Social Commentary

Life’s Pleasures Lost?

John Derbyshire says that Peter Sellers isn’t funny any more:

We all know, of course, that humor is perishable, and that what made our parents — or even our younger selves — laugh can leave us stone faced. There are degrees of perishability, though, and the very best humor can stay funny for decades. I thought Sellers was in that league. Nope. His repertoire was narrower than I’d remembered — really just two or three funny voices and a couple of facial expressions.

Yes, I’ve noticed that things that I thought uproariously funny when I was younger (and I don’t necessarily mean a child) no longer so. I don’t know if it’s a difference in my sensibilities as I’ve matured (or at least grown older) or that humor has its own fashion and milieu. I haven’t lost my sense of humor, but it’s clearly changed. I wonder what would happen to it after a couple hundred years? What will I find funny then?

Anyway, as further recent illustration, on a flight back from California a couple weeks ago, I saw The Bellboy, Jerry Lewis’ directing debut, and thought by many to be his greatest work. I have vague memories of my parents taking me to see it in the theatres (the only way one generally saw movies then) as a little kid. I don’t remember particularly enjoying it at the time, but I can say that on the more recent viewing, I not only never laughed, there was only one scene that even elicited a smile from me. I can’t remember what it was, now.

I kept watching, hoping for something actually funny to happen, and when the plane landed before it was over, I had no sense of disappointment, because I’d given up. I was astounded in fact at how unfunny the movie was. I’d always thought that he was overrated, but I hadn’t previously comprehended just how much so. One more reason to think that the French are not just a different nationality, but a different species.

[Update a few minutes later]

Just to show I haven’t lost it completely, this joke (found over on Free Republic) got a chuckle out of me:

An old sergeant once went up to an attractive young woman.

“Ma’am, can you please help a lonely soldier? I haven’t made love since 1955.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” The young woman took the sergeant back to her apartment, where they enjoyed a more-than-mutually-satisfactory romp. Afterwards the woman leaned back and purred at the sergeant:

“For a man who hasn’t had sex since 1955, you certainly haven’t forgotten much!”

The sergeant checked his watch. “No reason why I would have, Ma’am; it’s only 2130.”

War Commentary

Religion Of Pieces

Afghani Muslim clerics are threatening to take the Sharia law into their own hands:

…three Sunni preachers and a Shiite one interviewed by The Associated Press in four of Kabul’s most popular mosques said they do not believe Rahman is insane.

“He is not crazy. He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian,” said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque.

“The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed.”

Raoulf, who is a member of the country’s main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, agreed. “The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled.”

“Cut off his head!” he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. “We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there’s nothing left.”

As I’ve said before, this isn’t a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between civilization and barbarism.

Technology and Society

Nanobreakthrough

IBM has made an integrated circuit from carbon nanotubes:

With an 18-micron long carbon nanotube, the scientists built a 10-transistor ring oscillator, a device typically constructed to test new manufacturing technologies or materials. Using one instead of many carbon nanotubes to build an IC reduces the manufacturing steps and therefore cost…

…Electrical current moves more freely and faster through carbon nanotube than silicon, making carbon nanotube a more energy-efficient material for a speedier chip. It also is super small. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and a carbon nanotube is 50,000 times thinner than a human hair.

All these properties make carbon nanotube an appealing candidate for improving performance by piling on more and smaller transistors on a chip without causing overheating.

Moore’s Law marches on.

Media Criticism

“Mixed Messages”

Tim Graham has probably found the words that turned John Green’s stomach:

My concerns about the senator is that, in the course of this campaign, I’ve been listening very carefully to what he says, and he changes positions on the war in Iraq. He changes positions on something as fundamental as what you believe in your core, in your heart of hearts, is right in Iraq. You cannot lead if you send mixed messages. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our troops. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our allies. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to the Iraqi citizens.

I guess the truth hurts. Or at least makes you queasy, if you’re part of the liberal elite.

And speaking of the liberal elite, Victor Davis Hanson is appropriately hard on them, and Michael Ware in particular:

HH: So with this in mind…again, I stress he’s the Baghdad bureau chief of Time Magazine, at one time the most influential magazine in the West, I believe. What is the disease in the media? Where did it come from?

VDH: I think it came to be frank between the journalism schools, the academic training of a lot of the people, and this affluent, elite culture, to be frank, that comes out of the unversities on the left and right coasts, that’s divorced from the tragic view, because these people are not…they don’t open hardware stores. They don’t service cars. They’ve never worked physically with their hands. They have an idea in this international culture of the West that somehow, all of their affluence, all of their travel, all of their freedom came out of a head of Zeus, and it’s not dependent on the U.S. military, the United States role in the world. They have no appreciation for the very system that birthed and maintained them. And they’ve had this sort of sick cynicism, nihilism, skepticism, and the height of their affluence and leisure, that they don’t have any gratitude at all, which is really one of the most important human attributes. Humility to say you know, I’m very lucky to be a Westerner, and have certain freedoms. And that’s why he cannot appreciate what we’re trying to do in Iraq, because he has no appreciation of the very idea that he can jet out of Baghdad anytime he wants on a Western jet that’s going to get him safely to a Western country, where he’s going to be protected, that the people in Iraq want that same thing that he doesn’t seem to appreciate.

