i'm amused

For myself, calling someone irrational is irrational.

If i call you irrational, would you say we're both irrational, or just me?


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Message (1)

i took the time to post; you should be thanking me

source

Two leading Israeli cabinet ministers have said Israel should resume peace negotiations with Syria.

Really? Do they? I thought Sharon was opposed to the thing, so that's a bit odd.

Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

Oh. The BBC is lying again. "leading cabinet minsters"!? yeah, and Jimmy Carter is a leading US President.

update: fuck. apparently he's a former something *and* a current something. but still, he's not a leading part of sharon's government. israel has a proportional representation system. so sharon is in charge, but there are ppl in government from the other parties too. this is like finding a democrat who'll say bush sucks, and calling that news. and then saying the democrat was a leading part of bush's government b/c he was in congress or something. ok actually i'm told guy is from same party as sharon, but opposite faction. so it's like finding Tracy (a libertarian i know) and getting him to criticise me. (sorry, that's only amusing if u know tracy)

oh, and before i go on, there's a nice picture of a BULLDOZER with a caption saying Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. From the picture, you'd think Israel just built stuff there and took it, and maybe knocked down the homes of the peace-loving Syrians who lived there. did the BBC forget about the six days WAR? fought not with bulldozers, but with bullets. i know they both start with 'bull', but they really are different things.

[Successful peace talks with Syria] would mean Israel withdrawing from nearly all of the Golan Heights, which were captured from Syria in 1967.

ummm

fuck you BBC

The Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, for example, has said publicly that he does not think Syria is serious, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has shown little interest in the proposal so far.

Mr Mofaz wants the Syrians to end support for radical Palestinians and for the militant group Hezbollah, before Israel thinks about resuming negotiations.

Amazing how all the people "totally serious about peace with Israel" want concessions before they give even their word to fight anti-Jew terrorism.

There have also been contacts between Israeli and Libyan officials in recent weeks, but both sides have been alarmed that news of the meetings leaked out.

heh heh. well thanks for telling me. *sweatdrop*

PS West Wing rocks

PPS go read IMAO


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programmers only

Here's an example of terrible structure, but fine denotation:

global int i, j;
for(j=0; j < 10; j++)
{
    i = j;
    for(j=0; < 10; j++)
        print( my_array[i][j] )
    j = i;
}

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hex editors

So i needed a hex editor. (for war3 modding stuffz) (modding is modifying). but i didn't know that. see, someone had the bright idea of naming it a hex editor. hex means six. hex editors, i knew, had something to do with hexidecimal (base 16). i wanted to edit raw data. ya know, 1s and 0s. aka binary, not hex.

once you use one, the name does make sense. 1s and 0s are generally arranged into blocks of 8 with 256 possible values. you can write 256 possible values in 2 digits of hexidecimal. so displaying binary files in hex makes sense (they show the binary versions too) (and the ASCII aka text version too) (and various other versions like what integer the selected bit would be, if it was representing an integer).

anyway, hex editors are cool. cause now i can, for example, open a war3map.w3e file and find the integer near the start saying how many tiles the map has (which is written as a string of 32 1s and 0s), and change it to 16 (well, the 1s and 0s that mean 16). this could not be done with a text editor. this means i can do something really important to my map without using someone else's buggy program that i'm very afraid might break other stuff.

oh hey, wanna see specs on war3 files? no? well, here they are.

PS there's quite a lack of ez to find hex tutorials on google. feh


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

good info (amateur level)

link

have i ever mentioned my knowledge of programming has random gaps that are sometimes a bitch to fill in? most of the day stuff that looked like 0x0400 or 0xA447F was being really confusing. wtf is that!? yes i can see the second half looks like hex, but it still appears kinda random. well turns out 0x is a special code in C that means the numbers after it are in hexidecimal. that's it. so those are really saying HEX0040 and HEXA447F. oh. and now it makes perfect sense.


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Israel Is Interesting

The BBC writes

[Sharon] said he believed Syria was still helping agents of the Lebanese group, Hezbollah, which is accused of involvement in attacks on Israel.

Just accused? Not blatantly guilty? Of "attacks on Israel"? Are you sure Sharon didn't accuse them of being filthy, murdering terrorist scum?

"Israel is ready and willing to negotiate once Syria stops its help to terror," [Sharon] said.

I'm sure Sharon said 'attack on Israel' the first time and changed his language later, though. The BBC wouldn't tamper with something as important as that, because doing so would be wrong.


Anyway, moving on: Qassam rocket lands in Israel, close to border with Gaza

A Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed inside Israel on Monday, in a community close to the Israel-Gaza border.

Of course, if they had their own state, unpoliced by the IDF, they'd never shoot rockets, and Israel would be safe. But Sharon doesn't want that; he needs rockets to be fired at Israel so he can have a good career, since he's a military kinda guy, and they do well during war time. *sweatdrop*

Earlier Monday, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israel Defense Forces outpost, close to the Israel-Egypt border, Israel Radio reported. The were no injuries in the incident.

On the upside their aim is as bad as ever. On the downside they're still alive.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the northern West Bank, causing no other injuries. In a separate incident, an 18-year-old Palestinian was killed Sunday by Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

The bomber blew himself up because he was caught well before getting there. The other one was shot because he was gonna throw a Molotov cocktail at IDF soldiers while he was part of a clash with the IDF by Palestinian villagers (wtf? They can screw with the IDF and not be massacred? That's not what the BBC would have me think.)


Moving on. The Biased Media would have me think Israel is divided on the issue of peace talks with Syria between those who want peace, and a few nuts in charge who like blood. But listen to one of the actual arguments against Sharon's stance:

Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said that Israel is creating for itself the image of a nation that refuses to make peace.

