Just when I starting think that scammers could not get lower I get a message from Livejornal telling me that the notifications settings for grammargirl have been changed, and provides a like to see the new settings.

In case you are wondering, I am not grammargirl. I do not have good grammer nor am I a girl. So sending me that message is silly.

But the link included in the email is anything but silly. It looks like a proper LJ link, but when you mouse-over to see the actual link it goes to suspiciously named livejournal.com.okqwaz.com. A google search revealed that there is also a blogger.com.okqwaz.com.

Be careful with any emails you get, and make sure you check the links supplied before clicking them.

Phishing sites really piss me off.

I'm really getting sick of all top ten lists showing the best/worst of the past year or decade. I don't care what the author's opinion of the best/biggest/worst story/movie/event/funniest video/whatever of the year or decade. I cringe when I see them, and here is why.

Top ten lists are a pathetic writers tool. Any idiot can come up with a list of ten things they like or dislike, and many do. It is the literary equivalent of showing cleavage. It is easy, it gets quick attention, and usually gets a reaction from the audience when they agree or disagree. It is a cheap trick to engage the reader.

To make it worse, they are usually wrong. Most are made up based on personal bias and little research. Lists of the things that stick out the most in a person's memory instead of a true exhaustive list of everything from the past year let alone the last 10 years. Usually the list will be convincingly reputed in the first 5 comments left saying "you forgot about this" or "number 5 was nothing compared to A, B, C and D". Meaning that the list was put together quickly to get comments, and that the (lack of) effort has been rewarded with the internet currency of comments.

Which is why we are seeing so many of them now- they are easy and they pay off. And it is annoying the crap out of me. Probably because even though I know they are lazy tools, it still piques my curiosity about what they think the top thing is so I have to read it.

And that annoys me the most of all!

A plug-in for Firefox that will automatically translate websites for you:

http://www.worldwidelexicon.org/s/essay.html

I loaded it and the first page I tried it on annoyed me. I loaded the page and saw it was in French. Then I turned away to take a look at something else, but when I came back the entire page was in English. I figured the site did some auto-detection and swapped me over to an English version of the page- I've seen some newspaper websites do that. So I was annoyed that all the plugin did was move me to a different version on the published site. But I figured I would give it a second chance and tried it on a different website. This time I watched it.

As I watched the individual stories on the site were being translated. It was amazing.

Now I need to think of other places to check out and see if they can be read.

Not to say that those of you who are Republicans or who live in the South are idiots- but it is saying that you are in larger than normal idiotic company.

The Daily Kos and Research 2000 had a poll to find out if people thought that Barak Obama was born in the US. There is a surprisingly loud "Birther" movement that claims he was actually born in Kenya and has knowingly covered it up so that he could become President. To beleive that, you have to think that he was able to:

• cover it up
• prevent anyone from Kenya from talking about it
• hack the official records in Hawaii to have it show that he was born there
• somehow get past Hillary Clinton and her team (who were not above talking up the "OMG! He's a secret Muslim!" bit) during the primaries
• somehow get past McCain and Palin and their team (who actively pushed the line that he "paled around with terrorist")
• somehow get past anyone else that went digging for dirt on him (and they outright made things up)
• AND got past any and all government officials and law enforcement that are suppose to check things like that

Seems kinda crazy, right? So it shouldn't be a large group that thinks he was born outside the US, right?

Wrong.

According to the poll results released only 42% of Republicans believe he was born in this country. And only 47% of Southerners do. For Republicans 28% think he was born outside the US and 30% aren't sure. For Southerners 23% think he was born outsdie the US and 30% aren't sure.

There are only two reasons why so many people would think that despite all the evidence to the contrary and all reason why it is so unlikely that Barak Obama was not born in the US. First- they actually believe Rush Limbaugh or any of the other blowhards on TV and radio that make money by saying offensive and incorrect things about people. The second is that it is far less offensive to say that he shouldn't be president because he isn't American than to say he shouldn't be president because he is black, so racists have jumped on the idea enthusiastically.

