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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Month: March 2003

  • Just this one time, politics and war.

    And I’m not even going to try to hold forth with my own words. Instead I shall use somebody else’s, acquired via JMS. (If you know who that is, great. If you don’t, an explanation won’t mean much to you, and is in fact irrelevant to the posting itself.)

    Something which may shed some light on this discussion…direct from the Senate floor, a while back…

    jms

    ———————-

    Senate Remarks by Robert C. Byrd

    March 19, 2003

    “The Arrogance of Power”

    I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.

    But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.

    Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.

    We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split. After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe.

    The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.

    There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, Al Qaeda, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles, one of which would likely have slammed into the dome of this beautiful Capitol except for the brave sacrifice of the passengers on board.

    The brutality seen on September 11th and in other terrorist attacks we have witnessed around the globe are the violent and desperate efforts by extremists to stop the daily encroachment of western values upon their cultures. That is what we fight. It is a force not confined to borders. It is a shadowy entity with many faces, many names, and many addresses.

    But, this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack. And villain he is. But, he is the wrong villain. And this is the wrong war. If we attack Saddam Hussein, we will probably drive him from power. But, the zeal of our friends to assist our global war on terrorism may have already taken flight.

    The general unease surrounding this war is not just due to “orange alert.” There is a pervasive sense of rush and risk and too many questions unanswered. How long will we be in Iraq? What will be the cost? What is the ultimate mission? How great is the danger at home? A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.

    What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?

    Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?

    War appears inevitable. But, I continue to hope that the cloud will lift. Perhaps Saddam will yet turn tail and run. Perhaps reason will somehow still prevail. I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland. May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.

    And this concludes my attempt to take a stand on this whole situation. Have a pleasant evening, America, wherever you are.

  • Past, Present, Future – Round Six

    As Geoffrey and I discuss ways to shed all semblance of artistic integrity (Styx’s “Come Sail Away” set to Tenchi Muyo footage, for instance), it dawns on me that it’s kinda Friday. Which makes it PPF time. Perhaps I should, to quote any number of Monty Python sketches, “Get on with it!”

    PAST – At some point in our childhood we’re each one of us an artist of some sort, even if it’s just a scam artist. Tell us about something you created and showed off to parents and friends. Preferably it should be something with high embarrassment potential, of course.

    (I designed a vehicle of some sort once, all done with a straight-edge tool and pencil. Somehow I managed to have it shown off as part of the school’s art exhibit. It was ruddy awful. I should’ve stuck to writing. Then again, we can see how that’s turned out, can’t we?)

    PRESENT – What was your most recent artistic endeavor, regardless of whether it’s seen the light of day?

    (Mwahahahaha… I am a four-time anime music video creator. Damn, but I do rock this town.)

    FUTURE – When they’ve perfected the direct interface between your thoughts and the tools so that pure imagination is all it takes to create any kind of imagery you see fit, what’s the first thing you’ll dazzle mankind with?

    (A series of spectacular light shows set to music. Not videos, but shapes and beams and fogs and color, changing and pulsating in the sky. Magic in the air, oh yes.)

    Leave a comment with the link to your answers, or the answers themselves, and when you link back please use this URL: http://greyduck.net/ppf/

    Thank you, and enjoy!

  • Oh, THAT war!

    sign yourself up. For glory! For honor! For the hell of it!”)

  • UnHuman. It doesn’t suck too badly.

    After days of waiting, I finally got an opinion back in trade on my latest video, UnHuman. Fellow AMV creator Zarxrax writes,

    This video gets off to a good start, some good editing there. You have some pretty good action sync throughout the video.

    Well, we’re off to a good start there, aren’t we?

    But wait, there’s more.

    When you start cutting back and forth between shots of buildings and stuff at 0:35, the video starts to go downhill. The actual editing here is fine, but the content gets old too fast. Who wants to look at 30 seconds of cutting back and forth betweeen a few buildings? It would have been ok to do this for a few seconds, but I think you just hung onto it for too long. At the least, I believe you could have thrown in at least a couple more different shots of different areas to liven it up a bit more.

    It’s an artistic-taste thing, I suppose, but he’s probably right. That bit does go on a bit longer than perhaps it should. In my defense I point out that the music sort of dictates the length of that particular sequence.

