In the last week, I have been witness to and part of many conversations and probably one of my favorite ones was about coffee. My friend reasoned that coffee is as wonderful as it is because of its dependability (unlike, for example, your relatives). You know that for a moderate sum of money, you can drink a drink that makes you happy, alert, and, for some of us, allows us to face the rest of the day on an even keel. It is pure comfort that derives from a form of almost ritualistic dependability.
This morning, as I was sipping my coffee, I came across a short
blog post by Stanley Fish who certainly does not make me as happy as my morning cup of joe, but I do admire him for his dependability and consistency when it comes to reporting on matters of liberalism. For over 20 years he has dependably written on the quandaries and limit of liberal political ideology and his most recent installment, which focuses primarily on
a new book by Paul Starr, is no different.
Well, his conclusion strikes just a little differently than the tone of some of his previous works.
In the past (or perhaps in some of his longer academic works), Fish’s solution to the problem of competing ideologies is that there are no solutions, just incommensurable ideologies and you gotta sort of duke it out, and the strong man/woman/group wins (see
Terry Eagleton for this characterization of Fish’s work. But the ending to this piece is subtly different, a tone and stance I rather prefer:
So again, what to do? Lilla s answer is pragmatic rather than philosophical (and all the better for that). All we can do, he says, is cope ; that is, employ a succession of ad hoc, provisional strategies that take advantage of, and try to extend, moments of perceived mutual self-interest and practical accommodation. We need to recognize that coping is the order of the day, not defending high principles. Now there s a principle we can live with, maybe.
What I like about his ending is that it acknowledges there are times when compromise is possible, where a common meeting ground can be forged, however provisional these may be. As someone interested in the politics of consensus and accommodation, I think it is important to recognize that human beings are not simply molded by one set of values but are are often dwelling within various systems (of sometimes contradictory) values. And it is because of this multiplicity that forms of accommodation and consensus emerge and can emerge, signaling a more hopeful politics that derive not from abstract adherence to precept such as tolerance, but from the far messier realm of actual life experience.
Two words: flawless execution.
I can enjoy almost any movie that is well constructed, regardless of genre, plot, etc..
It did help to sit pretty far back in the theater, though.
If the CIA were really as clever and technologically sophisticated as it appears in the Bourne movies, the United States wouldn’t have so many foreign policy disasters on its hands (egregious constitutional violations notwithstanding).
Technorati Tags: Bourne Ultimatum, Movies, Queasycam
Today, I ordered a dedicated server for some friends of mine and me. We will split it up into 5 Xen instance, quite similar to Steve s 
The latest version of d2x-xl works quite well, so I've started packaging it. Since it needs the data from the commercial game to work, it will probably end up in contrib.
The interesting thing is that there is another project, Into Cerberon, working on a Doom 3 mod with free game data -- it would be interesting to see whether both projects could be combined in order to get a completely free game. Difficulty: Into Cerberon is planning for a triangle based engine while d2x-xl thinks in cubes.
Update: Into Cerberon use the Doom 3, not the Quake 3 engine. Thanks "zulu9" for noticing. Also, Josh alerts me of some interesting (cough) licensing issues around this code. As I'm still busy wading through the uclibc source compiling a proper list of attributions and licenses (ftp-master thinks a blanket statement "If you link against this, the LGPL applies to you, if you look at the files, please see each individual file" is not enough -- I can somehow see their point, but it takes ages to do that) that will have somewhat lower priority. I know why I rewrite things from scratch rather than fix them these days...
So, we will be moving to New York City, starting next week. We hope to spend a year there, but who knows, we might be there for only a few months, weeks, or more than a year! Life changes, that’s why we are moving now, right? 
Only constant is change, isn’t it?
Anyway, we are pretty excited about this. This has been something we have been expecting since May/June and we are finally ready to go, we’ll see how it goes, hopefully good. School from my side will have to get stalled, again. I’ll be able to study there, but don’t know for sure now, we are trying to settle first, and then see possibilities.
So, if you know/have contact with, a good place in Manhattan, Brooklyn or perhaps Queens, please let me know, that’d be highly appreciated.
Bummer, yet another two Mexicans in the States 
UPDATE: Of course, I’m looking for a good place to live (apartment in rent, or similar). Everything else has already been covered. :)
Ah, by the way, thanks to all people who were involved with updating