business folks, the Korean businessmen and profs looked at me like I was from Mars. The Korean legal philosophy, by the way is that of strict construction. Everything is illegal until it is made legal. This was not covered and therefore was inherently illegal.
This went on for three months. This included the business and legal guys who were looking at my contracts. They understood the term, but in much the same way they understood third trimester abortions. Finally, I ran into a young Korean MIS fella, named Kim Sung Dong. He looked at me and said “Blue Water!”
“What’s Blue Water?” I asked.
“No horizon! No competitors!” Now I’m getting somewhere. Turns out he wasn’t sure about the full extent of subcontracting, but latched onto one example of how subcontracting could whip the dog nuts off of the in house fellas that get hired. It was still a start. At least one of my throwaway ideas could work. But this guy can negotiate. All the negotiation below? Him. He’s amazing.
So we went about getting licensed. So, here is sentence fragment theater. Recruited two others: Vietnamese economist, American teacher/business admin fella. Secured funding for four months. Working seven days a week. Upgrade contracts. Develop charter. Secure E-commerce licence. Vietnamese economist goes home: sets up contacts at home for business in Korea. American goes home: sets up American business and tax codes. Try IT subcontracting with Korean companies: stillborn due to lack of information flow. Recruit our first American English teacher. Want a business licence. Need a building. Get a building. Knock 50% off the rent (take it and LIKE it). Want an educational licence. Need a bigger building. Need a to get a sugar daddy. Got a sugar daddy. Daddy will give sugar if we have an office in the nice part of town. Secure said building in four days. Get saddled with a 6k francise licence with the rent. Knock 25% off the rent and 5k off the licence with additional 2k insurance for business failure (We are the droids your looking for!) Remodel the interior in two days for $600 under budget. Clear the fire inspection by charmingly mooching assistance from a hardware store owner. Clear the Educational Government Inspection by correcting the moronic inspectors feeble grasp of his own frickin’ category of law to him (got help from the Fire Marshall on this). Four, count ‘em four, seperate trips to immigration to change my visa status (they were asking for different and new paperwork every time). Visa status clears the day before I must be teaching at least ten students. Recruited 10 butt-in-seat students in 12 hours (I actually dragged a Jehovah’s Witness into this, real quote: Him “Do you believe in the end of the world?” Me, big smile “In fact, I do. Follow me.”) Got our first American teacher over here and set him up with his contract. Recruited two more contracts.
So. Where does that put me? I can do e-commerce, and education. I have a company that can hire any of the Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean students. We have cooperation agrements with a number of schools. We can place a modest number of English teachers, and can push language instruction to any school via the internet. You need some language? I can hook you up.
I also started the International Students’ Association so I can recruit from the foreign students that come here, provide legal work, and health benefits. You want to learn Chinese? I have teachers and a curriculum. We’re developing an English language game, a Korean as Foreign Language curriculum, and we’re securing trade with midsized Korean companies and Vietnam the second they enter the WTO.
And I have a girlfriend. We’re talking two kids, one adoption. She brought me a watch and homemade cookies on my birthday. I didn’t tell her when my birthday was and was working so hard I forgot it was my birthday. She researched it with the psych department.
That’s the short version. If anybody can help me get ahold of Amercian Science books, middle school level, I would appreciate it. Also, if you know of anybody who needs IT work done, lemme know. And if anybody wants to lecture over the internet, let me know.
Now to catch up on some papers.
Posted by blackpine on December 13, 2006
http://happycrow.wordpress.com/2006/12/13/let-me-tell-you-of-the-days-of-high-adventure/
Japan will rearm, and South Korea will reexamine the departure of US troops and what effective levels of armament they can domestically sustain (a lot less).
Possibly the U.S. will start playing hardball with China through Taiwan. They screwed us in Korea, we’ll screw right back.
Attempts to support a coup/revolution/regime change in North Korea. The idea is to get this done before NK sells stuff to people we don’t like.
Heightened naval presence and security in NE Asia.
So, first set of contigencies, we attempt to topple North Korea: can they react? Their army can’t really power project. The story told to the infantry is that North Korea can get to Busan in a week. I don’t think that’s likely. Also, China would intervene, presently.
My thinking is that China would react for them. But what can they really do? Give North Korea nukes? I think the US has a lot of leeway here. There are now open demonstartions of dissent in the North, albeit small. However, consider what that means. Neighborhoods are organized along Korean traditional lines into communal associations called gye. Each gye consists of five families who help each other, with one or two who are politically connected. That means for every one act of sedition, there are at least one and possibly four other families who are in on it. And one of them is possibly party. When party membership is no longer inducement to loyalty, you’re in trouble.
North Korea the country is actually quite small, if you follow the lines of what a nation state does. A nation is meant to deliver certain services to it’s internal constituency. In such a case as North Korea, the services delivered are only to the Party and the Army. The rest of the populace are counted as a resource. Insert joke about Communist and Socialist governments here, and then realize that North Korea doesn’t have 23 million citizens with a 1 million man army, it has one or two million citizens exerting continuous force over 20 million non belligerent tenant farmers. The farmers know they’re being screwed.
So, we try to topple them, and we either succeed or fail. Success, in the American terms of it, would be to have the area come under the control of a new regime with whom we can deal, who isn’t a belligerant, and who either leaves the balance of power untipped, or tipped in our favor in such a fashion so as not to aggravate China. The Kim family will not see another generation in power, China will not tolerate it. Lacking our scruples, they would more than happily simply hold a coup and grill a brisket, and Tibet the place: no more Korean language, no korean in political power, and heavy settlement by Chinese. Any Korean successor will quietly kill any Kim family relative they can lay their hands on. That’s Stalinism after all. So, peaceful domestic transition is unlikely, and any answer that maintains the status quo is unlikely.
But if we let China have it, we can at least talk with China. What China does to one of it’s proxies is truly none of our concern, and nothing brings an ally to your side like the barbarians at his gate. South Korea with China directly on its border would be interesting to watch.
Failure. War? The Kim dynasty ends with Jong Il. China will eventually go to war with us. Chinese troops will do the most of the heavy punching, even on the Korean penninsula no matter what. The North Koreans would be too inneffective. Failure would have to be the insertion of a competent, pro-Chinese dictator who was better than Kim Jong-Il, who can actually make Korea more effective for the eventual fight with China. That may be unrealistic too. North Korea is good and proper screwed. There is not the human infrastructure to build a real nation. China would basically have to replace every korean person with a Chinese person, which they can do with one tenth of their excess, marriagable male population.
Any different reads on this? Is North Korea the next Tibet?
Posted by blackpine on October 9, 2006
http://happycrow.wordpress.com/2006/10/09/part-2-contingencies-and-options/
