Morality and the Vote

An old friend, and staunch Roman Catholic, recently included me in a thread discussing whether it is a mortal sin to vote for Barack Obama due to his stance on the abortion platform. Several of my ancient church youth group (KYRIOS/KAIROS) acquaintances and associates weighed in with different approaches ranging from strict adherence to the holy word of the USCCB to a relatively well-informed perspective on the current state of human dealings around the world. Before I reveal my meager attempt to address this question, I ask you: on what should a vote be based? On beliefs, on values, on politics, on money, on fear of going to Hell, on love of fetuses? With that in mind, here's what I think:

I should preface my entry in this discourse with a polite disclaimer: my opinion is not based on Church doctrine, dogma, or the like, but merely on a wholehearted belief that life is of the highest value. However I do not limit this belief to the value of American lives, nor even to HUMAN life, but rather to all living entities.

The inconceivably tragic condition of many other parts of the world weigh on my mind much more heavily than any domestic issues, moral, ethical or political. I immediately hurdle and ignore any implications my vote may have on my eternal soul, thinking only of the severe consequences my wrongful vote will have on millions of other poor, suffering souls around the planet that never had a chance or a voice as I have and as I do. More than that, I also recognize the heinous transgression our species has committed upon the planet that has fostered our life and survival. These considerations far outweigh any selfish desire for moral approbation that may trigger me to worry about (globally comparatively) rich old people who would have died without any help, or fetuses that would have been born to mothers who were willing and wanting to murder that child before they ever met it. Pardon my candor, but the greater horrors I choose not to mention would far supersede these.

I lived in a blind warm nest of isolation and ignorance for the formative years of my life. No longer can I ignore the injustice of my undeserved privilege. My votes will be cast (and always have been cast) to balance the equation, for the candidates who, to the greatest extent, share my respect for life, my valuation of true universal justice. It's quite honestly the least I can do to repay my Creator for placing me, in the grand perspective, in the very lap of luxury.

The beauty of this whole voting thing is that my opinion only counts as much as anyone else's. Consequently I am forced to evaluate everyone's opinions on equal ground because they all have the same weight.

That said, vote for whoever you want. This country's on its way down the tubes, mainly due to the crumbling integrity of values, due to selfishness, due to isolated, ignorant perspectives. It gives me hope to read all of your entries above, hope that some Americans do try to become informed on the true state of the world (which is quite obviously impossible but a valiant pursuit all the same). For only with real and complete information about the consequences of our actions, our votes, and our governments' actions, can we begin to evaluate the wrongness or rightness of something as minuscule as our vote for President. If you want to trust the Church to channel the infallible will of God in Three Persons into a political opinion, that is your choice. But it is a choice the effects of which the whole planet and all the beings on it will feel. I can only hope that I will not be counted with the goats that I condemn by my vote as an American citizen, because let's face it, people will die either way, it's really just a choice of who. The only way to truly be pro-life is not to vote at all.

Please understand that I am not making any personal attacks with my opinion, nor do I hope to change anyone's mind — that is something one must do for oneself. Nor am I qualified to evaluate anyone's decisions or votes. I doubt that any presidential candidate in the history of our country has been satisfactory by my standards. Have a lovely day, a wonderful week, and a fantastic fall. But please don't bother stopping to pass judgment until you've learned all there is to know.

Phew! Good things that's out of the way. Did I piss anyone off? Tell me about it. Did I get anyone nodding? Lemme hear it. Tell everybody with some delicious backtalk (link below).

Inedible Crevice Tincture

Just wanted to get that out. Google reveals no mention of this phrase. It is sacred, terrasitic, and ignominious at best. Revel and marvel at it, but do not, I repeat, do not put it in your mouth. The Spyda made it, and he will destroy it, if shove ensues push.

On a lighter note, read some of Gonzales v. Carhart before you eat or sleep. I spent 4 hours today reading Supreme Court opinions on abortion (by assignment mind you). It was light and fluffy like a pillow full of thumbtacks. My soul hurts, and I will give it a beer and a bed now.

Random knowledge record #2

At the behest of the best, I will now bequeath a befuddling technique for your bedazzlement. Beware, it is not interesting, entertaining or useful. Well, maybe useful, if you find yourself in a Centigrade zone.

Converting Fahrenheit to Celsius (and vice versa) is not a mathematically taxing enterprise. Stop someone on the street with this task and you'll likely get a jumble of "Well ya multiply by nine-fifths or five-ninths or sumptin and den ya add thirty-two, no wait, ya subtract 32s ands thens yas multiplies by — oh hell, I don't know kid, get a thummomeda, will ya?" That only works if you speak the language, and even then not very well.

When I was in Beijing last summer, the thermometers told me the temp in °C, which is not incredibly helpful if you don't have a reasonable amount of empirical experience to relate temperatures in Celsius with how the weather feels. So I spent the better part of a class called World Trade and World Intellectual Property Law: Institutions & Policy, taught by Bill Hennessey, figuring out a quicker way to convert these unintuitive °C to my white bread apple pie °F.

In a certain set of standard atmospheric or environmental conditions, pure water freezes when the temperature reads 32°F or 0°C. The Celsius scale is based on this temperature at which liquid water changes to a solid phase. So we know that Fahrenheit relates to Celsius in that way. How else do they coincide?

