F.U. News

Shocked and Appalled

2012-01-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

Star Wars: The Old Republic launched about a month ago (motto: "What Would WoW Do?"). There is much that can be said about the game, like EA's general jackassery, the fact that it is simultaneously the fastest-selling MMO and failing to meet sales projections, whether or not a game of that scale is sustainable, how successfully Bioware integrated their "fourth pillar" of story, or myriads of other topics. Many others are talking about such things, and perhaps I will weigh in later. But for now, I wanted to focus on one particularly shocking and appalling aspect of the game.

The artists at Bioware decided, it seems, to give one of the six Star Wars movies particular attention. One scene from one of the six movies. One costume choice from one scene from one of the six movies (I think you see where this is going).

Slave Leia costume, seen modeled here by the Murloc's cosplay friend Christy Marie.

Apparently, Bioware thinks that this costume comprised fully three quarters of the Star Wars films, despite the fact that the costume only has a combined 150 seconds of screen time, "including facial closeups and shots of stunt doubles and visual effect images," according to Wookieepedia. Every planet in the game has at least one scuzzy dive populated by alien slave girls doing erotic dances while wearing this costume.

So shocked and appalled by this blatant objectification of women, er, aliens, er, females, that I decided to bring this shocking and appalling art choice of the game to your, and hopefully national, attention. And to properly convey the shockfulness and appallation of this singular-minded part of the game, I had to, for the greater good, record the shocking dancers doing their appalling stripteases, then go through, frame by frame, to find the most shocking and appalling segments, which I have saved to animated images, so you to can be made aware of how shocking and appalling this game is.

Shocking and appalling images after the jump.
(Maaaaaaybe NSFW, unless you work at a strip club.)

(Click on still images to see animations. Note: animations presented as animated png files. Requires Firefox or Opera to view, or a suitable extension for Chrome.)

I had to study these looping images for hours on end, to find all the shocking and appalling details. For instance, note the shocking fluidity in the rhythm of her hips, the appallingly hypnotic sway of her lekku, the... excuse me, I have to clean completely-unrelated-to-the-conversation drool off my keyboard.

The shockingly appalling smoothness of the animations tells me they must have used motion capture to create them. I wonder where they got their mo-cap performers?

Actually, scratch that, I think I know.

And there you have it. This game is nothing but shocking and appalling filth. Now if you'll excuse me, I don't think I'm, um, sufficiently shocked and appalled. I need to study just how shocking and appalling these dancing slave girls are. Perhaps for many more hours.

The Build from Hell: Part V: Watching Blu-Rays

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine doesn't tell you that it only works on manufacturer-approved roads. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and don't have to press speakerphone to hear over the handset. You turn a knob on a faucet and don't get an error message that your sink is not in the correct region.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

So part of the reason for the Build from Hell was to be able to watch Blu-rays. A few days after the initial frustrations, I decided to test this ability out.

The movie of choice was Toy Story 3, because it's one of three Blu-rays we have (the other two being Toy Stories 1 and 2). Pop the disc in, Windows Media Center automatically opens and... wants me to set the region for the Blu-ray drive. OK, this is a little odd, considering I had already set the region when I watched a DVD the other night. Can you set the region for Blu-ray playback separately from DVD? Kind of cool, if so, but irrelevant.

So I set the region, then hit play and... an error appears! (Were you expecting anything else?) The error is (some of the more knowledgeable of you may have seen this coming) "Blu-ray playback requires a connection that supports HDCP encryption, such as DVI or HDMI".

BLARGH BLARGH BLARGH BLARGH!

As you may remember from Part III, while the card has DVI out, the TV only has VGA in, thus necessitating a converter (of which I have plenty lying around), and the HDMI plain and simple doesn't work... unless another monitor is plugged into the video card. This gives me my workaround: I leave the DVI-to-VGA connection in place, but reconnect the HDMI. The Windows desktop is now extended from one TV connection to the other. Flipping inputs on the TV changes between the two halves of the Windows desktop. I set up the HDMI-half of the desktop as the primary desktop (and ironically have difficulty getting the Display Settings control panel onto it), and try the Blu-ray again. Now it works.

This is how it remains to this day: the Windows desktop is extended on the same display device. The second half of the display only exists so the first one--the one I want--will actually work.