Neither one of those reasons reflects well on the people in those groups. The racists? Nothing reflects well on them so there is nothign to say about that. On the conservative talking head side- that is more complicated. There is nothing wrong with most conservative political views, if you can separate out the conservative social views that the Republican party has let dominate their agenda. I agree with some of the political ideas, and disagree with others though I can still see the reason behind them. But conservative talking heads in the media seem to just be vicious, vindictive, and mean spirited. Taking their word as gospel is idiotic.

For that matter, taking the word of most people you don't know is idiotic. Democrat or Republican. North or South. Think for yourself. Check out what your hear and read if you think it is important. We are living in an age where information from all around the world is literally at your finger tips just seconds away. Just a century ago, telephones and TVs were not in even half the homes in the US, let alone around the world. Staying ignorant of facts you consider important is more of an act of will now. You have to be working on not paying attention.

So if you are a Republican or a Southerner, and you have a brain that you feed with good, reviewed, and researched information, then try talking to others in your group and let them know, politely of course, that the odds are high that they are idiots. And then help them learn how to think on their own.

Because they are making you look really, really bad.

The weekend has been a relaxing one. Mainly just been doing some cleaning around the house. Picked up some groceries to have a cookout today.

I have been geeking out a bit with Team Fortress 2. I've been curious about it for a while and this weekend Steam has a free trial weekend. And if you like it, it is also on sale for half off at $9.99. I liked it so I bought it.

There is only one problem with it- the people that play it.

If you aren't familiar with it, it is an online game where you chase people around a map and shoot them. And they shoot you. Simple enough. But the problem comes when these people talk. It is not unusual on a random server for people to swear every other word, use racial epithets to describe anything they don't like, and claim that the people who are winning are homosexual. And that is before you get to the user names people give themselves.

Smack talk is a part of games. I'm surprised that chess masters don't engage in more of it. But there is a difference in talking about how easily your dog could beat someone and using a derogatory sexual or racial descriptor when you have no idea who is on the other side of the network connection. First off, if you can't say it to someone's face you should not be saying it to strangers in a game. To do otherwise is just chicken shit and you really richly deserve a beating for it. Secondly- and this is even more important- if you do that, you are stupid. Not in a school yard "you are a big stupid head" sort of way. Literally- you are a vastly ignorant and unimaginative person. If you can't manage to think up some other more appropriate insult for the person, even if it is an amusing "your mother" joke, then you are a pathetically stupid excuse for a human. If your head is so empty that you can only think to use a racial insult (while being ignorant of the person's actual skin color) or call them homosexual then you are a waste of space. I'm amazed that tyou are able to feed yourself and wipe your own ass.

Oh- I'm assuming you can. My mistake. Sorry about that.

Fortunately, Team Fortress doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as Halo is in this. It seems many Halo players are even more pathetic than that which I've described here. I blame Microsoft. Seriously. They claim that such people will be dealt with when they are reported but I've never heard of someone being banned for it. Yet they did ban a woman for saying she was a lesbian in her profile. So you can call someone gay, you just can't say you are according to Microsoft.

And doubly fortunately, it seems there are at least a few other people that feel the same way. I've found a couple of groups that follow the idea that people talking like that are just not fun to play with. Shamus Young at the Twenty Sided blog and The Over 30 Club both have servers where this sort of thing is frowned upon.

I'm sure I'll find more as I keep playing, but it makes the game much more enjoyable to not be assaulted by ignorance while you are trying to have fun.

One of the reasons I love PvP.


In fact, I knew that getting marrying Mel was going to work out because I didn't show up ahead of time to warn me not to.

For some reason, long stretches of no cooking seem to happen around here. Either because we get too busy to make anything not frozen or out of a box or take out, or because the tiny kitchen doesn't have enough space free to make anything. I enjoy cooking too much to keep letting that happen. That needs to stop.

