Nneka - Heartbeat (Live in Philly)

That is all.

Pamela Geller is despicable.
  I mean really despicable. If this country is or was ever great, than 9/11 should be no more than a triviality compared to its greatness. Compared to what this country represents, the fact that 19 lunatics with boxcutters flew planes into some buildings and killed 3000 people should be nothing but a blip on our history.

Instead, we've got people like Geller trying to make it the American Reichstag. I've never been more ashamed of other Americans than I am of Geller and Gingrich and Reid and anybody who's tried to turn the building of a community center into something ugly. Even if the people behind this community center were everything they're being accused of, it still does not excuse the kind of behavior I've seen these past few weeks.

I've never felt so disgusted with other Americans. I wish I could pass myself off as Canadian, honest to god. I wish I could get a goddamn visa to live in Finland or Belgium or evem goddamned Serbia. Anything but a country where people like Geller and Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved get treated like patriots for (and despite!) denigrating such basic, founding principles as freedom of religion and property rights. They say things like "oh, it's not about freedom of religion and property rights, it's about good taste". Good taste! Now the standard for freedom of speech is supposed to be good taste. And they say "oh, the muslim group must compromise". If they "must" then it's not a goddamn compromise. I don't care if you hate the idea of a community center with a mosque built near ground zero or near your house. If you go on television and try to compare it to Nazis putting signs up at Auschwitz, that makes you the scum of the Earth. You share a hell with the religious fundamentalists that perpetrated the crime in the first place.

So ten years after the fact, this bunch is going to turn into a bunch of drama queens over 9/11, turn the site of the Twin Towers into hallowed ground (or, as Ben Quale says, "hollowed ground"). Is the USA such a flimsy society? Are Americans such weak sisters that they're going to turn a tragedy into a pyre on which to burn each other (yes, the people who want to build the community center are Americans. Yes, there are bombs being thrown at mosques throughout the US in the last few days. Yes, there are "Americans" burning korans in Wal-Mart parking lots. Fucking mutts). I'm so tired of you, America. Never missing a chance to tell the world how great you are, how superior, how above the behavior of "terrorists" but the veneer of your Christian "reformation" turns out to be pretty goddamned thin, after all.

Things like this make me wish there actually was an afterlife where people were judged for their behavior on Earth. I'm willing to do the time for my crimes, as long as I can do it with the knowledge that people who've tried to spread this kind of ugliness were going to do the time for theirs. I'm so tired of you, America.

Rewriting history textbooks isn't nearly enough for the Religious Right. It appears that the "conservative alternative to Wikipedia, "Conservapedia" has some serious issues with Einstein, too.

The first note in the references section of the Conservapedia entry on "Counter-examples to Relativity" will be of special interest to any physicists out there.

I guess that Colbert's throwaway joke about "reality having a liberal bias" was truer than he knew.

What the FUCK are Facefuck and Shitter icons doing next to everything now? I can't find an option to turn them off. I'll use either when I'm cold and dead.

Like I said I'm just ranting. Just woke up, coffee is brewing, and I hate Facefuck and Shitter.

According to a research article published in the current International Journal of Biological Sciences, genetically modified corn from Monsanto increases the levels of liver and kidney failure in rats, as well as other harmful effects to the "heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system.

Apparently, Monsanto has wasted no time claiming the study was based on "faulty data" saying that it's own 90-day study didn't show similar problems. Of course, that ignores the fact that the organ failure only starts to show up after "5-14 weeks" according to the abstract.

So, with some trepidation given the media focus surrounding the new 3GS and pointing out how expensive it is over time, I decided to "donate" my iphone 2G to my fiancée and go for a 3GS. Since it's another 2 year contract, I figured I'd go for the top-of-the-range and wait it out again. To my (pleasant) surprise, my needs are relatively cheap...

Initial costs are a bit steep at $415 including tax, shipping. But the monthly charges are $56 (including the data-plan) for my particular needs. I don't use the phone much for talking (450 minutes a month is overkill for me) and I rarely text people (an average of 25/month is (again) overkill, and this corresponds with the '200' dollar amount I'd otherwise have to pay for in bulk). What I *do* use on the phone is the data service. A *lot*. And that's built in as unlimited - it breaks down as $32 for the Nation 450 w/rollover, and $24 for the unlimited data plan.

That comes to a total of $1759 over two years. ($415 + 24 * $56), and I can comfortably afford that. That's also a *lot* less expensive than the $3000+ (over 2 years) that people have been bandying around. It's worth looking at the options, and seeing what suits you before coming to a decision...

Simon

I seriously believe that someone is trying to sabotage Slashdot by making it decreasingly pleasant.

Exhibit A: the new-and-busted discussion system. I actually like it more than the old way for reading comments, but for writing comments it's almost maliciously bad. The new system's preview button is much slower than the old way, and the mandatory waiting time between posting comments is a lot longer than it used to be. The net result is that whenever you're eventually allowed to click the "Submit" button, if your comment doesn't go through immediately, you're stuck staring at a pink error message until the countdown is finished. The only thing keeping this tolerable is that you can middle-click on "Reply to This" to open the old-style comment form in a new window, but I don't know if this workaround is going to be left in place long-term.

