A Great Story

I got the following in an email today:

Subject: a great story


True or not, I liked this. You just gotta' smile.

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was a vowed atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes."

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, "Here I am God, I'm still waiting."

It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, "What is the matter with you? Why did you do that?"

The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America's soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot, so He sent me."

No, I don't need to smile at a bigoted, moronic story like that. In fact a story like that just goes to show how small minded, self righteous and out right stupidly smug some religious people can be.

Really, what's great about that story? Is it great that it advocates violence? Is it great that it reinforces a stereotype that those who serve in the military are all believers? A stereotype that is not true, by the way.

So, god's busy protecting America's soldiers in Iraq? Well, I guess god's a bit of a slacker because 3,800 U.S. soldiers have completely escaped his protection and have died in Iraq and another 19,469 have only been partially protected by god as they have been wounded. And, I guess the 73,000 to 650,000 Iraqi civilians who have died as a result of this war (depending on whose accounting you believe) were also not worthy of god's protection.

Also, then there's the question of whether the soldiers in Iraq are fighting to protect the rights of U.S. citizens? Many smart people from both Republicans to Democrats, conservatives to liberals, believers to non-believers have questioned the motives for invading Iraq. When conservative, Republican, recently resigned Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is willing to go on record saying that we invaded Iraq in order to have a controlling interest their oil, I think it's there's a very real possibility that we may not be fighting there to 'protect your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot.' I'm only saddened that Mr. Greenspan didn't have the moral conviction to voice this opinion while he still served in public office.

One final note. In theory, religions are supposed to teach their followers to be humble, kind, charitable, long suffering, forgiving, etc. A story like the one below is just one more piece of evidence that reinforces what a lot of us non-believers have been saying for years- that religion actually has the opposite of its intended effects. Namely, it generally serves to make people more self righteous, intolerant, violent, and (unfortunately) stupid. It's a 'by their fruits you will know them' kind of a thing.

Discovered the "Daily Atheist"

I was using the Blogger "Next Blog" button (you can see some fascinating stuff doing that) when I discovered the "Daily Atheist". The blog itself wasn't so much what got me as this graphic that is linked to a Cafe Press site where you can buy merchandise:


I really dig it. I love the 1940's/50's detergent add look it's got. We'll see if I love it enough to purchase a t-shirt or a mug. I've never bought any Cafe Press merchandise (that I know of) and I've heard various things about their quality. Maybe it's time to give 'em a try and decide for myself.

Rob May Strikes Again

Rob May at Businesspundit.com now has piece on his blog with the Lucas worth title of "Viral Venom: What My Mac Post Can Teach You About the Negative Side of Passionate Customers"

In it, he makes the following claim:

I know a lot of people that have Macs, so I finally decided to give it a try. After a few weeks, I decided it wasn't for me, and I wrote about some of the things I didn't like.

He then goes on to decry the unwarranted reaction of some Mac users to his simple observations about what he didn't like. You see, in his universe, Rob is reasonable and Mac users are a bunch of venomous snakes ready to strike when someone simply points out what they didn't like about their platform of choice.

The problem here is that Rob is not reasonable. He didn't just simply point out things he didn't like about the Mac. He used half true, tired, worn out cliches to tear down a computing platform that some people dearly love. Of course, he knew what he was doing. He was looking for a reaction and he got it. But, he's not intellectually honest enough (or as I have posited, bright enough) to admit to his ruse.

I was going to point out some of the insanely idiotic things he put in his blog entry, but soon realized that I'd already covered that ground and that it's packed so densely with them I'd just end up reposting his entry here.

Since I'm sure he's gonna censor me again in the comments section of his blog, I'll post my reply here as well:

Sorry Rob, but you didn't just 'write about some of the things you didn't like.' You flame baited with idiotic and untrue cliches. Things like saying that the one button trackpad is 'the worst design decision ever made', or that 'Apple goes out of the way to avoid text', and 'Macs offer no advantages', etc. You knew what you were doing- making false statements about a product to a group of people that have been sick of hearing this kind of stuff for nearly 2o years. You knew you'd get a reaction and that it would temporarily spike interest in your blog. It worked and now you have the audacity to act like some Mac users are just venomous snakes while failing to acknowledge your part in the whole charade. You act as if the moronic nonsense you posted were just reasonable observations. Unfortunately, that's simply not true. You can censor me, but it won't matter. Smart people can tell the difference.

Switching To Mac is a Waste of Time: My Response Part 2

So, Rob May at businesspunit.com won't allow my comments to his blog entry titled "Switching to Mac is a Waste of Time" to appear on that page. And, he's, oh so cleverly, reposted the exact same article under the changed the title of "Switcing to Mac is Great". So, he hasn't actually changed the titled, he's just duplicated his blog entry and now has it posted on two separate pages under two different titles.

Despite not allowing me to have my rebuttal to his dimwitted observations appear on his blog, he took the time to email me the following:

Russell, Thanks for the kind words. The Mac community is so friendly, and Macusers are all so incredibly smart, I can't wait to join you.

