One day, we'll get to having really well-designed (I'm avoiding the word intelligent) word filters and agents running for us.  For now, some are less effective than others.

    One of the funniest examples of that, at the expense of a Christian site, is documented by Mary Ann Akers in the Washington Post.  It just doesn't get any better than this:

The American Family Association obviously didn't foresee the problems that might arise with its strict policy to always replace the word "gay" with "homosexual" on the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. The group's automated system for changing the forbidden word wound up publishing a story about a world-class sprinter named "Tyson Homosexual" who qualified this week for the Beijing Olympics.

Tyson Gay wins the men's 100 meters final at June the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials. (Reuters -- Mike Blake)

The problem: Tyson's real last name is Gay. Therefore, OneNewsNow's reliable software changed the Associated Press story about Tyson Gay's amazing Olympic qualifying trial to read this way:

Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.

His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing.

"It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said. "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."

    What was supposed to have been a quick piece for the back page of Psychology Today ended up being a very long conversation dealing with so much about how he approached his work and his perspective on life.  This might be the longest interview you'll ever read, but it's so worth it.

    ...today it's global warming.

    Eh.  Whatever.  This too shall be understood and dealt with.

    Originally published on July 7th, 1961 (estimated world population at the time: 3,000,000,000):

    Well, the first thing that comes to mind is this scene from Airplane...


    Listen, you have two choices: tune out and be miserable, or continue to learn and grow.  I have close friends who have chosen the former, and it makes me profoundly sad.

    By the way, tuning out includes only feeding yourself information based on your own perspective.  If you believe that a problem exists, and all you do is do read information on the fact that the problem exists, then you've tuned out and you're not helping.

    For those who choose to continue to learn and grow... seek the solutions that move us forward.  Every time you hear a "solution" that suggests that the only way to fix a problem is to go back to some point in the past, do what I do: ignore it.  Every time you hear a "solution" that doesn't allow for an ever-greater number of people to have a greater, more-affluent, more educated quality-of-life, run the other way.

    The way to fix global warming is not for everyone to reach into a mythical past and adopt a no-impact lifestyle... that's silly (and no one ever had a no-impact lifestyle, duh).  I've been born here, I guess I'm supposed to have an impact.  The way to fix it is to invent new technologies that replace the existing technologies that caused the problem in the first place, thereby allowing more people to have a greater quality-of-life while having less deleterious impact on the planet.

    The way to handle the inevitable challenges in foreign policy, international relations, and competition for resources is not to go into past or mythical modes of diplomacy, or to shake with the expectation of some coming war, but to adopt a broader and deeper point-of-view on what drives these decisions and align with it.  Keep seeking until you are that broader perspective.

    There are lots and lots of ways that today's bad news will become tomorrow's historical footnotes.  Human beings are incredibly smart as a group, and we'll find solutions to whatever we're facing... we always do.

    Besides, never forget how much money there is to be made in finding solutions to our major problems.  Whoever solves solar power is going to be the richest person on the planet (did you think the Google guys invested $500M into that out of the goodness of their hearts?).  Whoever figures out how nanotechnology will increase life expectancy is going to be an international hero, and very, very rich.  Whoever figures out how to use nanotechnology or robots to effectively handle our waste issues is going to make a lot of money in the garbage business, and they won't even be in the mafia.  And on and on and on.

    Here's a quick quiz:  name the top 5 problems that people identified as the world's biggest challenges 50 years ago.  Or 100 years ago.

    You couldn't, could you?  You have no idea what they were, or why people would have been worried about them.  To be honest, I don't know either.  Whatever they were, we've probably solved them, right?

    In 50 years, people will feel the same way about whatever we're making ourselves neurotic about today.  So cheer up... we'll be fine.

    From http://nakedloon.com/community/2008/04/16/hundreds-of-thousands-return-to-self-centered-lives:

“Compassion is great for someone that has become so enlightened as to be exempt from the wheel of death and rebirth,” said Michael Parker, a lawyer from Newcastle, “but most of us have to live in the real world, so I’m gonna do whatever is necessary to get mine.”

