User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-10-11 16:52
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-10-10 23:53
	Subject:	a sufficiently satisfying meme
	Security:	Public

When you see this, post (in your own journal) your favorite quote from The Princess Bride. Preferably not "As you wish" or the Inigo Montoya ("prepare to die!") speech.

Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don't know.
Man in Black: And what is that?
Inigo Montoya: I... am not left-handed.
[Moves his sword to his right hand and gains an advantage]
Man in Black: You are amazing.
Inigo Montoya: I ought to be, after 20 years.
Man in Black: Oh, there's something I ought to tell you.
Inigo Montoya: Tell me.
Man in Black: I'm not left-handed either.

	User:	janelemon
	Date:	2008-10-09 02:16
	Subject:	quietly contemplating my bellybutton
	Security:	Public

> PBS has an online poll posted asking if Sarah Palin is
> qualified. Apparently the republicans knew about this in
> advance and are flooding the voting with YES votes.
>
> The poll will be reported on PBS and picked up by
> mainstream media. It can influence undecided voters in swing
> states.
>
> Please do two things -- takes 20 seconds.
>
>
> 1) Click on link and vote yourself.
>
> Here's the link:
> http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
>
> 2) Then send this to every single Obama-Biden voter you
> know, and urge them to vote and pass it on.
>
> The last thing we need is PBS saying their viewers think
> Sarah Palin is qualified
>

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-10-07 08:02
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

So yeah, Russian spam bots are friending people. I'm getting 1-2 a week. Since LJ has not said anything about this publicly yet, I'm going to offer recommendations of my own:

- don't friend them (they may abuse personal information in your friends-only posts)

- ban them (so their public posts don't gain PageRank from the "friend of" link on your profile)

If anybody has more of a clue of what's going on and a better way to deal with it, I'd love to hear about it.

In other news, Twitter apparently has developed a problem with spam accounts "following" people, which is another way to get an automatic link back to your page. I got hit with 5 overnight. The way you can tell they're not legit is, I'm just not that popular among the "GET RICH QUICK BY ENLARGING YOUR PENIS" set.

Meanwhile, a certain Valerie Stevens of Uxbridge, MA is an "evangelist for new and emerging marketing trends" (apparently this is the sophisticated way to say "spammer"), and her favorite new trend seems to be indiscriminately following thousands of people on twitter, then only keeping the hundreds who (presumably more or less automatically) follow her back. Way to keep that signal : noise ratio good and high there, Valerie.

Kiddies, this isn't what Twitter (or LJ) is for. Either they'll figure out how to stop you or you'll break it, and either way you suck.

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-10-06 23:28
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

Well, the gloves are off, the knives are out, the metaphors are mixed.

John McCain is now at Sleaze Warp 3. I assume that by election day it'll be turned up to 11 or so.

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-10-05 12:10
	Subject:	"I don't know, I've never Kippled" (part 3)
	Security:	Public

Looks like I'm missing the Bow Tide Ride, what with the vertigo being back and all. Gah.

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
  To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
  We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
  But we've  proved it again and  again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
  You never get rid of the Dane.

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-10-04 18:31
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

Biked to Lowell. Glad I had a ride back. The Middlesex Canal has some cool history.

Doing the Bow Tie Ride tomorrow, inshallah.

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-10-02 22:32
	Subject:	Fun fact
	Security:	Public

"Maverick" is a train station between "Aquarium" and "Airport".

Also, what the shucky darn is wrong with Shepard Smith's face? He looks like Max Headroom. (Am I dating myself?)

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-09-30 12:09
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

I've read a book or two on economics, but really I'm pretty naive here. Somebody want to tell me what the actual problem is with a whole lot of banks failing?

As near as I can tell, we have a choice:

- Treasury bails out banks before they fail, letting the shareholders escape with some of their money. There is massive inflation from the bailout.

- FDIC takes over banks after they fail. Shareholders eat it. There is massive inflation to maintain reserve ratios in the face of bank runs and writedowns of assets.

We're in the final phase of a pyramid scheme way way bigger than Albania's. In any pyramid scheme, the participants are on a broad spectrum from crooks to suckers; they deserve basic human compassion and not all of them deserve jail terms longer than a few years, but nobody involved in the scheme has any business coming out ahead.

Housing prices blew up, loans got written for absurd prices that don't reflect actual value, so the loans have to get written down. The three ways to do this are:

- renegotiate the loans

- cry like a baby as the loans go into default

- inflate the currency until the loans are reasonable again (and so are house prices, and any profits anybody's booked in dollars lately are worthless...).

It would have been nice if we could do the first one, but shareholders and investment banks declined to do so, because they wanted to pocket their profits from the pyramid scheme.¹ So we're going to do the other two, and the shareholders and investment banks can eat it.

There's going to be inflation no matter what, but more pain for the people who chose to participate in this means less for those of us who didn't. People who were rich enough to retire and live off their 401(k)s for 30 more years won't be anymore, so they'll have to get real jobs.

And meanwhile, house prices in Cambridge might even drop below $₂₀₀₈600,000, so those of us who have real jobs will actually be able to own something for once.

So yeah, that's a win. So, Wall Street, what am I missing?

¹The usual claim is that securitized debt made renegotiating impossible. Renegotiating loans was not "too hard"; it just required investment banks to buy back the CDOs from shareholders. The shareholders declined to sell at a price that would permit investment banks to renegotiate at a profit. The correct response is not "awwww, poor shareholders and investment banks, they wanted to renegotiate but they just couldn't"; it's "bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered".

	User:	janelemon
	Date:	2008-09-30 00:06
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

	User:	janelemon
	Date:	2008-09-30 00:06
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

I have been cautiously optimistic about things lately. It's a weird feeling to have. I may eventually let myself be happy and content again, and that's just...beyond comprehension right now.

I am far better off relaxing and just enjoying the ride. It's been great so far, and there's nothing to indicate that it's not going to stay great except for my own crippling paranoia.

	User:	en_ki
	Date:	2008-09-29 11:35
	Subject:	I made this for you
	Security:	Public

Q. What do you call the line

0 18 31 10 * wait

?

A. Candy cron.