I didn't lie about my Windows machine being virus free. I'm just anextremely advanced technical user and I have all the properprecautions.

Rob

Since he took the time to email me and reassure me that he's an honest fella. I felt it only appropriate to email him back:

Hey, you wrote a really, really dumb blog post. That's not my fault. If you're gonna write such stupid stuff and publish it then you should be prepared for some less than friendly rebuttals. I like how your only defense is to point out how rude my comments were- duh, I think I was being over the top with the rudeness on purpose- for, uh, comic effect. Oh, and to say you weren't lying. Gee. Do you promise. Cross your heart and hope to die?

A couple of things:

A) There's no such thing as 'the mac community'

B) Just because I showed you how stupid your writing was doesn't mean that I'm saying all Mac users are 'so incredibly smart'

C) Let's assume you're not lying. Does it then follow that you didn't have a virus? No. You could very well have had a virus and not known it. All you can truthfully claim is that as far as you know, trusting your antivirus software, you didn't have a virus. Because viruses for Windows exist and because not all viruses are detectable by all antivirus software, you can't conclusively prove or know that you didn't have one.

Now, none of that really matters that much. What does matter, and maybe what I should have addressed in my comments is the logical fallacy that you're promoting. You're implying that because you think you didn't have a virus that you didn't gain any additional security in buying and using a Mac. Basically, it's like you walked through a mine field, managed to not step on a mine (or at least, if you did you somehow weren't aware of it) and now you think that walking through a mine field is just as safe as walking through a field with no mines planted in it. The problem here, is that you were just lucky. You could have very well stepped on a mine (i.e. gotten a Windows virus). Plenty of people do, all the time. Even 'extremely advanced technical users'. However, in the last 5 years, no user of OS X has gotten a virus in the wild. None. Not a single one. Because they were walking through the field with no mines planted in it. So, you did actually gain something when you were using OS X. You gained the peace of mind that comes with not having to worry about stepping on a mine because it was no longer possible at that point.

Now, there's one other problem with your claim. And, that is that even though you may not have, to your knowledge, gotten a 'virus' per se. There's no way that in the last 5 years you didn't get some form of malware (to use a more generalized) term. It's just not possible that you didn't get some form of virus, worm, trojan, tracking cookie, etc. They were/are too ubiquitous now and during the period of time that you are referring to and the detection and removal tools to rid a Windows machine of these pests were a reaction to them not a pre-emptive measure put in place to prevent them from getting there in the first place. I've run Spybot and AdAware on machines where each program found several hundred instances of such malware, and then continued to find new instances as their definitions files were updated.

So, while it is possible that your narrowly defined claim might be true, the larger insinuation that you're making is patently false. For, what your narrowly defined claim aims to do is give people the impression that with the right regimen of security software they too can keep a Windows machine free of malware and therefore there is nothing to be gained security wise by switching to a Mac. You have to know that you're being deceptive on this point. If you don't, then my rude, yet deserved and amusing claims that you are an idiot are true.

Switching To Mac is a Waste of Time: My Response

I was originally gonna post this on the following page:

http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/switching_to_mac_is_a_waste_of_time.php

But, the page isn't taking submissions any more, so I'm gonna waste some bandwidth, pixels, and Blogger disk space and post it here

My Response to "Switching To Mac is a Waste of Time"

I can't believe I'm gonna take the time to do this. It's too bad that the "Mac Nazis" as you call them have apparently been a bit too rabid in calling you out, but let's be honest here- your blog post is dumb.

First you state about Macs that "they don't offer any advantages over a PC." Then you later point out that "There are some benefits, like iMovie and a few other programs not available for PC." Well which is it Einstein? Do they offer no advantages or do they have some benefits? It's one or the other, you can't have both conditions. That dorky logical contradiction should be enough to show what a clueless writer you are and just how badly composed and even more poorly thought out your blog post is. I should stop right here, but just for the sake of amusement, let's examine a few more of your moronic ramblings.

Let's look at this nice claim, "they aren't intuitive at all." Hmmm. Nothing about the Mac is intuitive? Didn't anyone ever tell you about exercising caution with absolute statements? I'm guessing you've never heard the amusing old maxim, 'never say never?'

See, there's plenty of intuitive things about a Mac, as there are plenty of intuitive things about other OSes. And, some things that seem intuitive when you're used to one OS can seem counterintuitive when you're using a less familiar OS. But, stupid as you obviously are, making a point like this was apparently beyond you. All you could come up with was, "they aren't intuitive at all." Again, this should be enough to just stop but, unfortunately, you've managed to pack quite a lot of idiocy into one short little blog post. So, I feel inclined to just keep flogging this dead dog.

Let's see... you then go on and make this really brilliant observation, "Everything is graphics driven and Apple seems to want to avoid using text whenever possible." I'm tempted to remind you again about absolute statements, but I feel like I'd be wasting even more time and effort than I already am.

