Green Eyed Monster

I read through PZ's hate mail bag after his pointing out the a communion wafer is really just a cracker. There is quite a bit of it, and I can't say I read every bit of it (it gets boring after awhile).

2 Observations:
PZ might have a real problem here. Try as he might, his university is going to get hit with some of the fallout. He won't get fired or anything, but I think he might get a chewing out.

Many of the catholics who responded are both deeply afraid of, and very envious of Islam. You can tell from the tone (and the death threats) that they a) want to do a lot of violence in the name of their religion (but can't) and b) feel they are getting a poor deal compared to the Muslims. I've argued with a lot of catholics in my day, usually on a very civil level. Most kind of quietly assume that once I'm dead, I'll change over when I see the proof. To be fair, that might happen should I find myself in an actual afterlife. I'm betting the other way of course, that there isn't one, but I could be wrong.

A subset though seem to really be torn between what they want to do and their religion, and express this through a great deal of misplaced anger. I assume every group has maladjusted people and that's what comes out at times like this (there are plenty of maladjusted atheists, muslims, jews and Steeler's fans), it's just a little shocking to see it so openly.

Venture Brothers Quiz

I'm Phantom Limb!

You are an unsettling supervillain, with invisible but deadly limbs, who favors a purple spandex costume, and is still obsessed with Dr. Girlfriend. You haven't forgiven the Monarch for stealing her back. He should probably be worried.

Take the Which Venture Brothers character are you? Quiz at HeavyInk.com

Hate Crimes

The next time someone points out to me how only the "left" cries "hate crime" at the drop of a hat, I can point them to this:

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn't eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

...

"We don't know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was," said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese. "However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it."
We just expect the University to take this seriously," she added "To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated."

PZ summarizes my thoiughts well.

Secret Project, Revealed!

I posted this a bit earlier, but I had jumped the gun. One of my "secret projects" became public today. On purpose.

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in the Windows Domain Name System (DNS) that could allow spoofing. These vulnerabilities exist in both the DNS client and DNS server and could allow a remote attacker to redirect network traffic intended for systems on the Internet to the attacker’s own systems.

One of my guys just finished his press conference. I'll link a you tube video when it gets posted.

Bottom line: the internet is once again safe for spam and porn.

Update:
Dan is one of the folks on my pentest team and this has been pretty much his whole project since early March. Hear his podcast.
Also, read about "the largest synchronized security update in the history of the Internet"

These are the days when I'm glad I got out of my old job, even though I occasionlly miss it. Despite being "worldwide" we never pulled off anything of this magnitude, or made this much of a difference to so many customers. It was great, but I'm doing stuff now with real impact and it's very rewarding.

At least it is today. Ask me again next week and I might say something different.

...but with Helium

I'd like my funeral to go something like this:

Death of a Guilty Pleasure

The CAP Ministries is going to close.

The bottom line is that we are broke. Our donor base is now four regular donors giving $165 per month (we lost a $200 per month donor). And that equates to a new release analysis about once every two months ... and no help in providing for my family while I work the ministry, except for maybe butter-n-egg money for a month (for ten people: 6 adopted children, two foster babies, my wife and I) plus a tank of gas.

The CAP has been a guilty pleasure of mine for quite a long time. I'd occasionally go check out how perfectly innocent movies would set up this wonderful approach-avoidance conflict within the reviewer where he was clearly fascinated by what he was seeing, but at the same time punishing himself for this joy. All this under the guise of watching the movies to "protect children". Seemingly, even the least clued christian parent would understand that a movie called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (rated R) is not something you would take a 6 year-old to see. Yet bravely, and with total deference to Jesus, the CAP reviewer would throw himself on such a beast, braving the violence, sex and blasphemy, some would say risking his very soul, to detail in exacting precision the complete catalog of god offenses and explain why this is a Weapon of Satan aimed at the delicate sensibilities of the Bob the Builder crowd. Why said christian parents, while fully savvy of the Internet and it's godless dangers, would fail to understand that the subtle warning ensconced the title phrase "CHAINSAW MASSACRE" is left as an exercise for the student.

