I've never known you to shy away from controversy....

But whatever. If you don't want to be associated with me anymore, that's your perogative. Let me just say that your request is insane, but obliged. If you were anyone else, I would not have taken your links or names off my site, but because we were such good friends in the past, I oblige your request.



No, Laura, this entry is not about you. Quit reading my site.



I think your analysis of my opinion is incorrect, for the record. I know you are up in arms about my Gay Marriages articles. That's the only controversial thing I've had up here since my breakup fiasco, and I can't imagine you being pissed about that. My opinion was that I officially don't have an opinion. Not politically, anyways. I was attacking the guy's debate tactics, not his position.



But whatever. You said you didn't want to debate about it. You said you didn't want to be associated with me. You have been k-filed, k-lined, and ignored. When your analytical skills have reached a point where you can be reasonable, call me. I'm still the same guy you were friends with "back in the day." For some reason you have shyed away from calling me your friend ever since I moved to Wylie. I'm not up for debate on it... at this point, I'm not interested.. I suppose this is the final nail in that coffin.



Knowing you, you aren't even going to have a second thought about this. You're going to think, "hey, that's how he wants to be, fsck'em."

---

At any rate, I've had time to think about this issue a little bit more. The issue of gay marriages, that is. I was watching Bill Maher's show last night on HBO (which I really like, btw. if you agree with his politics or not, you gotta admit he's the king of zingers) and one of the people on the show brought up a really good point.



This whole debate doesn't belong in a political arena at all. Marriage should be taken out of politics. This is a religious debate -- marriage is a religion thing, spiritual thing, all that. Why do we have laws about marriage? For tax reasons, for insurance reasons, etc. This is *bunk*!



I mean, I can personally garuntee you that the insurance company doesn't check with the government to see if your girlfriend you put down as your wife is actually your wife or not.



I heard the argument that rampant homosexuality was the cause of the fall of Rome, and we are on that same path of debauchery. Y'know, the fall of Rome had more to do with theocracy and that sort of thing ... mandating morals and beliefs through law. It also had to do with rampant corruption and an aging empire.



So all this really comes down to is a moral debate. In a moral debate, there really isn't a winning side, because it comes down to subjective beliefs, which was the point I was making before in this rant against Frank I posted earlier. I refuse to be goaded into a moral debate on a political arena, and any smart politician should do the same. It would behoove both sides of the debate to take this tactic. As a libertarian, I dont' want to infringe on anyone's personal rights. As a person who's beliefs are founded in Judeo-Christian values, I shy away from endorsing something the Bible is quite clear on like homosexuality. But then as a person who lives in the real world, has acquantances, friends and business associates who are gay or lesbian, I find myself in the position of being tugged from both sides.



So I ponder my delimma and come to the conclusion that I don't care what people do when it doesn't affect me. Changing the laws in this nation affects me. Constitutional amendments affect me. Anarchy in California affects me. Gay Marriages (as long as they aren't mandated by law) don't affect me. I don't want my government mandating what my definition of marriage should be. I don't want them telling me it has to be a man and a woman. I don't want them telling me it can be a dog and a woman, man and a man, or anything. I'm not saying that this is some slippery slope, or anything of that nature. I'm saying I don't want the government, something that we have learned by the results of the 2000 presidential election is very far removed from the will of the people, telling me what my morals should be and if they are right or wrong.



That is all.



/rizzn

RUN/STOP at the Bus Terminal

A few guys from Analogik discovered that the Commodore 64 is still being used to serve up information at an Australian bus terminal. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.

I bet you want to play some Paradroid or some Last Ninja now, don't you?

[Via OSNews]

A PC (or Mac) in Your Pocket

The Register has an article about a new IBM Japan gadget that would essentially put all the workings of a PC into a tiny (6.4 x 3.3 x 0.9in) enclosure:

For now dubbed the PC Core System, the (literally) pocket PC is based on a 1GHz Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 processor. Inside the case, you'll also find 256MB of memory - it can take up to 512MB - and a 20GB 2.5in hard drive. The machine runs a variety of versions of Windows.

IBM's thinking is that users will carry around their PCs, plugging them into base units located wherever they happen to be working. The approach is intended to appeal to corporates who want to thoroughly mobilise their workforces. The base stations can connect the core unit to a screen, keyboard, mouse and network connection. The system, it reckons, is much better than, say, a notebook, which becomes almost useless if its delicate LCD display is damaged in transit.

They also mention that the original idea behind Apple's OS 10.3 was to make it possible for users to store their home directories on an iPod. That way you pop your iPod onto whatever machine you happen to be in front of and all your user-specific stuff is there. I kinda like IBM's idea a bit better, where the whole shebang is inside the pod.

Wonder what they'll call it. "PC Core System" is too pocket protector geekish. How about "The ibmPod"? Nah.

[via Gadgetopia]

Fugu

In Japan fugu--or pufferfish--also are called teppo (gun), a reference to their deadliness when handled inexpertly. The intestines, ovaries and liver contain tetrodotoxin (TTX), 1,200 times deadlier than cyanide and among the most powerful poisons found in nature. TTX also has been detected in species of pufferfish found in Baja California and Titusville, Fla. Upon ingesting it, a victim first feels numbness of the lips and tongue. Symptoms quickly graduate to salivating, vomiting, twitching and finally convulsive death. The lethal dose for an adult male is small enough to fit on the head of a pin, and a single pufferfish typically contains enough to kill 30 people.

It was a brave man that first ever ate a fugu.

Since 1958, chefs licensed to prepare fugu (by removing the offending organs and other toxic tissues) have been required to apprentice for at least three years under a master chef. As a result, the cost of a fugu meal is more than most Japanese can easily afford--upwards of $200. The need for taking such extreme precautions dates back to the 1500s, when fugu-eating troops, assembled for an invasion of Korea, supposedly suffered a mass poisoning. A 200-year prohibition on fugu followed. Then in 1888, Hirobumi Ito, Japan's first prime minister, lifted the ban.

Even today, however, at least several dozen diners die annually. In 1975 one of Japan's most famous kabuki actors plucked his last lute, thanks to fugu. The fish remains the only delicacy denied the emperor--too risky. Epicures and suicides who seek it head for Shimonoseki, a city on the western tip of Japan's main island. Perhaps 500 fugu chefs live here, and more than half of all the fugu consumed in Japan passes through Shimonoseki's markets. When served in restaurants, paper-thin slices of the fish typically are arranged in the shape of a chrysanthemum--the flower of funerals in Japan.

audio post powered by audblog

Odds are Against it

I'm 63% (Dixie). A definitive Southern score!

As an interesting sidenote, craw5, a buddy of mine for a few years now, sent me some freestyle of his when we first met. Now I've got a playlist that if it runs continuously one end through the other, it shouldn't repeat within a seven day period. For whatever reason, craw's freestyle song on my playlist has played three days in a row. What are the odds, yes?

/rizzn

audio post powered by audblog

Gayness in Marriage Debate Sparks Ignorant Statements Again
A commentary on I Protest's entry Fighting for the right.

You know, I actually used to like reading "I protest," but I've discovered that he makes more ignorant statements than the "ignorant right wing bigots" he always seems to be attacking.

I'm not going to put the disclaimer about me not being a homophobe on here again.  If you can't remember that long or scroll down the page a bit to find it, this website will clearly go over your head, so head on out to farmsex.com right away.

Frank says:

Over on TalkLeft, in the comments to "S.F. to Continue Issuing Gay Marriage Licenses," I've been conducting a pretty heated argument with a couple anti-gay-marriage bigots. One of these persons, one Patrick, has continued to deny his bigotry even as he has displayed it. His best argument against gay marriage so far has been that "most people oppose it, therefore it should be illegal."