There're two problems with your statement. The first is that everything on a mac is not graphics driven and Apple doesn't go to great lengths to avoid text. Did you fire up the Terminal? If you had, you might have noticed that it's completely text driven. Did you try the Activity Monitor? It's also very textual. Did you open any Help screens? Yes, most of them contain screen shots but they also all contain textual descriptions of those screen shots along with written descriptions of how to accomplish certain tasks. Drop down menus? Text. In fact, Apple has bucked the trend of some other OSes by not littering their drop down menus with distracting, irritating, tiny little 8x8 pixel icons.

So, not only do we see that your claim is false, now we can examine the stupidity of it. Ever wonder why international signs contain a prominent picture and may or may not include text in several different languages displayed underneath in a less prominent fashion? The reason they are that way is because most of the time if you can communicate something graphically, without text, it's usually more effective. So, where ever Apple might have gone out of their way to avoid text, there's probably a good reason for it. Keep in mind, and this will be hard for you, I'm not saying that they have actually done this, what I am saying is that if they have, there's probably a damn good reason for it.

Had enough? Well, unfortunately, there's still more dunce material in your post that needs addressed.

I really like this, "People also talk about all the cool widgets for Macs, but I've used those through Konfabulator on Windows since before Yahoo bought the company, so I don't really see them as all that impressive." Your logic here is kinda like sayin, 'I've already seen the Grand Canyon, so for the rest of you, just let me tell you that it's really not impressive or even worth the trip.' Sorry, but that's beyond dumbass thinking.

Also, there's the problem that there are over 3,000 Dashboard Widgets. Are we to believe that you used them all and that we can take your word for it that among those 3,000 widgets there aren't any worth getting excited about or that are cool or impressive? Keep in mind that this isn't even a Konfabulator versus Dashboard issue, this is you dismissing the wealth of cool little Dashboard widgets based on doofus logic. Quite frankly, I can name some really kick ass Dashboard widgets, (and for some of them there are probably Konfabulator widgets that do the same thing and that's cool for Windows users). There are some for OS X that take advantage of Apple's strict standardization of their hardware & software and those are even cooler. Now, I don't know if the same kind exist for Konfabulator, but I'm not dissing Konfabulator here- just defending Dashboard. You're just wrong about Dashboard- it's cool and the fact that it is integrated with the OS is a definite advantage of Mac OS X. You being jaded by having used a similar tool on Windows is irrelevant.

Oh my god. I can't believe I've wasted this many words showing you just how stupid your blog entry is! However, I think you've earned it. Sadly, there are at least 2 other things that need addressed.

One is this, "I haven't had a Windows virus in 5 years." I would say, this- You're either lying, running a really crappy virus scanner, not keeping the virus definitions up to date, or you kept your notebook off of the internet.

Why would I make this claim? Because 2002 & 2003 were in the last 5 years and they were particularly bad years for Windows viruses. I know because I was administrating several hundred PCs spread over 6 locations at that time and even though we were running an enterprise virus scanner on all of our workstations, with almost daily definitions updates being pushed out, we still got hit hard with things like variants of blaster and sobig. Back then, the antivirus companies were always one step behind the virus makers and Microsoft had failed to adequately patch Windows against some gaping security holes. So, you're probably either lying, weren't actively using the internet, or you had a virus and didn't know it. Based on how stupid your blog entry is, I'm guessing odds are 50/50 between the 'lying' choice and the 'had a virus and didn't know it' scenario.

The second (and last) thing I'm gonna waste my time addressing is this, "Macs aren't bad, they just aren't any better than PCs."

Oh, I see, "Macs aren't bad." They're just:

• "all bells and whistles"
• "aren't intuitive at all"
• and contain the "the single worst design decision anyone has ever made"
• additionally, Windows, Unix, & Linux are all easier to use
• oh, and you "didn't gain anything by going to a Mac" (except iMovie and a few programs you found that weren't available for Windows)
  

What. You're making my head hurt. You're a f#$%ing idiot. (Sorry didn't want to be one of the Mac Nazis who failed to f-bomb you). Seriously, look in the mirror and repeat these words, "I - am - an - idiot."

Now, before you start feeling too bad about it, try and remember I'm not saying that you're an incurable idiot, but you are an idiot. I would say go back and try again, but not until you've take an intro to logic course and passed with at least a 'C' grade. Stick with Windows; OS X is obviously far too logical for you. It's a 'pearls before swine' kinda thing.

Sam Harris Debates Andrew Sullivan

Sam Harris, the author of "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" is currently involved in an email debate with the openly gay, Catholic, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. The most recent letter, as of this posting, is dated 2/20/2007 and if from Harris. I personally feel that Sullivan is in way over his head on this debate and is doing a terrible job. I don't think this is because I am a baptized and confirmed agnostic either, I honestly think that Sullivan just doesn't have the skills to properly engage Harris. I think I could do a better job of arguing the theists position against Harris. I'm wondering would that make playing 'devil's advocate' into a game of 'god's advocate'?

