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November 23, 2004     Insanity?

The ScumWorks, a new page, is on line (I must be insane). It has a couple PHP scripts, a critter, and my per-day coffee allocation. Inside one of the scripts is an original Scumop story, one so bad I could think of only one place to publish it. Here, were it will further help net-addicts leave the net behind and rediscover the real world they have been missing.

Although there is PHP code in Scumworks, nothing in scumop.com is PHP driven. I had planned to convert to it at some point, but the site is getting big enough that I can see many days and night of hard work converting everything. And that would be the case whether I wrote my own code, or grabbed some existing system such as PhpNuke. All the effort would put me off writing another essay, and you wouldn't want that.

Or I would screw it up and that would lead to a brutal and vicious tirade against something. Which reminds me. The gdm f'n p-o-crap Winders crashed again with the black screen of death. I took pictures, but having been there before, no need to put them up. It's pretty much the same as that last BSOD event. Both my newer machines make me nervous. An older one is still running well (a p3-550) but it has a dying SuSE 7.2 on it, and a tiny 10 gig hard drive. An upgrade is hardly worth the effort on it's own, but it would provide some kind of backup capability.

Godwacks: I was at Hank Fox's site a couple days ago where he talks about a new term for religious nutbars. Worked for me. Coincidence strikes, as about the same time, I find here in my own town a school has introduced prayer. It's like a disease, this stuff. Time to let it go. What benefit is there to alienating a large part of the population? There are no gods to care. Yet you get these people thinking that if it's all nice and warm and fuzzy for them (or whatever it is they think), we must all be wrapped up in it, like it or not. It would be useful to park them in a theocracy not of their own belief system to give them a taste of what they are dishing out.

Believe what you will, if that's what works for you. Just don't assume it works for the rest of us. In that classic do unto others sense, try to understand it from the other side.

My kids are grown up. While they were growing up, I was a deist. Even so, I made a point of not dropping any of it on their heads. Now they are adults. They can, if they choose, investigate supernatural belief systems with mature minds. In that way, whatever works for them is something they arrive at through their own free will and reckoning. Not conditioning or entrainment. And prayer in school is at least entrainment if not raw propoganda.

November 20, 2004     A Day Off Line

Scumop.com was down today. Don't know the details, but do know some other sites on Routhost were down too. Whatever the problem, my counter was deleted by it, so starting at zero again. Scumop.com is now back to further irritate and annoy you. Sooner or later, you'll rediscover television and books or even real live people. Now get off the computer and go do something.

Web work: Spent some time working with someone on a commercial website. Commercial means getting pages pixel-perfect. Unlike here.

I have 8 different browsers for testing. It was interesting to once again see how perfectly planned and executed code looks anywhere from slightly to spectacularly different on various browsers. Finally did get it to look identical on every browser but it was a big pain. Maximum fun occurs when you mix CSS and DIV and TABLE constructs. It's as if the browser renderers all have different priorities for interpreting them. This leads to some tuning. Which leads to some spectacular on-screen disasters with some browsers. We blame IE.

For best portability across browsers (without spending days on tuning) it seems safest to use CSS and either tables exclusively or <div>s exclusively. The three can work together, but be prepared to earn that consistent look. Once you do find patterns that work, nail them down tight. And whenever you can, get people to switch to Firefox or Opera.

November 17, 2004     Another linux essay

Perhaps that should be Another linux tirade. Anyway.

November 15, 2004     The Importance of Road Rage + Dawkins

Road rage is a positive expression of anger against fools who do not understand what they are doing on the road. Sometimes, the shaking fist the clueless morons see in the mirror is the only thing telling them that maybe they should be moving. That maybe the light did indeed turn green a while back. Or perhaps that they missed the 60kph sign and are mistakenly going 40. If nobody gives these people a clue, the streets will become one vast parking lot.

This is the positive aspect of road rage. I'm not talking the kind where you pull out a gun or an axe and go after someone. That's beyond road rage. But a well timed flip of the bird, a shaken fist and scowl, or a stream of four or five expletives - these are the social lubricant that keeps traffic flowing. They are part of the set of feedback mechanisms that improve driver behavior.

The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkin's newest book. Just a quick look (I've got reading to do).