"Once again we are in danger of losing the battle for world public opinion, because the impression is created that we are trying to avoid negotiating with the Syrians," he said. "The government should announce unequivocally that it is in favor of peace negotiations, and afterward say it is conditional on Syria ending its support for terrorism."

So apparently there is reasoned debate going on. Surprise, surprise. I guess the media and self-proclaimed leftie intellectuals don't have a monopoly on thinking after all.

Notice also how the disagreement here isn't all that devisive, and is not over what the BBC says it's over. The BBC keeps trying to play it as a conflict between Sharon's crazy view and people who say "no no, peace instead". But, duh, Sharon wants peace. He just doesn't want to be played for a fool while Syria uses the talks as diplomatic cover for terrorist activities. (e.g. "Syria's not evil, or illegitimate, it's talking with Israel even as we speak.")

And the opposition (by reasonable people; of course there is some nuts opposition too) isn't that Sharon is wrong per se, but merely that his approach isn't ideal for PR, and he should change his emphasis slightly while keeping the same basic stance.

I still agree with Sharon.

"Just as we demand that the Palestinians dismantle terrorism before beginning diplomatic negotiations, that is also the situation with Syria," [Sharon] said. "Notwithstanding our strong desire for peace, this is an interest we will defend."

Sharon said that while it is clear that Israel is interested in peace with Syria, "as the head of military intelligence answered me last week, we need to remember that Syria still supports terrorism against Israel."

I bet the BBC has better sources on the Syrian terrorism issue than Israeli military intelligence though. LOL


PS this is interesting: Will Israel Become an Arab State?


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format shmormat

curi42 (2:42:51 PM): this senator wants ammendment to give $47mil to fight autism. he starts giving reasons fighting autism is important. ur josh listening. imagine agreeing was politically ok (happens to not be ok to have more ammendments on bill, but forget taht)
curi42 (2:43:22 PM): ok fighting autism is good. but should the money go to that, or to something else that's also good? how could josh tell? HE COULDN"T!
curi42 (2:44:03 PM): this is why government taking everyone's money into a big pool then trying to divy it up for everything is a bad idea. he doesn't have the information for where it should go, and there's no easy or good way to get it in that system.
curi42 (2:45:16 PM): whereas if the ppl kept their money this problem wouldn't exist. they'd do stuff they knew about, comparing only the things they know about. and overall it'd avg out just fine. (or sometimes there'd be common misconceptions and it wouldn't; but messing up common misconceptions beats messing up all of josh's)


curi42 (2:48:46 PM): it just struck me when the guy was trying to sell josh on the idea that ppl argue "u should spend money on my cause b/c my cause is good" whihc *completely misses the point*
curi42 (2:48:53 PM): there are lots of good things.
AnonymousPerson (2:51:23 PM): Like with the risk thingy, before i let Josh decide a thing like how much money autism research should get, I want him to tell me, within two orders of magnitude, how many ball bearings are needed this year.


curi42 (2:57:21 PM): turns out he was asking b/c he had an autistic grandson
curi42 (2:57:31 PM): now *that's* a good way to decide where to spend money
curi42 (2:58:29 PM): there are things where you want a unified policy. but choosing btwn autism research and cancer research isn't one. everyone should go their own way on those, so we'll get some of each.
curi42 (3:02:39 PM): nooooooooooooooooooooooooo wtf
curi42 (3:03:24 PM): ok the guy is doing fillibuster and gonna drop soon but screwing them up. but they realise he can safely yield floor for a question and still get it back.
curi42 (3:03:45 PM): so i figure they will ask "is it true you're only doing this b/c u have a grandson with autism?" or something to embarass him to shut him up
curi42 (3:04:27 PM): instead the question is 22 parts (and from a grandfather) so he can rest, then other ppl ask questions. they decided b/c he was doing it for grandson that they should help him.
curi42 (3:04:37 PM): do leftists really think that's being humane, and i'm an evil bastard?
curi42 (3:04:43 PM): cause if so, they should be shot :)


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Message (1)

my logical conclusions

IMAO who is usually right and often very funny, writes:

As Opinion Journal pointed out, this poll shows that the average Republican knows more about the Democrat presidential nominees than the average Democrat, even though there ain't a way in God's name we'd ever vote for them. And I remember seeing some article arguing that we're the party of the dumb. It's a fact that, if someone closely follows politics, odds are he or she is a Republican. Draw your own logical conclusion from that.

well, sorry, but the implied argument is not valid.

the implied argument is that paying attention to politics causes people to be Republican, and that we know this because the poll correlated paying attention to politics with being a Republican (and i expect other polls have too).

BTW I happen to think the conclusion is true: I do think paying attention causes people to become Republican. I just don't think we can say this is true *because* of the poll.

the problem is CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION (which i've never ever once had someone even try to disagree with). see, from the poll all we get is correlation. the causation could be something else entirely besides the one IMAO picked. like maybe something about being a Republican in the first place makes you more inclined to watch the news. or maybe Republicans tend to go to Church more, and Churches tend to promote political thinking (erm, maybe not that one). or maybe religious people care more. or it could be any cause, for all the poll tells us.

UPDATE:

A) Frank J visited *my blog* (see comments). i belive that makes my blog famous by association, so you should visit more often now, and make your friends visit, and stuff.

B) Frank did not intend the argument I said he implied. My apologies for the error. I think he could have been clearer, but he's right that he didn't actually say anything wrong, I just falsely assumed he meant something bad.

C) I'll leave this up because other, lesser people than Frank J might argue that way on purpose (maybe a liberal) so the correction would be important then.


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