Sound, of course, is another issue (what, you wanted to hear your movie? What is this? 1927?), however, the solution is simple. The TV will play sound for whatever is the current input (each input has its own sound feed). Switching over to HDMI input also switched away from the audio-out of the computer (which fed to the audio-in associated with the TV's VGA connection). In the Windows control panel, I just set the HDMI output to also be the primary audio output device (video cards with integrated sound! What'll they think of next!), and the sound works perfectly.

This also has the effect of solving another audio problem that I was having. Namely, the case is mis-wired, so that it thinks that there is something plugged into the front-panel audio jack when nothing is, and vice versa. Of course, the computer will only use one audio output at a time, so when it thinks something is plugged into the front-panel jack, it mutes the rear audio. In order to hear anything, Rie had to plug a pair of headphones into the front audio jack, which was the only way to get it to use the rear audio jack. Crazy world we live in, i'n'it?

But switching audio over to the HDMI connection corrected the whole thing. Killed two early-birds with one worm!

So we now, at least, have decent Blu-ray capability. And the best part is the new keyboard.

This little thing is awesome. It's a Bluetooth keyboard, so I didn't know whether it would work without installing drivers, but it actually works in the BIOS, no drivers necessary. It has the functions of a basic keyboard (minus a few buttons, like home, end, and function keys); it has a trackpad so you can move the cursor without needing a place to rest a mouse (useful for couch-watching!); and it has built-in media center controls, so you can use it to play, pause, stop, fast forward and rewind movies. It has a ridiculously long range: I can control the TV from in the kitchen with it, so it works much better than our old wireless keyboard and mouse, which had what seemed like a 6' range (fun to use from a couch 7' away from the TV!) It is the only part of the build that worked flawlessly, perfectly, right out of the box. Kudos, Logitech. Kudos and brownie points.

The Build from Hell: Part IV: Christmas Morning: Part II: Network Nuisances

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

...First Blood, Part II: Revengeance of the Revengening: The Sequel: Episode I: Breaking Dawn.

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine doesn't explode. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and don't get electrocuted. You turn a knob on a faucet and acid doesn't come out.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

So as we read in the last chapter, Christmas morning is rapidly deteriorating from "spend wonderful time with wonderful family" into "fight to the death with technology". At least now we can actually see stuff on a screen. This is a big step forward. The next step is to plug in the network adapter.

I have a fancy-dancy D-Link USB wireless network adapter that I used to connect the old computer to our wireless network, so I didn't need to run a 50' network cable from the den to the living room. The wireless network doesn't work when the baby monitor handset is turned on. Weird, but irrelevant to our tale.

I installed the drivers for it, plugged it in, and attempted to connect to the network. It connected, but--oddly--had no internet connection. Windows' network troubleshooter was exactly as useful as a screendoor on a submarine. I tried resetting the adapter, resetting the connection, unplugging and replugging the adapter, cussing at it, sacrificing a goat to Baal. No dice.

I checked the router page, and it showed the computer was connected and had an assigned IP address, however, running ipconfig on the computer showed a different address, not in the given subnet. A google search showed that sometimes, D-Link's built-in software could conflict, and there were recommendations to remove that, install the driver only, and use the Windows network connections to connect. Tried that and it still didn't work.

At this point, I was out of time and patience, so I just left it and went to take care of the boys. About 30 minutes later I returned and, hey! An internet connection! Aren't the best problems the ones that solve themselves? Actually, not at all, because then you don't know how to fix it when it inevitably occurs again.

The next day, when I tried to turn on the computer, the same problem occurred again. The adapter insisted it was connected, but it did not have a valid IP address, and no internet connection existed. I could either a) wait 30 minutes to see if it would fix itself (which would mean the computer would never have a connection within 30 minutes of boot up), or b) stomp on the ground and utter curses to the nine hells.

But then, I thought, there was also option c). The D-Link adapter was the second adapter I bought for the old HTPC. The first one I bought--a Rosewill adapter--didn't work (I believe the failure mode was that it would only stay connected for about 5 minutes before dropping the connection, requiring an adapter reset). However, I still had it lying around. I installed the drivers for that, plugged it in, and hey! Bingo! Best part was that the old failure mode didn't exist in the new computer; the connection stays live and active as long as the computer is turned on.