Well, with a dual read thermometer, or a few quick calculations, you can come up with a few benchmark temperatures in each scale which will aid in the task of on-the-fly mental conversion. Turns out, every change of 10 degrees in Celsius marks a change of 18°F (hence the five-ninths and nine-fifths jibber-jabber). So:
10°C = 50°F.
20°C = 68°F
30°C = 86°F
40°C = 104°F
-10°C = 14°F
-20°C = -4°F
-30°C = -22°F

I've only ever had a feverish temperature up to 104, and rarely did the Rockford winters get much lower than 22 below, ignoring wind chill. I hope you'll forgive me if my benchmarks stop there; you can extrapolate further if you find yourself in Death Valley with nothing but Centigrade.

By a quick deduction, these benchmarks will get you within 9°F of your temperature, and you can either guesstimate from there, or for an exact temperature, remember that 1°C is 1.8°F, and 2°C is 3.6°F.

Test run: (yawn) Fracking alarm! What time is it? What's the weather like? 36 degrees?!?! But it's summer… Oh, right, Celsius. So 40 is 104, so 35 is 95, and 36 is 95+1.8 = 96.8°F. Simple.

If I was you, I wouldn't care. But the bequest has been beheathed. Now, a manatee.

© State of Florida 1999-2008

How about that Hadron Collider? Let's all keep our fingers crossed for a day or two.
MSNBC's take.
The blinking zeros here (down the page a little) supposedly indicate that the world ended and we missed it.

LHC fo life!

In honor of the first full circuit to be completed on Wednesday at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, I redirect your distracted state to this amazing piece of craft:

Inanity Hither, Other Slop Thither

I read a comment by Joe Martin (the world's most prolific cartoonist according to Guinness) that computers are good to have around because you can beat them when they screw up. I recalled my last Losedows-based PC. It died in 2002 as a result of a severe beating, which itself was the culmination of months of slow painful torture and getting kicked around. While I attest that this unfortunate computer's melancholic incompetence preceded my heartless beatings, the computer may have insisted otherwise, if I hadn't ruthlessly yanked its emotion chip on the day I got it. Either way, without the ability to emote, the tower would sway under my brutal ferocity, and the Losedows would crash, blue screen, explorer.exe has committed a fatal error. I'll say!

I feel slight remorse for my cruel treatment of that worthless silicon pile. So I imagined, upon reading Mr. Martin's sentiment, some sort of roly-poly, weeble apparatus in which to encase a computer so it could be beaten without sending it on a vicious and devastating downward spiral of poor performance. A boxing helmet for an old CRT, sparring pads that mount in a 3.5" disk drive port, something? I haven't had any luck, but I've also never had an original idea, so if anyone knows of the existence of such implements, please stick it in the comments. Gently, they're a little sore.

Instead of computer beating bubbles, I found this ridiculous catshit-crazy idea.

Post scriptus, I have begun another blog in order to isolate my hapless attempts at writing fiction from the diseased content herein. Feel free to stop over there and leave some criticism. I hate my writing, but it's the only way I can seem to write. What are ya finna do?

Random knowledge record #1

I had a few things written down in different places, strewn on the post-its and scraps. Now they shall be consolidated, promulgated, and Google-indexed.

1. Some say that one can determine the temperature in ºF by counting the number of times a nearby cricket chirps in 15 seconds and adding 40.

2. "Pogue mahone" means something like "kiss my ass" to folks more Irish than me.

3. One can determine the day of the week on which any date will fall, with MATH! Through a series of painful but useful calculations, below, I shall attempt to elucidate the secrets of John Conway's Doomsday rule.

Starting with the more practical elements of the Doomsday rule:
• this year, 2008, the Doomsday is Friday.
• Doomsdays fall on the following dates: 1/10 or 1/11 (depending on the leapitude of the year), 3/0 (meaning the day before 3/1), 4/4, 5/9, 6/6, 7/11, 8/8, 9/5, 10/10, 11/7, & 12/12
• These dates are the easiest for me to remember because of their numerical symmetries.
• e.g., If asked, "June 23rd, what day will that be?" You may now quickly realize that June 6th is a Friday, and so is every 7 days after that. So the 23rd must be a Monday (3 days after Friday, June 20).

What happens next year? What about distant dates? What about the day you were born? Clearly that was a Dooming Day, but was it a doomsday? Enter math, stage left.

First, you'll need a "century anchor day". This century that day is Tuesday. Odds are, it will be the only anchor day you'll ever need. So, Tuesday, remember that, or die.

Second, you'll need a lovely little modulo equation. (N.B. For our purposes, a modulo is an operator that takes a dividend and a divisor and gives back the remainder. If the dividend is less than the divisor, it gives back the dividend. So, 20 modulo 7 = 6. 54 mod 4 = 2. 3 mod 7 = 3. 5 mod 2 = 1. Got it?)

The system of equations:

Doomsday in a certain year = {[d + (d/4)] mod 7} days after Tuesday
where d = the last two digits of that year.

Por ejemplo, M.I.A.'s birthday in 2012 (Mayan Armageddon Year Anyone?) will be on a Friday.

2012 ==> d = 12
(12 + 12/4) mod 7 = 15 mod 7 = 1
1 days after Tuesday is Wednesday, which is the Doomsday in 2012.
July 17 is Mathangi Arulpragasam's birthdate.
July 11 (7/11) is a Doomsday.
Her birthday is 6 days after a Doomsday (Wednesday in 2012), so it's on a Tuesday.
Check it July 17, 2012 is a Tuesday.

Just to make sure we've got it, what day does Johnny Appleseed Day (September 26) fall on in 2048?