So, okay, he liked to go to the movies and loved to feel the righteous indignation only true believers can. And he like folks to pay for this. Props for that. My hobbies usually cost me money and don't generally come with moral superiority so he out strips me there.

But, he even hates kids movies.

A terrific example is Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Probably the blandest pablum the Hollywood vomit machine has ever snorted out it's nose. No god, no crime, no gangsta, no sex, no crippling existential angst. Nothing. What's the problem with Mr. Magoo?

Natalie Portman wearing a dress that exposed a large gap over her chest. Such a display of skin normally not seen is clearly sexual: clearly intended to tease, to incite lust in the male viewer. If she had worn a dress that covered the gap, the Sexual Immorality investigation area score would have been 100. Sure, some highfalutin, high society performers wear such clothing for such affairs, but does that make such a cultural-specific display acceptable? If you think "Yes" then the fact that some cultures eat other people makes it acceptable since it is a cultural-specific behavior. Don't argue with me about what is morally acceptable. Argue about it with God. He will give you a much better Answer than I ever could. [1Cor. 8:9, Matt. 5:28]

Wow! I could never have made something like that up. He had raised righteous indignation to a form of high art.

Unfortunately, he could not raise to the level where it paid all his bills. You need a cable show to do that.

Will I miss CAP Ministries? I will. I went there this morning to see what could possibly be offensive in the film Wall-E, which I quite enjoyed. I figured god has to hate robots (since it is man imitating god and robots can have souls since that is gods providence or some shit), and he has to hate robot sex even more! Alas, he is closing shop, at least for now.

Does this sadden me? A little. OTOH I am pretty stoked that the appetite for this kind of silliness, at least as non-parody, is too small to be self-supporting.

An Especially Hot Pit in the 8th Circle is Waiting for

Billy Graham.

His lasting damage, I offer as an aside, was to persuade the young George W. Bush to abandon his wastrel ways, at which he excelled, and instead seek the path that has led him to where he is now, a calamity for the nation and the world. Graham's burden is heavy indeed.

I don't beleive in gods but I do believe we should explore the limits of what we're good at.

It is better to do your Dharma poorly than do another's well.
-The Bhagavad Gita

Republican Strategy for Candidates

Brief and accurate, from TPM:

Continues to boggle my mind what a difference 4 years can make to the conservatives.

1996: Bob Dole is a war hero! Clinton is a draft dodger! WORSHIP THE WAR HERO!

2000: Forget the war! Ignore the potential Vietnam-era AWOL-ness of our candidate, and his complete lack of foreign policy knowledge! He's got integrity!

2004: So what your candidate actually fought and was injured in the same war during which our candidate was so very much NOT AWOL! We mock his service and question the legitimacy of his injuries! Have a purple band-aid to wear at our convention!

2008: Only a certified war hero can lead this country! WORSHIP THE WAR HERO!

You want to bet if I wore a purple band-aid to mock McCain's service I'd be roasted alive?

Laser Magic Tricks

Here. Starts slow but a big finish. I was, frankly, pretty impressed.

Preferences

How badly has President Bush damaged the Republican brand? Damn badly! So badly Dino Rossi, republican candidate for the govenor of Washington State is refusing to have the word "Republican" next to his name on the November ballot!

On Monday on FOX News Dino Rossi was caught trying to trick Washington's voters. You may have heard that Rossi and 27 other Republican candidates in our state will not allow the word "Republican" to appear next to their name on the ballot. Thanks to the new Top Two primary, candidates can choose what party label they want on the ballot in November. As we reported on June 11th, Dino Rossi will have "Prefers G.O.P. party" next to his name, which is clearly a scheme to avoid having the word "Republican" next to his name.Or as one of their candidates admits in this newscast:"There's 30 percent of the people in this state that would not vote for a Republican no matter what, and we want to get around that..."

here. wow!

