JSON is pretty cool for what it is; in a mix of dynamic languages where Javascript (most likely in a browser) is involved it may not be a bad choice. It's even a great choice if you're firing structured data back and forth from Javascript and something else.

But for it's "core competency" of interfacing with Javascript, I've found there is a better approach, though it may integrate JSON into the mix. Code is data and data is code; instead of transferring data, transfer code to replicate structures. There seems to me to be two basic techniques, each useful in their own way.

Someone found a link to statements Clinton made in 2002 about Social Security that, while not exactly the full totality of the Bush Plan, bears certain strong resemblances, most notably in a similar assessment of when the program runs out of steam.

Which reminds me of a conversation I once had with a rather contrary friend. I said that when you are 100% reliably contrary, you are ultimately ceding as much power over yourself to a smart person as being 100% compliant would be, it just changes how they act.

I love Family Guy, though I'll concede it took me a bit to get into it, so I think that establishes a history of at least understanding Seth McFarlane's style, but holy cow was American Dad bad. It turns out Family Guy would really, really stink if it wasn't constantly jumping out to flashbacks.

But the bigger problem is the characters. One can't fairly criticize an opening show for shallow characters, the only antidote to that is time. But when three of the six main characters are first and foremost annoying, that's not a good sign. (I have a saying about character building, which I believe I've stated here before: One must be careful about creating an annoying character for a TV show or movie... you might succeed. Jar-Jar in the Star Wars prequels is probably the canonical example of this. This is one of the corollaries of one of my mottos, "Never engage in an endeavor where the worst-case scenario is complete success.")

I thank Fark for this link to my alumnus newspaper. Really gives me the warm fuzzies to see it show up on a site largely devoted to links that highlight stupidity in one form or another. I wanted to point this quote out:

English junior Jennifer Lee said she does not agree with the consequences of urinating in public and sees the act as harmless.

"It would affect the party scene at MSU," she said. "It happens on the weekend when people are intoxicated."

Interesting thought for solving the Democratic identity crisus, albeit completely infeasible:

• Every Democrat jumps the aisle to Republican.
• Split the Republican party along whatever lines seem natural at the time.

This comes up because I just saw someone rooting for a "Republican filibuster-proof supermajority", and it occured to me that is basically the worst case scenario; the Democrats providing just enough opposition to hold the Republicans together, but not having enough power to accomplish anything themselves. I'd actually rather see the "Democrats" fold entirely, because remember those interests won't disappear into thin air; complete chaos may be preferable at this point to the current order.

A few days ago Alwin posted about his referrer spam and a solution he is using to at least cut it down. (Once the referrer spammers move on to v14gr4.somescummyhost.com it'll stop working, but hopefully they don't get that desperate, because hopefully they'll realize the pressures that drove email spammers to do that don't apply to them. But expecting intelligence from spammers has proven a futile endeavor.)

I went ahead and implemented it. To my great suprise, it seems to have cut my website bandwidth usage approximentally in half. Which bothers me; I had thought the spammers would use HEAD requests and not actually download the pages, as that would slow their referrer spamming way down. See parenthetical in paragraph one. I'll have to wait a few more days to be sure, but if so, this takes my bandwidth pressure off.

At this point in our political discourse, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are meaningless labels that for historical reasons are applied to what they are applied to. They have no reliable relationship to their historical meanings, or the meanings used in other countries for the same terms.

"Liberal" and "conservative", in literal modern non-political usage, both refer to a resource allocation strategy; a "liberal" strategy allocates a lot of resources to something, while a "conservative" strategy tries to use as few resources as possible. While there is some correlation between these meanings economically, it is not one that will usefully help you to determine if a given policy is usually considered liberal or conservative. "Cutting the military budget" is a common liberal position, while a conservative might want to increase money for the space program.

I'm still buckled down with work, but financial stresses are getting stronger and stronger. I had thought that was why I wasn't posting much, that and the depression (not strong, but real) this has been causing me.

But today I got up "early" for a conferance call, and while waiting for it, I've posted more today than in the last month.

Maybe I'm not posting because mornings are my "posting" time and I've been sleeping through it? In the absence of a "real job", I tend towards a sleep schedule of 2 a.m. - 10 a.m.; this makes me comfortable and seems to maximize my useful programming time. Maybe 8a.m.-10a.m. are my best posting times, though.

From The Anglosphere Challenge to the Political Left:

On the Right, I believe that it is still possible to discern the tensions and compromises that one would expect in an alliance-building environment. The loose coalition includes libertarians and moral conservatives, deficit hawks and tax-cutters, immigration supporters and immigration opponents.

What has emerged on the Left is a core of rigid, dogmatic, conformity enforcers. Its organizations, such as MoveOn.org, the Howard Dean campaign, or the movement to resist Social Security reform, are self-marginalizing. They can achieve a high level of intensity, and with the Internet they can be successful at co-ordination and fundraising. However, they lack the flexibility in forming alliances that politics in the Anglosphere has traditionally required.

What this story doesn't say, but should, is that the Parents Television Council is the almost the sole source of the "mounting complaints" Powell refers to near the end. From a Mediaweek article:

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.