Added a PayPal Donations Link

This is somewhat off topic on this blog, but I spent some time this evening with a friend getting a "donations" button setup at Atheists of Utah. The link will take you to a PayPal page where you can show your support for secularism in Utah. I know it's nothing big really, but I'm still a little bit excited to have done it nonetheless. Now, I just need to get us signed up for the Amazon Associates program.

TiddlyWiki, The Coolest Web App Since Sliced Bread

A friend of mine pointed out TiddlyWiki to me a year or so ago. And, I played with it and immediately was in love with it. It's hard to explain, but it is a javascript based dynamic web page that let's you create Tiddlers. Tiddlers can be blog entries, articles, lists, anything really. It's use of CSS and Javascript make it a web app that feels like a desktop app. Click on a Tiddler and it zooms open. Close it and it zooms shut. Your entire wiki is stored in a single .html file.

The idea is that you can keep your TiddlyWiki on a USB keychain drive and port it with you from computer to computer. The problem I have with that, is that I don't like to take my keychain drive with me everywhere I go. Also, I'm still a Palm PDA addict and I like having my information at my fingertips on a portable computer rather than in a keychain drive that requires a computer to access it. I'm still struggling to find the balance between what I want on my PDA (i.e. the information that is totally personal) and that which I want to put on the web.

However, I recently discovered that there is a plugin for TiddlyWiki that allows you to quickly and easily upload your TiddlyWiki to a webserver. It requires that you are able to run either PHP or Ruby scripts on your server, but once you upload the script file to your server and then install the plugins available at BidiXTW, then you can simply update your wiki on your keychain drive and click upload to publish it to your webspace. This is awesome.

I'll still be trying to determine what info I want in my Palm and what info I want to post on the web, but for those things that I think should go online, I'm going to be using TiddlyWiki.

Now, if someone would just make a Palm conduit that could keep Palm OS Memos synced to a TiddlyWiki file...

One final note. If you don't want to have to keep your TiddlyWiki on a keychain drive, there's a really spiffy new site, TiddlySpot that will let you setup your own hosted TiddlyWiki in about 10 seconds (seriously, that's all it takes).

What Google Can't Search For

No, it's not happiness. I actually think Google can locate that for you.

It's, and pay attention, simply this "$|".

Yep, that's a dollar sign followed by a pipe symbol. Go ahead, try and google for that. Unless they fix it after I've posted this on January 12, 2007 @ 1:50 PM MT it will produce absolutely no results.

Now, I know, normally that's no so stupendous and hardly blog worthy. There are plenty of search terms you can think of that will produce no results. However, searching for "$|" doesn't even return the normal page that says something like:

Your search - "google better not find this exact phrase anywhere on the web, argh" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

• Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
• Try different keywords.
• Try more general keywords.

It simply returns nothing, no error, no explanation. It's weird. And, blogworthy.

Found A Cool Little Windows App Today

It's not as cool as the network locations management built into OS X, but it'll make having to use Windows at work all day long suck just a little bit less- Network Change TCP/IP. Also, it's not the most imaginitive name in the world, but it is free and the source code is available (but you'd have to have a copy of VB6 to use it).

Why I Hate and Don't Care About DRM

DRM, or Digital Rights Management is one of the many scourges of the current state of the internet and battles over intellectual property. It's why I don't regularly buy tracks from Apple's iTunes Music Store even though I live in a household with 2 iPods and 3 Macintosh computers running iTunes. I just hate the idea of paying for something that may someday for reasons beyond my control just suddenly refuse to work any more.

Who knows? Maybe one day, like in the wet dreams of all those Windows fanboy idiots that think that Microsoft is actually innovative and don't realize just how much more badly their DOS 8.x PCs would suck if Microsoft hadn't had Apple to copy, Apple will go out of business. Or maybe for some unforseen legal reason due to legislation or licensing with the music business, Apple will stop making iTunes or they will release an update that doesn't support songs sold now under their current Fair Play technology (read the license agreement, I'm sure you've already agreed that they can basically do anything and that you have no guarantees whatsoever) and maybe then one day in the not too distant future all those billions of encrypted, copied protected songs that people have been buying from the iTunes Music Store will simply become unplayable? Or, mabye there will be some complicated, illegal or quasi-legal and messy process people have to go through to unencrypt their songs to be able to use them again. All the vinyl afficionados of the world will be laughing at the rest of us on that day.

That's why I still mostly buy CDs (and almost always used, can't stand the prices of new CDs) and then rip them to AAC files myself. However, I had this experience last Friday that changed my thinking on this a bit. For some weird reason, I really wanted to hear some early Japan. And, I mean early Japan- I wanted one of their butt shaking glam rock releases from 1978. It was a desire that verged on a need. It was the kind of hunger that if it was sexual could do damage to one's marital fidelity. I thought about driving over to a local CD shop to look for a used copy and realized that what I wanted was probably not going to be found used. I thought about looking for a new copy and again realized that I probably wouldn't find it and if I did, I did not want to pay $16.99 or $18.99 for a 30 year old recording that should by all rights cost $7.99 or less.