    Throughout the rest of the video, you seem to hang onto specific parts of the movie for too long. What I mean is, large chunks of the video seem to just be showing a section of the story from various points in the movie. If you were trying to tell a story with the video, this could be ok, but I don’t believe that was what you were doing. Mixing up scenes from all around the movie could have kept things a little more lively and interesting.

    This is absolutely true, and is my greatest weakness as a creator right now. I get too tied to the original sequences. I need to break free of that curse in my next video. Absolutely.

    This is a solid video with some good editing, but it just doesn’t seem to go anywhere. I’d recommend that you try to plan out exactly what you want to do with a video before you start making it (i need to follow my own advice here :p).

    Here we touch on the bane of all AMV creators who aspire to greatness: Planning. Which is to say, planning out more than just the opening bit and one or two “cool bits” is the core of almost all really great videos. The next video must be planned.

    Yeah, right. I’m the guy who’s never finished a story or essay outline in his life. But dammit, I must do better next time.

    And this, folks, is why I really wanted peer feedback. It’s one thing to “think” you know what’s wrong with your work, it’s something else to have someone point it out to you in detail. This is a good thing when you’re still learning your craft.

  • Wendilynn On Display

    Last weekend, Wendi took part in a sort of promotional fashion show at the nearby Fashion Bug store.

    I keep telling her she has incredible poise and beauty. I invite you to check out the proof for yourselves. And then visit her page so you can tell her how great she looks.

    (And no, I’m not doing this because I’m trying to butter her up. Sheesh. How shallow do you think I am, eh?)

  • When Good Servers Go Bad

    Let me tell you how the sequence of events went down. (“Down” being the operative, or inoperative, word.)

    1) Something Happens at about 5:30 this morning. (All times Pacific, thank you.) Perhaps one Audicy session too many was opened, perhaps it was just that the server had had enough. Either way, the Audicy server and (probably) the two workstations began flooding the network with traffic. Also, the Audicy server’s root partition is chock-full, which is likely the cause of the commotion (as the clients madly try to read and write data on the server).

    2) A bit after 6:00, my phone beeps to let me know that we can no longer communicate with Entercom Corporate over the WAN. This happens fairly often, and usually clears itself up, so I fail to panic and instead go back to bed.

    3) A bit after 7:00, my phone rings. It’s John Graefe, my boss at Corporate, asking why our WAN router is incommunicado. Whoopsie. I tell him I’ll jet right down to the office and Deal With It.

    4) By 8:00, I’ve burped the WAN router to no avail.

    5) At about 8:30, I notice that the main office network switch is saturated. Instead of happily blinking busy little activity lights, the whole display is lit solid. This worries me. I ponder burping the switch, but that would kick everybody in the building off the network, causing all kinds of chaos. Instead I start pulling plugs, briefly, one by one until the lights go dark(er).

    6) I discover that unplugging the cable that connects to the Audicy server makes Everything All Better. Upon investigation of the server, I see that the root partition is full. Unloading the Netware emulation code frees up space. I decide to reboot the machine. This is great, but Linux insists on checking all the partitions since the machine hasn’t been rebooted in ages.

    7) While the 60-plus gigabyte partition is being slowly fsck’d (and that’s a technical term, thank you), I look in horror at the central switch, which has again lit up solid.

    8) After unplugging a series of cables around the server room, kicking half the building off the network in the process, I discover that a machine in Production Room 3 is the culprit. Hmm, what’s in there? Oh yes. An Audicy workstation. The workstation in question is powered down, which makes Everything All Better Yet Again.

    9) I check the Audicy server, all seems well. For grins and chuckles (since both workstations are turned off) I upgrade the kernel from 2.4.0-test10 to 2.4.20, mostly in the vain hope that the memory/space leak will go away.

    10) The Audicy server is rebooted on the new kernel, and the Production Room 1 workstation is brought back online and tested for network connectivity. All is well. The Production Room 3 workstation, already due to be removed since there’s now a ProTools workstation in place, is completely disconnected pending physical removal from the room.

    There’s my morning in a nutshell… an appropriate receptacle. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to attempt to rehabilitate the general-purpose computer in Production Room 5, which seems to have suffered a catastrophic failure for unknown reasons…

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