I’m uninspired so I’m writing about politics, specifically Bush and the UN. Even the US media isn’t pretending that statements like

President Bush, trying to soften his image overseas as a heavy-handed unilateralist, is using his annual address to the United Nations to offer up a brighter vision of a planet with less hunger, disease and oppression.

mean anything more than

President Bush, trying to work out his exit strategy from Iraq, is using his annual address to the United Nations to try to persuade them to take over the nasty business of getting shot at, while leaving the US and US puppets in charge.

Well, that’s the US media beyond the network news, which doesn’t count, being more a sort of press release delivery system (adverts sandwiched between adverts). Anyway, I suppose it all depends on what he’s willing to offer those who help, which will probably not be a lot.

I do find the idea that was put forward around the time of the invasion and I’ve heard recently as well – that the US is in fact obeying the spirit of the UN rather than the letter, it’s just that other UN members don’t appreciate it, in order words the US is compliant and it’s everyone else who isn’t – amusing, in a “ha ha ha oh my god pass the heroin” way, but it’s something that could only be said with a straight face inside America, so I doubt he’ll be stating it explicitly.

As for the other drivel that is passing for news right now it can bite my nodules. I have decided that the Amazing US Presidential Media Roller-Disco has become so pathetic and irritating that the continuing interest in it must represent a subconscious choice on the part of the public.

1. we don’t really have any say in the matter here
2. if we admitted that to ourselves we might have to give up the idea that we live in an amazing free democracy, and maybe even get off our arses and do something
3. danger! danger! cognitive dissonance! risk of having to abandon smugness!
4. distract ourselves with mindless trivia that sounds relevant because it appears in the Politics section!

And you know, there’s always someone willing to spin the glitterball for you, and then the other side has to try to spin it the other way, and we end up with the edifying spectacle of people trying to form a media image for one candidate that better fits into an amalgamated, politically correct concept of a Hero than the other’s. Because it’s all about character isn’t it? Never mind what they actually do, feel the warmth and the compassion and the stern-but-fairness. Vote for TV Dad; vote for God.

On a slightly different note:

Wouldn’t it be great if the reality was that they were lying about WMD, and they really didn’t believe that democracy would come when they invaded Iraq, and you could go to war with 5,000 troops, a few special forces, a few bombs and a lot of American flags, and Iraq would fold, Saddam would be driven out, a new Baath Party would emerge that’s moderate? Democracy would flow like water out of a fountain. These guys believe it. They believe WMD. There’s no fallback with these guys. These guys are utopians. They’re like Trotskyites. They believe in permanent revolution. They really believe.

– Seymour Hersh in Salon

This morning I saw swallows flying through the spray of a fountain, playing in the water drops.

Things I will not be doing tomorrow: going to see Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow.

1. Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is one of the worst titles since Attack Of The Clones.

2. It’s got Jude Law in it. All films with Jude Law in them are shit. Name one that wasn’t shit. You can’t. It’s impossible. Jude Law is the Comic Sans MS of cinema.

Even Angelina Jolie in a fetish Nazi uniform cannot save you now.

I went a bit mad creating those 80×15 buttons yesterday, using the Button Maker. To justify my pointless activity as public service I made up a page with them all on. If you want any buttons to advertise your operating system, your XML feed, the colour of your cat, feel free to go to my buttons page. In fact, the only ones I’ve not seen elsewhere are the Creative Commons licence buttons, and I expect that’s only because I’ve not looked very hard.

Work madness. Theft of multiple items of condiment. Confusing and unhappy dream about being at the end of a lesbian relationship, after she found out from an indiscreet magazine article that I’d cheated on her over New Year. Woken at 5am by the usual party of workmen emptying two tons of spoons into a metal bin. Squirrel on the train tracks at the station – oi! squirrel! large fast metal object coming your way! dreading squirrel squashing, could not cope with that – but squirrel jumps off the tracks at the last minute and runs across the platform, outraged, tail twitching. Reflect that squirrels are actually quite large, and if rats the size of squirrels were commonly seen in the daylight there would be civil unrest. Think of Tube mice, tiny black pom-poms on strings, and their secret life of soot.