I got Saturday, I hope that's right. For more in depth explanation of why this works...

Striking animation

Crooked Timber alerted me to this. It is gorgeous and painful, rich and thought-provoking. A celebration and indictment of life all at once, very true to the human condition. Orgesticulanismus

Josh's HaTMuLe

Once reserved for a sweet, delicious snack, the term 'muffin top' now means so much more.

Read More

"According to a new survey, "muffin top" is preventing otherwise "do-able" women from being approached and bed in 47 of the 48 contiguous states (Mississippi excluded where has muffin top is the new skinny)."

says Dzello, my hired gun and custom coding agent.

Conservatives(/Liberals) as Villains

I'm SICK of people misusing the terms "liberal" and "conservative" to suit their side of particular political disputes. Having stumbled upon this article, I remain disturbed and bewildered by the Church of Liberalism and its Inquisition.

As far as I am concerned, we should, for illustrative purposes, strip the terms of the political implications the masses of ignorant opinion-spewing dunderheads have tattooed onto them.

Conservative (from the Latin, conservare, meaning to keep together, to guard) means resistant to change, concerned with keeping tradition. Are there elements of civilization which have changed to a sufficient level and cannot improve with further progress and reform?

Answering yes to this question means you have a conservative opinion. You are NOT a conservative. Avoid defining yourself based on your opinions. They will be wrong most of the time, whether because you are ignorant (or have incomplete information), or because new information is discovered or developed and the issue changes.

Liberal (from the Latin, liber, meaning free) means favoring freedom. By a common leap in logic that everyone seems to now ignore, liberal now is used to mean following liberalism which extends the valuation of freedom to attempts to solve societal problems or disputes. You cannot be a liberal. If you think you are a liberal, you are a liberalist. Analogously, I am not a skeptical, I am a skeptic.

Is the pinnacle of human civilization to be achieved by allowing each person freedom to choose in any given situation? Let's assume that the pinnacle of human civilization is the ultimate realization of human potential and it is a good thing for everyone; it is per se the aggregate meaning of life. Then the question becomes: are humans good enough at choosing to achieve this goal of humanity if each individual is given free choice? Some trivialize this question by mistranslating it into a question of whether human nature is good or evil, embodied in countless creation myths, codices of religious dogma, jurisprudential treatises, and the like. As I see it, the question is whether people are capable of realizing their potential.

This question redefines the divide between those with a liberal value system and those who can be content with the status quo in certain realms, i.e. liberal and conservative thinkers.

As for those who identify themselves by an adjective that may or may not describe the majority of their opinions, watching these people villainize each other infuriates me, but I suppose it serves them right to be caught in such a futile debate. Instead of realizing and exploring the fundamental difference in their perspectives, they label and mudsling and muckrake. "Conservatives hate science. Liberals are dirty hippies. Blah blah yadda yadda."

Concepts on how to make this page useful

My initial impulse was to make this a quarry (more like a strip-mine) for unsolicited advice on:
1. how to lessen the negative impact of being a human (being)
2. how to avoid the common pitfalls into which post-modern society threatens to toss us
3. contrarily, how to fully embrace and celebrate the hopelessly doomed world which we have created for ourselves

Certainly I do not imply that my advice is somehow better qualified or supported than the next person's. Rather this is meant as a mutually beneficial exercise. Once I have better formulated the purpose of this site, you will be given a pledge and I will launch on a mission. Weekly entries on finding meaning? Daily alerts on wasteful pursuits, or wasted energies? Monthly recaps on successful analrapy (analytic-therapy)?

For now, the central topic of Terrasitic Paraforms is: "HOW TO BE A BETTER TERRASITE"

There are those innate human traits we can combat, alter, even wholly transform, and there are those we cannot. I suspect that those we cannot are those we share with many non-human creatures, and those we can are those possessed by humans alone.

To be developed…

In the meantime:
Save the Internet!, especially if you love downloading things for free for which the copyright owners of such things would like you to pay for a limited, non-exclusive license. I want to get paid for things I don't deserve too. Maybe I should corrupt some form of art and mass market it to the, as yet, taste/opinion-challenged populace. How about large-screen LCD fine art screensaver subscriptions? I'll have football fans' wives gossiping about the latest Jeremy Blake movement in months.

Eat Whale Meat, Hippie! I love how perversely pervasive this discussion has become. If some whales are only as smart as sheep, is it okay to sustainably hunt those big dumb animals and eat them? We could selectively breed chimpanzees until they were as dumb as sheep and start eating them too. Or humans? Homo Stupidiens.

And it's not like we Americans are all that good at breeding anyway.

I'm scared of Dubai.

Brain trick of the day.

Celebretards Battle Out the Dem Primaries

VS.

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Baseballs are hard.

madisonian.net, one of my very favorite law-related Web-logish internets-ites reported on this ridiculous issue: Should MLB Base Coaches be forced to wear helmets against their will? I believe that everyone should wear helmets all the time, so whichever genes cause hideous head-injury related deaths aren't selected-out just because someone happens to take a bus-grill to the skull while stepping into a street without watching where they are walking.

Ironically, my pitiful and pointless life has literally and seriously been saved twice by helmets: one baseball pitch to the noggin, and one bike accident leading to Supermanning a brick wall.

From a legal perspective, I suspect this matter could be resolved privately through contract with each coach much more easily and satisfactorily. MLB could conceivably cover its @$$ with dozens of creative swindler tactics involving mandatory waivers, assumption of risk clauses, etc. Instead we get a sudden public outcry about the dangers of baseball, and the MLB has to start rulemaking. Thanks mass-media for sensationalizing another isolated incident. God!