I know democrats prefer the term "Democratic Party" over the Presidents mangled "Democrat Party" and foolishly made an issue of it in 2006 (If you don't like being called "wedgie boy" don't go up to the school jerk and tell him that idiots!). Will the republicans make a similar fuss over the word... republican? This has high entertainment potential.

Free Computers

We had a flood 2 weeks ago in our building. A chiller pipe feeding the second floor lab burst and flooded the entire first floor to a depth of 2" or so. My office and the department I run are on this floor and it was, to put it bluntly, a disaster. We've been filing insurance claims for the better part of two weeks now and, after new dry wall, new carpet and some paint, things are largely back to normal.

I lost a pet goldfish and the strainer from my teapot in the accident.

While odd, that is not an important detail.

The week before the flood, one of the other departments was getting new computers, quad core, 8GB HPs. They were queued up in boxes in the halls when the water came, ruining some boxes and doubtless some of the machines. Because of all the construction, the team stored them in a large closet off the kitchen until things settled down. Today they decided to take them out and inspect them. This would not be interesting except that a) my building as a sense of humor and b) they used union labor.

So, rather than move all those computers back into the hall, which was 30 feet away, they decided instead to just move them into the kitchen, blocking the coffee, sink, fridge and water. The total volume of material was a large fraction of the total kitchen space, and this was highly annoying since, if they had moved them 10 more feet, they could have had their inventory and not stopped the flow of coffee (my company is, largely, a machine for turning coffee into programs, so blocking the coffee pot harms productivity greatly). Lazy but within union rules.

One enterprising programmer decided to have a little fun and sent out the following email to most of the building:

"Free computers in the kitchen! Get them while they're hot! :) "

There ensued a short spike of computer, cookie and cake jokes, as well as some lame puns around eating hot chips. Standard.

About 20 mins later I needed coffee, so I went to the kitchen and discovered three things:

1) They weren't kidding, there really were computers in the kitchen (good ones too!)

2) There was a very large crowd in the kitchen wondering how true the "free" part was.

3) The computers were filling about 25% of the available space in the kitchen, blocking the coffee.

I was there for a few minutes, mostly thinking about how to get at the coffee makers , when the union boys returned from their mandatory 30 minute break (which they had taken in the neighboring building because, as I might have mentioned, they blocked the coffee makers). They came in, saw the pile of computers in the kitchen and COMPLETELY FLIPPED OUT! Totally lost it, swearing in some language only Navy Seals and poets full grok. "Why?" you may ask. OSHA safety inspector? Union pit boss? Immigration? Sadly for them, no. They were having a total meltdown because when they had left 30 minutes earlier, the boxes had filled 50% of the available space, not the mere 25% I was looking at. So, counting on their fingers and toes they realized some computers were missing! Not So Good.

Emails flew fast and furious for the next few minutes as they sent out increasingly unrealistic threats starting first with firm demands for the return of the machines, escalating rapidly through threats of termination, briefly peaking with dark hints of beheadings and anal rape, then finally collapsing into pleas of mercy lest *they* be fired for losing $50,000 worth of high quality machines. Then their managers send emails. Then our managers send emails. Then the poor schmuck who sent out the original email sent out a series of messages pleading for the return of the machines, more than hinting that the beheading and anal rape options were not entirely off the table, at least for him, should the machines not be returned.

Finally, by then end of the day, all but three of the machines had been returned but the emails only slowed. Police were being summoned, terminations would be forthcoming and the poor joking schmo would have to pay back out of his own pocket. All looked dark until...

someone checked the trunk of the car of one of the union guys. Or so am I told. You see, the emails have stopped and all anyone will say is that the situation is "resolved".

What's the lesson?

"Don't send joke emails?", "Crime doesn't pay?", "Anal rape is an effective threat?"

No.

It's "Don't block my access to coffee and do remember to lock your car you fucking union jerk."

Things I Am Glad I was Not Asked During My Quals

Unruh Radiation.


I should probably have known this and it would have been well within the committee's rights to ask me about it. To be fair, I did understand it immediately when I read it, but I had never heard of Unruh Radiation before today.

hmmm...