We’re catching some minor part of Hurricane Ivan at the moment and everything seems tired, grey and bitter. I can’t wait for the rain.

Edit: I don’t like some of those buttons now I look at them today.

Being the sort of person I am, undemonstrative even for an Englishman, it’s unlikely that you’d be able to tell that I’m a little on edge without knowing me, though a few things give it away – the pacing, for one, the inexplicable “getting up and wandering around but not actually going anywhere”; the occasional swearing; the frequent fag breaks; the speed of my voice. On an all-day adrenaline jag I break 90wpm easily, beginning conversations in a sane-ish manner and then gradually increasing the tempo until it’s physically impossible for me to have thought about the words that I’m saying before I say them. The way this works is that I tie together phrases that I’m familiar with and have some relevance to the point I’m trying to make, so that I can think about the next one while saying the current one. It may not have been exactly what I meant but it was close enough, it made grammatical sense and I’ve got whole seconds to fill if I feel the need to clarify.

The look on people’s faces as they confront this is familiar. I’m technically making sense, so they feel the need to appear as if they’re paying attention, but there’s always a little hint of baffled. “Did he… oh, right… was that… does that mean… ah, he’s said that now…”. This usually irritates me a little, given that I make sense to myself – why can’t they understand? Some people are just too slow. This means I feel the need to repeat myself just in case the bafflement was in response to something that I actually wanted them to remember. Not being a complete idiot, I usually finish by saying “I’ll send you an email about this just to confirm” meaning “I’ll write all this down so you can read it at your own pace given that I can’t tell exactly where I lost you”.

I’ve only ever met a couple of people who speak faster than I do at times; this makes me competitive to start with, and then, when it’s clear that I can’t compete, I sit back in admiration. I’m quite aware that it’s not really a very efficient means of communication (anything that requires you to follow up with minutes generally isn’t) but I’m still perversely proud of it.

At other times however I barely say anything at all.

That wasn’t really what I wanted to write about. I was going to say something about Pico Iyer’s book The Global Soul, which I read recently on recommendation from Rob in my comments section. I first confess that I felt a bit of a fake reading it. Pico Iyer is a real globe-trotting internationalist, born in England to an Indian family, spending a lot of time in the US and apparently now living in Japan with a girlfriend who he can’t understand. That doesn’t really apply to me; I cross borders once or twice a year, more recently but that’s not too surprising. My job doesn’t really take me travelling very much, a couple of conferences but that’s it. I’m not much of a tourist and I think backpacking is a waste of time.

Reading the whole thing reassured me though. The book claims to have a central thesis of the existence of this thing called a “global soul” but it’s not really a treatise on the subject – more a collection of a few long anecdotal observational pieces. It doesn’t really set out the concept in any clear detail, it gives you a series of images from which you can piece together a narrative. The structure is very much in tune with the activities it depicts; it’s full of small glimpses into the lives of others, moving on quickly with little analysis, impressionistic, like travelling itself. At the end you can extract an overall conclusion from it if you’re so inclined.

Two things particularly contributed to my reassurance.

1. I’m not the only person who feels that airports, train stations and other “transport cathedrals” are special. My theory on the matter is that they’re places designed for no particular timespan, with the consequence that you can spend from half an hour to years there with equal comfort. The ultimate low-pressure environment. This wasn’t exactly laid out but similar opinions were expressed.

2. The people in the anecdotes in Iyer’s book tended to fall into three categories. First there were the “locals”, who had spent their lives living in the place concerned. Then there were the “migrants”, people who were in places they didn’t grow up in for some reason (war, economics, whatever) but were simply trying to construct lives wherever they found themselves. They imported the culture they were familiar with into a new setting, changed it to fit and carried on.

Then there were the “ghosts”, like the narrator, the ultimate ghost, who seemed to epitomise the “global soul” as I understood it. These people didn’t feel like they had any real place that they grew up in, had no loyalty to any particular culture or pattern of behaviour, and moved from place to place because there was an economic role for people who could do that effortlessly, and it didn’t really make much difference to them where they found themselves.