"A freak accident ended Mike Coolbaugh's life. "A one-in-bazillion chance," says the coroner of the fatal blow. "A half a hair either way and it wouldn't have killed him.'"Quote: S.L. Smith/si.com. Picture: Otto Greule Jr./Getty Images

On a moralistic side note, Mike Coolbaugh, R.I.P. Baseball is fun, baseballs are hard, at least you died doing the thing you loved. All the best to his survivors. I'm sure it was a tough loss for such a seemingly frivolous pursuit as baseball. But worse shit happens everyday to plenty of innocent people and that shouldn't stop us from enjoying our short terrasitic lives.

All the policy makers need are more idiotic, mass-media spoonfed citizens to compete with when trying to get purposeful, worthwhile legislation passed.

Enough ranting.

No, maybe not. I also suspect (without having researched this matter yet) that such a rule was formed in a classic American knee-jerk reactionary response to tragedy.
Tragedy: Kid hit by car at intersection.
Response: After the fact, install lots of flashy signs and lights about kids crossing, toss a traffic-crippling unnecessary stoplight with beeping crosswalks up and place some speed bumps on the street so going fast is more fun.
Result: Kids still run into the street here and elsewhere, cars get backed up in your neighborhood and your street and passing cars deteriorate faster from the speed bumps. LOSE LOSE LOSE.

How many coaches and players have been killed by getting beaned? As a veteran little leaguer (IL State Champs 1992) and high school pitcher, I've been hit by dozens of pitches in inconceivably painful places. During the city championship game in 1994, I was drilled by two line drives from the bat of the same slugger in consecutive innings, while I was pitching (and I finished the game). Don't get me wrong, it hurts, a lot, but it's the danger that makes it a thrill.

Auto racing would be a hell of a lot safer if they would just slow down. Why do those NFLers have to tackle each other so hard, even if they do wear pads? Isn't that dangerous?

The folks over at the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research can tell you just how dangerous it is, especially to our younger athletes who idolize and parrot base coaches everywhere.

P.S. I wear a helmet whenever I'm out of the house. You never know when a fatal head injury could happen.

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Lynx

Not much to say today. I got up early (7:40 am, gasp!) and hit the LCD like a brain trainwreck. Here are my discoveries of the morn.

1. Spring Cleaning project considerations
2. Paintings of this
3. 100% Environmentally Friendly in 366 days
4. Liam Sullivan, Betch!
5. Shakerleg

Oy heah, and just for stopping by you get a free Wombat:















Photo: Dallas Kilponen

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Google Reader eats time

So now that I subscribe to all these cool sites and blogs via RSS and Google consolidates them in an easy to read/navigate format, I never have to leave the computer!!! I just finished reading 1000 new posts. It was fun. My eyes may fall out of my head.

The yield from this Web-farming?
1.The Green 11
2.Wall Stairs
3.Creepy Installation Art by Chiharu
4.TSA Gangstaz take themselves seriously
5.Supercities
6.NYC Graffiti Guide
7.Nokia Morph nanotech concept
8.A pretty llama!
9.MORE reasons to hate Comcast
10.HA!
P.S. Throwback!

Apple vs. Haters

[Update: Joe sent this over this morning - Apple Snob video from the Street

Starting yesterday (Feb 7, 2008), a recent discussion between Joe Grasso and myself has become lively and aggravatingly extensive. A transcript follows, with color commentary by Alan C. Carter and Daniel H. Kim:

Me - 12:37 pm - Yesterday
[Referring to a wifi frame]

They should have the following already in these [digital photo] frames and I am shocked that they don't:
touchscreens, all of them
long lasting batteries
bluetooth
Mac-f@©king-compatibility

It figures that the only ones approaching the current state of technology are the only Mac-compatible ones, and that they're fucking expensive and marketed to the yuppies/old-pees: http://www.photovu.com/digital-frames/overview.php

All in all, the Kodak one works fine, looks nice, my folks were thrilled and we got it set up in one hour. And I can post pics to the Kodak Easyshare site and they show up on the frame in Illinois.

Joe - 1:14 pm - Yesterday

1. fuck kodak and their proprietary easy share bullshit in their ear. also for polluting rochester NY for 25 years before laying everyone off.
2. fuck you kerry for even insinuating macs are ever on the forefront of any technical software development. great, accessible design, decent hardware, decent interfaces, TERRIBLE software development.
3. nice guess by me if the number was actually 317 cause the 300 was a random guess
4. hopefull by x mas there will be a good one that works with flikr or picasa- emailing photos is actually counterintuitive to how most people share photos macland- and it opens up your digital frame to get B1gGerr PEn15 spams
5. sometimes you just gotta wait for the cost to catch up with the cool . . . which will happen this november.

Me - 1:45 pm - Yesterday

Who said anything about software development? I was talking about a third-party product. Mislabeling the selective class of software available for Mac OS as terrible software development is flippant and uninformed. Mac software developers are held to a higher standard; the shitty programmers are busy making platform crashing clusterfucks for Windouche and Linsux, and trying to make any case based on the unavailability of all those shitty programs and pointless games for Mac is pointless.

Tragically, there are a few competent software developers that hold to their self-destructive anti-Mac mantras and fail to gain enlightenment, which only is a cycle of Mac-haters perpetuating existence of an infinitesimal basis for Mac-hating, through no fault or mistake of Apple. They can't force developers to drop their ignorant stonewall stances, so they wait and release superior hardware with a superior operating system.