The moral of the story is never throw away that old computer hardware you got, but you thought didn't work. You just might need it someday!

Also, Baal is unimpressed by your sacrifice of one measly goat. Try a virgin next time.

The Build from Hell: Part III: Christmas Morning: Part I: Display Dilemmas

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

raaaaAAAAGGGGEEEE!!!!

What now? I plug the DVI cable back into the TV, switch to the TV's VGA input, open the control panel. Everything looks good. Resolution fine, just like I left it. Switch over to the HDMI input and it displays fine. Whiskey tango foxtrot?

Unplug the DVI and... the HDMI input goes blank. Hmm....

So the problem is, as far as I can tell, the video card will only send a signal over the HDMI output so long as there is also another display plugged in to one of the DVI inputs.

Well, y'know what, mister fancy-pants HDMI output? No one loves you! I can just use the DVI output, just like I always used to! Take that.

I did what I should have done two hours before and just use the danged VGA input on the TV.

It's not what I wanted, but at least the video issues are "solved". Everything will work just fine now, right?

AH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Next thing to connect: the network.

The Build from Hell: Part II: Assembly

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

That's not "accidental" damage. This is not "oops, I set a heavy box on top of it" damage. That is deliberate, with malice aforethought. That is "hey, let's see what happens if we put this package in the elephant pens in the zoo!" damage. That is someone-backing-the-UPS-truck-over-the-package--repeatedly damage.

RMA'd that same Monday, replacement received Thursday. At least Newegg is fast.

So, with great anticipation, I set out on the task of actually putting the thing together. And there's not much to tell. It was pretty straightforward.

It booted up fine, I installed the OS. Everything was fine. Except...

For the majority of boots (I'd say about 60%-70%) it "forgets" the hard drive is plugged in. Interestingly, a similar problem occurs on my work computer, which uses a nearly identical motherboard (Asus P8H67-M LX and P8H67-M LE, respectively). I'd assumed in that case, it was the solid-state drive I was using as the primary hard drive, since I'd been forewarned that it might need a firmware update (which I did not apply out of laziness). But now, I'm wondering. Two different hard drives (an old 120 GB SATA and a new 120 GB SATA-III SSD; one plugged into a 3 Gb/s port, the other plugged into a 6 Gb/s port). A quick google turned up a couple people with the same problem, but no solutions. There comes a time when you realize the only common feature to different problems may be the cause. But I have no idea what to do about this problem. I mean, what can I do? Start buying MSI motherboards again? Because there are certain lines I'm just not willing to cross.

Right now, I'm just living with the issue. The only annoyance is that you just have to hit the reset button about four or five times when trying to start it up.

The Build from Hell: Part I: Shopping

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine starts. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and someone answers on the other end. You turn a knob on a faucet and water comes out.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

So, as is becoming an annual custom, at my yearly review, my boss informed me that they had underpaid me by quiggly-thousand dollars (again) this year, so I'd be receiving a large check to cover the balance. This should make me furious that they've been underpaying all my (snerk) "hard work", but, for some reason, I look forward to this inevitable occurrence. Probably because, like an IRS refund, the brain just interprets it as FREE MONEY! WOOHOO! when it's actually been my money all along, and someone else was just holding on to it, interest free. Secondly, because this is the closest I ever get to a Christmas bonus. You see, my company doesn't pay Christmas bonuses, because our directors are too busy taking the entire UK staff up to the Lake District to stay in a rented castle (I imagine it looks like Hogwarts), so they need us poor saps in the US to stay in the office during the week between Christmas and New Years and if we could just come in on Saturday that would be greeeeeeat.

So I actually almost prefer that they don't pay me all my salary over the year, but save some until the very end, so it feels like I'm getting an end-of-the-year bonus. So long as we don't tell me brain, it's happy to live in its own little delusion.

All of this is a very roundabout way (or "traffic-circular" way, for those in the US) of pointing out that I recently had a bunch of money burning a hole in my pocket. Instead of doing something responsible with it, like investing in a college fund for Damien and Anthony, or paying off my credit card or student loans, I decided it was time to upgrade our living room computer.

