April 29, 2005
Ars Technica review of Tiger
Apple released Tiger. Ars Technica reviewed it. Good review. Makes me want to buy Tiger.
This is why I shall always be a Democrat
Washington State tried to pass bill HB1515. The bill passed in the House and was blocked in the Senate by 25-24.
I am ashamed that one Democratic Senator, who could have swung the vote, voted No. Needless to say, all the Republican Senators voted No.
After telling you how the Bill died, you're probably wondering what HB1515 was about (in case you didn't read the links). HB1515 proposed expanding what constitutes the "law against discrimination" to include discrimination against sexual orientation. That's right - this is all the Bill wanted to do. You cannot discriminate against a person on the basis of " race, creed, color, national origin, families with children, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, age, or the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a disabled person".
Discriminating against people who are gay is akin to discriminating against black people before the Civil Rights movement. It didn't matter that the majority white populations of a lot of the states thought that discriminating against black people was just fine. Its the same deal now. Its just not discriminating against blacks, its discriminating against gays. We have to take a stand. We need to change this and say that discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation is just not right.
I am glad that the Democrats voted for this bill. This is one of the reasons I will always be a Democrat even though I disagree with their economic policies and supporting them costs me a thousand dollars or so in tax money every year. Its a small deal compared to things like this. I could not deal with my representatives (considering I cannot vote, I cannot claim the Democrats to by my representatives, but at least in theory, if I could vote, I'd vote for them) being so narrow minded and unreasonably conservative.
Perhaps the best part of this whole deal was reading the excerpt of the testimony against the bill. From the House Report I shall quote:
Testimony Against:
The term sexual orientation is too inclusive and too broad.
Apparently these people did not have access to the wikipedia or a dictionary. According to Mirram-Webster,
Main Entry: sexual orientation
Function: noun
: the inclination of an individual with respect to heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual behavior
Not ill-defined, not all-inclusive (what the heck does inclusivity here have to do anyway?) and certainly not too broad (you can define it correctly in one sentence, can you not?)
A person's sexual orientation can change over time. The definition of sexual orientation presumes all types of sexuality is the same; it puts sex outside of the realm of morality.
Yes, and so?
This bill would lead to discrimination against organizations that disapprove of sex outside of marriage.
So its fine for these organizations to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation but its not fine for people to discriminate against them? And why would gays discriminate against these organizations (read: churches) anyway? Perhaps because they preach that gays (people of "deviant" orientations) are going to hell? Now who wouldn't want to be part of a church that says they're going to hell for reasons beyond their control. Mind you, I'm not trouncing every church in the world - just those that damn the gay population.
There is no documentation of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
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Inspired by this post by Mark.
It should not be the law that people cannot speak out against an unnatural state; you cannot force people to accept these practices.
First of all, the state is not unnatural. Secondly, the law can force people to accept practices against their will. This is how Civil Rights worked, this is why we have a seperation of Church and State, this is the way things work. If a majority of people claim that a certain practice is not allowed, its not allowed. Except, if the constitution says it is and then again, you can go and change the constitution. People can be wrong, narrow-minded, conniving bastards. If we'd told people "You don't have to not discriminate on the basis of race since we can't force you to accept this practice", there would be no civil rights and slavery would still be rampant.
Sexual preference is not an immutable characteristic. There is no means of verification of sexual preference because it is self-proclaimed. The definition of sexual orientation creates a protection that a person could invoke one day and then deny another day.
In an unbelievable twist, I actually agree with the dissenters here. Sexual preferences are, by nature, unverifiable and mutable. This makes things harder for courts that are judging sexual discrimination cases. Why is the legislature bending over backwards to make things easier for the courts?
Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is not the same as discrimination on the basis of race. You cannot make what someone does in the bedroom a law. When you normalize deviant behavior, you open Pandora's box.
If you don't fly into a fit of rage over that statement, you should. Homosexuality is not deviant behaviour. Just as africans are not a lesser race. Just as women are not a lesser sex. It just doesn't fit your model of the world and it doesn't fit what you'd like the world to be. Too bad, you have to deal with it. You can't make everything you don't like deviant.
And just in case you were wondering why I hate the religious right, here is the list of people that testified against the bill (in the house, according to the report)
Opposed:
Rick Forcier, Christian Coalition of Washington; Bob Higley, Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government; Ken Hutcherson, Antioch Bible Church; Susan Shoemaker; John D. Mallinger; and Catherine Funkhauser.
One last bit I'd like to add. About my company. We decided to remain neutral on this issue. I am ashamed. I'm glad that some brave souls are speaking up, publicly.
The frontiers of database research
An article by Jim Gray. Not the most well written article in the world, but still a worthwhile read.
April 25, 2005
iTunes Art Importer
I use iTunes as my primary media player. Found this cool little program called iTunesArtImporter. Does exactly what you think it does - searches the web (amazon) for album art, downloads it and applies it to all your songs. Bingo!
April 24, 2005
Tahoe snowboarding pics - Part II
As promised, the next (and final) set of pictures from Tahoe have been uploaded
April 23, 2005
Tahoe pictures
Jill and Mark finally presurred me enough to get beyond World of Warcraft and put the pictures from our Tahoe trip up on the web.
So they're up. Gallery is available here
April 8, 2005
Mickey D's
Pretty disturbing picture. Wonder which genius at McD's come up with this (unless this was a parody, which the site claims it was not).
However, if you read the whole article, you'll find an interesting account of McD's trying to make themselves more health-friendly. I was quite impressed, actually. Being a vegetarian, there is rarely anything you can eat at McD's other than the french fries (and those too, depending on how "strict" a vegetarian you are). The fact that they use fresh ingredients for their salads (14 day life, same as grocery stores), store them in vacuum packed containers without any preservatives and that their dressings contain no artificial preservatives is really, really good. I'm very impressed. People who claim that McD's still does not serve "healthy" entrees are full of crap. McDs is not a charitable health charity. They're a company trying to do business and figuring out a way to market salads and other interesting things to people who traditionally like only burgers is great. If their customers still choose to eat burgers and fries, its not their fault. And if they pull it off the menu, those customers will simply go to Wendy's (or some other food chain of the sort), not buy salads.
I never thought I'd be saying this, but kudos to McDonalds.
April 4, 2005
Tahoe awesomeness
I'm back from my awesome snowboarding vacation in Lake Tahoe. Around Lake Tahoe, to be precise, not in the lake, per se, but you get the idea.
I'll write a few more extensive blog entries about it, but here are some pics from Andy's camera in the meanwhile:
http://redefine.dyndns.org/gallery/Tahoe_my_first_time