But who said anything about software development?

Who released the first multitouch screen consumer device?
Who pioneered an operating system that finally utilized a mouse?
Who has ever made a more efficient or stable OS for a PC than Apple?
Linus Torvalds while his mom gave him handjobs with maple syrup?

I don't know what club you have to join to make baseless statements like that and feel somehow vindicated, but I bet Bill Gates gets the membership dues.

Joe - 2:27 pm - Yesterday

hahhahahaha

amazing

there is no counter mac culture like all u mac fags hope there is. just one big gay group of turds who allow a corporation to define them as people and dictate what their culture is, all the while rights managing anything and everything with a business model of don't allow any open source or 3rd party development or allow our software to work
with anything other than something made by apple so they can milk their most loyal followers and take over the world.

the fact that u would get offended and have to run to starbucks wearing your nike+iPod shoe peripheral combination with both ipods and your macbook to connect back to your crusty itunes on your home imac
is proof enough.

dude and seriously ask ANY electrical engineer or computer programmer (Vic is a great example cause he is both) about the stability of macs or pcs vs linux machines. using the argument that no one uses linux so therefore mac is the best remaining option is also as stupid and uninformed as you hoped my statement was. Also ask someone who knows about computers- not just people who think they know like us- what the worst part of macs is. answer will be software. better yet, try to
run torrents and seed something correctly on any torrent software. I know the old mac has been brilliant at that. or try to download mac software on waffles. what is there 3 programs on there? or try running 3d modelling software on a mac- nice work there for the design community. all software development issues. and guess who can never
print to any network printers correctly at my work or access their mail properly? yep you guessed it, the old loud obnoxious, on their knees for jobs mac fags. and your canned response will be the same as theirs in your head right now. Ohh its a windows network. gaaaay. backed into a corner and gayyy. windows comps NEVER have probs on mac networks. again, software issues.

and just like microsoft, what do you think mac software development teams do? if you guessed have a special team dedicated to scouring the webernet for open source, usually linux based communities to steal source code for cool new features and so called "developments," you are correct.

So anyway the point is this. I dont have a boner for PCs. Macs simply can not do half of the things I need it to do as a product
designer. so therefore i use the thing that works and i understand. thats the difference. mac users are so fucking in love with their crummy product that they think anyone who doesnt use one is "on the other side" and is out to get their amazing community of artists and musicians.

you are so gay for macs you moved in with a guy NAMED MAC.

eat my dick. its not P.C.


love and kisses

Joe

i almost forgot

"Mac software developers are held to a higher standard; the shitty programmers are busy making platform crashing clusterfucks for Windouche and Linsux, and trying to make any case based on the unavailability of all those shitty programs and pointless games for Mac is pointless."

that could win stupid, misinformed, what was your word, flippant? comment of the year and possibly the worst rationalization i have ever heard in my life. literally the worst. is 4th grade argument logic discussed on your apple.com forums?

dont foget to put a mac sticker on your segway, liberace, so all the other shit-stickers out there can sniff you out as one of their own.

pity you just cooled down now you gotta go get upset again.

just think of jeff goldblum talking slowly, soflty, and slightly befuddled to you about how everyone is doing the emails and talking about the emails and how do you get the emails? just take out your imac and plug it in and tada! we gotcha. also you get to use the emails.

Dan - 9:15 am - Today

now that is something i can agree with...

plus their slanderous ad campaign using that loser from dodgeball as their spokesperson makes anyone who doesn't have a mac a corporate stiff. Macs are just useless pieces of flare that are nothing more than an accessory to match a wannabe lifestyle. the nazis also had pieces of flare that they made the jews wear....

Me - 3:18 pm - Yesterday

Nice rant. When you have an ounce of support or authority behind any of your bald assertions I'd like to hear them. Ask anyone? Who? The people that agree with you?

Mac software is available for PC and Linux chodes are actively trying to figure out how to run it on their open soggy boxes.

Furthermore, the windows network is clearly the problem if the mac network allows anyone to print. Comcast blocks torrents and they're in court right now, apples have nothing to do with that. Azureus is dual platform. I downloaded protools the other day from waffles. You know what they do with that: make most hip hop. In addition to reason and ableton live, CS3, and etc.

If mac developers are so busy scouring the web for Linux programmers' progress, what features have appeared in Linux OS then later in mac OS? Now ask yourself the opposite question.

You can try to make your point by calling macs gay, but who would listen to that? Who are you going to convince without a shred of proof and only a 50 gallon barrel of imaginary shit to sling?

Touching my iPod and thinking about you,
Kerry

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/17/survey-finds-apple-users-have-sense-of-superiority-no-wait-h/comments/9897629/

There's lots of people in this blindfolded shit-grenade lobbing contest. Most of them know more about computers than me.