Frank doesn't have a great opening statement here.  I mean, we do live in a democracy.  Or a republic, depending on how technical your take is on our government.  At any rate, we vote for what we want to happen in our country.  That means majority rules.  Nine times out of ten, when the majority says they do or don't want this or that law to be passed or not passed, that's how it should be.  That's how democracies/republics work.  If you don't like that, you move to a democratic country where more like-minded people such as yourself live, or where there's some govermental body that enforces that which you feel so passionately about.  When you live in a country where the majority of people disagree with what you feel should be legalized, you are living in the wrong country.  When you discover this, you are generally faced with two options: Deal With It OR Leave.

Frank continues:

I realize that in many ways this kind of argument is futile. Patrick and "IWW" have their minds made up and no amount of evidence, hard fact or reasoned discourse will influence them. If anything, it will only make them cling more tightly to their bigotry and ignorance, since to them a contradiction of their cherished preconceptions is a threat to themselves, as individuals. It is a threat to their egos, to their self-images, since their self-images and egos are tied up in those preconceptions. I couldn't be more threatening to Patrick if I were coming at him with a knife. (If anything, he would likely find that easier to handle, since it wouldn't challenge his ego.)

I was not there for this argument, so I'm not going to try to defend this Patrick and IWW character, but I will say that Frank's comments about these two guys sound an awful lot like tripe Slimee would say when she couldn't think of a valid arguement to support her position in a debate (which was just about every time we disagreed on something).

Here goes a description of the general strategy being used here:

1) Find a name or label or example from history that his utterly deplorable.  Good examples are Hitler, bigot, racist, homo, Rush Limbaugh, Osama bin Laden, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Christian Fundamentalist.  These are just a few, but any of them work.

2) Call your opponent that name/label.

3) Make unqualified judgements about that persons character, and tie it in to what is going on in that person's head, so the argument is completely un-refutable by everyone except the person who the comment is made about.  Here's the beauty though: his name has already been tainted by step one, so whatever comes out of their mouth to defend themselves is suspect.

4) Act all intelligent and snide by putting in some supporting comments that say how certain traits they possess actually re-inforce your allegations, accomplishing two important things: making you sound like an expert in psychology or something, and making the other person's fate sealed in terms of losing the argument. I mean, how can you argue with an expert in psychology or something?

Frank sez:

I don't typically stoop to name-calling and I have a strong reason to call Patrick and "IWW" bigots. It is because that is what they are. If you oppose gay marriage on principle, then you're a bigot.

How does that make you a bigot?  Do you know what it means to oppose something on a principle?  It means you have values, and principles and morals.  How can you sit there and tell me or anyone else my morals are skewed, especially when you are making allegations about a majority of the country's morals?

It reminds me of a cheesey story I probably heard in a church or something.  There was this mom watching her kid in the marching band during a small town's parade.  The kid was marching left/right on 2 and 4 and the rest of the band was marching left/right on 1 and 3.  The mom leans over to her friend and says, "Look at my boy out there, he's the only one marching in time with the music."

Since I'm sure there are still slimee ditto-heads in the readership, I'll explain it for you guys: in a democracy, when you are in the minority, you are wrong, no matter what your mom says.  Just like in war, where history is determined by the victors, right and wrong are decided upon by the prevailing majority.

Just like if someone in 1958 opposed interracial marriage, they were a bigot.

How is an interracial marriage anything like a gay marriage?  For that matter, how is opposing interracial marriage make you a bigot?  I don't oppose interracial marriage, but if I did, it doesn't say anything about what I believe black, asian, white, hispanic or any other race of people should be treated like.  Sometimes, opposition to interracial marriage is a cultural thing.  Take Orthodox Judaism or Gypsy culture -- their cultures for the most part insist on marrying within their culture.  That means an Orthodox Jew boy is going to be severely looked down upon for marrying a Jamaican girl, for instance.  It doesn't mean they don't believe a Jamaican girl can't do all the things and shouldn't be afforded all the rights of any other citizen, they just oppose the marriage of one to an Orthodox Jewish boy.

There are a number of reasons, some scientific, some moral, that can be cited to argue against homosexuality in general, not just marriages.  I'm not going to cite them here, because frankly, it's not my argument.  I'm up in arms over the fact that so many people seem to be having this entire argument with each other without citing a single fact or figure, and arguing what each other's morals should be.

Frank continues with intense moral indignation:

These people like to call the rest of us "ignorant," "misguided," "twisted," or that worst of all labels, "liberal" (as if being a liberal were something of which to be desperately ashamed). It is past time to take the discourse back. If someone is a bigot, call them a bigot. Don't spare their feelings and don't consider all sides. Yeah, there are shades of gray, but these days the fight (and it's not a debate, it's a fight) is pretty clearly a fight between right and wrong. It's wrong to discriminate based on sexual orientation. It's wrong to lock someone up forever without charge or due process on the arbitrary say-so of one man. It is wrong to steal from the poor to line the pockets of the rich. It's wrong to censor the truth if it contradicts a favored political opinion.

There are shades of gray, but they're in the middle. Right now, though, we're not in the middle. A bunch of people have dragged us all over into an area that's pretty damned black. It's time, and past time, to do something about it. It's time to put away sensibility and express ourselves clearly, succinctly and without pulling any punches.

Call a liar a liar, call a bigot a bigot, call a damned fool a damned fool and call a criminal a criminal, even if he has gotten away with his crime. If we don't do this, certainly no one else will.

There's really no point in commenting on any of that other than to say good luck fighting this battle -- but wasn't it the liberal battle cry a few years ago that you can't legislate morality? Conservatives aren't trying to legislate morality by banning gay marriages, they are simply expressing in black and white what has been understood for generations: marriages are between men and women.  It definately is an odd commentary on our culture today that those lines are blurred and open for debate, and no one takes a second thought about it.

Honestly, I really can't talk -- I've grown up in the fscked up culture, too, and the only reason I'm aware that the discussions we have about this are grossly absurd is because I have a sense of history, and I read a bunch.

Think about it -- killing unborn babies, not just legalising homosexual marriages, but legally protecting such things, the debate about cloning people -- these are absurd things to debate, things that would have been obvious to 100% of the population 50 or 100 years ago (which is not that long ago in the grand scheme of human history).

But I digress a little.  I'm allowed.  Someone named Rayne responds with:

What really bugs the bejabbers out of me is that most of these rabidly bigoted morons do not have the first clue about the Constitution. One has to point out Section 1 of the 14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

They usually counter with something trite like marriage has always been a man and a woman. To which they must be reminded that is a religious perspective and the government only sees contracts, not religious institutions -- since the First Amendment clearly says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

Let's get right down to the meat of things.  All laws came from a religion of some kind or another... these absurd debates I mentioned earlier ... they aren't absurd to us now for two reasons.  1) Our nation's conscience isn't anchored to the same moral highground it used to be, and 2) (at least for my generation) we've lived in a society where things like abortion and homosexuality have been at least somewhat accepted since before we were born.

So to construe every law a minority of the country doesn't like as something that is respecting religious tenets to argue against it is at best flawed.  Do not murder is a religious tenet, but I don't hear a great call within America to repeal that law (except when it comes to unborn children).  When you use that argument to support your position, you can't have it both ways.

Just as a sidenote, I hate it when the first amendment is mis-quoted.  The full sentence is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The bolded part is what should have been quoted... the thought isn't finished until the semi-colon.  It's not a thing that really detracts from his argument, but it is an important part of the sentence.

Rayne finishes with the zinger:

If they don't like it, they can move to a country without the freedoms from persecution that the U.S. Constitution has extended to them for so long. Maybe they'd be happier in China.

Frank responds:

They probably wouldn't like it so much in China, either. All marriages are "civil unions" there. The religious/social wedding is entirely separate from and unrelated to the legal process. Ultimately, to get married in China, one fills out the proper forms and has them stamped appropriately by the proper functionaries. And that's pretty much it as far as the government is concerned.

Of course, China has other problems, like denial of the presence of homosexuality, for example. My wife (who is Chinese, by the way) swore that China has very few if any gay people. I've had to tell her many times that they're there, they're just hiding their sexuality from societal disapproval. (Which disapproval, incidentally, carries much more weight there than a Westerner can easily understand.)