When I first saw it at the bookstore, I thought "that's going to be about $80 or more". It was half that (Canadian). In terms of production, it's coffee table caliber - heavy gloss pages, excellent artwork, beautiful. How could I not buy it?

Dawkins provides a very different approach to viewing evolution. No progression from microbe to human - it isn't "progress" really, but it is so easy to see it that way. To get the message across, he looks back. Starting with humans, then back to the Ergasts (Homo Erectus and associates), which leads to a joining with Chimpanzees amd Bonobos (Concestor 1), which takes us back to yet another ancestor and another until we are almost down amongst the molecules. And all along the way, stories of those from our own time who share our ancestors, informative asides on the processes and (un)knowns of paleontology and genetics in all their expressions, and discussion on what it all means in terms of Darwinian evolution and occasionally politics.

Most of the content is not deep. But then, how do you pack almost 4 billion years of "deep" into a single book? But it is certainly broad, and current. And it is all Dawkins: full of insights and connected information and all the awe and wonder you would expect. The Ancestor's Tale is a tribute to our ancestors, however they were constructed, looked or lived.

On another matter, that of the threats both winders and linux pose to my sanity and my peaceful nature. I have found this most excellent tool. It is truly the best kind of web carrion. I'm putting the link here so you don't have to jump to the Web Carrion page. It is a very special kind of curse-or. It has sound. And it runs on both linux and winders. I have only tried it on winders where it works wonders. Linux has been behaving itself lately so no need to give it a pounding just yet.

November 5, 2004     Bah, Humbug

I've added yet another tirade on the linux and windows issue. Notice I say linux and windows, not linux or windows, or linux versus windows. Once again, the machines claim victory, gaining 2 points in the last 24 hours. Several expletives have been included, and several thousand are implied. Enjoy.

October 17, 2004    

A new essay, Not Another Linux Misadventure, and no it isn't. It takes MS Windows troubles to take your mind off your linux troubles. And they do it so well.

October 10, 2004    

Have a new essay, linux related. Much bitching and whining in it. In the linux section there is additional whining and complaining. It has been an unpleasant couple of weeks.

A site irritation I need to solve is the incessant caching of my old pages. Whenever I check the site to test something, I have to hit the RELOAD button. I've now added the following meta tag which may or may not work:

<meta http-equiv="expires" content="-1" >

October 6, 2004    

Several changes coming up. It's about time to make this a real and possibly useful site. It's time to develop some focus with a different harsh and uninviting look and feel. Time to really drive people back to books and television!

The Turkeys are Out There

A bunch of turkeys were out protesting Thanksgiving (a harvest kind of holiday, Oct 11 in Canada). It is the day we give thanks to people and organizations like PETA for behaving like a bunch of turkeys and providing us with endless entertainment. What will they do next, those silly bunts?

Someone suggested my picture be on the site, so here it is. Check out the gut. A whole lot of TASTY ANIMALS went into it's making. In the interests of animal welfare, I say we treat our cattle, chicken, pigs and turkeys to only the best feed. Good treatment leads to good eating! I'll be looking for PETA weenies while wearing the shirt and carrying a camera. What I'd really like to see is a hot dog cart set up next to one of their rallies.

Religion Kills

I was glancing at a newspaper 'interest' article on the Qur'an . One highlight says:

"Wherever you find the polytheists, kill them, seize them, beseige them, ambush them" (9:5). Haleem [M.A.S Abdel Haleem, a professor of Islamic studies] says the context shows such action was taken against unbelievers who repeatedly broke treaties and wanted to expel Muslims or force them back into paganism.

I thought the instructions sounded a little more pro-active than Haleem suggested, so I took a trip over to Skeptics Annotated Bible, which also includes the Qur'an, to see what the context was. To me, it is clearly yet more Slay the Unbelievers rhetoric. The text before 9:5 talk about it being ok to trade with non-believers if they have caused no problems (did NOT break treaties, did NOT incite or support their enemies), and then kill them. Here is the all of 9:5 (you should read all of 9 on your own, decide for yourself, though I think this conveys the intent):

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

The only way out was for the "idolaters" to abandon their own religion in favor of Allah's and start paying taxes. Sticking to your beliefs was a death sentence then. Unless you held the One True Belief.