So, I checked on line. I checked with the Russians (www.allofmp3.com) and with the iTunes Music Store. Now, allofmp3.com has Japan's 1978 release "Adolescent Sex" and it would have only cost around $1.70 or so to buy from them as 192Kbs AAC files with no DRM. As far as I can tell, buying from these folks, while insanely cheap in dollars is a fair price in rubles and is also legal under international copyright law. However, I could not log in. And, as I've explained I REALLY wanted, no, NEEDED to hear this album. Well, the iTunes Music Store has it too. It's $9.90 for 128Kbps AAC files that have DRM.

So, reluctantly at first and then with gusto and about 3 clicks of the track pad on my iBook the files were happily depositing themselves into my iTunes music library and with much less effort than it takes to download from the russkies. Within minutes I was happily listening to David Sylvian's nasaly snarl on songs like "Wish You Were Black" and that killer riff with the siren noise that just amuses me so at the beginning of "Lovers On Main Street". But, then, no sooner than I had started enjoying my new purchase those thoughts about how I wanted the DRM off of these tracks started nagging at me. Just knowing that those restrictions were there was lessening my enjoyment of my newly purchased music.

So, I decided to download JHymn. JHymn is a piece of freeware that I'd read about a while ago that removes DRM from music purchased from iTMS (iTunes Music Store). I read the directions on the web page and then downloaded and attempted to run it. After a few clicks here and there and letting it connect to the iTMS to download my keys, I thought I was in business, but it could not convert my DRM'ed tracks to non-DRM'ed. I started to do some reading and discovered that with the release of iTunes 6, Apple had broken JHymn. I was about to give up and then it dawned on me- why not just do the easy thing, burn the tracks to an audio CD and then re-rip them? This has been the dirty little secret with the iTMS store since the beginning. I had even tried this a few years ago to see how an AAC file purchased from iTMS would sound when converted to an MP3 in this manner. I remember that the MP3 sounded fine, but maybe a little (what I would describe for lack of a better term) "flat". But, if you didn't have the original to compare it to, you would probably never notice.

So, I burned "Adolescent Sex" to an audio CD and then I ripped the audio CD to 192Kbps AAC files and started comparing. I put on my overpriced Philips headphones and turned the volume up and started listening as intently as I could to the originals and the new DRM-less files. I went back and forth between several tracks about a dozen times and I could not hear any difference. Then, I thought, what about 128Kbps AAC files? So, I re-imported one track from the audio CD as a 128Kbps AAC and compared it to the other two versions of the same track- again, I could not tell the difference. That settled it, I threw away the 192Kbps files and re-imported the entire CD at the same bitrate and format as the DRM'ed tracks.

So, I transferred the non-DRM'ed, re-imported tracks from my iBook to the eMac that is the central music repository in the household and imported them into the iTunes library on that machine and cranked up the glam rock through the house stereo. It sounded great. I made a decision right then and there to put any other files that I've purchased (there are very few) from iTMS through this same process and to never again have DRM'ed tracks in my collection.

So, yes I hate DRM, but now I'm not worried about buying them because I believe that burning them to an audio CD and then re-importing them in the same format with the same bit rate will not result in any discernible quality loss. So, I may occasionally buy music from iTMS a bit more often, as long as Apple doesn't rain on my parade by removing this method of getting rid of the DRM.

Allmusic.com Reviews: Two and a Half Stars

Allmusic.com is a great encyclopedia of music. As an information resource for looking up artist and band discographies and song writing credits, I would rate them 3.5 stars out of 4. They miss half a star for not doing a good job of keeping the discographies current.

However, their album review content is not so good. For that, I would only give them 2.5 stars out of 4.

Here's a case in point. On a review of Catherine Wheel's "Happy Days", the reviewer worries that fans of the bands first two releases would be confused by and unappreciative of the harder sound of this one and gives the ablum a 2.5 star rating. The first two albums are rated 3.5 stars.

This theme, of penalizing bands for daring to change their sound and explore new territory is consistent throughout the reviews on allmusic.com. However, it's a ridiculous and lazy tactic in a music reviewer. Fans often appreciate bold changes in direction in sound from artists. Critics often review things that they themselves have no interest in. Consistently assuming that a new sound from a band will just disappoint long time fans is a just a convenient way for the reviewer to not really listen to or think about the music they are reviewing.

Also, allmusic.com is not Rolling Stone circa 197x. They are not the single editorial voice of rock music with limited print resources, this is the day and age of the internet. They shouldn't hire one self important rock critic to write two paragraphs about an album.

No, what they should do instead (and no, I'm not gonna suggest a public free-for-all like amazon.com) is to run two reviews of each album. One critical (i.e. critical as in negative) and one gushing, but hopefully well written and insightful, fan review for each release.

They should also drop the star ratings. Star ratings are insanely meaningless. If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, as I believe Elvis Costello once said, then a star rating for an album is like the response you got from friends in grade school- "I like it because it's good."