Do I really need to point out the humorous arrogance this man has in explaining to someone from her own country what exactly is going on in their minds and day to day lives?  For the love of John, she's from China.  You aren't.  And you are telling her what's going on not only in her own country, which you will clearly have less knowlege of than someone who grew up there, but in the minds of her countrymen and women.

I'm strongly considering taking I Protest off my reading list simply because of the arrogance and lack of intelligent mental processes Frank has demonstrated in the last couple articles.  It's not that I disagree strongly with his position on this.  My personal opinion falls into the realm of "Our country's respect for the institution of marriage is so retarded, why should we deny gays and lesbians the misery most marriages have become and horde all the fun for the straights?"

But if there's going to be strong debate on the subject, and you are going to support one position or another, do so with at least a modicum of mental precision, and research your position. If you are putting this issue on the pedastal with Rosa Parks and race relations, then make sure your position is supported by more than a gut feeling of fairness.

[via I protest.]

Und das beste Teil ist: JEDER STIRBT!

[ Anmerkung Rizzns: Ich denke, daß was dieses bemerkenswerte bildet, ist, daß es auf Deutsch ist. Ich denke, bildet daß was, ist es lustig, daß es Vampirehiebe mit Lasern auf ihren Köpfen und ninjas und einen Gecken, der Paco mit einem schlechten Doppeljaco genannt wird hat. WTF, flehe ich Sie! ]

Erzaehler: Hallo, ich bin der Erzaehler fuer unsere unglaubliche Geshichte. Unsere geshichte beginnt in das Haus von unserm Held, Paco. Paco ist eine Kreuzung von Giraffe, Stachelscwein, und Eidechse. Er hat ein grosses Sense und ist sehr mutig, edel, und heldenhaft. Unser Abenteuer beginnt mit eine Ueberbringer.


Ueberbringer: Ich habe eine dringende Mitteilung fuer Paco.

Paco: Ich bin Paco.

Ueberbringer: Das Dorf braucht. dich, es ist unter Sturm bei flammed ninja tac-chi eich hoeruchen.

Paco: Sie muessen die Codex von Letzte Weicheit bei euch suchen. Ich muss sie Halten.

Erzaehler: So mit das, Paco ging auf Reise. Das Dorf war ein Uhr bei Fuss, so Paco hatte keine Zeit. Aber, Aeger war nicht so weit weg.

RMWS: Hallo Paco!

Paco: Oh nein! Radioaktiv Mikroskopisch Zauberer Spinnen!

RMWS: Ja und jetzt ist es Zeit das du deinen Macher triffst!

Erzaehler: Paco hast die Radioaktiv Mikroskopisch Zauberer Spinnen von wissen fuer veil Zeit. Er hat deise wissen gewoehne, und er hat ein anti-Radioaktiv Mikroskopisch Zauberer Spinnen-Zauber gemacht. Aber, das Zauber ist nicht gut. Die Spinnen waren zu klein und das Zauber verpassete sie. Dann wickelten die Spinnen. Paco in ihre radioaktiv ein Netze. Die Spinnen gehen und hilfe kommt. Eine gluehende Bisamratte kam zum helfen.

Christopher: Hallo, kann ich holfen?

Paco: Bitte, du musst mein Sense finden und dann schneidst du mich Frei.

Erzaehler: Christopher findt das Sense und schneidet Paco frei.

Paco: Danke, ich muss jetzt zum Dorf gehen.

Christopher: Ich weiss eine Abkuerzung.

Paco: Wirklich?

Christopher: Ja, wir schneiden durch die Hoehle von Dunkelheit. Inzwischen ich gluehend und wissen die Hoehle, ich will mit dir gehen.

Erzaehler: So, Crisopher und Paco gehen zur Hoehle und hoffen fuer keinen Arger.

Paco: Halt, hoert ihr das?

Christopher: Oh nein, ich habe angst.

Paco: Was?

Christopher: Vampir Fledermaeuse mit Laser Sehkraft!

Erzaehler: Paco kaempft die Fledermaeuse aber er macht zu es nicht gut.

Christopher: Warte eine minute, ich habe ein Idee.

Erzaehler: Christopher fing an zu gluehen und wurde heller und heisser. Dann explodierte er mit Licht und Hitze. Die naechtlich Fledermaeuse flogen weg und unsore Helden gingen weiter.

Paco: Wir muessen schnell gehen! Ich kann das Dorf sehen!

Erzaehler: Die flammend ninja tac-chi Eichhoerunchen warten in das Dorf.

Paco: Halt! Jetzt musst du zahlen!

FNTS: Du bist nicht besser dran als uns!

Erzaehler: Die Flammen ninja tae-chi Eichhoeruchen toeteten Christopher.

Paco: Nein!

Erzaehler: Paco dan werfe die flammen ninja tae-chi Eichhoeruchen in den Brunnen. Ihre flamen loeschen und die flamen ninja tae-chi Eichhoeruchen waren macht los und dan ertrinken sie.

Jaco: Gratulierte! Du hast meine flammend tae-chi ninja Eichhoeruchen zerstoert! Aber du kannst mich nicht halten! Ich werde das Codex von Letzte weischlit bekommen!

Erzaehler: Jaco ist auch eine Kreuzung von schildkroete, ein habicht und ein tintenfisch. Paco toetete Jaco, das Codex von letzte weischeit hat gebrannt, und Paco hat sich getoetet.

Das Ende

[via Ramblings of the Confused]

Be Careful What You Google

It might just get your mother arrested.

According to an LA Times story (requires registration) a 17 year old kid in California did a Google search on his own name and found himself on a missing kids list. Turns out that in 1989 his dad was given custody of him after a divorce, but apparently mom wasn't happy with the situation, so soon after she skipped the country (Canada) during a visit, with the kid.

The dad notified authorities, but mom was successful in evading the Canadian authorities, and was living peacefully with their son as a legal immigrant in the LA area.

The teen, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, told a teacher about what he discovered on a website devoted to missing children. That set in motion a federal investigation that ended with the arrest of his mother last week and ignited hopes among his father's family of a reunion they feared might never happen.

Now the traumatized 17 year old is in the custody of the LA County Children and Family Services Department, waiting to be reunited with the dad he doesn't know. Mom was arrested and is awaiting extradition to the Great White North to face child abduction charges.

Ok, how many have googled your own name, and actually found something?

[via Gadgetopia]

UPDATE ON NEW MITNICK BOOK

As reported on the December 10, 2003 edition of "Off The Hook," Kevin Mitnick, along with his co-author William Simon, has been commissioned to write a second book tentatively titled "The Art of Intrusion" which will look at mitigation and prevention of attacks by telling stories of some of the most interesting hacks ever performed. The deadline for submissions is fast approaching.

The stories will be about creative, innovative, and clever techniques used in implementation, or about attacks perpetrated on attractive targets. These stories won't be telling anyone's life story but rather will focus on single episodes of original hacks. The best story will receive $500 and all other ones used in the book will receive $200. A copy of both books autographed by the authors will also be included.

Details on submissions can be found at www.defensivethinking.com or you can send your submission directly to hacks@defensivethinking.com. Contributors can remain anonymous in the publication.

Mitnick will also be appearing on the radio program "Coast to Coast with George Noory" on February 10, 2004.

[via 2600.com]

an alarmist view of DARPA

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research
and development organization for the Department of Defense. I hesistate to rename Department to Ministry. In any case, it's time to shed some light on DARPA and it's current pet projects.

First, there's the TIA Project, TIA stands for Total Information Awareness. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56620,00.html
Sounds a bit Orwellian doesn't it? Well, it is.

"What national security experts and civil libertarians want to know is, why would the Defense Department want to do such a thing?