That One True Belief (OTB) varies with locality of course. But it seems to me the way most of the world's largest religions achieved dominance was through the simple expedient of killing people not of the OTB (declaring them heretics or unbelievers) wherever they found them. A friendler, more accepting, religion would not survive an encounter with the OTB crew. Literally. When nobody else is left alive, yours is truly the one true religion.

Haleem's message is that various translations of the original texts do not agree with each other, therefore there are issues of correctness and interpretation. I can accept that. Yet if the ancient texts (of all the Abrahamic religions) were not about the repeated advocacy of the wanton murder and genocide of unbelievers (and often inconvenient believers) and anyone else with women and resources to be captured, all those "bad" translations could only be systematic lies. That's a little harder to accept. More likely, the differences are only in the small details, degree and alleged motivations for such things.

Shiny Things and Educational Too

Genetics, Human Genome Project, more. Here is a site far exceeds anything I could call 'Web Carrion'. If you already are in the field, it's pretty elementary stuff. But if you are one of the simply curious (like me), you'll want to check out DOEgenomes. Who knew the US Department of Energy dabbled in genetics?

Little Buzz-ards

I took a lot of pictures of the wasps and might post more some later. But for now, just one more. I think this one was too stuffed to move. I took the shot with a Nikon Coolpix 3200, which is one of the few low-end cameras with a macro (closeup) capability.

Trivia: Wasps, ants, bees and other hymenoptera evolved from a wasp-like common ancestor, likely over 100 million years ago.

Wasps can seem quite threatening. And you really don't want to get stung or bit (they can do both). I was able to move around within inches of more than a hundred without any problems. Occasionally, one would check me out. And that's all, just look me over with no intent to harm. Having them buzzing near your head can be disturbing. Twice, a wasp would come toward me, then rapidly fly left and right within a few centimeters of me. This definitely appears threatening, but nothing came of it. Thinking about it, it almost seemed the wasp was indecisively trying to get past me. Perhaps I was just blocking the flightpath it took to get there. I was careful to always move slowly, not give them cause to feel threatened. They did not seem to like the sound of the camera mechanism - but when close enough for them to take an interest, the camera was too close to get a good shot.

Stylish antennae

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September 23, 2004     Zzzzzzz CHOMP

Summer went missing, delaying the wasp and hornet season. However, those fun-loving yellow bandits are finally up to fighting strength. Apples have fallen from the tree, providing a feast for them. If the apples have been on the ground long enough, yeast may show up and convert some of the sugars into alchohol. That really gets the party going. Wasps are not aggressive unless provoked and possibly drunk. If you were to pick up an apple and it's dinner guests, you will get bit. But if you try picking food off my plate, I'll bite you too. Wasps are omnivores, so they are as happy to snack on a hot dog as on a fallen apple. They do love sweet stuff, which can lead to a worst case scenario: You have a canned drink open, wasp slips in for a share when you aren't looking. You pick up the can and have a swig. This the wasp considers 'provocation', leading to bites inside your mouth and maybe throat if you swallowed it.

In other non-news, I have retired a linux machine I was using a combined gateway and router. It has been replaced with a small Linksys box (4 ports + wireless g). Linux down and dirty admin work is a specialty that I have no time to pursue. If I could have had a tool that made it as easy to set up ipchains as the Linksys menus, the linux box would still be running. Being able to see what's banging at the gate and capture traffic is very handy. More in an essay later.

September 11, 2004     Value

I am reading Carl Sagan's book Demon Haunted World, published in 1996 and as timely today as back then. Two things struck me as I read it today.

Sagan's focus in several chapters was on created "repressed" memories, which have led to unflinching acceptance of such things as sexual abuse, alien abductions and satanic ritual abuse on the word and encouragement of various therapists. In todays paper (Winnipeg Free Press) was a short piece on several Saskatchewan people that had been accused, jailed and generally shit on since before Sagan's book was published. Based, as you might guess, on "recovered" memories of satanic ritual abuse. Even then, a highly questionable subject. The story:

Twelve people who were falsely accused of horribly abusing three young foster children have received signed declarations of their innocence from their three main accusers in the case
 
Members of the Klassen and Kvello families spent 14 years fighting accusations before winning a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the trio - Saskatoon police Supt. Brian Dueck, Crown prosecutor Mathew Miazga and therapist Carol Bunko-Ruys.