“I’m so glad that the Dalai Lama has chosen to bless humanity with his teachings by being continually reborn on this plane,” said Shoreline resident Tara Hammerson, as she cast an angry glare at the person in ahead of her in line for taking longer than thirty seconds to order their latte.

    Well, it is.  Not my fault if you don't like it.

Regardless of the source, the audio quality from the V3800 was first class.

For example, I popped in the SACD of Norah Jones' Come Away With Me and listened to both the two-channel and 5.1-channel mixes on the disc using the multichannel analog inputs of the Yamaha. This is one of my favorite SACDs and I am intimately familiar with the nuances of each mix. Each had excellent depth and clarity, and this may very well be the best I have heard this disc sound. The two-channel mix had excellent separation and the Yamaha made it extremely difficult to localize where my speakers were in the room; it was more like my entire front wall was alive with sound. The piano sounded very smooth and lifelike, without any harshness on the high end. On the lower end of the spectrum, the strums of the bass strings were extremely well defined and very tight. This is as good as I have heard this SACD sound and this is comparing it to my current Denon 4806CI AVR, which retailed for more than twice the asking price of the Yamaha.

    Seriously, I am an audiophile, and although my classic Yamaha DSP-A2070 has done me proud and valorous service for almost 15 years now, it's not actually 5.1, and of course doesn't have optical, HDMI, etc.  It was time for something new, and this is an incredible platform for the next 10 years or so, I'm sure.

    More when I get it hooked up in the next day or so....

    Christopher Hitchens is absolutely one of my heroes.  I don't quite know what people of older generations thought of someone like Ernest Hemingway, but I have to imagine it's how I feel about Mr. Hitchens.  He's the best-writing, clearest-thinking, longest-traveling, hardest-drinking, despot-ass-kicking motherfucker on the planet right now.  No one is cooler than he is.

    And, to prove it once again, he subjected himself to waterboarding to see if it really was torture.  Keep in mind that just last week former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft testified once again in front of Congress that he thought that it was not torture.

    Mr. Hitchens response: Believe Me, It's Torture.

Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex. The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

    Only Christopher Hitchens, in these five years since that term became part of our national vocabulary, has had the balls to undergo it and write about it.  He also allowed himself to be filmed and photographed during it.  The video is linked at the article... it's only a couple of minutes long, and well worth watching, just so you know what the process looks like.

    I'm deeply, deeply ashamed that my nation decided that it was justified in pursuing behavior like this.  This kind of thing belongs in the world of fiction of 24 and Tom Clancy.

    And, no, I'm not naive.  I know we have Special Ops Forces who do what they have to do, and I'm glad we have them.  The question is: do we have to do this?  I can't imagine why.

    My gratitude to Mr. Hitchens runs deep for this.  If you didn't think his work prior to this was first-rate, and this doesn't convince you, I don't know what else to say, really.

    As I mentioned a few days ago, I got my new A/V Receiver, and I've since had the chance to hook it up and use it a bit.

    My first impressions: wow.  Seriously, holy shit.

    I've got it hooked up through my classic MB Quart 1000 mains, MB Quart One surround bookshelf speakers, and MB Quart subwoofer (MB Quart - it's how I roll).  I have a Sony DVP-CX995V DVD/CD/SACD player hooked up through HDMI and 5.1 component audio for SACD.  My cable box has HDMI out, now run into the Yamaha receiver as well, and my TiVo Series 2 is using good ol' S-Video and RCA cables for audio.

    The sound is simply amazing.  I didn't think this piece would be that much more live than my old DSP-A2070, described here as "almost universally regarded as the best Pro-Logic amp ever made," but it is.  It's that much better.

    I'm relieved to see that almost all of my favorite old sound fields are still here, like three different European concert halls for classical music, one U.S. chamber, the Roxy Theater in L.A., the Music Video setting, the Cellar Club and Village Vanguard.  They've added some nice new ones, too, like the Bottom Line in NYC and specific fields for Sports and Action video games.  The only one they dropped that I'm disappointed about is the old "Live Concert" setting that simulated a typical 20,000-seat indoor arena, like Madison Square Garden.