» Continue reading “Global anxiety soul”

what?

I’ve been using Safari on my new Wonderbook, basically being too lazy to download anything else, and have been impressed by the speed. Just now I downloaded Camino and, what do you know, it’s at least as fast if not faster.

Basically this machine is fast whatever it runs. Back to the Moz browsers for me, I think. (Opera I like, it particularly rules on laptops with all of the keyboard shortcuts, but I occasionally want to look at my Gmail.)

Oh – note to the man on the R6 this morning. I do not have a “beautiful woman” and, if I did, I am fairly sure she would not appreciate either of the pairs of boots that you were keeping in a black plastic sack. Also, no matter how much you ostentatiously wave that leather(ette?) jacket around, I am no more likely to buy that either. As a final point, please note that the most effective salesmen do not spend the time between attempting to sell things to random people on trains muttering profanities – it creates an unprofessional atmosphere.

I have to clean and tidy my apartment by Monday, because prospective purchasers are going to be visiting. It’s tempting to go out and buy a sixteen inch dildo and leave it ostentatiously by the bed.

First two things said on Tuesday, after sitting down and opening my email:

1. “You’re fucking joking.”

2. “What is this shit?”

It being the first day back after a long weekend, there was only one person within earshot anyway, and she’s used to me.

I was just thinking that some of these blog entries might give the impression that I am in some way a pain to work with. This is not the case. I am a fucking delight to work with. I am, in contrast to opinions expressed herein, relentlessly cheerful; I smile at people in lifts, I say “good morning” to everyone in my particular cube corral whether they notice I’m there or not. When people come and interrupt me for the fifth time that half hour I do not scream “FUCK OFF” at them and assault them with a stapler, I spin round in my chair and say “of course, please, go ahead, ask me a question, I’m not too busy, I will give you my full and undivided attention”.

It is only in my secret life as fridgemagnet, curmudgeon of the web that I growl and spit and hate everyone and everything. Except at times. At times I wander around frowning and launch into angry denunciations of corporate policy, structure and life when prompted by any sort of glance in my direction. But I like to think I’m quite good at that, and it’s not like anyone actually disagrees with me. At least, if they do, they don’t say anything, which may be to do with the loaded stapler that I wave around at these times.

I don’t say anything about SUVs. Not unless I know what the audience drives.

Workplace ranting is a subtle activity. You start off on a subject that gets universal agreement – “bloody HR”, say – and then gently probe other areas, gauging potential avenues by body language and vocalisation. A positive response to “if they only paid us 1% of what they pay the lobbyists”, for instance, can lead to the subject of “bloody Bush”. Get a negative reponse and you move on without even giving the impression that you wanted to say anything else. It’s like cold reading.

Of course, at times, ideally when the listener has no idea what you are talking about, it’s satisfying just to rant on about something utterly irrelevant. For instance, this afternoon I got onto the subject of the Induce Act on the flimsy justification that a co-worker asked me whether she should keep her Tivo.

Good subjects to start with that will always get sympathy:

• HR are useless (sorry if you work in HR, but everyone else in the universe thinks HR are useless, I’m afraid)
• the CEO is overpaid, whoever it is, we’re the ones who do the work and do we see the profits? (for public services, substitute a government official)
• $customer always changes their mind at the last minute and never gives us enough information to actually do our job
• there are too many meetings and they stop us doing our actual jobs (this works on the illusion that going to meetings isn’t really our job, but everyone likes to pretend they do something “useful” rather than sit in a room and pretend to pay attention to Powerpoint)
• we’re understaffed
• we don’t get enough resources, I tell you, someone has a sweet deal going on somewhere
• there are far too many regulations/SOPs/forms to fill in/databases to look at, it stops us doing our actual jobs (see meetings, above)
• nobody but us ever keeps to their timelines and we end up working twice as hard because they can’t be bothered doing things when they should, and do management care?
• I can’t believe the network’s down again, this is ridiculous (note: I personally have no problem with network people, but you always get agreement on this one – I usually blame management for inadequate investment and hiring, since I know what it’s like to be blamed for computer stuff you have no control over)
• bloody Microsoft Word/Outlook/Lotus Notes/other routinely used package. This can lead on to “bloody Bill Gates”, which is another one that always works, particularly if the person also has a home computer running Windows. This is where I slip in my Apple/Linux propaganda.
• the food in the canteen is rubbish again

This office cold reading technique is, I think, one of the reasons I feel that I generate a Socialist Mind Control Ray which means that the only political conversations I have are with people who agree with me, something that leads me to continually doubt polls. I don’t realise I’m doing it. (Philadelphia is a bit of a haunt of liberal traitors anyway.) I can only remember ever getting into one vaguely political conversation with someone who wasn’t anti-Bush, and this resulted in some subtle back-pedalling, ending in a shared agreement that FOX News was worth watching because Ann Coulter was really a fantastic example of showbiz at work. This is true. FOX News is the E! of politics. It used to anger me until I realised that (a) its media presence far outweighs the number of people who actually watch it, and (b) if you take it seriously you’re missing the joke. Complaining that FOX News is biased is like complaining that Las Vegas is a bit gaudy.

Online, of course, there’s a lot less feedback. All I can go on writing in this thing is comments and a general sense of what people online approve of, neither of which are that reliable and neither of which have direct influence when I’m composing. So you get a lot less filtering here. I like people to agree with me, makes me feel better, and it’s probably good for me not to be able to fix it so I only say things that are socially correct.

Today is Link-Whoring Monday. (It is Labor Day here in the US, so I’m not doing any work, just sitting in front of the computer in my pants.)

Almost three years ago the naval systems arm of major UK defence contractor BAE Systems took the decision to standardise future development on Microsoft Windows. an immediate effect was to commit BAE’s joint venture CMS subsidiary, AMS, who specialise in naval Combat Management Systems, to implementing a Windows 2000-based CMS system for the new Type 45 Destroyer. But this prompted strong internal opposition from some of AMS’ engineers, who had a sound background in Unix and who had, despite resource starvation and a companywide policy to standardise on Windows, been investigating open source alternatives as a foundation for future combat systems.

They lost. Acting as spokesman for the concerned engineers Gerald Wilson compiled a 50 page dossier detailing the unsuitability of Windows as a foundation for a naval command system, and arguing that BAE’s Unix history and expertise made open source UN*X a logical and viable way forward. The company then made him redundant. In May of this year Wilson reiterated his concerns to the board of BAE Systems at the company’s AGM, pointing out that Windows is “proprietary technology owned by a foreign corporation”, has “many and continuing security flaws”, and is not even warranted by Microsoft itself for safety-related use. Why then, he asked, is AMS “shunning established engineering practice” by developing the Type 45′s CMS on Windows.

(the rest of the story on The Register)

Certainly makes me feel safer to know that UK defence contractors are ignoring (and firing) their own engineers and making decisions based on… well, I don’t know, but I’m sure a few Microsoft reps have been seen around. Or maybe they’re just dim. At least they’re not running ME, I suppose.

I linklogged this but I felt it had to get a slightly wider audience. From a Reuters photo:

Delegate Josh Kempf wears an elephant hat signifying the mascot of the Republican Party, on the second night of the 2004 Republican National Convention

Assuming that Josh Kempf is a real delegate and not a stealth protestor – Josh, mate, “elephant” is not the first thing that comes to mind when one sees your hat.

1. If you are going to wander along at one mile per year on a relatively narrow pavement, kindly do not also weave from side to side like you’ve just had a four-pint lunch. This will enable me, walking at a sensible pace, to get past your dithering aimless selves.

2. If you insist on gathering in a group on said pavement in order to chat about SUV mileage or Beanie Babies or whatever rubbish it is that you find so absolutely fascinating that you just can’t wait until you are in a more appropriate environment to talk about (say one of the million bars and coffee shops along this street) kindly do not stick your fat ass out into the pedestrian traffic so far that one has to suck one’s stomach in to squeeze past it. In fact, why not remove your gargantuan butt from the location altogether? And take your Frappucino Light-drinking ponytailed friends with you.

I should probably eat more if I’m going to consume this much caffeine.