Tonight I made a surprisingly delicious cheesy tuna and pasta dish. And most importantly Kendra is eating it. In a medium saucepan, pour a can of Campbell's cheddar cheese soup mixed with a can of milk over the cooked pasta. Mix in a couple tablespoons of Parmesan cheese and a cup of shredded cheddar, some butter, and a pouch of tuna. Cook over a medium-low heat and stir until it is all melted and mixed together. That was too easy to be as good as it was.

Topless Robot has a list of the "10 most famous geek arguments." While I don't entirely agree that these are the "top 10", I can't disagree with most of them. And I've participated in a few of those discussions. So that made me wonder where the rest of you fell on these vital issues.

Imagine a movie that stars Amber Benson (probably best known as Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Ron Jeremy (probably best known as... umm...hmm... let's say Vincenzo Lipazzi in Boondock Saints. Yeah. I'll go with that one). Now realize it is not that kind of movie.

You have to watch the trailer on the website. It really explains it all. And then look at the posters. Because a Jaws movie poster that has a penis in place of the shark just has to be seen. The Exorcist one is impressive too.

I need to get this movie and put it on the shelf next to Teeth.

Why aren't there more genitalia horror flicks? I would think they would be too easy to make. Ladies- isn't the penis really a strange thing? It just pops up at unexpected times, and it looks weird. Guys- isn't the vagina some strange really kinda unknowable thing? It's all hidden inside with only a little bit showing, and it bleeds regularly. A horror story virtually writes itself with them involved. As lazy as Hollywood seems to be I would think that would have a huge appeal.

Last night the Democratic presidential hopefuls had a debate sponsored by the LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. Republican candidates were invited as well but none of them accepted the invitation. Salon has a summary of what was said and none of it sounds very impressive to me, with the exception of Mike Gravel who pointed out the fact that the leading three candidates were all playing politics, playing it safe and were not going to stick their neck out on the issue of gay marriage because they would only lose votes. Some of the candidates opposed gay marriage because of their own personal religious beliefs, which saddened me. For two reasons. First- they were citing religion as a reason why two people shouldn't love one another. And second because they were stating that they were putting their personal religious beliefs into place to decide what is legal.

One thing that struck me in the article was talk about marriage and civil unions. It made me wonder about the purpose of marriage in society. I know that historically, marriage meant many different things. It meant possession of a wife. It meant someone to birth and raise children. Sometimes wives were bought to show wealth. Some marriages are arraigned without the input of the couple-to-be, either with the idea that the arrangers know better or to make an alliance between families. It used to be done to make alliances between nations. It has been and is done because two people love one another, regardless of alliances, children, or status. It seems to be seen as a stabilizing influence. Statistically, married people are supposed to live longer, and have fewer illnesses. But is that the only benefit to society?

Historically, marriage has been around since before recorded history. Which would seem to indicate it existed before there were laws. It served to tie people to a family. It would not be a stretch to assume that religion played a part in those early marriages. That some village priest united a man and a woman in the eyes of the sun god, or something similar. Given the value that many religions have for marriage, and the many rules and guidelines they have around the institution, it can easily be seen to be an ancient one with deep meaning in each of the different religions. But if it started as a religious practice, does that mean that it has to be?

I have heard the argument that marriage between a man and a woman is best for the children, or that children are the main reason for marriage so it should only be allowed for a man and a woman. I know many people that are not married and have children, and many that are married and do not want children or cannot have children. So that cannot be the only reason or even a defining reason to allow or disallow a marriage. There are the arguments about what is right according to individual religious beliefs, and I can respect that people have the faith in their religion and want to live according to those beliefs. But I can't accept them forcing those precepts on others. And a part of me has to wonder about how strong their faith is if they can't let their god have a hand in it. If you point out what you think is right and what is wrong, and someone still choses a path that you believe is wrong, then the consequence is theirs. If you believe, let your god punish them. If you think your god needs your help in this creation, or that you are the only one allowed to be right, isn't that the sin of pride?