The embryonic LifeLog program would dump everything an individual does into a giant database: every e-mail sent or received, every picture taken, every Web page surfed, every phone call made, every TV show watched, every magazine read. "
- Wired http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58909,00.html

Yes, please protect me oh mighty government, here rake all my privacy away and go catch those evil terrorists. Well, clearly you can all see the problem with this. DARPA not only wants to create this TIA database, but they are also spending millions looking on ways to 'enhance' the military.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,60768,00.html
Yes, one way is by numbing the soldiers to pain. C'mon, who wants a soldier who's wounded and actually stops fighting as a result of that? Better yet, how about soldiers who don't even have to eat every day?
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62297,00.html
Hell, DARPA even wanted a market where persons speculate on terrorist attacks like pork on the commodities exchange.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59813,00.html
Sure, Hitler is dead but it looks like DARPA is keeping at least some of his dreams alive. Honestly, DARPA is something Hitler could only have had wet dreams about. It's almost unfair to Hitler to mention DARPA in the same breath. No, no, DARPA seeks much more than the annihilation of human lives, it seeks their ultimate enslavement.

Please keep your eyes on DARPA. Don't stay in the dark, for the fight for the liberties of all people, rest on our Total Information Awareness of the Fascists of the 21st Century.

[via Memes.org]

RIAA Countersued for Racketeering

evilninja writes "Only a handful of the accused in the RIAA's crusade have chosen to fight back, with various strategies and varying levels of failure. c|net has a story about a woman countersuing the RIAA under the federal antiracketeering act. The attempt is categorized as a "long shot" in the article, but is an interesting approach nonetheless."

[via LawMeme]

Chastity Belt Sets Off Airport Metal Detector

» From the Sex Toy Department

"When a 40-year old British woman set off a metal detector's alarm at Athens airport, bemused security staff found that it was caused by a chastity belt she was wearing... 'It happened a few days before Christmas. The metal detector went off and after a further check we found out she was wearing a chastity belt,' airport police official Dimitris Tzouvaras told AFP, confirming a report in the daily newspaper To Vima... According to the press report, the woman told police officers her husband had forced her to put on the belt to make sure she had no extra-marital affair during a brief visit to Greece." — Independent Online (South Africa)

The thing you really want to know is whether officials forcibly removed the chastity belt. The story doesn't say exactly, though it implies that they didn't — the woman was allowed to fly back to London "on the pilot's responsibility," which makes it sound as though the pilot accepted the responsibility of allowing the woman to keep on her chastity belt. But if that were the case, wasn't it really a breach of airline security? How could they be sure, in these troubled times, that she didn't have plastic explosives packed into her vagina? Put a match to her pubes and the whole plane could explode...

[via PervScan]

Rockin' Iranian Nanobots 

I think James Joyner is on to something here. I’d probably read a good blog on Iranian nanobots that cover local restaurant bands. Well, here are a couple of places you can go to see if there's any interest. Related Posts Drawing a nano-sized line in the sand Israel and Iran going nano Discuss Music of Iran I Music of Iran II Classical Music Of Iran

 

[via Howard Lovy's NanoBot]

Gayness in the News, Please Deposit Two Cents

First of all, let me qualify this article by saying that I am not gay, I am not immersed in the gay culture, nor do I know a whole lot of gay people. I know a few homosexuals, but other than that, my experience is rather limited. I do not have an inside track on all this gayness or some special insight. I am not a homophobe, I am not uncomfortable around gay people, flagrant or otherwise.



But I've been seeing a lot of this stuff in the news, a lot of this stuff in discussion, and a lot of blogs with this as the topic. The straw that broke the camel's back to make me comment on all this stuff was the blog entry "I Protest. In particular, a phrase on the page caught my attention: "The ignorant still believe that when a gay couple raise a child, that child will also be gay, as if homosexuality is something that is learned. "



The implication of this statement is that if we as people don't believe that homosexuality is genetic, we are unenlightened and ignorant.



I'm not meaning to slam a gay person. I'm not meaning to bash on gay people, I'm simply stating that I don't remember when the irrefutable evidence came out that homosexuality was anything but adaptation or learned behavior.



This may be flawed logic, but I have always reasoned that the nature of homosexuality dictates that if there were a gene for it, their own sexual proclivities would prevent it from being passed on indefinately, and thus the gene would die out. But moving past that, let's say for a moment that it is genetic. Down's Syndrome is genetic, yet we do not consider this as a positive, life affirming physical state.



Homosexual behaviors are fraught with serious mental health and physical consequences--all of which are well documented in scientific literature. In 1999, the Medical Institute of Sexual Health reported that, "Homosexual men are at significantly increased risk of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, anal cancer, gonorrhea and gastrointestinal infections as a result of their sexual practices." One doesn't have to consider homosexuality to be sinful to understand that such behaviors places its participants at risk for mental/physical illnesses.



Through my scans of various medical articles during the research of this piece, a cursory glance at one medical research site revealed about five seperate gay activists that they themselves attempted to prove the genetic ties to homosexuality and did not reach the conclusion they sought.



Researcher Dean Hamer, for example, attempted to link male homosexuality to a stretch of DNA located at the tip of the X chromosome, the chromosome that some men inherit from their mothers. Referring to that research, Hamer offered some conclusions regarding genetics and homosexuality.

"We knew that genes were only part of the answer. We assumed the environment also played a role in sexual orientation, as it does in most, if not all behaviors....



Homosexuality is not purely genetic...environmental factors play a role. There is not a single master gene that makes people gay....I don't think we will ever be able to predict who will be gay."

When Hamer's study was duplicated by Rice et al with research that was more robust, the genetic markers were found to be nonsignificant. Rice concluded.

"It is unclear why our results are so discrepant from Hamer's original study. Because our study was larger than that of Hamer's et al, we certainly had adequate power to detect a genetic effect as large as reported in that study. Nonetheless, our data do not support the presence of a gene of large effect influencing sexual orientation at position XQ 28."

Simon LeVay, in his study of the hypothalamic differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men, offered the following criticisms of his own research:

"It's important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain.



"INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior...Since I looked at adult brains, we don't know if the difference I found were there at birth, or if they appeared later."

I'm not going to cut and paste every one of these -- my only point in writing this article is to blow the whistle on this whole stating of facts that aren't really facts as proven facts. It's unfortunate that a lot of seemingly intelligent people do this. I've had a lot of discussions with people with college degrees and people with proven track records of achievement that degenerated into namecalling simply because they simply won't try to prove statements like "You must be ignorant if you believe that homosexuality isn't genetic," or statements like "That man evolved from apes through Darwinian evolution is a proven fact, to believe otherwise means you've bought into Judeo-Christian propaganda."



All I'm asking of you people is to question the authority of what you're told once in a while. It's possible to have too open of a mind. If you mind is too open, just about anything can (and will) fall in.



/rizzn

Howard Dean formally withdraws from race

[via FeralBlog]

YourMom!

YourMom!:



Your mom is so ugly; she put her face up to a retinal scanner and got ERROR:

INVALID MEDIA


Your mom is like HTML a tiny <head> and a whole lot a <body>


If your mom's intelligence were a shell script, it'd be commented out.


Your Mom is like a struct. She's got no class!


Dim YourMom as Variant


Your Mom is so ugly she doesn't support inheritance


Your Mom is so stupid, she uploads executables in ASCII mode.


private int yourMom = 1; private boolean isSlut = false; while(Math.random()

* yourMom < 1000){ isSlut = true; yourMom++; }


Your Mom is so fat, if she was a c variable, her initialization would look like

this: yourMom = (TFAT*) malloc(sizeof(YOUR_MOM)); //Stack Overflow


The long double numeric variable type in C++ is insufficient to express the

weight of Your Mom. J


Your Mom is so fat that she overloads her own free functions.


public boolean whore(String x) { if (x = "Your Mom") { return true;

} else { return false; }


Your Mom is so fat, the recursive function computing her fatness causes a stack

overflow.


if ($your_mom eq "fat") { $slutty = "yes"; } else { $slutty

= "dog"; }


If we were to code your mom in a C++ function she would look like this: double

mom (double fat){ mom(fat);return mom;}; //your mom is recursively fat!


Let ym = Your Mom. ym/sex = 0.

the rizzn network

the rizzn network - ALL HAIL RIZZN!



The Rizzn Network is soon to launch. Stay tooned for details. I'm not tellin' what it's about. It's a surprise. But it's cool.