Alan - 4:43 pm - Yesterday

YAHHHH TRICK YAA

yall finsta b bustin up fo shizo. allz hatin bout itty itty bitty azz pics bein up n a tiny azz bitch frame. I gotz ones of dem bitches, ITS IS BEIN SCREENS IN YO WHIP BEEICHES. Flossin collard park frontin proper on dem deuce deuces, dats wright yo, my fizuckin whizzels can buy foties yo, day ova 21!! Crusin on chrome i b peepin at screens propa up in da whip. Ya know, showin pics de la bitchez on da regular. If'in u finsta bump pic frames propa flava flav style, strap dat shizit on yo neck nigga. Stride up n da club wit a pic of dem hoez all shaftmasterin all up on yous. Its playa magick, dem bitchez aint shit but hoez n tricks, n wit a pic of dem up on yo nutz wile suckin yo dik, (propa to da Doggfather) itz called a bitchin ass picksha produca, on my nizeck. HOLLA!

where my bitchez,

Yo, wen i finsta sip da sizzurp all up in da clizub, i finsta place lady head nobs on da knob fo propa. Den my hed finsta nod propa, to the bumpin bass yo. Most dem good fuckas be rockin da stage wit dem fruit comps yo, u know da apple. Dey sick on da beatz, just like hittin yo tricks wit a tube sock of full of apples, cant be bruzin dem hoes. But on da proper, da light show be showin dem hoez hows ta get low on da floor, n da software fo dat shit bumps on da PC like yo grandmamma bumpz on da regular.

flip mode squad, raw deluxe

fat.

Joe - 8:56 am - Today

alan that was fantastic. it took 20 minutes for me to read, but it was well worth it.

Kerry yes many of my claims are trumped up and out of context- but thats how i roll nigga. when i wrote the original fuck you about software development it was a conscious effort to fire you up about your hipster mac. and it worked well based on the wonderful discourse we have had. you have had several biased, unfounded claims as well in your pointed arguments.

as far as started as open source and ended up gobbled up by apple, here are some of the ones you take for granted . . .started as open source shareware and freeware, apple liked em, so just copied em in to the interface or hired the little guy who wrote it- none were developed by the elite team of software developers who are held to the higher standard.

"The contribution of thousands of users has been largely overlooked. Some standard features in most computer interfaces -– user configurable menus, flexible open/save dialog boxes, tear-off menus -– were dreamed up by people working in bedrooms or back offices. A shareware program called WindowShade introduced collapsible windows to the Mac. The system extension allowed users to collapse open windows with a click of the mouse. Other tweaks include freeware programs that displayed a spinning wristwatch when the system was busy (OS X features a spinning windmill) and the bulging trash can to indicate files waiting to be deleted. Again, both are now standard on Mac and Windows. Apple provided a great framework for innovation: an open and flexible operating system that allowed smaller, third-party developers to tweak and polish the interface"

reread that last sentence again captain DRM. seems as if throughout the 80s and 90s apple was very open to allowing third party software developers build the foundation for what they take full credit for these days- their wonderful interface. (i am not being sarcastic here it is the best part of the mac experience and lifestyle). hiring the exact same "shitty programmers [that] are busy making platform crashing clusterfucks for Windouche and Linsux" in fact, the whole weird rocky relationship between apple and microsoft started because in the 80s apple knew they had NO chance of success without microsoft's software development capabilities. I am not saying bill gates did not make (steal) a shittier version of the os he was given
to develop software for . . . but I am saying that software development throughout apple's history has classically been by small
third party development firms- EXACTLY the same types of places you claim are the reason for windows and linux platforms crashing and whatnot.


and apple didnt invent the mouse. or the gooooeeeeey. xerox parc developed those things in the 70s. apple saw them and figured this was something they could SELL. and make huge money on. this all goes back to the same point as before. bill gates is evil. everyone knows that. picture a hipster prick in portland having a microsoft patch on their hemp rucksack or a microsoft bumper sticker on their prius. and heres the aha. steve jobs is just as much of a money grubbing evil empire turd fuck as bill gates. the difference is he has better marketing. one could argue the best marketing campaign of the 20th
century. one that makes people who are wannabe lifestyle posers buy into lifestyle choices because a company tells them its cool. Artists and musicians DO use apple computers. but so do turds who are neither because they THINK its part of that lifestyle. which it isnt. which is exactly the point u tried to make. Oh joe u like hip hop and hip hop producers use macs so macs are cool. we could go through a list of softwares that are on pcs and macs and different professions which use either. u also brought up adobe, which last time i checked was not a mac company and the CS suite runs just as fast if not faster on my pc from 8 years ago as it would on your mac (if you paid 800 bucks for it sucka) same goes for the whole macromedia (now adobe) suite as well) there are programs that work on one better than the other sometimes. in mine and macs case, the most integral software to us and our business is cad software which apple has been lacking in since logo. why the bias toward 2d and motion graphics designers from a company supposedly so "industrial design" forward? are we not bohemian enough to fit the lifestyle?

steve jobs isnt interested in making peoples lives easier. or making the world a better place. or even remotely in the fake culture he has been creating since he came back to mac after his post-lisa-failure hiatus. he cares about the benjamins and the point is APPLE IS AS EVIL AS MICROSOFT just with a dumber user base who thinks apple is hip and cool and not the evil money grubbing corporation that they actually are. think about that before you slap that apple sticker on some other random thing you own. (maybe your frisbee or your fedora)

also, aint it about time apple comes out with a super sleek jon ive designed easy to use emotionally sensual yet extremely proprietary picture frame that only uses iPhoto and won't allow anyone to use it without a mac.com email address? they could make billions and convert 2.3 percent more americans into their bogus culture.

Joe

p.s. i dont hate macs. i hate smug mac users (which is what, 70% of the mac fan club with you on the board of directors?). they are almost as bad as smug pious fucks whose god is better than everyone elses god cause some other idiot told them so.


which brings us to discussion #2: your gods can suck my dick.

Dan - 9:52 am - Today

word.

alan- that was one of the best email responses so far. i tried to read it to a hip hop beat...it works. flip mode, nigga!