And yet the religious argument seems to be one of the most popular in this debate. Which would be fine except that being married gives people a legal status that can't be obtained otherwise. Given the separation of church and state, religion should not be allowed to determine legally what a person can or cannot do. This would not be the first time religion has bumped against the law in marriage. Two other situations come to mind historically. The most applicable one is the laws that prevented interracial marriages that were on the books as little as 50 years ago. Those were strongly supported by some religious groups at the time saying that god did not want interbreeding. This thought is still echoed today in white supremacist groups. The other situation in which marriage has been a problem for religion and law is polygamy. Some religions allow or even encourage multiple wives, yet the law only allows marriage between a man and a woman. Mormons officially renounced the practice years ago, but there are still some that practice that part of their faith in violation of the law.

One one hand, we have the ideals of freedom of religion (also expressed as freedom from religion) and equality regardless of religion, race, or gender. On the other hand, we have religions that have a debatable valid historical claim to the institution of marriage and rules that should be applied to it. How can these two polar opposite ideas be reconciled? Or can they?

I'm not one to give up, but in this case I think I have to. While my personal belief is that if two people love one another, they should be allowed to marry, I don't think it would be right to force that idea on a religion that does not believe so. Likewise, given the concept of freedom from religion, no individual faith should be allowed to determine what everyone not of that faith should be allowed to do.

Instead of trying to force a single idea of what marriage is on everyone, why can't it be broken up?

In Brazil, they have an interesting marriage practice. People there get married twice- first by the church and then by a civil authority. That seems to be a perfect solution to this issue. The church can determine who they will or won't perform ceremonies for according to their guidelines and would be the basis of marriage for religious purposes. The civil marriage would be performed for any two people that can legally be joined together and would be the basis for legal purposes. People could have one or the other or both. Either one would be considered "marriage".

This is not much of a change from some current religious practices. For example, Catholics need to get permission from the church to divorce and marry again even though that is independent of the legal divorce. This would simply be applying the same concept to the beginning of the marriage as well. Separating the civil and the devotional aspects. It isn't really a significant change from the way marriages ae performed now. I believe that the person performing the marriage has to be licensed through the state to be able to perform them, so while they are a religious figure, they are also authorized civilly to perform that function. I don't know that marriages are performed today without the legal, civil side, but I don't see any reason why they can't be.

I realize this idea would need to be examined to greated detail, and different situations explored. Could you have a civil marriage with one person and a devotional marraige to another? Or polygamous devotional marragies and one civil marriage? Or multiple devotional marriages under different faiths? Would it matter? Do churches keep track of who gets married? Do they care? Once they perform the ceremony, is it then between the married couple and their god to keep it sorted out? That would be for the different faiths to decide is acceptable.

For most people, I don't know that it would make a difference, other then maybe a bit longer of a wedding ceremony. But for those people currently legally pushed off into the edges by religious beliefs, it would allow them to be be able to follow their conscience, do what they think is right, and be recognized as equal. Doesn't that seem fair?

Some new research out of the University of Texas has discovered that there are at least 237 reasons why people have sex. The paper is interesting to read. And very eye-opening. Many of the reasons are expected, like "being drunk", "it feels good", and "wanted to express my love". But many of them were surprising to me. Having sex in exchange for money, drugs, a favor, or a job, for exercise, for revenge, or for some sort of reputation. "It is my genetic imperative." and "It was an initiation rite to a club or organization." really surprised me. Those seem too out there. Having sex as part of a club initiation? I had heard of some strange fraternity and sorority initiations, but that seems too far out, unless they mean something like the "mile high club".

But I admit my own experiences have been very limited. Not from a lack of opportunities or desire- but from the fact that I'm a romantic. I wanted to wait for someone it felt right with. But I can understand wanting to try a new experience or to feel good, and can understand how it would be a very enjoyable form of exercise. So I certainly don't find anything wrong with it if that is a reason someone might have. Using sex as part of barter is less understandable to me, but I can understand that if someone places a value on their sexual activity then exchanging it for something they want makes sense. Some are sad, in that the person was taken advantage of or forced. A few of the reasons are just not fathomable to me. Like wanting to give someone an STD, or to get respect, or because others expected them to do it. I've never respected someone just because they've had sex, or expected someone to have sex- either with me or someone else.

