Flip. Flip.
"Nice baby shot there."
Flip. Flip.
"First steps. Kinda cute."
Flip. Flip.
"Hey, I had a train cake for my 4th birthday too."
Flip. Flip. Flip-flip-flip.
"Ooh, that graduation photo is out of focus!"
Flip. Flip-flip.
"Hang on, there's no shots of her sixth birthday! What are you trying to pull?"
"None of these photos show her in the process of aging! Where are the transitional forms?"
"I see no shots where she's half ten-years-old and half twenty-five. Come on, there's no evidence she aged at all!"
Hmm.... maybe I should call that a comic script and draw it up.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Data So Far
xkcd's latest comic is t-shirt material. (As always, mouse over the comic for the hidden comment. Works on some of mine as well!)
What really prompts me to post, though is the stupidity of so many responses on the livejournal feed.
They so completely do not understand this aspect of what xkcd is about (skepticism and science), it makes me wonder why they read the feed at all.
edit: Damn. I should have realized Pharyngula would point to this one. I don't mind being so unoriginal as to just point to a webcomic, but I do mind being so unoriginal as to point to one already being pointed to by a hugely more popular blog. (And Shalini at Scientia Natura has followed suit. Now I feel like a sheeple. Retrospectively. Wait, I mean "great minds think alike". Yeah, that's the ticket.)
What really prompts me to post, though is the stupidity of so many responses on the livejournal feed.
They so completely do not understand this aspect of what xkcd is about (skepticism and science), it makes me wonder why they read the feed at all.
edit: Damn. I should have realized Pharyngula would point to this one. I don't mind being so unoriginal as to just point to a webcomic, but I do mind being so unoriginal as to point to one already being pointed to by a hugely more popular blog. (And Shalini at Scientia Natura has followed suit. Now I feel like a sheeple. Retrospectively. Wait, I mean "great minds think alike". Yeah, that's the ticket.)
Monday, January 21, 2008
Offensive words
Kelly, at RRS said:
Instead of harping continually on the use of the word "fuck", why don't we examine the truly offensive words like "should" and "ought"?
She said a number of other important things in her post, but I wanted to highlight that line in particular. I think it speaks volumes.
Instead of harping continually on the use of the word "fuck", why don't we examine the truly offensive words like "should" and "ought"?
She said a number of other important things in her post, but I wanted to highlight that line in particular. I think it speaks volumes.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Fucking with people's lives for $3.50
Something I have seen advertised a lot on late night TV (and the sheer number of ads indicates how profitable it must be - after all they can keep affording more ads) - text your name and your "potential love match", to the number in the ad, and it tells you whether you are destined to be together or whether your relationship is doomed to fail.
Now maybe some of the people using this are just doing it for a bit of harmless fun, but I kind of doubt it. Even if you don't take it all that seriously, are you sure it's not going to colour your opinion?
And, unfortunately, I expect the overwhelming majority of customers will take it seriously. How many budding relationships will be terminated by this nonsense? How many longer term relationships experiencing a minor bad patch will be ended by this ludicrousness? And how many relationships that really are beyond hope will get another round of misery because they're "destined to be together"?
How can people be so stupid as to hand over money on the basis of some algorithm that can't be using anything better than the characters in your names? People will, as I have found over and over, believe almost anything. And there are people who will happily take money from suckers.
Now maybe some of the people using this are just doing it for a bit of harmless fun, but I kind of doubt it. Even if you don't take it all that seriously, are you sure it's not going to colour your opinion?
And, unfortunately, I expect the overwhelming majority of customers will take it seriously. How many budding relationships will be terminated by this nonsense? How many longer term relationships experiencing a minor bad patch will be ended by this ludicrousness? And how many relationships that really are beyond hope will get another round of misery because they're "destined to be together"?
How can people be so stupid as to hand over money on the basis of some algorithm that can't be using anything better than the characters in your names? People will, as I have found over and over, believe almost anything. And there are people who will happily take money from suckers.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Some minor linkage
Better post something.
I enjoy The Birds.
This one came up today. The main page has that comic now, but it doesn't seem to have a permanent URL, unfortunately. So to keep pointing at the comic I'm referring to even after the next comic posts, I'm forced to link the png image.
Greg Laden points to some nifty technology. This kind of research is the sort of thing that's going to end up saving what's left of our sorry arses. I hope.
US ranks last of 19 industrialized nations on preventable deaths. Around a hundred thousand extra people die in the US each year from such preventable causes - assuming the US could manage to have healthcare like any of the top three on the list, which would seem to be impossible.
[I've been ridiculously busy for the last several weeks (which is why no posts). Sleep is something I am snatching when I can fit it in. I have plenty of material cued up for when I have time to write it, whenever that is. Probably not for a few more weeks, the way things are going. I'm supposedly on vacation, but I've been working like crazy. Yes, I'm a lazy, evil, selfish atheist.]
I enjoy The Birds.
This one came up today. The main page has that comic now, but it doesn't seem to have a permanent URL, unfortunately. So to keep pointing at the comic I'm referring to even after the next comic posts, I'm forced to link the png image.
Greg Laden points to some nifty technology. This kind of research is the sort of thing that's going to end up saving what's left of our sorry arses. I hope.
US ranks last of 19 industrialized nations on preventable deaths. Around a hundred thousand extra people die in the US each year from such preventable causes - assuming the US could manage to have healthcare like any of the top three on the list, which would seem to be impossible.
[I've been ridiculously busy for the last several weeks (which is why no posts). Sleep is something I am snatching when I can fit it in. I have plenty of material cued up for when I have time to write it, whenever that is. Probably not for a few more weeks, the way things are going. I'm supposedly on vacation, but I've been working like crazy. Yes, I'm a lazy, evil, selfish atheist.]
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