When I last upgraded my desktop computer, I took the old one and hooked it up to the TV to create a home theater-esque PC. Since we didn't have a good DVD player in the living room, this was what we used, and since the TV's speakers were crappy, but we have a nice THX-certified 200 watt speaker system for computer, this was our method of actually hearing audio from the TV. But the computer was getting old. I built it nearly 8 years ago, right after we got married, when it was totally the rage to have a computer with enough fans to power a NASA wind tunnel. The thing was loud. Loud enough to drown out audio from the TV, and since it needed to be on to get audio for the TV, it was its own Catch-22. Also, the DVD drive had about a 10% success rate on reading DVDs, so the whole purpose of using it to watch movies was kind of defeated.

I decided now was the time to upgrade to a real Home Theater PC, with Blu-ray support. We've had a 1080p TV for about 4 years now, but with no Blu-ray player, only 720p cable TV HD, and a video card manufactured in the Dark Ages of twenty-aught-four, before 1920x1080 was a commonly-supported video card resolution, we had no way of using all 360 of those extra rows.

I also wanted to be able to play (some) games on it, at least those that could be played with our wireless Logitech controllers, so a newer graphics card and CPU would be nice. Plus, have you used Windows 7? Seriously nice, man. But that requires more memory to run, and by this time, we're basically talking about a brand new build.

So I had been looking up components on Newegg for a couple months, getting a feel for what I would need. I found a nice low-profile case, about the size of our DVR. Since it's low-profile, it dictated certain motherboard and expansion card sizes. I found a nice Asus Micro ATX board, and the fastest low profile-ready video card available.

I had to wait a day to place the order, due to waiting for my bonus check to clear, but by the next day the video card I wanted had sold out. Not settling for anything less than the best, I was left with the option of waiting until it was back in stock (which could be days to months), purchasing from a place that is not New Egg. Through searching, I found that only one other company made a video card with the chipset I wanted in a low-profile form factor, although Newegg didn't seem to carry it.

I went to the manufacturer's website to see who did sell it, and they listed Newegg. I followed the link, and they did in fact have it in stock, but the card didn't come up in searches for low-profile video cards with that chipset. (It does now, so Newegg seems to have fixed the error.)

OK, everything good to go.

In order to use this PC as an HTPC, I would want some way to get video on to it, and this involves a TV tuner card. You see, the HTPC I already had had a TV tuner, which allowed for video and audio input from the cable box. Problem was it was over an S-video cable, which is an analog connection, low-resolution, and comes with significant image quality degradation. For a while, I had been wanting to set up a system that could record HD video from the cable box.

The TV tuner I had planned to purchase claimed "HD recording capability!" but when I went to the manufacturer's website, it turns out that is only true if you have an unencrypted feed from your cable provider, and not through a cable box. So, basically, never. Investigating further, it turns out that cable companies, for the most part, don't want you to be able to record HD feeds. Firstly, why would you want to, you pirate? What are you, some kind of stealing, copyright-infringing, pirate? You want to steal everything without paying for it, don't you? You monster.

Secondly, it would allow you to build your own DVR. You monster.

However, exactly one company makes exactly one TV tuner card that can record HD, either through unencrypted HDMI inputs (like from an Xbox or PS3) or over component cables (YPbPr; which works from cable or satellite set top boxes). Problem was, they did not make the card in a low-profile format.

Blargh.

I emailed the company's sales email address asking if they planned to make a low-profile version of the card so people could use it in HTPCs which, y'know, seems like the type of place one would want to use it. I got a prompt reply saying they had no plans for such. Crud.

This meant that I needed to, basically, find a new case and review every component choice I had made to see if there was a better or cheaper full size option. It also opened up my video card options, and I was able to pick a slightly faster video card.

I dithered over cases for a few days, not finding one that really grabbed me like the low-profile case. One was cheap and came with a built-in 500w power supply, but every review on Newegg said the power supply was terrible, and would fail within a few months. Since a bad power supply killed my computer once about 8 years ago (necessitating the build that was currently hooked up to the TV), and took my hard drive with it (which is why we have no pictures from our honeymoon), I am extermely cautious about PSes. In the end I found an OK one, but it was kind of expensive, and without a PS I would have to buy that separately, and those tend to run into money (especially for the good ones that don't destroy hard drives). I still think it's dumb that the case and PS can cost more than the processor. One is a shaped slab of metal and a plug, the other is, y'know, the entire brains of the computer.

