A Libertine Meandering

I want everyone to know that a payment plan entitled "Financement Gratuit" had a surprise charge added to it by "citifinancière" of $21.00. I was advised that they met the legal requirements of changing the terms of my agreement with a notice sent in March that I do not recall receiving. They would not reverse this fee, even at the offer of having the entire balance paid up front.

I was told that they could not advise me who was a third party responsible for reviewing such things until either I had made a formal dispute, using only a written or faxed letter (no email for "security" reasons), or until I was behind on my payments. They acknowledged that I had made every payment on time (I've been paying for nearly a year).

I spoke at first with some low level person who quickly passed me to "Roman". He was a bit smarmy, but not rude, and told me that I shouldn't bother and he was trying to help me save time by just paying it because they weren't going to say anything different than him. I then spoke to Michael (Mike), who was much less smarmy, and still very polite, and who acknowledged that he had discretion with sufficient mitigating factors to review such things, but that he didn't see anything and that other people had called about the same issue to no avail. He did not consider my offer to pay the entire balance to be equitable, even though I'd make that much in a 2% chequing account over the course of the year+ that I'd be making payments.

I discussed an additional mitigating factor, that I would never use them again, and that I would tell all my friends how screwed over I felt. Mike suggested that this was my choice, but that he felt there was no common ground between my feelings on the matter and their legally fortified policies.

So, please pass this on, you can even use my real name (We all know it's Stuart Thiel). Also, if it suits your temperament, please boycott the use of "citifinancière" (citi bank, the one in all the trouble in the states).

ramou

In an effort to waste time I don't have, I have read and given a relative uninformed critique of:
"The Statistical Structure of Human Speech Sounds Predicts Musical Universals", David A. Schwartz, Catherine Q. Howe, and Dale Purves
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/23/18/7160

( here goesCollapse )

ramou

"Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction."
--http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE4BL2FE20081222

I was gonna write a little epitaph, incorporating the various epithet used in his Seven Dirty Words (yadda yadda, I like that title better). But then I didn't want to actually use a bunch of them, so I settled on the minor humor of using epitaph and epithet in the same sentence (I had to look BOTH of them up). I couldn't decide which was funnier, properly used or reversed, so I went with proper.

Who can forget his timeless role as Rufus in the "Bill & Ted's" movies? That was my idea of George Carlin for the longest time, till I saw him doing comedy, probably all coked out, on tv and had a real eye opener. Edgy and brilliantly funny, he delivered some quality humor consistently. And it's all in the delivery.

I hope his tombstone at least has Fuck engraved on it somewhere.

ramou

"Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." -- Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The move is on Saturday. If I've not already tried to volunteer you, please feel free to do so yourself. Help is greatly appreciated, and you'll be fed and watered on my tab (let us know what you want, and we'll have it there).

Painting too! In fact, that's almost more important, as currently we've got nobody. It's really just for Thursday and Friday night so we can at least get a few rooms primed/painted before the room. Then we can just musical chair the furniture. I guess priming's really big, so if you want to help out, gimme a shout. 6pm till later as nobody'll be able to get there earlier. But let us know ASAP so we can get sufficient rollers.

It's worth noting that all my booze is already at the apt., as that moves badly... should make for fun painting if people want to help :)

ramou

I legitimately used XKCD in my thesis:
http://xkcd.com/327/

I knew it would change everything, it just wasn't time for me to look into it before.

It's now time.

It changes everything.

ramou

It didn't work. Patches were weird. I compromised.

I detect if trac is being proxied. If it is, I assume it's being proxied for https and assign the scheme appropriately:

        """Reconstruct the absolute base URL of the application."""
        host = self.get_header('Host')
        scheme = self.scheme
        if self.get_header('X-Forwarded-Host'):
            scheme = 'https'
        if not host:
            # Missing host header, so reconstruct the host from the
            # server name and port
            default_port = {'http': 80, 'https': 443}
            if self.server_port and self.server_port != default_port[self.scheme]:
                host = '%s:%d' % (self.server_name, self.server_port)
            else:
                host = self.server_name
        return urlparse.urlunparse((schemeself.scheme, host, self.base_path, None,
                                    None, None))

(in web/api.py, if anyone cares)

I'd give blood, but I have massive panic attacks about needles. I'll faint or puke. It's not like I need all that I have, and maybe someone else can use it... it's just that... I can't.

However, I feel no guilt that my fear prevents me, only curiosity about the nature of these feelings. I've changed so many other things about myself, why not this?

ramou

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0432297020080104

My feelings with regard to human life are different than what is likely popularly accepted (or are they?). However, I thought a long time about these feelings. Before I'd settled myself on them, I'd at least come up with a few reasons to kill someone. Guess what, child rapists are indisputably at the top of the list. Death. Zero remorse.

So, you say, is it always cut and dry. The 18 yr old who slept with the 14 year old. Is that child rape? Was there consent? I'd definitely say rape, but I'd be less quick to say child rape. However, 8 yr old step-daughter doesn't require me to think about this at all. Kill him. Kill him quickly and painlessly and humanely, but he should be dead.

Why quickly and painlessly and humanely? That is right. Inflicting suffering is vengeance. Vengeance is a bad idea. Child rapists should just get their right to live revoked. It also serves as a deterrent, and a means of indicating a point of reference on our values. In the most absolute sense, this should not be tolerated.

I'm disgusted that some lawyer tried to wave the "these are shitty countries, don't be like them" flag:
By authorizing the death penalty for non-homicide rape of a child, Louisiana joins the ranks of such countries as Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Kazakhstan and China, (how do you quote a quote?) --Jelpi Picou

What an asshole thing to do. That's trying to do the rather awful thing of identifying a behaviour of a country people find distasteful as distasteful behaviour on the grounds of the dislike of the country. That doesn't make sense. Any consideration beyond the behaviour itself is totally fucked up.

ramou