DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

At the heart of this novel is a device that can indicate with 100% reliability whether a speaker is lying. Extrapolating from this simple concept, Halperin remakes the world, imagining huge changes to politics and the judicial system. (If laywers and politicians could no longer willfully deceive, the world would be a very different place, and Halperin describes a plausible version.)

I had two minor complaints about the book. One is that the narrator is a semi-sentient journalism computer. I may have overlooked some value-add, but it seemed to me this device detracted from the flow of the story.

The other quibble is that Halperin didn’t take on the advertising industry the way he did the lawyers and politicians. I’d have liked to see marketing execs get skewered the way lawyers do.

I strongly recommend the book to legal and political scholars, sociologists, criminologists, fans of science or speculative fiction, or really anyone with a few hours and seven dollars to kill. Although the story is aware of, and even embraces technology, it is not really science fiction — although if you enjoy SF you are likely to enjoy this for its similarities to the genre.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon (paperback)

In about 1980, musician Scott Ian read about anthrax in his high-school biology class. He thought the word would make a good band name… and over the next 20 years, he built Anthrax into a world-class heavy-metal band, with album sales and fans numbering in the millions.

In October, 2001, adequacy.org resident fool ‘dmg’ failed to understand any of these facts, and accused Anthrax (the band) of taking on the name “to cash in on bioterrorism.” Further, he claims that the band has a “new CD out hatefully entitled ‘Spreading the Disease’” — but this album was actually released in 1985. dmg’s ravings can be found here: Anthrax - Please, PLEASE change your name. [We have removed our local mirror of this article at the request of Adequacy.org.]

I believe ‘dmg’ is trolling. That is, she or he is purposefully writing inflammatory, specious articles, perhaps in an attempt to make a name for him/herself, or perhaps to drive traffic to the adequacy.org website.

This is not a new practice, to invent facts and create fiery accusations based on misunderstandings and rumors. It’s called tabloid journalism, and if your right to publish such opinions is provided by the 1st Amendment, it’s defended by the National Enquirer. So now we know something about adequacy.org that we didn’t know before.

anthrax.com demonstrates the band’s humor. The bandmembers don’t seem to take themselves too seriously. And their response to the 9/11 attacks, and the ongoing anthrax scare, is very human. Check out their Anthrax press release for samples of both.

In contrast, dmg isn’t particularly humorous. He has a lot to say, but little of it is endearing, well-researched, or even true.

In Building your dream PC, an anti-technologist diatribe, dmg accuses anyone who wants to build a beowulf cluster of being a “small-penis compensating weiner [sic].” I wonder if dmg realizes that the current roster of Beowulf cluster users includes most of the brightest physicists and computer scientists in the country, as well as the Center for Disease Control, which is deeply involved in current anti-bioterrorism efforts, including the anthrax scare.

In his tirade against Anthrax, dmg revealed one of his/her biases, perhaps unwittingly. S/he concedes that the bandmembers “seem like decent enough people” … apart from their “unkempt, dishevalled [sic] aggressively long hair.”

Ha! How can hair be “aggressively” long? Maybe this is a “small-penis compensating” sort of comment.

P.S. It fascinates me that adequacy.org’s Terms of Service proclaims “we reserve the right to delete comments deemed inappropriate in tone or factually false.” I can only conclude that this documented quest for truth applies only to comments, but not to staff-written articles.

We visited a half-dozen local Sonoma County artists as a part of the 2001 ARTrails exhibit. I was amazed. I expected craft-fair goods — nice, but kitschy — but instead found gallery after gallery of inspirational, inspired art.

Highly recommended: Don Jackson (photographs); Warren Arnold (stone sculpture); Gerald Huth (painting, collage); Stephen Fitz-Gerald (metal sculpture, wood sculpture)

So I’m in the locker room. There are two men nearby, chatting. One of them is naked; the other is clothed. The naked man extends his hand, introducing himself to the other. “Hi,” he says, “I’m Richard. Call me Dick.”

Heh.

An article by Caroline E. Mayer in the Washington Post [original: Direct Marketers Adopt New Tactics on Mailings to Avoid Losing Business; sfgate.com mirror: Direct-mail businesses respond to anthrax fear] reveals that the Direct Marketing Association, which is responsible for most of the unwanted crap you receive via postal mail, has issued new guidelines to all its members — instructions for how to best continue sending out junk mail during the ongoing Anthrax scare.

The challenge, in a nutshell, is that average citizens are afraid to open unsolicited mail, given the potential downside (swollen lymph glands, necrosis, shock, vomiting, death). And yet the DMA member companies make way too much money from sending out junk mail; it’s in their best financial interests to disassociate their unsolicited mail from the type that might kill you. After all, if the powder that spills out of the latest Fingerhut catalog dissuades you from placing an order for a decorative lawn goose, then Fingerhut is out a few bucks. For the DMA, this won’t do at all.

The DMA advises members to “avoid using envelopes with no return address or clear identification marks,” on the theory that recipients are more likely to open an unsolicited envelope from a recognized merchant than an unsolicited, unlabelled envelope (which more likely than not would have otherwise been disguised as an “urgent mail-gram!”). I have to wonder why the DMA hadn’t advised merchants to identify themselves on junk mail prior to 9/11/01 — perhaps because this might normally prevent recipients from opening the mail? That is, in a sane world, well-balanced junkmail recipients might decide that this month’s JCPenny missive isn’t worth reading, but in an insane world, frightened and mistrustful junkmail recipients should be reassured that, compared to a potentially lethal infectious bacteria, the JCPenny catalog isn’t too bad after all.

The DMA advisory goes on to suggest “that businesses alert consumers to upcoming solicitation by first notifying them through e-mail or telemarketing calls.” So, DMA member companies are going to send me email I don’t want, to warn me that they’re going to send me paper mail that I don’t want? Or worse, they’ll interrupt my dinner with a phone call to tell me that the crap arriving in the mail tomorrow doesn’t have anthrax in it?

Perhaps now is a good time to remember that it’s possible to prevent telemarketing calls.