Finally I found everything I needed, and placed the order....

...which was promptly rejected because Bank of America flipped out. "OMG," they said. "You're spending money on the internet! Credit card fraud!" I had to specifically call them to pre-approve the order.

In the end, I ordered:
Intel Core i3-2100 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz Dual-Core Desktop Processor
Hauppauge Colossus TV Tuner
Logitech diNovo Mini Black Bluetooth Wireless Mini Keyboard (this thing is awesome!)
Rosewill Stallion Series 500W ATX Power Supply
ASUS P8H67-M LX LGA 1155 Intel Micro ATX Motherboard
HIS Radeon HD 6770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
LITE-ON Blu-ray Burner with 3D Playback and LightScribe Support
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory

nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum panel; Steel Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

(Note the absence of a hard disk. Flooding in Thailand damaged two of Western Digital's factories, and has caused a 100%-200% increase in the price of drives. I simply swiped an old 120GB drive from my current HTPC, and will buy a 2TB drive once they're back below $100. Although, it seems kind of like a first-world problem to complain about hard drive prices during a flood)

It was at this point that I decided, y'know, I probably should have checked to see what the best bang-for-the-buck processor was. I hopped over to Tom's Hardware to check and found this.

Phew.

Prescience

2012-01-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

Me, in 2009: "Visual Studio needs achievements."

Microsoft, yesterday: "Visual Studio is getting achievements."

This Is Why I Joined the Schola

2012-01-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

...because we get to sing cool stuff like this:

"Alma Redemptoris Mater" for SATB and sleeping baby by Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina.

Please Do Not Plant Bombs in the City

2012-01-12T17:14:00.000-08:00

So the Murloc and I have been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. For those of you not in the know, it's the Star Wars version of WoW. I may talk about it in more depth later, but for now, there's a particular quest that caught my attention and I had to highlight it.

Here's the quest text:

"Dear New Yorkers. Al Qaeda has left several bombs in Times Square. We think we got them all, but if you happen across any, could you please pick them up and drop it off in one of the handy bomb-disposal bins we've left around the city?"

The mission requires that you locate four bombs stuck to walls, lamp posts, and other features of the city and take them to a bomb disposal unit, which deactivates them with the sound of a garbage compactor.

I swear, every time I picked up one of these, I heard Yakety Sax

Once you've removed the bomb from its place, a one minute timer starts, after which it will explode, damaging you for about half health. The bomb disposal unit is centrally located, a quick jog away, but shares a 5-10 second cooldown with all other players in the game. That means that once one player has activate it, no other players can use it for about 5-10 seconds.

Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.

This must have been a fun quest to do immediately after launch, when a dozen other players are trying to get the quest done. I imagine a queue of players standing at the bomb disposal unit trying to get rid of them, and all waiting for it to refresh. Sort of like a game of hot potato with explosive consequences.

Marvel vs. DC

2011-12-31T01:34:00.000-08:00

Comparison from a movie perspective, with scores based on Rotten Tomatoes' aggregate reviews.

DC:

Year	Movie	Score
1978	Superman	94
1981	Superman II	88
1983	Superman III	24
1987	Superman IV	10
1989	Batman	71
1992	Batman Returns	79
1995	Batman Forever	44
1997	Batman & Robin	13
2004	Catwoman	10
2005	Batman Begins	85
2006	Superman Returns	76
2008	The Dark Knight	94
2009	Watchmen	64
2010	Jonah Hex	12
2011	Green Lantern	27
	Average	52.73
	Median	64
	Standard deviation	33.63

Marvel:

Year	Movie	Score
2000	X-Men	82
2002	Spider-Man	89
2003	Daredevil	45
2003	X-Men 2	88
2003	Hulk	62
2004	The Punisher	29
2004	Spider-Man 2	93
2005	Elektra	10
2005	Fantastic Four	27
2006	X-Men: The Last Stand	57
2007	Ghost Rider	26
2007	Spider-Man 3	63
2007	Fantastic Four 2	37
2008	Iron Man	94
2008	The Incredible Hulk	66
2008	Punisher: War Zone	26
2009	X-Men Origins: Wolverine	37
2010	Iron Man 2	74
2011	Thor	77
2011	X-Men: First Class	87
2011	Captain America	79
	Average	59.43
	Median	63
	Standard deviation	26.58
	Independent average	78
	Independent median	77
	Independent std dev	10.22

Titles in red were independently produced by Marvel studios.