But I know that there is more to the world then I have experienced and reasons beyond my own for doing things. I turned the reasons into a poll to see how many of the reasons are applicable to you. The results are not viewable to others. If you want to explain any of them, anonymous comments are allowed, and all comments are screen. Let me know if it is ok to unscreen your comments. Anon comments will be unscreened when I get to them. And it is a public post (has to be to allow the anon comments) so feel free to point your friends to the poll. I'm curious to see how many of the reasons are common outside of a single college campus.

( 237 Reason PollCollapse )

This sickens me. Paris Hilton and her "supporters" are planning to petition Governor Schwarzenegger to pardon her so she doesn't have to go to jail.

Not that I am a fan of online petitions, but of all the "causes" to have, these people have reached a new low in humanity.

Please. Please. Someone tell me that there is at least a counter petition asking the governor to uphold the law and not give the message that if you are rich enough or popular enough to do not get a literal get-out-of-jail-free card. This girl has lounged through life, repeating one mistake after the other and continued to somehow fail upwards. She has refused to take responsibility for any of these actions that got her here. She needs to be held accountable to the laws she has broken, and shown that all her daddy's money is not the end-all-be-all to life.

The shooting at Virginia Tech was a reprehensible event. It doesn't make sense for someone to go in and kill as many strangers as possible, so our view of the world is throw into confusion. If people died there for no reason what is to say that won't happen here today or next week or a year from now? Introducing that sort of uncertainty into our otherwise mostly predictable lives is scary, so we want to find a reason for the event. If it makes sense somehow, if it can be explained, then it can fit into our world view without upsetting it.

Some people take advantage of events like this to explain that their own view of the world and their ideas would prevent it from ever happening again. Maybe they are right and it is an "I told you so". Maybe they aren't right and are trying to ride the wave of public emotion and uncertainty to turn more people to their way of thinking. It is difficult to tell.

One group has been raising their voice in this tragedy to promote their ideas on carrying firearms. Virginia has a concealed carry law, allowing people to carry a concealed weapon in public with a permit, but it does not allow them to carry that weapon in certain places like schools. Ohio has a similar law. Some people have been claiming that if concealed carry was allowed in school then the gunman would have faced multiple armed citizens defending their own lives and those of their classmates. I heard a similar argument after Columbine, suggesting that all the teachers should be armed, and again after the World Trade Center attack saying that all pilots should be armed.

To me that seems a bit of a romaticisized idea. Viewing the world through an idealized Old West set of glasses. First it assumes that there would have been one or more armed people in that area. Second it assumes that they would have the sort of grace under fire to shoot someone attacking out of the blue, and have enough control in that situation to be more of a threat to the shooter then he would be to the other students. And third and most importantly, it assumes that many more guns on a college campus every day would provide a safer environment then one person with guns and bad intentions at one time.

It has been a while since my college days, but I remember friends showing up to classes very drunk. I remember an idiot thinking he was being funny pulling a knife on someone at a party. I remember a lot of people being very stressed and pissed at the world around exam time. Putting firearms into that mix would not have made me feel safer. Even discounting the chance of someone having a really bad day or suffering from chemically induced stupidity, then there is still the chance of an accident with very bad consequences, potentially far worse then dropping a heavy text book on someone's toe.

At the same time, I could see how a society that was responsible could benefit from it. Ensured that everyone who carried a weapon had sufficient training, both in the weapon's use and in situations where they would have to use it, could make a safer environment. Something similar to police training would be needed to carry a concealed weapon. And on the flip side strong punishments for violating the law with a concealed weapon. But I don't see our society being anywhere near that responsible.

