Saturday, October 11, 2003

I Can't Sleep. Too many thoughts...have coded a pretty AttractorPaint Java2D Paint implementation...need to figure out how to improve the color balances and make it go fast.  It's pretty cool -- you can give it any number of points and line segments, each associated with a color.  It then interpolates between the point being painted and the lines and points you give it.  You can set up nice color washes and other cool stuff...still, the math isn't right, it's too slow cause there's too much interpolation calculation.  When I say slow I mean it takes around a third of a second for a fairly big square.  That is stunningly faster than I expected it to run...but GradientPaint runs real fast, and I need to get it up to that speed...the goal is to create a beautiful background painting system for Piccolo...one that can create washes of color and variations, and even animate those...see the point behind using Shape was to be able to animate the color attractors with Piccolo, and then have a constantly shifting colored background. Maybe pooters will be fast enough two or three years from now. 5:22:00 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Guilty Until Proven Innocent. This just makes me really sad.  Captain James Yee, who by all accounts has had a normal military career, including West Point, was tossed in jail over a month ago, on charges: Washington Times: "The Army has charged Capt. Yee with five offenses: sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order. The Army may also charge him later with the more serious charge of treason, which under the Uniform Code of Military Justice could be punished by a maximum sentence of life. " Let's look at a little typical "String Him Up!" reaction, at the time: Little Green Footballs: "This is not surprising. Everybody knew this would happen if you let fellow Muslims visit Cuba. This guy is a walking deadman. They should put the firing squad execution on pay per view & give the proceds to charity. "     " This chaplin idiot was just a brain-washed brain-washer. Not that I am in anyway sympathetic. Burn him. "    " I hope he is hung in full view of his flock. Joining in with the enemy against his own country in the name of a allah, a false god of hate and murder should result in his early and swift voyage to the whore house in the sky reserved for scum like him.No Muslim should be allowed in any capacity in or near the military. I don't care how many civil rights are trampled on. Let the Arab community come out forescore against terror and maybe I'll revise my thinking. " Even Donald Sensing: "This is a very serious event, and I am astounded that the major news media have not run the story. Oh, wait a minute, maybe I'm not - you can bet your sweet bippy that if a Christian chaplain or a rabbi chaplain, or an MP officer, for that matter, had been so charged, the media would be all over it. But Yee's Muslim identity entitles him to the media kid-glove treatment." Now let's see what's actually happened, a month later: Washington Post: " Yee, a Chinese American who converted to Islam, was charged with two counts of "failing to obey a lawful general order," specifically taking classified material to his home and "wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security containers or covers." The next step is for Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, Guantanamo Bay's commander, to decide whether to dismiss the case, refer it to a special court-martial or send it to a more serious general court-martial, among other options. Yesterday's announcement about Yee by the Florida-based U.S. Southern Command, which oversees operations at Guantanamo Bay, repeatedly said his case is being treated as a lower-level special court-martial case." So let me get this straight.  We've gone from "sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage" to forgetting to put a classified file in the right kind of envelope before carrying it somewhere.  Please note that nowhere does it say that Yee did not have the right to view the materials; he did, and he had clearance.  This is why we have a system that is supposed to assume innocence, until proof of guilt.  Sensing's comments above are, well, non-sensical.  If a Christian man of the cloth were caught with having classified materials in the wrong kind of envelope, I suspect he would not be threatened with the death penalty, hauled off to jail, and made into an example by a significant portion of the starboard side of the blogosphere. Bottom line is -- this guy didn't do anything wrong.  Classified material gets mishandled constantly.  Most of it goes unnoticed, and the very vast majority of times someone does notice, a quick word or two sets procedure straight, and everyone goes about their business. Captain James Yee, West Point Graduate, combat veteran, military chaplain, is owed an apology for the destruction of his career and reputation, by panicked little minds bent on the focus of hatred, dissatisfaction, you name it.  It's just wrong. 5:14:31 AM     | comment [] | trackback []