Response to FWD: Roosevelt’s 1907 Quote on Immigration

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here....

May 9, 2010 · 3 min · Andrew D. Anderson

good government, take one

My ideal government would be decentralized. The national government would be tiny, maintaining a national military and acting as a mediator between smaller governments. Local governments would hold a great deal of power and local citizens would control the means of production. There would be many powerful small governments, but no centralized big government. No big corporations. The people would be taxed using a flat sales tax for necessary government services, but extra projects would be funded by inflation-indexed rate-capped government bonds....

April 16, 2010 · 2 min · Andrew D. Anderson

all lie

tossing, turning; in my head pleasant visions quickly fled tattered dreams began to creep i could scarcely think of sleep i looked about and was not alone everywhere lie a restless drone pain escaped in troubled breathes dismantled wills must acquiesce told to work and to procreate distempered men we incarcerate fear subversion, but not of self distraction successful, ideal of wealth failure impossible, self medication easier to swallow the external delegation...

April 9, 2010 · 1 min · Andrew D. Anderson

(A)I: On the Possibility of Separation between Hardware and Software

Whenever we start drawing parallels between men and computing machines we are bound to notice a particular incongruence rather quickly. Namely, men are apparently more indivisible than machines. That is to say, whereas we can talk of a computer requiring some hardware and some software to function, a man cannot be so easily disunited. A man has a brain that we may be tempted to associate with a processor and even memory (hardware), but it is not clear what part of a man we would want to label software....

April 4, 2010 · 3 min · Andrew D. Anderson

nature of a man

the darkest night enshrouded I could faintly hear her cry the rain above me sounded as if the tin wished her to die the rain fell down my face too and I sniffled with the wind what else could a child do all around me malice grinned a flash of lightning struck the ground the newly-splintered tree despaired meanwhile, his fists barely made a sound but screams and thunder left me scared...

April 2, 2010 · 1 min · Andrew D. Anderson

young

the wallpaper-like skin apparently glued to his bones tore around the lips as he rasped about whatever I sat with my ear plugs shouting just loud enough to drown out the fellows rants about whatever I could hardly stand to watch him sit there like a useless broken furnishing by the fire I rarely looked up doubting he cared anyway lost in my own thoughts actively ignoring the fool...

February 24, 2010 · 1 min · Andrew D. Anderson

the improbability of here and now

This is a way of thinking that comes up occasionally in support of the existence of god. Really, I have more issues with the reasoning than I do with the conclusion. Believe what you will, but please don’t offer up chimeras as cornerstones of that belief. I’m not saying all ideas must be grounded in science, I don’t think that at all, but there mustn’t be all this slight of hand to make an explanation convincing....

February 14, 2010 · 6 min · Andrew D. Anderson

silence mustn't be

like a swarm of noise, a mouth, it moves on a biped frame, in polished shoes . across space and time, it spews these sounds in tuxedos suits or in silken gowns . it bares its teeth and squawks quite loudly flaunting ties and bows pretty proudly . the noise, the sounds, the squawks the same taught to speak, and no refrain . most mouths move and spew that way...

February 10, 2010 · 1 min · Andrew D. Anderson

Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 & Ubuntu 9.10

Partly as a note to self and partly as an effort to help someone else, go here: http://vikram.eggwall.com/computers/nxt.html for tips about getting bluetooth, usb, and nxc to work the NXT under Ubuntu 9.10. It all worked well for me. I’ll likely be doing some of my own write-ups on Linux and the NXT robot, so if you’ve got questions… leave them.

January 24, 2010 · 1 min · Andrew D. Anderson

crapitalism

I was young, still naive wanting badly to believe that all one saw could be obtained that life was living unconstrained how I ran past youth, swift and sure convinced, completely, the world was pure upon arrival it became quite clear this world was theirs and I was here not for my own desires to pursue just a worker to support the few the few that owned all I might want...

January 22, 2010 · 1 min · Andrew D. Anderson