Apple capitalized on the new ultra-image conscious demographic...i mean look at ads these days...most of them straight out tell you that unless you are using their product, you are not a stylish individual. before this new ad campaign for apple, i never even considered where my "loyalties" lie regarding computers...but since THEY were the ones to bring it up, i guess i won't lose sleep over deciding whether or not i am qualified to be a mac user. these are just tools, and until i see a big ass check from apple or microsoft for promoting their shit, i will continue to not care...but if i were to choose, PCs just fit me better. I've used macs quite a bit and at the end of the day, PCs are just better to use overall because its easier for me to fix, use, and maintain. i'm not gonna go buy a new laptop or computer that looks like a 60s flying car concept every two years...and you wanna talk about being a socially conscious company? where do all the computers that people chuck after they've got their two years of usage go? they go and pollute the FUCK out of the environment because computers are not biodegradable by any means- the disposal of computer components is a long, expensive, and hazardous process and by apple constantly introducing new products the old products are being disposed (most of the time they usually just throw it out with the rest of the trash) and essentially telling their consumers that they need to get the new version because you have to keep up with the fashionable housing(of course). At least with PCs, you're not buying a new machine every couple years. they are modular(which gives Mr.McMillan a hard-on). i mean...come on, kerry...how many different macs have you had in the same time that i've had one PC(which by the way was only one computer throughout the tenure of our friendship)? we can argue about user interface, software, and everything else forever, but the fact remains that Apple is just a wasteful company that continuously produces waste, but of course they're not gonna say anything about that because that would be completely contradict the "image" that apple wants to have. Of course the other companies are producing at a similar rate as apple is, but they actually have recycling and refurbishing centers for PCs so they aren't being wasted...Macs are as useless once they are outdated without a chance to refurbish or recycle....

think about it....

Me - 4:26 pm - Today

Dudes,

I for one didn't fall for Apple as a lifestyle change. I used Macs as a child, as a high school student, as a college student, and now as a law student. The fact that they have undertaken an enormous marketing scheme that has sheephooked a whole segment of identity-void consumer/posers looking for some way to like technology does not affect the reason I have used Macs: they work better, for me and for most everyday computer users in the world. Yes those people could be using an 8 year old PC with a nuclear cooling tower heatsink and outboard motor powering the windtunnel fan apparatus, running at 4.5 gigawatts and firing carcinogenic gamma waves into the flesh of all humans within a 25 foot radius, just to do the emails and the web browsing and the words processing. Or they could use something reliable and easy to understand, something designed for the technologically-challenged cattle that make up most of society.

Technology is at once the source and mecca of societal change. It is frightening to those who are not savvy, to those who don't spend sufficient time to stay up on it, and yet it does the world and the people in it a huge amount of good. I heard something the other day about Iowa being able to produce enough food to feed the world with current agricultural technology. That's fucking incredible. And if lots of people had not embraced technology and worked to improve it, that would not have been possible, along with most other things we take for granted in our consumerism-driven lifestyles. What is evil about helping the masses to use and understand technology a little better? Sure profits are made, but somebody's got to help link up the average Joe with the incredibly complex level of technology that is floating around above our heads watching us with invisible secret hidden cameras when we do it. Success does not breed evil. Communication does not breed evil. Ignorance does, ignorance and close-mindedness.

I'm sorry that Apple has found support for its efforts to sell computers that do not scare the weak-minded everyday bloke in the puffy, proud brand-conscious segment of society. I would be upset and surprised if you honestly want to lump me in with them, as evil and loathsome as you make them out to be. They're just kids that like cool toys, just like us after all. What's so wrong with that?

On a more direct note, I actually remember downloading WindowShade and thinking it was stupid and pointless to collapse a window into its title bar by double clicking on it. I never used it, it was a stupid idea that didn't survive, now they minimize into the dock. The ticking watch or pinwheel is one of the banes of our existence, all those countless seconds sitting uncertain of when the computer will stop thinking, not able to do anything else because it could stop ticking at any SECOND! Bad idea, clearly. Instead, program an OS that does lots of work behind the scenes to minimize the need for the demon watch; that was what Apple spent their time doing, the important part. Oh boy, my trash can is bulging!

Your examples show that Apple has allowed a lot of mediocre programmers to make a living filling in the gaps. In any castle, there will be cracks in the mortar, and many hands will be needed to build it. But the architect plays the most important role. Without him, the pieces could assemble into a ghastly abomination like Windows ME or Vista or Ubuntu or MS-DOS. Apple and Microsoft both got the idea for a GUI from Xerox. Apple made one that worked and fostered the PC revolution. Microsoft made Windows 1.0 and people preferred DOS. DOS, for Christ's sake. Ghastly.

So the crash programmers have Apple to thank for corralling them into making useful improvements and paying them so they could feed their families. Lots of Microsoft and Sun employees do too, they just had worse architects designing places for their bricks.

You'll note I said "Who pioneered an operating system that finally utilized a mouse?".

This question goes unanswered, "Who has ever made a more efficient or stable OS for a PC than Apple?"

I get that you don't like how successful their marketing was, and that they convince people to pay for their music instead of steal it like us. It's too bad that the record companies turned music into a commodity in the first place. If they hadn't, we wouldn't have as many thousands of brilliant musicians striving to make beautiful music, thinking that they can make a living doing it. Capitalism is a tradeoff, selling out gives people something to buy.