Oh, just trust me, okay?

Yahoo! Switches Search Engines - by timothy (37% noise) View Skip
Giorgio Baresi writes “As several sources are reporting, Yahoo! in the last hours dumped Google and rolled out a brand new search engine mainly based on Inktomi search technology and Overture sponsored results. On Monday Yahoo! also launched its own crawler, called “Yahoo! Slurp”, which replaced former “Inktomi Slurp”. Hey, it seems the search engine war has begun!”

Ya-who? - by WebGangsta (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
While I know many people who use Yahoo for their tools (email, domain services, website hosting, calendar, address book, groups, etc), I don’t know many who turn to Yahoo for their search results anymore. Google (and to a lesser extent, MSN - due to their tight Windows/IE integration for the uninitiated who haven’t changed their preferences) IS becoming the defacto search engine on the web for the masses.

I think website referral logs reflect this as well. Using the y2003 visitor report from one of the websites that I manage, over 50% of search engine referrals came from Google; a little over 10% came from Yahoo. Other reports that I’ve reviewed offer similar findings.

As for the “slurp” name, since its been a familiar crawler for years (Inktomi), Yahoo would risk alienating some websites/website managers who would have to go adjust their Robots files just for the new name. (And let’s not mention those folks who don’t know how to update the Webtrends crawler ini file or their browsercap.ini files…)

On a related note: at some point, those spam-artist “Submit Your Site to 300 Search Engines” folks will be put out of business. Other than the top 7 or so, what other search engines/portals would be considered “major”? Yahoo, Google, MSN, Altavista/Teoma, All The Web, Ask Jeeves, About (out-of-date half the time), Looksmart, DMOZ. (Heck, even Lycos pulled out of search the other day)

[via AlterSlash]

Lockheed Martin To Integrate Pod Onto Thunderbolt

illustration only

Orlando - Feb 16, 2004
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract to integrate the Sniper XR targeting pod on the A-10 aircraft in support of the A-10 Precision Engagement (PE) Program. The contract award follows a successful demonstration of the Sniper system during the A/OA-10 Precision Engagement upgrade program's critical design review.

As part of the integration effort, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control will develop the Pilot Vehicle Interface (PVI), pod Operational Flight Program (OFP) software, and pod interface adapter hardware for the A-10. The pod will be integrated as part of the PE Program at Lockheed Martin Systems Integration -- Owego in New York, the prime contractor for the A-10 weapon system.

Upon completion of this effort, the Sniper XR pod will self-detect and automatically load the appropriate Operational Flight Program when installed on either the A-10, F-16 or F-15E airframes. This provides a single hardware configuration that maximizes the U.S. Air Force's flexibility for precision attack missions.

"This system gives the pilot the ability to recognize a target at four times the range of the first generation pods," said Ken Fuhr, Sniper XR program director, in comparing the two targeting systems.

"The laser spot tracker can also use laser targeting from another aircraft to deliver a precision bomb, so two aircraft can work in tandem. They couldn't do that with the first generation systems. The Sniper XR contract award marks a significant milestone for the A-10 Precision Engagement upgrade program. This targeting system provides the aircraft a much needed combat capability and is an important component of the A-10 weapon system upgrade."

The A-10 is an objective platform for the U.S. Air Force Advanced Targeting Pod (Sniper XR), as identified in the ATP contract award to Lockheed Martin, and will serve as an avenue to significantly expand the Sniper XR market.

The Sniper XR is a self-contained sensor and laser designator system that allows improved target detection and identification. Among the pod's capabilities are an infrared camera for thermal imaging and an additional camera that adjusts for daylight and low thermal contrast conditions.

Sniper XR incorporates a high-resolution, mid-wave third generation Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR), a dual-mode laser and a CCD-TV along with a laser spot tracker, an IR marker. An affordable precision targeting system in a single, lightweight pod, Sniper XR is fully compatible with the latest J- series munitions and precision guided weaponry.

The targeting pod has been successfully integrated on a variety of aircraft to include the F-15E, the F- 16 Block 30/40/50, the A-10 and the F/A-18. Sniper XR's outstanding performance exemplifies Lockheed Martin's continuing commitment to meeting warfighter requirements.

[via SpaceWar.com: UAV News]

US Army To Deploy Lockheed Martin Aerostat Surveillance Systems In Iraq
Akron - Feb 16, 2004
The US Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.6 million contract to provide the first of two 56,000-cubic-foot tethered aerostat surveillance systems for deployment in Iraq. The aerostats, equipped with various sensors, will provide a persistent surveillance capability in the defense of ground forces and high-value assets in Baghdad.

Lockheed Martin will integrate existing aerostats with their sensors, ground stations and mooring systems at its facility in Akron. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, will evaluate the equipment during integration.

The Army's Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors and PM RUS at Fort Monmouth, NJ will provide program and acquisition management. The Army will receive the first system in June 2004 and the second system within two months of the first system.

"This integrated capability evidences our aggressive responsiveness to a time-critical need for persistent surveillance to support and enable our Army's mission and task at war," said Edward Bair, the Army's program executive officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors. "Only through the combined efforts of a focused Army-Lockheed Martin-PM RUS team will we achieve that goal."

"Aerostat surveillance systems give the Army the additional intelligence collection capability vital to protecting ground forces and high-value assets," said Ron Browning, business development director at Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors. "Our team is committed to completing the assembly and integration of the equipment to deploy the two systems as quickly as possible."

Aerostats and other lighter-than-air systems provide low-cost, long- endurance surveillance capabilities not possible with other types of aircraft. Attached by a high-strength cable to a mooring system, aerostats may carry different types of surveillance equipment to conduct multiple missions. They are filled with helium and stay airborne around-the-clock. Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors has delivered more than 8,000 aerostats for military and commercial uses.

Lockheed Martin is the systems integrator, and operations and maintenance provider for the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS) operated by the U.S. Air Force along the southern U.S. border.

TARS uses Lockheed Martin's larger 420K (420,000 cubic feet) tethered aerostats and L-88 radar in support of air sovereignty and counter-drug operations conducted by North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center.

[via SpaceWar.com: UAV News]

Not So Anonymous Reviews

 Amazon Glitch Unmasks War of Reviewers: Amazon accidentally posted the real names of anonymous book reviewers on their site, and in the process, revealed that the whole user-submitted review process is garbage.

But even with reviewer privacy restored, many people say Amazon's pages have turned into what one writer called "a rhetorical war," where friends and family members are regularly corralled to write glowing reviews and each negative one is scrutinized for the digital fingerprints of known enemies.

One well-known writer admitted privately — and gleefully — to anonymously criticizing a more prominent novelist who he felt had unfairly reaped critical praise for years. She regularly posts responses, or at least he thinks it is her, but the elegant rebuttals of his reviews are also written from behind a pseudonym.

[via Gadgetopia]

Fred Rogers and Copyright Law

I was trying to find an MP3 of Mister Roger's song "It's such a good feeling..." because I think it would make me happy if I listened to it... and I came across this text. Very interesting stuff.

Fred Rogers' testimony in the landmark case of Sony Corp. V. Universal City Studios (1983) was literally pivotal in persuading five Justices of the United States Supreme Court to permit home viewers to record television broadcasts on VCRs for personal use. According to the opinion of Justice Stevens:

…two items in the record deserve specific mention.

[464 U.S. 417, 445] First is the testimony of John Kenaston, the station manager of Channel 58, an educational station in Los Angeles affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service. … Second is the testimony of Fred Rogers, president of the corporation that produces and owns the copyright on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The program is carried by more public television stations than any other program. Its audience numbers over 3,000,000 families a day. He testified that he had absolutely no objection to home taping for noncommercial use and expressed the opinion that it is a real service to families to be able to record children's programs and to show them at appropriate times.