Exhibit B: Idle. This is truly the worst interface I've ever seen on Slashdot, from the painful color scheme to the tiny fonts to the difference between the markup used in comments between Idle and the rest of Slashdot. For example, the <quote> tags are treated like <p> in Idle, so there's no visible difference between text you're quoting and your own words. I don't even mind the content so much because it can be an amusing diversion, but wow, the implementation is just terrible.

No, I contend that the new changes are deliberately designed to drive away readership. I don't think that the Slashdot admins are incompetent, so I'm convinced that this is on purpose.

NewYorkCountryLawyer has been asked to provide a legal analysis of the RIAA tactics to a judicial magazine. From his blog:

Link to the blog can be found here...

Perhaps Twitter is really Rob Malda. The editors and staff certainly don't seem to mind how he abuses the system.

There have always been pompous dicks on Slashdot. I could deal with that, but when it comes to having to deal with the pompous dickholes AND being advertised to through "news" stories (Watchmen, Iron Man, etc...)... I just can't deal with that.

Goodbye Slashdot.

If 'No one wants to look dumb' then why does that dorky kid with the guitar DO those horrible MSN commercials?

In a couple of days I will click a button on my publisher's website and my book will be officially for sale.

In a couple of days I can say that I am a published author.

In a couple of weeks you can find my book on Amazon.com.

In a couple of days I have fulfilled a dream.

I've decided that instead of trying to fight the good fight and speak out about horrible mods, I'm going to actually become a target for them, thereby showing what horrible mods really are. The idea is that if I post enough really bad, obviously trolling posts, and continue to maintain my excellent karma and +2 on every post rating, then you will be able to see my posts and how they all get varying ratings. See, if it's obviously trolling, it should get 100% troll and be banished to the bottom of the page, but since that never happens, maybe someone will look at the posts and say, "Hey, wait a minute... this guy here has 1 troll mod, 1 off-topic mod, 1 overrated mod, and 3 funny mods. Maybe the system is imbalanced."

Either way I'm just entertaining myself, which is all most people are doing when they comment on Slashdot stories =). Not only that but I've also submitted enough stories that have been accepted to the front page that I don't think I'll EVER lose my excellent karma, regardless of how many troll/off-topic/redundant/flamebait/overrated mods I get. That's kinda sad really... I'm breaking the mod system in two ways =)

My UIN is in the millions, but I've lurked for quite a while before signing up. The current way of doing things is really getting fucked up, and these are just a few examples.

Slashvertisements are getting more and more common. It's quite ridiculous to have 3 stories based on the Iron Man movie that are really stretching to place themselves into the geek-world. The tech of Iron Man's suit, Iron Man-like visors, and my favorite, Iron Man released today. Wow... just wow. I wonder how much money that brought in for Slashdot.

I was told that if I didn't like it I should collapse the category so it doesn't show on my front page. I'm still new to the UI and all that, so if anyone could tell me how to turn off the spam category in Slashdot, I'm all ears. My theory is that the viral video trend has lapsed over into Slashdot articles and comments the say way that shills get into Amazon, Ebay, and other CNet resources to tout the product that pays them the most as the best, newest, and hippest thing on the market. Fuck off with all that.

Then there's the moderating. I'm a subscriber, frequent contributor to comments, have 3 articles that have been accepted to the main page, and I have excellent karma. I have yet to see a single mod point dropped me way so that I can dish it out. And yet there's obviously a ton of fuckers out there who have never been metamoderated out of existence. I get troll, flamebait, off-topic and overrated on the wrong posts. Figure it out fuckholes, if you're going to mod me down, at least use the right fucking category to do it. I'm not going to get anywhere complaining about the moderation, so I'll end that one there... just had to get it off my chest.

And, last but not least, my biggest gripe. Opinion-laiden commentary in news postings. Get over yourself and stop telling us what to think in your fucking news blurb. Nobody gives a shit if you think Ron Paul is excellent, Microsoft sucks, or that Apple is the hippest trend since hackey sack. Fuckin report the news and get off your soapbox. If you're brave enough, get back on that soapbox in YOUR OWN FUCKING ARTICLE as a comment. And don't you dare just AC yourself.

Speaking of, AC is the most retarded thing left over from way back in the day. They should not allow AC for comments, or if they do it should be with email verification so you can flame the person who gets on there to say something stupid.

Does anyone really care how they are moderated? Sure, I chuckle at some of the mods-on-crack or mods-with-an-agenda things I see, both mods done to my posts and those done to others. At the end of the day why does it matter?

What is your posting philosophy? I post when I want with what I want and have never cared how I get moderated. Does anyone actually try to post in ways/times/places that will result in high moderation?

Ok, my coffee break is over. I need to get back to work. Bye.