Stop Fricking Smoking, People

Mon 25 May 2009 @ 0809 — , — nosugrefneb    

PS Screw Wolfram Alpha. Gapminder is AWESOME.

Conversations that would better be had in private. Or never.

Tue 21 Apr 2009 @ 1712 — , , , — nosugrefneb    

I flew to Denver the other day for a conference. I’d initially booked a 1:30 flight but decided I’d like to arrive earlier than that to see as much as possible—6:30am-early. Apparently they don’t like that too much.

Me: Hi, I’d like to put my name on the standby list for this flight please.
Her: Okay, can I see the boarding pass for your scheduled flight?
Me: Sure. I’m a bit early…
Her: Jesus, yes you are early. [to her coworker who, like her, was three feet away from me:] I can’t believe we don’t charge for this already. This is _ridiculous!_
Me: Sorry? I booked this ticket a while ago for a conference and didn’t realize I’d need to arrive so early.
Her: [to the coworker:] Unbelievable!

I nearly yelled I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE AND CAN HEAR YOU. Then I nearly punched her. What difference does it make if I switch to a flight seven hours earlier versus two?

This is my screensaver.

Mon 13 Apr 2009 @ 1443 — , , , — nosugrefneb    

A few months ago, I posted screenshots of a screensaver I made to deter would-be thieves from stealing my computer.

Voilà. My computer is still here. Therefore, it works. QED.

Now you can download it too for your own use. If nothing else, it’s a good conversation starter. (If you really want motion-sensing, mugshot-capturing software on a Macbook or Macbook Pro, check out iAlertU.)

Download (4.9MB)

Instructions for installing: There are no instructions for installing. Simply set your screensaver to randomly display images from a folder, and point it to the unzipped Surveillance folder you just downloaded (after moving it to its final resting spot of your choosing).

Equal-Opportunity Holidays

@ 0847 — , — nosugrefneb    

On the one hand, holidays for all religions should be observed. This is decidedly not a Christian nation but rather has such ethnic and religious diversity that it seems silly to declare national holidays only for Christian celebrations—Easter and Christmas—but not for others. I feel bad for Jews and Muslims and atheists who can’t go to a Target or a Best Buy on a seemingly random Sunday in April because some dude they couldn’t care less about was said to have risen from the dead around this time of year almost two thousand years ago.

On the other, there are a lot of religions out there, and if workplaces were to start granting days off for every employee who claims allegiance to this religion or that religion, you can be sure overall religiosity would skyrocket. Polytheism would become rampant. Buddhism would be the new black. Islam? What did they ever do to us, anyway? Further, if these days were all declared national holidays, nothing would ever be open. Gotta go celebrate some random ancient person’s birth, or death, or return, or rise into heaven to be with this creator or that creator.

What to do?

On Gay Marriage Bans’ Place In History

Thu 09 Apr 2009 @ 1337 — , , , , — nosugrefneb    

By now, you all know that Iowa and Vermont have legalized gay marriage and that Washington, DC, is close.

Great.

I’m thrilled that chauvinism and bigotry stemming from questionable morality are finally being beaten down by logic and humanity and equality.

It tells me that in a few decades (but hopefully not even that long), we’re going to be laughing about this. Laughing, and shaking our heads. How preposterous—and embarrassing, really, and arbitrary, and ridiculous—to ban people who love each other from getting married because they happen to both have penises or vaginas and not one of each.

You know what else is like that? Slavery. Voting rights for women. Interracial marrying. Segregation. The idea that a black man cannot become President. And now they’re all gone. (Well, mostly. I do live in Chicago, after all. I’m not so unrealistic as to pretend that segregation doesn’t still exist.)

(For that matter: The idea that a woman cannot become President. The idea that an atheist or a Jew or a homosexual cannot become President. Let’s hope these become ideas of the past in the near future.)

I was reading today on Wikipedia about the Montgomery Bus Boycott (about which my lovely wife incredulously had to remind me) that stemmed from Rosa Parks’ perfectly reasonable desire to sit in a bus seat of her choosing (how dare she?). Regarding the racial hierarchy governing seat assignments pre-boycott:

Under the system of segregation used on Montgomery buses, white people who boarded the bus took seats in the front rows, filling the bus toward the back. Black people who boarded the bus took seats in the back rows, filling the bus toward the front. Eventually, the two sections would meet, and the bus would be full. If another black person boarded the bus, he was required to stand. If another white person boarded the bus, then everyone in the black row nearest the front had to get up and stand, so that a new row for white people could be created.

Things like this make me shake my head and wonder how people can be so incredibly stupid and yet convince themselves that they’re acting perfectly rationally and free from delusion.

And when I say things like this, I’m really talking about BANNING GAY MARRIAGE.


I have an honest question. If you’re reading this, and you support gay marriage bans, what’s in it for you? What point is there for you to spend your time and effort preventing people from doing something that would make them happy and that would in no way affect you or your life?

Comments are turned ON for this post. Let’s hear it.

Next Page »
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
(c) 2009 nosugrefneb | powered by WordPress with Barecity