Media Criticism

“Mixed Messages”

Tim Graham has probably found the words that turned John Green’s stomach:

My concerns about the senator is that, in the course of this campaign, I’ve been listening very carefully to what he says, and he changes positions on the war in Iraq. He changes positions on something as fundamental as what you believe in your core, in your heart of hearts, is right in Iraq. You cannot lead if you send mixed messages. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our troops. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our allies. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to the Iraqi citizens.

I guess the truth hurts. Or at least makes you queasy, if you’re part of the liberal elite.

And speaking of the liberal elite, Victor Davis Hanson is appropriately hard on them, and Michael Ware in particular:

HH: So with this in mind…again, I stress he’s the Baghdad bureau chief of Time Magazine, at one time the most influential magazine in the West, I believe. What is the disease in the media? Where did it come from?

VDH: I think it came to be frank between the journalism schools, the academic training of a lot of the people, and this affluent, elite culture, to be frank, that comes out of the unversities on the left and right coasts, that’s divorced from the tragic view, because these people are not…they don’t open hardware stores. They don’t service cars. They’ve never worked physically with their hands. They have an idea in this international culture of the West that somehow, all of their affluence, all of their travel, all of their freedom came out of a head of Zeus, and it’s not dependent on the U.S. military, the United States role in the world. They have no appreciation for the very system that birthed and maintained them. And they’ve had this sort of sick cynicism, nihilism, skepticism, and the height of their affluence and leisure, that they don’t have any gratitude at all, which is really one of the most important human attributes. Humility to say you know, I’m very lucky to be a Westerner, and have certain freedoms. And that’s why he cannot appreciate what we’re trying to do in Iraq, because he has no appreciation of the very idea that he can jet out of Baghdad anytime he wants on a Western jet that’s going to get him safely to a Western country, where he’s going to be protected, that the people in Iraq want that same thing that he doesn’t seem to appreciate.

Media Criticism

“Mixed Messages”

Tim Graham has probably found the words that turned John Green’s stomach:

My concerns about the senator is that, in the course of this campaign, I’ve been listening very carefully to what he says, and he changes positions on the war in Iraq. He changes positions on something as fundamental as what you believe in your core, in your heart of hearts, is right in Iraq. You cannot lead if you send mixed messages. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our troops. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our allies. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to the Iraqi citizens.

I guess the truth hurts. Or at least makes you queasy, if you’re part of the liberal elite.

And speaking of the liberal elite, Victor Davis Hanson is appropriately hard on them, and Michael Ware in particular:

HH: So with this in mind…again, I stress he’s the Baghdad bureau chief of Time Magazine, at one time the most influential magazine in the West, I believe. What is the disease in the media? Where did it come from?

VDH: I think it came to be frank between the journalism schools, the academic training of a lot of the people, and this affluent, elite culture, to be frank, that comes out of the unversities on the left and right coasts, that’s divorced from the tragic view, because these people are not…they don’t open hardware stores. They don’t service cars. They’ve never worked physically with their hands. They have an idea in this international culture of the West that somehow, all of their affluence, all of their travel, all of their freedom came out of a head of Zeus, and it’s not dependent on the U.S. military, the United States role in the world. They have no appreciation for the very system that birthed and maintained them. And they’ve had this sort of sick cynicism, nihilism, skepticism, and the height of their affluence and leisure, that they don’t have any gratitude at all, which is really one of the most important human attributes. Humility to say you know, I’m very lucky to be a Westerner, and have certain freedoms. And that’s why he cannot appreciate what we’re trying to do in Iraq, because he has no appreciation of the very idea that he can jet out of Baghdad anytime he wants on a Western jet that’s going to get him safely to a Western country, where he’s going to be protected, that the people in Iraq want that same thing that he doesn’t seem to appreciate.

Technology and Society

Getting From Here To There

Stephen Gordon has some interesting thoughts about the transition generation (of which I’m probably part) for life extension:

Here’s the point. This woman’s years in serious decline are lengthened by life extension treatment. Instead of being disabled five years followed by death, she is disabled about 12 years followed by indefinite youth. Which is best?

In the history of the world, this is not a decision that many will face. Obviously those who are already dead never had a choice. And hopefully people who are young today will get stage three care when they need it. This is one generation’s dilemma.

Space

A New Missile Gap?

Or, at least a missile engineer gap:

Not only are fewer American engineers and scientists choosing to work on missile technology, there are fewer of them altogether, the report says. Each year, about 70,000 Americans receive undergraduate and graduate science and engineering degrees that are defense related, compared with a combined 200,000 in China and India, the report says.

The government should pay higher salaries and offer other incentives to attract more experts into the strategic missile field, the report says.

As always, I find it irritating that reporters think that it takes “scientists” to design and operate missiles. I guess they think that someone with a physics degree is a “scientist,” even if they’re actually doing engineering (perhaps because they think that getting a journalism degree makes one a journalist, regardless of how much journalistic malpractice is committed).

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!