I agree that DRM is an inefficient and incomplete solution to the modern music industry conundrum, but what's a better solution? imeem.com? amazon.com? Musicians will not release music if they do not make enough money to live. How can we best channel people's disposable entertainment dollars to the artists that make the art they like, especially when many of those artists live a thousand miles from most of their audience? A lot of people are trying to figure this out. It will just take a while for music to devolve from a commodity back into a performance experience.

I hope people like us are helping it by pirating all the good tunes we can get our hands on. For my own peace of mind, I spread that music around as much as people will let me, I try to turn people on to bands that they would like without me telling them it's good music.

iTunes and amazon allow the flocks of hopelessly tasteless music fans to quickly find and pay those artists they like, no matter where they're from. Record companies still take a huge bite out of the transaction with the licensing deals they have set up with song-by-song online sellers. At least it's not Rhapsody where there is no connection between what people listen to and how much the artists get paid. By the way, I hope you're just ignoring this when you blame Apple for DRM: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/30/itunes-plus-and-emis-drm-free-music-hands-on/

That's a step in the right direction, something that it took a while to convince only one of the big record companies was viable and profitable. We're all interested in ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn't know what torrents are. Apple makes money in the same game that we play for "free" downloaded music on waffles and piratebay. What do you think the time we've spent downloading music would cost us, measured per song? I have >30,000 songs. I've spent probably an hour a day for the past 12 years downloading music, if not more. 12*365=4,380 hours*$20/hour=$87,600/30,000 songs (although I lost a 30GB drive full once) = $2.92/song. iTunes is a steal at $1.29 for near-perfect quality DRM-free music. If only the selection were better. Damn the record companies and smaller labels for holding out on the music industry revolution that needs to happen.

This doesn't need to be an argument, or some good vs. evil battle (which is frankly a shocking approach for an atheist to take). Most Windows users are probably the dumber user base because they waste a lot of time trying to make an inferior system work for them. I did for three years from 1998-2001, but realized that I don't enjoy missing .dll files or the red circle with a white X or the blue screen of death. I enjoy my computer working for me. If that means contributing money to a company that is good at convincing people that their superior product (personal computers for home users) is a little more superior than it actually is, then I just have to live with that. On the other hand, the only glitch I've had with my computer in the past span of time I can remember is that Firefox crashes constantly and Comcast throws quicksand in my torrent mine. I use Safari instead. You guys seen any error messages recently?

In all fairness, I don't think you guys are dumb for using Windows XP. We could all make it work for us, we are competent and relatively technologically-informed people. I feel bad for the people that can't, and would not inflict Windows on them. Mac would be much easier for them to use. So why not contribute to that preferred possibility?

Jeeps are easier to take apart than most vehicles I've ever worked on. Most people cannot perform car maintenance well. Hondas and Nissans can be a pain in the ass to work on. Most people should buy Hondas and Nissans because they work better and don't need to be taken apart as often. I was thrilled with my Jeep though, and it can do some specialized things better than a Honda, like off-road (CAD) and park in tight spots with its sweet turning radius (3-D modelling) and accelerating from 0-30 mph (I once beat a new Corvette in a drag, but only to 45 mph/3rd gear). But it does have a higher chance of rolling over in a crash (no need to explain the analogy here). Luckily my highway crash did not result in a rollover, whether that is attributable to my input, or to circumstances outside my control.

My point is, some Mac users are smug, I don't like smug people either. Some PC users are violently insulting and make personal attacks on Mac users instead of using reason or authority to support their assertion that their computing preference is not inferior. Nobody puts baby in a corner...

I'm finished with this discussion. Make all the uninformed statements you care to after the beep.

I wish this wasn't as big of a sticking point with us but I'd like to figure out the root of it, instead of vilifying companies and making unfounded claims. Research helps, but not being unnecessarily combative does too.

I love you,
Kerry

P.S. To Dan, I still have my original iBook. Actually I gave it to Mac (McMillan) to use after replacing its hard drive over Christmas break. What ever happened to the Gen. 1 iPod I gave you, you ungrateful fuck? You can get a discount on a new one if you turn it in to Apple.
Apple - Environment - Recycle
AlterNet: Environment: E-Waste and iWoes
Apple 2.0: Apple Mac Sales Up 26.2% in Q2, Outpacing Industry's 7.2%
Company Detail

My iMac uses less power than a 100W light bulb. My iBook has needed a new battery, power supply and hard drive in 6+ years. That's it. How many components, PCI cards, etc. have your towers chewed through? Making sustainable products will save waste. Making modular products will encourage swapping out and generate waste and maintenance costs. Making inefficient/inferior products simply is a waste.

Hopefully we can bury this hatchet wound.


And that's where the great Apple-hate debate lies for now. To be continued, I'm sure...

Uziel

Uziel Gal supposedly invented the Uzi SMG. That name sounded familiar, like a fallen angel or something, so I did a little searching and found:

"The angel Usiel, Gabriel's lieutenant in the fighting on high, is designated a companion of the lustful luminaries who coupled with mortal women; in Zoharic cabala he is the cortex (averse demon) of Gog Sheklah, "disturber of all things." Among the rabbis the opinion is divided with regard to the 90,000 angels of destruction." - http://www.satanservice.org/propaganda/gen.60s.txt

Uziel was a burnt corpse in The Prophecy, a '95 Christopher Walken movie.

I still haven't figured out why this is so familiar to me, and wikipedia is failing me. Help?

Uziel system from Star Wars
Uziel Gal
the angel Usiel
more on angel Usiel