What do you think?

Last night Mel and I went out to Borders to look for a few books, and to redeem her free dessert coupon they sent her for her birthday. While we were there, a teen girl was having a conversation on her cell phone as she wandered the store. It was very annoying. Not because she was talking loudly, or because of the topic she was discussing, but because she was talking loudly about sex and she was moving around the store so no one could get more then that part of the story. From what I heard, she was talking to someone about the two of them having sex and how everyone knew. Mel, in a separate part of the store, heard her say that just because everyone was saying something didn't mean it was true. So maybe they had sex but didn't want anyone to know and it got out, or they didn't have sex but everyone was saying they did, or maybe they did or didn't but everyone thinks they did and a midget or donkey (or both) were there.

I don't know. And that is the annoying thing- I hate half a story. If you are going to be so rude as to subject other people to your private conversations on a cell phone, at least let them hear it all. Or, you could be more discrete about the types of things you talk about on the cell phone while in public. I don't like to think of myself as the sort who evesdrops, but when you have a loud conversation like that in my vicinity, I can't really help it.

Maybe I should fill out a "missed connection" thing on Craig's list to see if I can get the rest of the story. And point out that she might need to work on her discretion.

I was not pleased to see that it was snowing this morning. Again. The high today is supposed to get up to the 40's, but still- the white stuff and the temperatures that go with it are getting old.

Been a busy day so far, and have weekend updates but not the brain power to write them. So instead I will give you links:

• Wired talks about YouTube knock-offs
  Wired does the amazing this morning. They have a link to a YouTube knockoff for beastiality enthusiasts called BeastTube (so NSFW and scary that I won't even link to it). As repugnant as that idea might be, they then top it with videos from GodTube. I have nothing against religion, but the sheer ignorance and promotion of that ignorance as truth that is demonstrated in two of the Wired videos disgusts me far more then sex with animals. The banana video at the bottom of the page is just so painful in how much ignorance it shows. That said I did like the "Baby Got Bible" video. I saw it a few years ago and couldn't figure out if it was real or satire, but I think it is real. Still amusing.
• How to silence your laptop - take an old pair of dead headpones and clip off the jack, and plug that in to the headphone jack when you need to boot or compute silently. That is pretty clever.
• How much caffine do you take in?
  Just for fun, keep adding in your favorite beverage to see the different messages
• AJAX Made Easy- for a simple intro into AJAX. It is kinda silly to write javascript that communicates back to a web server to do basic math, but it illustrates the idea well.
• 50 software and web freebies list from Datamation
  Odds are you've seen many of them on the list, but there were a few I hadn't seen before that sound very useful.

The perils of trying to save the elephant from extinction

“One guy I know got a black eye from being hit by an elephant’s penis."

How do you explain that one when people ask? I think I would take the easy way out and say my wife beats me.

When I was in college, I was required to take 2 years of calculus as was every engineering student. It was taught by a nice man, but one that was fairly flighty and did not explain things well. After one of his lengthy explanations, many of us in the class would turn to one another to see if anyone had a look on their face that remotely resembled understanding. Understanding was a rare event. It was a painful two years.

But now advances in education have brought to us Bikini Calculus by a group called "How-To-Do Girls". Amazingly- both of those links are safe for work.

I would have done so much better in calc if bikini-clad women were involved.

The Experience Project is a new social network, but it seems to be different. What if, instead of a social network that shows off your photos or videos, or your stories, or your interests, there was a network that connected people based on your experiences? How well would you get to know people if you only knew them by their experiences? And not charmed by a photo, or their creative writings, or their interests, or your shared friends, or an interesting screen name? You just see them by what they have experienced.

It is an interesting idea, and one that appeals to me far, far more then MySpace ever could. I think the fact that MySpace has become the preferred place for singers/movies/tv shows/whoever-wants-to-sell-something-this-week shows just how superficial the place is. I don't know that you would expect to find singers hyping their life experiences to better promote their latest albumn.