27 [464 U.S. 417, 446] If there are millions of owners of VTR's who make copies of televised sports events, religious broadcasts, and educational programs such as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and if the proprietors of those programs welcome the practice, the business of supplying the equipment that makes such copying feasible should not be stifled simply because the equipment is used by some individuals to make unauthorized reproductions of respondents' works. The respondents do not represent a class composed of all copyright holders. Yet a finding of contributory infringement would inevitably frustrate the interests of broadcasters in reaching the portion of their audience that is available only through time-shifting. [Footnote 27] "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the 'Neighborhood' at hours when some children cannot use it. I think that it's a real service to families to be able to record such programs and show them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the 'Neighborhood' off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the 'Neighborhood' because that's what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family's television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been 'You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.' Maybe I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, [464 U.S. 417, 446] in a healthy way, is important." Id., at 2920-2921. See also Defendants' Exh. PI, p. 85.

[via wqed.org]

Not Fair.

My January Log File got eaten by the network goblins!



Unordered Ordered List Sabby Becca Stylee:



1) Stop tempting me. I am but a man.

2) All three of you. Refer to one.

3) Show up once in a while. Things could have been good.

4) Remember there's an important meeting tonight at 7:30.

5) There is no five.

6) There is no spoon.

7) That is all.

Give Riz Your Love II

In an unrelated story, the girl I met at the club last month didn't show up to a second date. I was only like 5 or so minutes late, and that was because I got caught behind a drawbridge AND a train.



I drove around the parking lot for an hour, came back to the office, left a message on her voice mail, and got back to some work.



I'm tired now, and I can't really decide whether or not I should give her another shot. On the one hand she seems like a cool chick. On the other hand, she's only got a .500 average on showing up to dates.



One of my bosses suggested she might be a stripper, but she's not really the type. After you talk to her, you get the idea she's not lying when she says she's a school teacher.



I'm going to sleep now. When I get home.



/rizzn

Some Random Poll

Should Bush and Clinton agree to testify before the 9/11 commission?

Yes 79%

No 16%

Undecided 6%

Do you think either president could have done more to prevent the 9/11 attacks?

Yes, Clinton could have 26%

No -- there's nothing either could have done 25%

Yes, both could have 25%

Yes, Bush could have 24%

Total Votes: 88,480

jump the shark

The Word Spy - jump the shark: On the day of its final episode, we ponder: Just when did "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" jump the shark?



A. When bad-boy lover vampire Angel left for his own series.



B. When sidekick Willow discovered she was a lesbian.



C. When Buffy got a kid sister.



D. When the show moved to UPN.



Maybe each of those was a nail in the coffin, along with the musical episode and Buffy having sex with former vampire nemesis Spike.

—Walt Belcher, "Fangs for the memories," Tampa Tribune, May 20, 2003







Example Citation #2:

The phrase "jump the shark" has enjoyed such a vogue in recent months, I'm surprised it didn't turn up on the list of overused words and expressions put out by Lake Superior State University this month.



Yet, your friendly neighborhood TV critic feels compelled to point out that one of the reasons the term is used so much is it's just so useful. Coined by Jon Hein at the University of Michigan back in the '80s, it refers to the moment when something — particularly a TV series — peaks and begins to go downhill into self-parody and decay. It originally referred to the "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie literally tried to jump a shark in a daredevil water-skiing stunt.



Me, I think "Happy Days" jumped the shark a lot earlier than that — like when Richie's older brother, Chuck, conveniently disappeared after the first season — but "lose the brother" would be even more difficult to explain than "jump the shark."



Anyway, it's obvious to see why the phrase is such a natural for critics. And the concept of if or when a certain series jumped the shark is such a natural source of debate, it has produced a cottage industry for Hein in the form of a trademarked Web site and now a companion book, "Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad." (My favorite notation on the site is the Chicago viewer who suggested "Bozo's Circus" jumped the shark when Sandy the Tramp left to produce "The Banana Splits.")



So, it being a new year and all, now seems a good time to review the current prime-time programs and which have jumped the shark and when. The official jumptheshark.com Web site helps out with handy categories, such as "I Do" (see weddings, as on "I Dream of Jeannie"), "Exit ... Stage Left" (departures, like Suzanne Somers leaving "Three's Company"), "Same Character, Different Actor" (Dick Sargent replacing Dick York on "Bewitched") and "A Very Special..." as in "A very special 'Blossom'."

—Ted Cox, "Jumping the shark," Chicago Daily Herald, January 23, 2003

Congressional Report Dumps on CAPPS II

Last year, when Cogress let the TSA go ahead with CAPPS II, its controversial passenger-profiling databse, it attached a set of eight supposedly measurable standards that the system would need to pass to be funded. Now, in utterly unsurprising news, a Congressional probe has found that CAPPS is failing those standards with flying colors.

According to the report, the TSA failed to address privacy concerns, failed to find a way of dealing with false positives, failed to secure the system safe from hackers, and failed to show that the system would help in finding potential terrorists.

The report's fierce criticism may prevent CAPPS II from being funded at all. Yay.

[via LawMeme]

A duckling looks around before being killed by Chinese health workers at a farm in Tianjin after the northern port city reported a suspected bird flu case February 10, 2004. Local authorities have killed about 200,000 poultry in Tianjin. Fourteen of China's 31 provinces have confirmed or suspected outbreaks of the avian influenza, which has devastated flocks across Asia and killed 19 people. (China Photo via Reuters)

There's something very surreal about this whole scene. I think it's just how outnumbered the soon to be terminated duckling is by the blue-suits. The Duckie seems to be saying something sassy, too... I bet he wasn't even sick... he just ticked off Johnny Health-Law, and now he's got to be made an example. Bad way to play it, Mr. Sassy-bill. I wonder if I think Ducks are wise guys, thanks to Cartoons? Daffy, Donald, Howard, ugh.. Baby Huey. .. are there any non-jerky primary-character ducks? (Not counting whole cities of ducks, lik ethe rest of the Disney-verse) Yakky Doodle and Dinky, maybe, but they're third-stringers at *best*... but they are more duckling than duck, like the little guy above.

[via Localfeeds: Pompano Beach(10)]

ACME Heart Maker

My Boss Sent Me This Today

My Boss Sent Me This Today

In case you needed further proof that the human race is doomed through stupidity, here are some actual label instructions on consumer goods.



On a Sears hairdryer: Do not use while sleeping.

(And that's the only time I have to work on my hair.)



On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner!  No purchase necessary.  Details inside.

(The shoplifter special?)



On a bar of Dial soap: "Directions: Use like regular soap."

(And that would be how???....)



On some Swanson frozen dinners: "Serving suggestion: Defrost."

(But, it's "just" a suggestion).



On Tesco's Tiramisu Dessert (printed on bottom): Don't turn upside down."

(Well...duh, a bit late, huh!)



On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: "Product will be hot after heating."

(...And you thought????...)



On packaging for a Rowenta Iron: "Do not iron clothes on body."

(But wouldn't this save me more time?)



On Boot's Children's Cough Medicine: "Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication."

(We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we could just get those 5-year-olds with head-colds off those forklifts.)



On Nytol Sleep Aid: "Warning: May cause drowsiness."

(And...I'm taking this because???....)



On most brands of Christmas lights: "For indoor or outdoor use only."

(As opposed to...what?)



On a Japanese food processor: "Not to be used for the other use."

(Now, somebody out there, help me on this.  I'm a bit curious.)



On Sainsbury's Peanuts: "Warning: contains nuts."

(Talk about a news flash.)



On an American Airlines packet of nuts: "Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts."

(Step 3: maybe, uh...fly Delta?)



On a child's Superman costume:"Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly."

(I don't blame the company.  I blame the parents for this one.)



On a Swedish chainsaw: "Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals."

(Oh my God...was there a lot of this happening somewhere?)

Somehow I ...

... gotta date!



I don't know how coolChickyChick and I got our signals crossed on Saturday nite, but we somehow were at the same place at the same time in alternate dimensions or something ... she and I just talked on the phone and both claimed to be at the same Pizza Hut at the same intersection in the same town, but were unable to hook up ... we both figured the other one stood us up for some weird reason.



At any rate, we talked today and I'm going out with her tomorrow at 7:30pm. Don't let me forget, okay? Thanks.



