Wal-Mart

So apparently a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death as eagre shoppers tore the doors off their hinges when the store opened.

It’s actually not the first time something like this has happened on a Black Friday.  I don’t just feel that this is a sad reflection of our society’s lust for the material, but that it is horrible that stores as big as Wal-Mart continue to do nothing about it.

This was forseeable.  It was even forseen.  We aren’t going to change the way our culture is, but we can police crowds a little and enforce lines.  People need to learn to queue up.

“Album by Artist” sorting in iTunes

So there is nothing new about this feature; it has been around for quite a while.  I don’t really understand the idea of not sorting like this, as it is alphabetical by artist, yet it organises albums in track order even if they have multiple artists. But for the longest time it didn’t work with one of my albums (8BP050—an awesome collection of 8-bit).

Of course I had the compilation option ticked. That is the usual issue, but not mine. Well I just figured it out: if you have this issue, make sure that the “Album Artist” field is empty for all the tracks in the album.

Therion is such a good band

I don’t know why it took me this long to get back into them.  I should check out some of their newer albums (there have been at least 4 in the last 4 years).

Job

It looks like Nora’s managed to land herself a nice job.  Yaaaayyy

I didn’t do horribly on my project!

Well, to be fair, yes I did.  But my grade is only a little below average!

Robot protein

Apparently some computer scientists managed to simulate life on a computer, and let it evolve on its own, and it ended up forming life that was very similar to ours (it was based on something similar to protein or something like that—I don’t pretend to know what I’m talking about here).

The implications of this are pretty huge; it implies that all life (i.e. on other planets) evolves in a similar manner to ours.  That said, it is possible that the way it was simulated was based on the setting on Earth all those years ago, in which case never mind the study doesn’t really say much at all.

But hey I think this stuff is pretty cool yeah

Sexiled!

Hey all!  Who of you have ever been sexiled from a dorm room?  Did you know you can also be sexiled from a house?  Even when there is no sex involved?

I know, it is pretty crazy, yet here I am, now versed in the knowledge that my gloves make a better pillow than my scarf.

Haha!  Hahahahaha!  Great fun!

fuck everybody

Ruckus Roboticus

All you fools that haven't listened to the Everlasting Ghettoblasting Gobstopper by Ruckus Roboticus best get on y'all's game now.

Serious. This shit is dope.

Stalin, the ussr, and the Hammer and Sickle

Why was history so nice to them? Stalin murdered tens of millions of his own people (I’ve seen estimates from 20–100 million people, compared with Hitler’s max of 11). The guy killed 8 million Ukrainians in one fucking year.

Plus he was sociopathic and paranoid. Now I’m not saying he was worse than Hitler—but I don’t think he was better either. I don’t think the two should really be compared. They killed different people for different reasons, so talking about who’s worse is a waste of time.

Yet, if somebody has a picture of Stalin on their wall, that is not seen as horrible. In fact, many Russians still consider the guy to be a hero. Imagine if Germans still considered Hitler a hero.

Moving onto the hammer-and-sickle. I view it exactly in the same light as a swastika. Why? Well, as the Nazis clung to the swastika, the Soviets clung to the hammer-and-sickle. Also, the hammer-and-sickle is a symbol that initially represented a very cool image (labour rising up), in the same way that the swastika is an ancient symbol representing change and impermanence. However, the hammer-and-sickle no longer means that, and now represents the ussr (as the swastika represents the Nazi party).

Trying to say the hammer-and-sickle represents the basic ideals of communism/socialism/revolution/etc. is like trying to say that the swastika represents a non-impoverished Germany, or that it is normal to die of the common cold. Perhaps you would be right if it were 85 years ago, but you are most certainly wrong now.

There are at least a few other images that represent revolution and proletariat uprising, just as there are many representing impermanence and change. Use those. If you are wearing a hammer-and-sickle because it is trendy, you are like the people who wear Che Guevara shirts when all they know about the man they got from watching the Motorcycle Diaries. In other words, if you are cool with being an idiot, whatever be my guest.

Back to Stalin, I think I have a good guess now I think about it. Stalin won. Hitler lost. Remember fairy tails? Good always wins and evil always loses. I guess we have these instincts that tell us that because Stalin was a winner, he must have been good, or at least not as bad as Hitler (the loser).

Well I have two words for you: Grow up, asshole.

The worst web page.

My boss and I just had a contest to find the worst web page. I think he won.

Actually the last post was kind of a lie

I am really upset right now. Who knows why! I basically feel ready to explode at any moment. I mean that is how I always feel when I bottle things up, which I guess I know I shouldn't do, but at this point I don't even know why I feel the way I do, or who I would talk to if I did.

Whatever it could be a lot worse. I am a middle class American boy with a good body and I don't have cancer or the HIV.

I guess that's the problem is that I don't really have anybody I feel like I can talk to right now. But I'll get better I always get better!

.

Spam

So apparently some huge spam firm was shut down and email spam has decreased worldwide on average by about 70%. Cool! I mean, I was wondering why I was getting spammed suddenly a lot less.

That said, spammers will probably just move outside of North America where there's less scrutiny, and spam is expected to be back where it was somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I am so excited. Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday for a long time. It's like, I eat a bunch of food with my two favorite families. No gifts, none of that bullshit, just basic family time. Awesome.

And lastly, I wrote a lengthy email to the captains at EQ, urging everyone to try to make EQ captains awesome again. Based on the last time I sent an email to all the captains where I opened up a little, I was really worried (I got completely shot down by everybody). But one person already responded really positively. I feel really good right now.

Guess who’s doing well in school!

Actually I should rephrase that.  Guess who will be able to salvage his grades in school, and end up with passing grades and be allowed to continue college!

This.

Guy.

Thisguy.

Yeah school isn't going great but it is a lot better now than ever before.  I am slowly starting to reach my actual potential when it comes to getting things done.  Nowhere near actually there, but you know what, when I am getting work done timely enough that I am doing my best on it, that will be enough.

That will be awesome.  And I am getting there.

Optimism.

I am pro–animal-testing

I bet that within the next half-century, we will gain a complete understanding of our own bodies. Naturally, we will be able to accurately simulate human reactions to anything with a computer. It probably wouldn't even be difficult to add the standard error and the triple-standard error, so as to get a complete view of our race in any circumstance.

Once we figure out how to do that, animal testing would become both too expensive and obsolete. We would stop because it would be stupid.

For now though, we can't do that, and animal testing provides the most accurate estimates we can get. I place human lives above animal lives, and animal testing has saved countless human lives (like, I bet you wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't for animal testing—I mean, chances are).

So yeah, animal testing is cruel, and that sucks, but I would rather animals die in labs than humans die of diseases. I think that anybody who disagrees with me does not place human lives above animal lives, and therefore we have nothing to argue about. We just disagree.

If you asked a snake if it valued snakes more than non-snakes, I betcha it would. Difference is, snakes are not in a position to act on that preference. Humans are in that position, etc., etc., qed.

yayyyy

To quote some guy I saw maybe 15 minutes ago, “I am looking at everything and I only see one of shit, which means I am not drunk yet.”