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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Unixronin

December 2012

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March 25th, 2008

unixronin: Rodin's Thinker (Thinker)
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 07:15 am

[livejournal.com profile] cymrullewes and I have talked a couple of times recently about the Ozark books by, well, [livejournal.com profile] ozarque, and in particular the dual roles of Responsible and Troublesome.  I'd always had problems articulating why they just didn't work for me, but I woke up this morning with part of it nailed down.  Not necessarily why the writing in the books just doesn't do it for me, but why the Responsible/Troublesome angle doesn't work for me.

As I understand it, the basic idea is that Troublesome and Responsible, both of whom pop up as "incarnations" (so to speak) in every generation, are sort of personifications of opposed moral forces.  Troublesome goes around doing all the evil for evryone else so that other people don't have to be evil, and Responsible goes around fixing Troublesome's messes to keep things in proper balance, or something along those general lines.

And you know, to me, it's just another kind of religion-like argument, like the one about "If god is omnipotent, why is there evil" ... "Well, god allows free will to choose good or evil" ... "Well, if he's omnipotent and want people to do good, then why did he set us up with so many people predisposed to evil, then punish them for being true to the nature he gave them?"  In this specific implementation, there's two ways it can go.

You see, one possibility is that Troublesome and Responsible are manifestations of something that has some kind of complete control over the distribution of evil, and can make sure that, since Troublesome is doing all the evil for everyone else, everyone else really does give it a miss and leave it to Troublesome.  But if you have that kind of complete control over who's doing evil, then why do you need anyone doing evil at all?  On the other hand, if you DON'T have the kind of control that it takes to make sure that evil-doers leave their evil-doing to Troublesome, then what's to stop them from going ahead and doing their evil anyway?  That mean kid who's always wanted to see what happens if you nail a sheep to a tree and set it on fire isn't going to leave the sheep alone because Troublesome will probably do it sooner or later but probably not anywhere he can watch.  He wants to find out for himself.

Now maybe I'm missing something about the whole Troublesome/Responsible axis.  I probably am, because as I said, I just couldn't get into the books.¹  Nothing about them drew me in.  But, well, it just doesn't work for me, any better than the idea of original sin does, or the idea of a god who loves everyone and shows it by creating people flawed and then punishing them for being true to the nature we're told he gave them.

[1]  On the other hand, I am going by my best understanding of [livejournal.com profile] ozarque's personal direct explanation of the Troublesome/Responsible thing on her journal.

unixronin: Rodin's Thinker (Thinker)
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 08:18 am

[livejournal.com profile] cymrullewes picked up a box of Hannaford's house-brand rice-chex clone breakfast cereal yesterday, choosing it over brand-name Chex largely, I understand, because the box showed the cereal containing raspberries.  Needless to say, it doesn't.

(Actually, she's since clarified that the cereal she bought was a different one than the one she exclaimed over just before the cell connection dropped.  But anyway....)

Advertisers do this all the time.  How many times have you bought a package of food with a picture on the front that dramatically fails to match the contents, and a little tiny small-print disclaimer hidden somewhere on the box that says something like "New Wonda Choccy Sowbugs can be a part of this nutritious breakfast"?  Note that nowhere does it actually state that New Wonda Choccy Sowbugs is actually nutritious, or actually contains what the picture on the box shows.  What's worse, if it's not a food product, the odds are not insignificant that there's another piece of small print hidden somewhere that says something like "Manufacturer does not warrant any fitness or suitability for any particular purpose."

The UK has something called the Trades Descriptions Act that is supposed to restrict stuff like this.  You have to be very careful about what you claim in an advertisement in the UK, because any day, a representative from the inspectorate of Weights and Measures can walk into your office carrying a package of your product that he bought at random off a store shelf, and say, "You make this claim about this product.  Show me, with this one, right here, right now."  And you'd better be able to back up the claim.

I think the US needs one too.  It could be quite simple; all it needs to do is say something like this:

"If you, a product manufacturer, make what a reasonable person would take as a representation, via a commercial advertisement, a marketing claim, or a package illustration, that your product contains or does something that in point of actual fact it does not, and any purchaser of the product complains that the product does not in fact live up to this representation, then you are legally obligated to make up the misrepresentation to every purchaser of the product."

Discuss.

unixronin: Rodin's Thinker (Thinker)
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 08:34 am

[livejournal.com profile] cipherpunk posted yesterday about a paper on the weaknesses of DRE voting machines.  And it got me thinking.

Suppose that every state, when requesting bids for voting machines, were to include a clause like the following in the request for proposals:

"n.  By submitting a bid in response to this request, you grant permission for an independent security audit of the submitted voting equipment prior to completion of the bid process, said audit to be performed by agents including but not limited to an agent or multiple agents appointed by $state, and agree to cooperate fully and in a timely manner with any and all such audits."

I think the results might be interesting.  Discuss.

unixronin: Pissed-off avatar (Pissed off)
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 03:50 pm

I just got letters from the SSA (three of them, in triplicate, one for each kid) informing me that the SSA received an address correction from the Post Office for our kids, and if this update is correct, do nothing and the SSA will process the correction and update the records in about 30 days.

Well, gee, SSA guys, y'know, you could have had that address update in your files FOUR MONTHS AGO, if your data submission procedures hadn't actively prevented¹ me from giving you the update.

[1]  Because the SSA only allows one address update, for a single individual, to be submitted at any given time by any individual.  Then they compound that by providing no way to say, in that submission, "Yes, my children who live with me and also receive benefits because they're my dependents are moving with me.  Duh."