/rizzn

CTHULHU in '04! Why settle for the Lesser Evil!

I cleared up a little space this morning, so I can keep posting, as long as they aren't books or anything. I'm still looking for some cheap php hosting...

Out of Disk Space

Updates to the site will be suspended for a while -- I have run out of server space! When I get around to upgrading the contract, expect some more stuff.

Fiber Optics Goes Nano
Technology Research News  January 12, 2004

Researchers working to make microscopic and nanoscale machines and electronics have produced electrical wires at that scale, but it has proved more difficult to shrink the fiber optics that guide light. The trick to guiding light is finding ways to keep the photons confined to a fiber rather than leaking out.

Researchers from Harvard University, Zhejiang University in China and Tohoku University in Japan have made glass optical fibers as thin as 50 nanometers that guide light without losing much of it. Fifty nanometers is more than one thousand times finer than human hair. The researchers have made the thin optical fibers up to several centimeters long.

The key to such small, low-loss optical fibers was finding a way to make them very uniform in diameter and with very smooth walls, according to the researchers. To make the fibers the researchers first used a flame-drawing method to make micron-sized fiber. They then wound the fiber around a tapered, heated, 80-micron-diameter sapphire tip to keep the wire at a steady temperature while they pulled the fiber a second time to make it thinner.

The tiny optical fibers could be used in microphotonic devices for optical communications and optical sensing. The smaller fibers could lead to smaller and/or faster devices, according to the researchers.

The tiny fibers could be used in practical applications in two to five years, according to the researchers. The work appeared in the December 18/25, 2003 issue of Nature.

[via Technology Review: Nanotech]

Things that are Interesting

I must say, I am SUPER IMPRESSEd with the visualisations on WinAMP5. SooperDooperImpressed(tm).



Also, I am very very bored with working on this damn website for work. I need to get it done so I can move on.



I officially made this version of the Sexchart. Thank you lish.



I need to get up in the main loop. If you are in the main section and want to pull me in, give me a call. I'm available for "Big Wet Smooches" right now, as they are called.



Code Snippet of the Entry: HAMLET: (to_be || !to_be) == question;

What is This?

What is This? - Has anyone else seen this? It's legitimate, not a fake. you can zoom in on the original and see what this page is talking about. What is that sucka?

I got my sound working today. Finally. (and my video too, incidentally).

Mmmm... classical

Stop kerrying me!
"kerrying" verb To imitate; to attempt to resemble; to echo.

"She's just kerrying what I said yesterday"

"Microsoft has been kerrying Apple for years."

To copy the actions, appearance, mannerisms, or speech of; mimic: amused friends by kerrying the teachers.

To copy or use the style of: brushwork that kerries Rembrandt.

[via Memes.org]

FrontPage 2003 Ad Goof

[via Gadgetopia]

Lish made a funny ...
& today i set up a new email deletion filter for the keywords "forever young", effectively ruling out ever reading email sent to me from rod stewart. it's a hard price to pay.

[via lish]

The Flip Side of the Iraq Conflict

[Rizzn's Note: Personally, I believe that the evidence is too compelling that there is a great deal of corruption within the Bush family to ignore. However, I will say that the evidence that Saddam is a Bad Man is just as compelling. Simply another case of the same side of two different coins.]



"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."

- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998



"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998



"Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."

- Madeline Albright, Feb 18,1998



"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."

- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998



"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

- Letter to President Clinton, signed by

Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998



"SaddamHussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."

- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998



"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."

- Madelin Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999



"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."

- Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001



"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002



"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002



"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."

- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002



"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002



"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."

- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002



"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002



"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."

- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002



"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do"

- Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002



"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members . It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002



"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."

- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002



"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass

destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real .."

- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

Scoble: Ashamed to be an American

Scoble said it nicely here:

In my week off I realized I'm ashamed to be an American. Why is it not OK for Janet Jackson to show her boob on national TV, but it's OK for our military to show live killing of Iraqi military on TV?



Our society is screwed up.

Anywhere else, it would have been a non-event, but here the overreaction goes beyond ridiculous. We have it completely backwards - killing is OK but seeing a woman's boob will cause the sky to fall and civilization to crumble.



We need to take a good look at ourselves and the rest of the world and see why our society is so dysfunctional. Our puritan roots need to be buried and we need to grow a healthier attitude like the rest of the world has.



>

[via Localfeeds: Pompano Beach(10) and Mike Cohen's Weblog]

 

I read this and I began to respond in MC's comment box, but decided to make an entry about it:



If that's why you are ashamed to be an American, you need to take a closer look at society. Our "puritan roots," as you say, are one of the few things keeping our society together (i.e. the fact that somewhere deep inside, Americans have some sort of collective conscience telling them what's right and wrong to some degree, whether or not they choose to listen to it).



The problem with our society is not that we cling to antiquated puritan roots -- far from it. It's that there is a disparity between the leadership of our country and the general populace. That's the issue that makes you ashamed to be an American. You feel that all the things the government is doing don't represent your desires in keeping society safe.



Does it represent the majority of American's desires that if Janet Jackson wants to shock the nation by having Justin Timberlake rip her clothes off on national TV, that she be prosecuted for it? I doubt it. Every male from 14 to 94 wanted to see what was under her clothes, and I'm guessing a great deal of the female population (depending on how much they had drank that evening) wanted to see it as well.



Does it represent the majority of American's desires that if President Bush gets a wild hair up his bum that he decides to invade a country? Probably not -- we want to know why we are going to be sent overseas to die.



Does it represent the majority of American's desires to have a law in place that instantaneously places in jeopardy the freedom, life, liberty and the ability to pursue happiness, an entire demographic with something called the Patriot Act and the Patriot Act II? No it doesn't. (i.e. if you have the ability to "hack", and the government wants to lean on you, they can classify you as a terrorist, and you can sit in Guantanamo Bay with the Afghani's).



Seriously -- what you are all up in arms about is the essentially a media fluff piece. You are upset because the media concentrated on what 90% of the Blogosphere concentrated on -- a naked breast. The media concentrated on it because they know sex sells. The Blogosphere concentrated on it because they mostly like naked breasts.



Put things in perspective, and think about why the disparity exists. And get upset with that. But don't get upset with our "puritan roots," as they are not the issue.

An Open Letter to President George W. Bush

Dear Mr. President



Bush cost me my job, my kids and my houses. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak my mind. I lost my job this past year. When Clinton was president I was secure and prosperous, but in the last year, we had to close our operations. We simply could not compete with foreign labor. This foreign labor worked for low pay under very bad conditions.



They worked very long shifts, and many even died on the job.This competition could hardly be called "fair." I was forced out of the place where I had worked for 34 years. Not a single government program was there to help me. How can Bush call himself "compassionate?"



Far worse, I lost two of my sonsin Bush's evil war in Iraq. They gave their lives for their country, and for what? So that Bush's oil buddies can get rich. My pain of losing my sons is indescribable.



While it is trivial next to the loss of my sons, I regret to say that I also lost my home. I simply have nothing left. How can Bush call himself a Christian when he neglects people like me? I am a senior citizen with various medical problems. I'm not in a position where I can begin a new career. I was reduced to the point where I had to live in a hole in a ground, all because of President Bush.



And when the authorities found me there, did they have any compassion for mymisfortune and ailments? No, I was arrested. Mr. Bush, I dare you to look me in the face and tell me you are a compassionate man! I dare you to look me in the face and tell me you are a Christian. If I had any money left, I would donate it to the Democrat Party.



If Al Gore had been elected in 2000 I would still have a job, a home, and most importantly, my dear sons!



Regards,

Saddam Hussein



[ Rizzn's Note: Forwarded to me by FuzzOnWall ]

if you go to sleep at 9pm ...

... then you aren't a wild person anymore, I fear. And I think you spoke over their heads (judging from the lack of comments). And it happens to the best of us; sorry to see you go. I promise I'll give you a call soon, but I haven't had time to call my own parents in weeks. Another good article, Jennifer; your views on things are always fresh and thought provoking in an unexpected way. Get better; eat vitamin c! Update! And ew, ew, ew, ew, ew (scroll down).