The Gay Plague

New evidence around male gay genetics suggest:

It is fixed at birth
It can't be eliminated from a population
and it isn't contagious.

Why are there gay genes at all? Why haven't they burned out of a non-reproducing population? Because gay men are a side effect of a different process which makes the female relatives more reproductively successful creating positive feedback.

First, it implies natural limits to homosexuality. You don't need to worry that gay teachers or television characters will "convert" hordes of boys. Sexually antagonistic selection is self-limiting and impervious to postnatal cultural factors. The authors' computations show no scenario in which male homosexuality spreads throughout a population.

Second, by the same token, you can't culturally eradicate the gay minority. It's sustained by genetics and natural selection.

Third, if the authors are correct, we're not really talking about genes for homosexuality. We're talking about genes for "androphilia," i.e., attraction to men. The importance of the genes lies in what they do not to men but to women, by increasing reproductive output so powerfully that these women compensate for the reduced output among their male relatives. You can't isolate gay men as a puzzle or problem anymore. You have to see them as part of a bigger, stronger, enduring phenomenon.

See? god knows what she's doing.

See also for why gay men should carry guns.

Holy Toast!

The World's best toaster.

(via)

Comments

At the request of some readers, I have turned anonymous comments back on. I reserve the right to shut them back off or edit away insulting or crazy things.

Jump the Snark

As most of you know, I am a) kind of a jerk and b) enjoy going to websites with radically different viewpoints than my own. I do this for 2 reasons; first, because I like to constantly challenge my view point on things and second, because it occasionally pays off in spades with real, total meltdown craziness.

In that spirit, I invite you to check out the Texas Darling (although she is actually from SoCal).

During the dem primaries this spring I was wandering through the various websites trying to form an opinion on Obama. Almost site I went to was so pro-Obama I naturally had an allergic reaction. I did not think I would ever vote for another Clinton, but I wanted to check out what her fans were saying and see if there was any merit. I found MyDD which was strongly pro-Hillary, and had some members which were just this side of crazy. The primary got settled and the Hillary folks, disappointed and a little bitter, began to fall in line. I started to lose some interest since the blog was no longer an outlier.

However

TexasDarling has her own site and immediate dived off the deep end, satisfying my need for nonsense like a Snickers Tree to a starving man. At MyDD she was a frequent, somewhat shrill and monotone poster about Hillary and I kind of formed the opinion she was a GOP shill. But no, she's much more interesting than that.

If you need some craziness, go over there and you'll find:
How she and her followers have taken a low-rez jpeg of a reproduction of a web-issued birth record, called it a 1961 birth certificate and immediately found that, a jpeg of a document doesn't match a high rez photo at all! Must be a fake!

Political Prisoner (and wanted felon) Larry Sinclair is being suppressed in wide ranging conspiracy to keep his story of gay sex with a black man claiming to be Barak Obama out of the papers.

and much, much more!

What you wont find are any cogent arguments for voting for Hillary Clinton, which is probably what you suspected all along.

Yahooizer

Tell them how you *really* feel.

Things WHich Should Not Be Connected to the Internet, Part LXXVII

Coffee Makers.

Illusions of the Year

Impressive.
The Tower of Piza one had me going until I blocked one out, looked at the other, then blocked it and looked at the first. If, at any point, they are both on the screen together, the illusion comes back.

wiggy.

Also, Since I Had the Camera Out

I took some pictures of the glass I have been working on lately.

Various paperweights I have been giving away. Not all of them obviously. Also missing is a fairly decent christmas orb I gave to Geoff for graduation:

A piece I just call the Flame:

The green version, which wicked cracked:

A blue, open mouth vase (next to a closed mouth orange tabby who could not help but pose for the camera:

A ridged plate which was the last thing we learned to make in this series of classes:

All in all I have been pretty happy with my progress the last 6 weeks. I bought some new glass for the open session tomorrow. I am going to try some more flame pieces with dichromatics.