By the way, "Happy Days" is a modern rock classic by a band that felt comfortable blending the textured atmospherics of their first release with the catchy rock of their 2nd release and threw in some thinking man's heavy metal for good measure. I've yet to meet a Catherine Wheel fan who didn't love it and find it liberating and refreshing. So, stick that you up your lazy college boy wannabe critic arse, Mr. Kellman.

OS X Software Worth Investigating

• VoodooPad Lite - Like a personal wiki on your mac. The non-lite version alllows export to html so your personal wiki could be published as static pages. What the developer needs to do to get me to buy the full version is provide palm syncing.
  

Software I Need to Investigate

• FreeMind - Mind mapping software written in Java.
  

Ah, Google What Hast Thine Adsense Wrought?

I like how all the ads on this page are now for patriotic music. I guess we don't have to worry about the computers taking over anytime soon seeing as how they are too stupid to actually figger out that my post is not necessarily endorsing patriotic music.

Listen to the Verses

So, I'm sitting in Rice Eccles Stadium last night following the Real vs. Metro Stars game. I'm watching the 4th of July fireworks and there is music playing in the stadium over the P.A. system. At first, they're just playing crappy pop songs, most of which I don't know the names of. Then, they play Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American". People were actually singing along. Although, I think I heard a fair amount of laughter too. But, then they start playing Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA". So, I'm no Springsteen fan, but I do know enough about the song to know that it is not a patriotic anthem. Of course, the problem is, that you're not gonna understand that if all you do is listen to the chorus of Bruce belting out "BORN in the U - S - A!" But, I guess that's not really a problem because I think we live in a nation where a large portion of the people only listen to the chorus, the sound bite, the talking point, or the bumper sticker. So, this morning, I went and looked up the lyrics to "Born in the USA":


Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up

[chorus:]
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Addicted to War

I just finished reading a "Addicted to War" by Joel Andreas. You can (and should) order a copy, read it, and then give it to a friend to read. I'd already been intorduced to some of the ideas that are in this book when I read Noam Chomsky's "Understanding Power", however "Addicted to War" is a much more approachable and concise way (it's in comic book format and it's only 77 pages) to learn about the problems that the United State's military/industrial complex causes. Problems that you and I, our children, and their children will be dealing with in very real ways.

I found the pieces about the antiwar efforts of the vietnam era particularly interesting. As someone who was born in 1972 and then raised during Reagan's version of the Cold War, I had never learned just how strong the antiwar movement had once been. It's depressing to think that by 1991, George H. W. Bush was able to declare the "vietnam syndrome" kicked as he was invading Iraq and sending our men and women out into harm's way. Something he had never required of his own children.

As someone who marched against the war in Iraq right here in the heavily pro-Republican, pro-Bush, and therefore pro-war Utah, I'm taking solace in the fact that these days, even here, I'm hearing more and more people lament the war and even hinting that they regret having voted for Bush.

It's not a great way to head into the July 4th weekend- re-visiting the idea that, contrary to what they taught me in elementary shool, America has not always stood for freedom and democracy in the world. It makes me think of lines from that great Aztec Camera song "Good Morning Britain":

"The past is steeped in shame
but, tomorrow's fair game.
For a life that's fit for living
Good morning Britain"

Yeah, so it's not about the United States, but I think the sentiment still applies. When I'm watching the fireworks tomorrow night, I'll be thinking of ways to take advantage of the fact that 'tomorrow's fair game.'

Why Am I Such A Lazy Blogger?

Seriously, I should have no problem writing something everyday. I'm an opinionated bastard and I see and hear about stuff everyday that the world needs to hear my perspective on!

Of course, there's the persistent problem that people are too stupid, too wrapped up in their own ways of thinking, or just completely so out of sync with my wisdom that I'm constantly casting pearls before swine.

Also, the full time job, the wife, the kids, the video games, the internet porn, cd collecting, movie watching, etc- they just seem to get in the way of blogging too. So, if you've somehow become addicted to all the treasures of wisdom that I so infrequently dish up here, please accept my apologies for the infrequency of my posts. Please know that I think about blogging everyday, and I do it for you.

I'm thinking about it when I'm coaching my daughter's soccer team. As I scream my lungs out at these 8 and 9 year old kids to play their positions, look for passes, and to (goddamnit) be more aggressive in attacking the ball, I'm thinking of the things I should be sharing you with you, my loyal but small audience.

I'm thinking about it when some insane moron in an SUV almost kills me on my little red Vespa. God, I hate cars. I wish for the day when I can live in an environment where I can either walk or take public transit wherever I need to go.