No time to individually comment today. Figured I'd mash everything together so I'd actually have some content for the day. That and I think blogger updated their API today or something, because none of my blogger client apps work. I dunno.



/rizzn

says a big ole thank you to john asscroft

It must be PMS week, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ, what else can they use the goddamned Patriot Act for?

Cuban Grammy Nominees Denied Visas

Yes, I am SURE that the BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB is a threat to national security. People might DANCE!

 

[via pippa said]

If this is a joke, it's not all that funny. 
If its not a joke, I'm too lazy right now to look up the sources on this.  Someone do that for me?

Intelligence Panel President Bush has promised to appoint a panel to investigate the intelligence failures that led Bush to go to war with Iraq, even though Iraq posed no actual danger to America. Early word has it that the panel will consist of:
-former President George Bush Sr.
-Vice President Dick Cheney
-Laura Bush
-Arnold Schwarzenegger
This distinguished panel should definitely be able to get to the bottom of things. And as I understand it, their report is expected by the end of the year.

[via DrChinese]

I'm working on a very controversial website right now.

It's very hush-hush. I'll tell you about it once I'm sure it'll be completed. And let me also say, I hate doing proposals. I mean I'm pretty good at them. They just take a lot of energy to do. I usually get about half-way done and I'm all pooped.

I've been working on a proposal all night long that is supposed to win this company some mega-bucks contract. It should work. The bosses were impressed. If I can impress them, I suppose the eventual readers will be impressed.

Oh, I got settled into my new dwelling yesterday. And I gave coolChickyChick from the bar a call tonight. The house is cool, I like it, and I got coolChickyChick's answering machine voice mail thingy. So I'm happy, and disappointed, respectively. As well as being pooped from all this work. One out of three ain't bad.

I'm going back to work on my controversial website now. Nighty night folks.

61-year-old Washington State Supreme Court Justice ...

State Supreme Court Justice Faith Ireland won her second national powerlifting championship last weekend, grabbing a spot for herself on the USA Masters Team for world competition.

On Saturday, the 61-year-old justice broke the American squat record for her age and weight with a 198-pound lift. In the deadlift, Ireland set a personal record of 253 pounds. 

[via what's in rebecca's pocket?]

I've been in meetings all day. ALL DAY.

PITA!

/rizzn

UPDATE ON NEW MITNICK BOOK

As reported on the December 10, 2003 edition of "Off The Hook," Kevin Mitnick, along with his co-author William Simon, has been commissioned to write a second book tentatively titled "The Art of Intrusion" which will look at mitigation and prevention of attacks by telling stories of some of the most interesting hacks ever performed. The deadline for submissions is fast approaching.

The stories will be about creative, innovative, and clever techniques used in implementation, or about attacks perpetrated on attractive targets. These stories won't be telling anyone's life story but rather will focus on single episodes of original hacks. The best story will receive $500 and all other ones used in the book will receive $200. A copy of both books autographed by the authors will also be included.

Details on submissions can be found at www.defensivethinking.com or you can send your submission directly to hacks@defensivethinking.com. Contributors can remain anonymous in the publication.

Mitnick will also be appearing on the radio program "Coast to Coast with George Noory" on February 10, 2004.

[via 2600.com]

corks are fun

corks are fun: "Dear Smoky the Bear,

If I'm the only person who can prevent forest fires, shouldn't I get some kind of special fire-fighting powers? Having to fight all the fires in the world by myself is too much pressure.

All my best,

Matt

P.S. How did you get your hat to pucker on the sides like that? It looks boss."

I had to quote this blogentry because it contains the word "fucktard."

has sims who are idiots

I got The Sims for Christmas, as per my request [...] and I have the dumbest fucktard Sims ever. I created two of my own and the dumbass househusband keeps setting the damn house on fire. I bought them two stoves in one day.

 

 

[via pippa said]

I am going to join the masses and comment on a few things I read in this article, too.  The interesting points I read really didn't come from the article (it was mostly crap, sorry to say), but interesting points came from the comments box.

cbm5 spake thusly: There is supposed to be a book about good blogging, and one of the rules is to not write comment about personal stuff. It's not supposed to be a diary, it's supposed to be online commentary. Not to say that's any better. But most bloggers completely ignore this, and blab on and on about themselves and miniscule stuff. And now they are balling up into a massive clod of hate, Trackbacking themselves in lockstep to defend their mythical cause.

I did some checking.  I read a few "History of Weblogging" pages (who's source data actually turned out to be incorrect, upon further investigation).  I looked through archive.org. 

As it turns out, yeah, weblogging, or blogging as it was shortened to, didn't really have a focus.  In fact, every d*lander's friend Andrew got in on the start of this whole trend back in late 1999 with diaryland.com and pitas.com as the first services that allowed the average person to blog/diary on the internet without doing a bunch of crazy manual updates or writing their own scripts.

Know what this means?  This means that the content of these early, yet wildly popular websites sort-of determines the nature of the beast.  I can tell you as an early-adopter of diaryland.com that, as the name would indicate, these blogs were diaries.  Personal pages.  In fact, as I remember, that was the trend back then -- to call them diaries, not blogs.

So I'm not sure exactly what this poster was talking about, or what book his source was.  Frankly, it doesn't carry a lot of weight.

James A C Joyce later commented on his own article thusly: Did you not read the article properly? At no point did I say that I, we or anyone else "should censor the net of blogs". I don't give that much of a fuck if you have a blog. I do mind, however, if you start up a Movable Type blog with all of your Sartre-reading friends and trackbacking each other all over my Google search results. Try not to misinterpret me in your eagerness to criticise others' viewpoints.

That's real interesting since the title of the article was Why your Moveable Type blog must die.  Let's go to the old Webster's, since I've found out that some Slimee Ditto-Heads still read this, and they tend to not grasp the English language so well.

die:(Intransitive verb) (Inflected forms: died, dy·ing, dies) 1. To cease living; become dead; expire. 2. To cease existing, especially by degrees; fade: The sunlight died in the west. 3. To experience an agony or suffering suggestive of that of death: nearly died of embarrassment.

If genociding a blog based upon software isn't censorship, what is?

Then there was a comment from someone professing to be Michael Moore.  The email address he used was trollingforcolumbine@yahoo.com, so it puts it in question, but his comment was so assinine and conceited, that it very well could have come from the real Michael Moore:

 Movable Type is tearing away the very fabric of our society. It represents the "blogger", the most self-obsessed and yet most banal creation of the internet age. By giving everyone a voice, we have given them the illusion that their voice is worth something. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The most frightening aspect of all of this is that the blog continues to grow. Slowly, it is becoming the human side of the internet, every loser's refuge in which the only important thing in the world is them, what they think, what they do. These people swarm together in their internet subculture, spending all their time reading about the utterly boring adventures of their fellow members of the Harry Potter Fanfic web-ring. As they feed and perpetuate the diseased social infection that is the blogger culture, its rules and ethics become more and more entrenched in their psyches. Soon, they're spending even more time "blogging", scrawling their vile idiocy all over the internet in some pathetic attempt to be a better blogger, one who updates more often, gets more hits, has more link-backs, has a Flash banner made by that other blogger they know from Connecticut (who is a graphic designer).

Do the world a favor. If you ever meet a blogger, let them know how you feel about blogging, and then kick them in the fucking face a few times. Even if you get in trouble with the Law, it's worth it just to know that you've made a blogger question the way they live their life.

I could respond to that.  I mean, I think it's a great comment.  For me to poop on.

Honestly, though -- I think MM simply suffers sour grapes syndrome.  He wishes he had an internet subculture that would claim him.  Instead, he's stuck in Canada pretending Americans cared about what he thinks of our country.  I feel sorry for him, really.

Ridiculous Anti-Blogger Screed

It looks like bloggers are breaking the web...a "tidal wave of morons" overwhelming Google etc. Thus spake James Joyce at Kuro5hin.

[via CorporatePR]