Search: satanic ritual abuse saskatchewan

Elsewhere in Demon Haunted World (chapter 12 - The fine art of baloney detection), Sagan writes a little something that really needs no comment, given it's obvious currency:

weasel words ... On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected...

It is the first issue, the magic of conjured up recovered memories, that is the scariest of all. It seems to hold a lot of appeal for certain kinds of people. Particularly those who are more inclined to believe the worst is always true. Sagan manages to explain why certain people would eat this shit up (religious fundamentalists), but by no means why so many others do. Even though the recovered memory thing has been pretty much debunked, cases still turn up. The ugly thing is that pure bullshit screwed those people over for 14 years and some people still pursue these claims as if they are fact.

An important third anniversary passed today. Whatever has happened since, whatever political machinations or advantage taken on it, none of these take away from the true tragedy 2001/9/11 was. The terrorist cause is always one of violence first, contrived politics and purpose later. People died for really no other reason than the entertainment of psychopaths and the delusions of religious nutbars. It is a war out there. Whether it's New York in America or Beslan in Russia, we must never surrender.

September 6, 2004     Nuclear or Unclear? The Register reports that the UK's Royal Navy is using Windows 2000 on the new Type 45 Destroyer for the Combat Management System. Further, they report that Windows 2000 is to be used on vessels equipped with Trident thermo-nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. Their take:

"So some people think that's a heap of responsibility for Windows to carry."

I would be one of them. This could add a whole new meaning to the terms "blue screen of death", "black screen of death" and the ever popular "three finger salute" (soon to be the TFSoD). The term Windows for Warships is used in the article, but I don't know if this is an official one. In the last century, we've had a WW1 and a WW2. Perhaps WW 2000 will lead to WW3? With the right service pack, old Bill could use WW to take action against pirates and spammers in a way even Kim Jong Il (North Korea's pro nuke-em leader) might respect. Prez Bush could use the exciting negative potential of WW to support his satellite guided missile defense plan. If the US system were to run linux, it would certainly add some fire to the Windows vs Linux debate.

It's not really funny, and could become even less so, given Window's fine security reputation. Concerned? I suggest you read the article carefully. I have to wonder how any sane person could choose, in a nuclear weapons context, to plug in something they have no control over and possibly no access to the internal workings. And with a long history of problems! Following the money trail, if there is one, could be interesting. Scumop speculates: It would be of considerable advantage for a company to go with Windows if they obtained deep access to Windows source, no payment required, and at the same time perhaps negating a few security concerns in the process. But's that's just my mistrustful nature talking. A situation to keep an eye on.

September 5, 2004     I've finally added another article to contribute to your eyestrain. It brings together the a couple of seemingly unrelated topics: kiddie porn arrests and computer crime, emphasis on the computer crime you never knew about.

I've found a good follow-up book to Freethinkers. This one was written a couple years ago, and with Freethinkers definitively answers the questions I had regarding what is happening south of the Canadian border. It's The Fundamentals of Extremism by Kimberly Blaker and others (ISBN 0-9725496-1-7 Pub: New Boston Books Inc). I won't be reviewing it (others have done so) except to say that where Freethinkers explains much the history leading up to today's problems. The Fundamentals of Extremism sits solidly in the present and is one helluva scary book. I felt America lost it's way after 9/11 with all the reactionary goings-on but believed it would find its way back after a while. Now I'm not so sure. This book is more of a must- read than Freethinkers. I'm not done reading it yet, so you can go buy your own copy from Evolvefish.com and many other places.

Since my own evil wish is that one day my part of the country at least becomes part of the US, current events are very disturbing. Yesterday, the Pope made declaration against Canada's pro gay marriage stance, to which our (Catholic) Prime Minister Paul Martin answered that what Canada does is a matter for the Canadian Parliament. Having read that in the US, Catholic politicians have been threatened with excommunication for not towing the church line, I felt rather proud to be here under our flag. Canada doesn't always get the seperation of church and state thing right, but we are far from hopeless.

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