I think about stuff to write every time I watch the Daily Show. I really wanted to write a scathing review of Meat Beat Manifesto last week after they played here. I really wanted each and everyone of you to know just how badly they sucked. I guess that's the chance you take when you go just to see what they sound like because allmusic.com mentioned how they used to be part of a loose political cooperative with the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Consolidated. After 30 minutes of vocal-less techno-industrial beats, the cleverly cute, but now monotonous collage of old movie and tv images just didn't cut it anymore. I wanted to hear some clever political vocals, not just see scenes from Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill mixed in with weird old sci-fi films. I said goodbye to my friends, walked out into the Salt Lake night and rode my little red Vespa amongst all the Suburbans and H-2s that were trying to kill me and that I wanted to kill.

iBook Camping for a PETA Zealot

Is there any point to using a computer without the internet?

What can you still do on a computer when not connected to the net?

Wordprocessing
Spreadsheets
Home Finances
Graphic Design
Digital Photography
Digital Music (if you want to manually type in all of the song titles when importing from a CD)
Programming

Spotlight makes a lousy application launcher because it doesn’t focus on applications first and it results list jumps around too much while it is finalizing the results. QuickSilver makes a much better application launcher.

Am I a total geek for taking my iBook camping? I really just wanted to see if there was any wireless out here in the great outdoors. The closest town is 20 miles away. It’s a place called Richfield, UT. I drove there last night to get a few items. I used the self check out at Albertson’s. The busy body who works the self check out says, about the cage free eggs I’m buying, “A clear package. I’ve never seen an egg package like that.”

I’m thinking, ‘Really? You only work here. Take a walk around once in a while.’

Then she says, “At that price, I guess I won’t be buying those. That’s a lot for eggs.”

Finally, I turn around and say, “It’s because they’re cage free...”

“Oh, so the eggs have never been in cages?”

“No, the hens. The hens aren’t raised in cages.”

“Oh, so does that make them like organic and all natural.”

“Sort of, but it’s really more about buying cruelty free eggs. Have you ever seen the conditions that caged hens are kept in? It’s not very pretty.”

This was sort of the end of the conversation. She made some remark about not having ever seen how hens are raised but that her hens run about and think they are in charge of things at her place. And, really, good for her if she’s keeping hens in an environment where they aren’t locked up in cages and so she probably doesn’t buy store bought eggs and therefore the $3.60 I was paying for eggs from cage free, vegetarian fed hens seemed a bit outrageous to her. But really, that wasn’t just it, the moment I said, ‘cruelty free’ in regards to how hens are raised she started to turn away. Once she knew that my paying more for the eggs was not just out of a desire to have all natural or organic eggs but, that I was actually concerned with whether or not hens are treated cruelly or not, she wanted to instantly distance herself from me.

I find this sort of behavior over and over again among people in this culture. I know many people who eat animals on a daily basis and wear animal skins or buy furnishings made out of animal hides and part of why they do this is because it is easily available to them and another part of why they do it is because they have convinced themselves that the animals are well treated while they are alive and that they are probably even slaughtered in a quick and relatively painless manner. I think on some level they know these things aren’t true but, they consciously choose ignorance even though information is available to show them otherwise. I think they do this because they know that once they give up their self imposed veil of ignorance they might have to give up their comfortable laziness and habitual consumption of animal products because they would then realize what they already really know and are just pretending to be ignorant of, that the animals they consume are raised and slaughtered in abject misery and cruelty and that by buying the products and continuing the eating habits that they have they are actually responsible for the abuse of these poor creatures.

I have a coworker who is an active mormon and (I don’t know why, I shouldn’t) I always tease him about having a “word of wisdom problem”. The “word of wisdom” is the term that mormons use to identify a particular revelation that god supposedly gave to Joseph Smith in the 1800’s that outlines a health code that mormons should follow. Among other things that it says, it basically says that god would be very pleased if people only ate animals when no other food sources were available. It says that mormons should eat meat sparingly. Amazingly, mormons have focused on a few other parts of this health code, like the call to abstain from tobacco and alcohol but, they just ignore the call the only eat meat in times of famine or in the winter (when plant based foods might have been scarce in the 1800’s). Even though basically all of the mormons I have ever known eat meat centered diets, they tell themselves that they “eat meat sparingly.” It’s odd how “sparingly” and “2 - 3 times daily” can be congruous in their minds.

Anyway, this coworker of mine was recently proffering the argument that a chicken could serve no other purpose than to be a meal for him. He was asking, what other purpose could it serve and saying that chickens were created by god to be food for men. So, I asked him if even if that was true, did all the chickens he ate have to live lives of misery and be slaughtered in painful and cruel ways before they got to his plate? I offered to show him videos of how modern chickens are raised and slaughtered. His response? He said he didn’t want to see it and he didn’t want to know about it.

Much like the woman at the checkout at Albertson’s, once the subject of being concerned about how animals are treated came up, he no longer wanted to pursue the conversation. He had no desire to know the real effects of his dietary choices, particularly if it meant that the choices he’s so used to making on a daily (yet, somehow “sparingly”) basis are actually causing pain suffering in innocent creatures.

Sundance, Slamdance, & the Freedom Cinema Festival (Part 2)

It was a bit hectic getting the kids to my parent's place and then getting back to Park City, finding a parking space, and getting to the mall by 3:00 PM for the screening of Michael Franti's "I Know I'm Not Alone". I think that because they were so late to announce these extra screenings, not enough people knew about it. The room where the screening was being held was only half full.

Michael's film is really moving. It probably deserves its own write-up. As a side note, my ass hurt from the plastic folding chair in the screening room.

After the film, we visited the book store at the Freedom Cinema Festival. I heard that Keith Knight, the author of the brilliantly funny "K Chronicles" comic, was wandering around and that it would be possible to get him to sign one of his books. So, I bought a book and a CD by his band "The Marginal Prophets". I was told to just look for a black guy wandering around as there were not many. This did not prove to be true after awhile, and I didn't want to just walk up to all of them and say, "I see that you're black. Are you possibly Keith Knight?"

So, after we'd left and had dinner, we went back to just lounge in the book store. I walked up to the table and said, "Hey, I'm still trying to find Keith Knight."

And, this guy looks at me and says, "Are you puttin' me on? I'm Keith Knight."

To which I replied, "Cool. I really like your comic. I bought your book and I was wondering if you would sign it."

And he did. He noticed my Oakland BART pass t-shirt and thought that maybe I was from the bay area (which a lot of people did, turns out that many of the people involved with the Freedom Cinema Festival are from the bay area. I honestly didn't know that when I chose that t-shirt). He was really nice and told me to look for him later and that he would take Liz and I into the VIP area for some wine. Well, now, I was faced with a dilemma; should I go to the movie for which I had free tickets, or should I buy tickets for the Marginal Prophets. I talked it over with Liz and we decided to get some tickets to see Keith's band seeing as he was such a nice fella and all.

So, after we got tickets and decided to go into the room where the music was (same room that Franti had played in the day before), Keith comes up to me and says, "You wanna go get some wine?"

We're about halfway there and he notices that Liz isn't in tow and says, "Your wife, she doesn't like wine?"

To which I reply, "She doesn't really drink. Besides she has all of our gear."

I kinda think that is the moment he decided I was a dork. But lest you think my geekery skills run low, I managed to impress him even more. We're in the VIP area and I pour myself a glass of what turned out to be some really good Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon and I attempt to make small talk.

I asked him how long he'd been doing his comic. I was drawing a blank. I'd forgotten that I started reading it in 1999. I said I'd only noticed it a couple of years ago. He told me that the Salt Lake City Weekly was one of the first news weeklies to start carrying it and it was in 1997.

I asked him how long he'd been doing the band. I don't remember what he said. I then asked if it'd been the same group of people the whole time. For some reason, I think that's precisely when he knew just what kind of dweeb I am. He said that he and the other rapper were the only two original members and then he took off and left me in the VIP area.

The wine was good, so I hung around to drink another glass and then headed back into the show. Liz wondered where I had been, but didn't mind watching our junk without me.

After two glasses of wine, I found myself dancing to the Marginal Prophets. There were probably less than 20 people at this show, but it was really fun none the less. At one point, Keith says, "Hi. We're the Marginal Prophets and we've been together for 27 years and we've had 138 members."

Buzzed and dancing as I was, I couldn't stop laughing about this for most of their set.

After they finished playing, I watched a bit of the next band "Zion I", but then I needed to go rest so I went to hang in the book store some more. I ended up talking to a gentleman who goes to Jazz Vespers at my church (First Unitarian of SLC) and then to a woman who was there to show her documentary film. Of course, I didn't know this when we first started chatting. I was telling her about what it's like to be a liberal and an ex-Mormon in Utah. I asked her what she was doing here and I was expecting her to say that she came to see films or that she was a volunteer. I don't know why, I guess I make too many assumptions. Anyway, that's when she told me about her film, "Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellmann." I'm genuinely interested in seeing her film, I'm hoping that PBS picks it up and that my local affiliate broadcasts it.

So, Zion I were finished and a DJ was spinning and Liz was tired of dancing and ready to go home. I decided I couldn't leave without telling Keith how funny I thought his comment was. So, I led Liz into the VIP lounge. We just walked in like we knew what we were doing. I found Keith and told him that I couldn't help but think that what he said was in direct reference to the dorky fanboy questions I'd been asking him earlier and that I totally loved him making a joke about it. He was really nice and asked us to stick around and have some more drinks and talk with people.

I poured myself some more of the good Cabernet and set up camp on a couch in the corner and started chatting with a guy who was already sitting there. It turned out to be the bassist for the Marginal Prophets.

I asked him if he had played on the "Dead Hippie Bootleg" and he said that he had, so I asked him to sign it. I think he doesn't get asked to sign Marginal Prophets CDs very often 'cause he seemed a bit surprised. But, he was really cool about it and he signed it for me.

So, that's about it. We hung out and talked for until things started to break up. Keith came over at one point to rescue his bassist from me and we ended up doing a shot of Jim Beam and then they left and then Liz and I left.

All in all though, I really liked what I saw at the Freedom Cinema Festival and I'm making a resolution to actually plan to be there next year instead of just ending up there by accident.