    All of the major acronyms and logos are, of course, represented.  Neural, True HD, all the latest Dolby (and the old Pro Logic stuff, of course), PCM 96/24.  Full 7.1 speaker processing.  More than enough power to drive my serious speakers.  YPAO so I just hook up a microphone, push a button, and the entire system levels and equalizes itself.

    The video processing seems pretty good, but I admit that I'm not a video geek.  I don't yet have a Blu-Ray DVD player, so I can't comment on high-definition DVD performance, but the HD Cable channels look fine run through HDMI and out to my television.

    It's all about the audio for me, and I'm just blown away.  I haven't ever owned a 5.1 processor before, so experiencing the 5.1 tracks on the DVD's I own (mostly concert videos) is truly impressive.  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Live in New York City sounds incredible, and the different sound fields let you really play with how it gets delivered.  When you isolate and listen to the surround, the reverb coming off of the back of MSG is clear, just like it would be if you were there with a floor seat.  Steve Vai's Live at the Astoria London has incredible, hand-tuned sound by the man himself, and it seems like every individual person applauding is captured and played back around you in perfect 3D sound.

    I just didn't know that, even after all of these years, sound this live could come out of these speakers.  It's another level of listening, and I'm excited to go through my collection and re-experience some of my favorite CD's through this amplifier.

    The networking features are another source of great joy, and a little bit of disappointment.  As I type, I'm sitting listening to Internet Radio through the Yamaha, Radio 1 from Budapest right now.  Surfing through a full catalog of Internet Radio stations is built-in to the receiver... just plug an Ethernet cable into the back and you're good.  I've got a wireless bridge here in my living room attached to a 5-port Ethernet switch that feeds my receiver, XBox 360, and Slingbox, all working perfectly.  The disappointment is that while it will play WMA files (the only format worth ripping to, really) it doesn't have the codec to play WMA Lossless, which is what I keep on my computer in my office.  Fortunately, I have a workaround... the XBox 360 plays them, so I do now have full access to my ripped CD's if I don't feel like walking the 10 feet to grab a CD from the shelf, but that's a minor thing all in all.

    I now just switched to listening to my favorite radio station in the whole world... WXPN from the University of Pennsylvania.  Obviously, the sound quality over the web isn't exactly CD-quality, but having these options built-in to my receiver, and available through my remote-control, is very cool, and will allow me to learn what new music is available from all around the world.  Of course, the first song I'm hearing from them tonight is amazing, and I can't wait to see who it is (turns out it was the new song from The Verve).  They went from there to Kings of Leon, and then to a Shaggy song.  (People out here in Seattle go nuts for KEXP... all they play is unlistenable crap.  WXPN is what KEXP wishes it would be when it grows up and has DJ's that know that you don't prove how cool you are by how obscure your song choices are.)

    Anyway, if you have around $1,600 to invest in a new receiver, you definitely want to put it down on this one... I still can't believe how low the price is for this level of performance and features.

    Well, you know, kind-of angry.  If the monster drove a Hummer or pushed a stroller around without sun covering, then they'd really be angry.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/mob_not_angry_at_monster_just

A number of residents who have lost their patience with the unholy creation said they have tried being mad, but decided it is not worth the effort if the monster is just going to keep crushing the skull of every innocent blacksmith's daughter who makes the mistake of offering him a flower. According to Grul, the townspeople have "had just about enough of this business," and resolved to address the issue openly with a full and frank discussion, "no matter how painful it may be."

    Many of you have, no doubt, heard the story of Randy Pausch, and his inspiring "Last Lecture," delivered after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  It is one of the most inspiring things I've ever watched, and while the world is not as wonderful a place today as a few days ago with him gone, what he left behind is more than I ever could hope to leave behind for those around me.  Very few people have the kind of impact that he's had, and have shown such grace and gratefulness throughout their lives as he has.  I feel blessed to have known his story and to have seen his lectures.

An Enduring Legacy: