Michael Crabtree signs - hey, how 'bout that?

If you're expecting me to be all excited - jumping for joy - at the news that Michael Crabtree has finally signed, you're going to be very disappointed. Considering that I was 100% against drafting him in the first place, you can't exactly categorize his signing as a "win" for either side.

You know what gripes me? This arrogant turd signed today for essentially the same money he was offered back in August. Now he expects.......what? To be greeted by his teammates and 49ers fans as some sort of savior? Eff that!

The Niners have been on a roll up to this point, coming within 2 seconds of posting a perfect 4-0 record for the season to date. If this turd comes in and effs that up, I'll never forgive him. NEVER!!!

Then again, if he turns out to be as good as his boosters say he is.......maybe I'll accept him into the 49ers family. But ONLY if he proves himself! I'm very patient with most young players; with him, I'll boo his ass for every misstep he makes on the field. Nobody disrespects my team and gets off scot-free. Nobody.

The Echo Chamber Effect

One of the reasons I have concern for the future of our world is a little something known as the echo chamber effect. Briefly, this is the tendency of people to gravitate towards sources of information that will reinforce their own beliefs regarding events or topics of interest to them.

The echo chamber effect is hardly a recent phenomenon. In what perhaps may be an apocryphal quote, Pauline Kael is supposed to have said regarding the landslide victory of Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972, "I can't believe Nixon won. I don't know anybody who voted for him".

New media gets accused of fomenting echo chambers, but old media has them as well. Fox News is a comfortable echo chamber for people with Neocon leanings. MSNBC is a comfortable echo chamber for those who feel that King George the Dim is the cause of all the world's problems, as well as for those who think that Big Dick Cheney is the cause of said problems.

But new media - particularly blather radio and blogs - are especially susceptible to the echo chamber effect.

I started to ruminate on this subject late last week because of my recent experiences over at Caput Penitus Culus. Talk about your echo chamber!

There are basically three types of people at that site, besides the loathsome reptile who hosts it: female authoritarians who want to force their worldview on others; bigots; and the willfully stupid (yes Stamp, that would be you). Each of these archetypes enters the blog with a worldview they desperately want to reinforce. Each comes away with exactly what they wished for - EXCEPT when some "troll" like me comes along questioning certain aspects of their beliefs.

Troll. It's an interesting concept. The textbook definition of a troll is someone who shows up uninvited at your site to argue for the sake of arguing, a disruptor, an agitator. What a troll is in practice is someone who shows up at an echo chamber with a different viewpoint than that of the denizens of the site. You can tell a lot about a site and its proprietor by the tolerance shown to alternative viewpoints; at Caput Penitus Culus, FLDS Texas, and other like sites, you're likely to have your comments deleted and your access to enter comments blocked.

Partly because of my libertarian political leanings, but also because I've seen it demonstrated masterfully at Vox Popoli during the 7+ years I've been reading that blog, I think I've managed to a large extent to avoid hosting yet another echo chamber. But (and this is an important concept to grok) I can't be the judge of that; only those who read this blog and other blogs with differing viewpoints can accurately say whether I've been successful on that count or not.

Okay, what's the point, Vulture? The point is this: our nation used to have a tradition of tolerance for opposing viewpoints. Now, with the echo chamber effect, we're not inclined to hear, let alone respect, differing viewpoints. This is unhealthy intellectually, and it's unhealthy for the continuing health of a Constitutional republic.

But what do I know? According to the Caput a Palos, I'm not too bright. Then again, considering the source, I might just be an effin genius...

Week 4 - Crown them?

This is an actual exchange between the Vulture and a superintelligence over at Vox Popoli:

Vulture: San Francisco vs. Rams - they are who we thought they were. SF is 3-1 in the pitiful West...playoffs here we come!

VD: If you want to crown them, then go ahead and crown their asses!

For those of you unfamiliar with the Dennis Green reference, here is the link to his epic meltdown. It's a classic. An absolute classic.

But the question bears asking: is it time to crown the 49ers NFC West champions? Look at the opposition. The Cardinals are struggling, the Seahawks are old and injured, and the Rams...?

Ah, yes, the Lambs. They could do little right yesterday, and what little they did right was usually wiped out by stupid penalties. The final score, 35-0, doesn't even BEGIN to reflect the beatdown the Niners laid on the woeful Lambs. Even with the Niners only ahead by 7 late in the 3rd quarter, I wasn't the slightest bit worried. The Rams are a horrible, horrible team. Horrible on a Biblical scale. Only Cecil B. DeMille was capable of capturing an epic FUBAR such as the Rams are right now.

Defense and special teams played an inspired game for the Niners. Patrick Willis and company were MONSTER. There were two touchdowns scored by the defense and one scored by special teams. But the offense? Dude, the offense is S-T-R-U-G-G-L-I-N-G. 90% of the offensive problems can be traced to a single source: offensive line play. Our line is just plain not getting it done. They can't run block. They can't pass block. If we hadn't blown our first round draft pick on that puto Michael Crabtree and had drafted Michael Oher instead, we might not be in this pickle.

So, how long can our defense carry us? I'm not sure. No defense is so strong that it can completely negate a poor offense (one exception: the 2000 Ravens). But I'm confident that Coach Singletary will come up with some way to overcome our weakness and get the team to where it needs to be.

The season is at the 25% completed mark. The Niners are 3-1, 3-0 in division. Unless the Cardinals can right the ship and get on a roll, or the Niners experience an epic collapse, the Niners winning the West is pretty much a foregone conclusion. How the team does in the playoffs beyond that remains to be seen.

Still, there's a level of excitement in 49er-land that I haven't felt in 7 long years.

Wiener of the Week

This WotW writes itself, with a little help from the Wall Street Journal.

The selection of Rio de Janeiro over Chicago for the 2016 Olympics was an embarrassment for President Barack Obama, whose appearance before the International Olympic Committee was the first by a U.S. president.

Mr. Obama revved up the White House machinery to aid Chicago's Olympic bid, sending First Lady Michelle Obama and adviser Valerie Jarrett to Denmark leading a delegation that included nearly a half-dozen top administration officials.The White House announced only last week that he would join as well. The widespread perception was that he wouldn't have decided to go unless Chicago was virtually assured of a win.

But the city was cut in the first of three rounds of voting.

And the Vulture basks in the schadenfreude.

Sorry, Duce. You can't just show up at the last minute and expect the power of your presence to overwhelm the selection committee.

Il Duce - you're the Wiener of the Week.

A great idea killed - goodbye, Saturn!

It was with great sadness that "I read the news today (oh, boy!)" that Penske has dropped out of trying to acquire Saturn from General Motors. That means that Saturn is dead - flat-lined, finito, taking the dirt nap, toes up, gone to that great car museum in the sky, etc, etc.

Okay, I'm trying to be flip because, in truth, this news really disappoints me. A lot.

As I wrote some months ago, Saturn has a special place in my heart. My family has owned 5 Saturns from 1992 to the present. I was in a serious accident in a Saturn and walked away from it unharmed. I loved my Saturns.

Saturn was the one good thing GM did since....hmm....since....oh, I know! Since the introduction of the Camaro. Saturn was a brilliant idea. Great quality, high mileage, maximum safety, no-haggle purchasing. Naturally, GM being GM, they FUBARed it. Eff you, GM!

Good bye, Saturn. It was awesome while it lasted.

Apple! Enough already!

Man, I hate the "Mac vs. PC" commercials. I simply loathed them in silence right up until the one featuring Patrick Warburton aired. (Watch the ad here).

In it, a wholesome looking girl-next-door type is asking the annoying PC and Mac guys whether she should get a Mac or a PC. The PC guy brings on Mr. Warburton, who portrays the "top of the line PC". The young innocent wants a big screen and lots of speed, and a computer "without thousands of viruses and tons of headaches". Replying, he says, "Lady, any PC you get is going to have those problems".

By this point I'm starting to get irritated. He makes it worse. Once she has decided on the Mac (because the clear implication is that Macs DON'T have viruses or headaches), he says, "When you're ready to compromise, call me".

The utter arrogance of those Apple SOBs!!! Let's deconstruct a tad, shall we?

First, the question of why there are so many more viruses on PCs than on Macs. There's a very, very good reason for that: no self-respecting computer programmer, let alone hacker, would install the Mac-OS on their computer. Serious programmers either use Vista (if they're Windows developers like me) or Linux. Oh, and I said MORE viruses on PC than on Mac - news flash: Macs get viruses! If they didn't, why are there so many antivirus products available for the Mac OS? FYI, Antivirus.com identifies 24 known viruses for the Mac. Those are just the viruses targeting the operating system; Macs are every bit as susceptible to APPLICATION viruses (such as those contained in ActiveX controls) as PCs!

Mac fanboys make a big deal over Mac's quick boot time. Hey, how 'bout that. They also hype the "culture of good quality software". Again, hey, how 'bout that. How about the Windows culture of abundant software? I don't know about you, but I like knowing that the entire universe of software capabilities is available to me out there. I don't have to settle for table scraps like Mac users.

Serious computer users (and gamers) wouldn't be caught dead with a Mac. This article details five reasons why PCs are better than Macs from the perspective of those people.

• PCs Are Better For Games
• PCs Are Better Media Machines
• PCs Are More Cost-Effective
• Apple Is Fascist (elaboration follows)
• It's Still a PC World Out There (ie, 96.5% of all computer users can't be wrong)

Elaborating on the 'Apple is Fascist' tag. The author probably should have worded this differently. Since he didn't, allow me to give that section of his article a new tag: "I hope you like it as-is, because you're NEVER going to be able to mod it".

xfloggingkylex is the ultimate PC guru. He's been building Frankenstein PCs (buy the components separately and assemble a super computer made-to-order) since he was in his mid-teens. The idea of accepting ANY computer (laptops excepted) as unmodifiable is anathema to him! As it should be! If I buy a computer and find out in a year that a new super video card is available that makes everything before it obsolete, I'm not about to run out and buy a new computer! I'm going to buy the card and install it myself (or, better yet, have xfloggingkylex do it; he'll also overclock and tune it while he's at it).

Finally, no one presents the Mac vs. PC argument better than Charlie Brooker does in this article. Read it in it's entirety; it's effin hysterical! Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite.

I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, "I hate Macs", and then I think, "Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.

"Fisher-Price activity centres for adults". That's funny, I don't care who you are.

To summarize:

• Mac users are pretentious poseurs.
  
• Apple is a smug, arrogant bunch of ex-hippies selling one-size-fits-all crap to said pretentious poseurs.
• PCs are made to do actual work
• The reason Windows is targeted for viruses more than Mac is because hackers won't waste their time on insignificant toys
• Macs are nearly impossible to mod; PCs are easily modifiable.
  
• PC users have the entire universe of software available to them; Mac users are happy with table scraps.

There you go. PC > Mac. Quod erat demonstrandum.