On average, Marvel's films tend to be a little better than DC's.

Lowest of the low: Superman IV, Catwoman, Elektra (10%)
Best of the best: Superman, The Dark Knight, Iron Man (94%)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

We mailed this on Saturday. You may or may not receive one in the next few days. Depends on how much we like you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2010, er, 2011!

Dying of Laughter

2011-12-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

Star Wars as an allegory of Vatican II.

Here's the part where I had tears in my eyes:

The heroes involved with saving the Church from the Culture of Death, i.e. rescuing Leia from the Death Star, was Paul VI, John Paul II, and the faithful Catholic laity … that is, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo.

The way to destroy of the Culture of Death is, paradoxically, by means of more life … that is, by sex, impregnation … and so forth. At the battle of Yavin, the rebels intend to symbolically do just that … namely (hear me out on this one) … have sex with the Death Star. Oh, man, I’ve really lost it haven’t I? The rebel starfighters attempt to shoot proton torpedos (which vaguely look like sperm) into a small exhaust port (which, I’ll just say it, represents the vaginal opening). Furthermore, the rebel’s ships are called X-Wings and Y-Wings … which are, of course, represent X Chromosomes and Y Chromosomes (i.e. the sex-determining structures of DNA involved in reproduction). Moreover, imperial TIE Fighters, which represent contraception (i.e. TIEing one’s tubes … and later on TIE “Interceptors” which sound like “Contraceptors”), try to destroy them to prevent this symbolic act of impregnation.

While Luke is narrowing in on the target with his targeting computer, Obi-Wan mystically tells him to “let go” and just “use the force,” as the computer is destined to fail. In other words, Obi-Wan is encouraging a natural method for this act rather than an artificial one. Luke obeys him, and it works. This, of course, parallels how Paul VI advocated natural sex as opposed to artificial birth control, and John Paul II followed his predecessor in this. John Paul II thus helped to blow up of the Culture of Death with his … yes, that’s right …Theology of the Body (his pivotal work explaining to the modern mind the correct view one should have with regard to human sexuality).

(H/T Mike Flynn)

Did you know that the number 31 ...

2011-12-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

... is XXXI in Roman Numerals?
... is the third Mersenne Prime (2^5 - 1)?
... is a twin Prime (with 29)?
... is a centered triangular number, a centered pentagonal number, and a centered decagonal number?
... is a self number?
... divides every 15th number of the form 3...31?
... is the atomic number of Gallium, a metal which melts at only 85 degrees?
... is the Messier number of the Andromeda Galaxy?
... was the jersey number of the legendary Greg Maddux, the first MLB pitcher to win the Cy Young award 4 years in a row, and has been retired by both the Cubs and the Braves?
... is the number of musical triads?
... is the number of flavors at Baskin-Robbins?
... was the year B.C. that Octavian Caesar's naval forces defeated those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium?
... was possibly the year Christ was crucified?
... is the age of Joe Belland as of today?

Happy Birthday, Joe!

Really Totally Looks Like

2011-11-29T17:17:00.001-08:00

"I'm so smart," I hear you saying. "I can tell Anthony and Damien apart by their hair!"

Well, OK then, you clever person you. Let's see how well you do when hats are added and hair is removed from the picture:


What do Resident Murlocs have for babies? Baby Murlocs!

This was hard to take. Damien kept taking Murky and putting him back in the living room where he belonged. OCD babby is CDO.



Two out of two babbies prefer the taste of swords.

Diablo III Beta: First Impressions

2011-11-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

For all zero of you who are interested.

[Editor's note. I started writing this after first playing it in September. Then I forgot about it.]

So, after a furious weekend [circa Sep. 9-11] of computer-playing, I managed to complete the Diablo III beta with all five character classes. It was hard work, but someone had to do it.

So here are my impressions.

In a word: "visceral". Everything packs punch. Every ability and spell. Every hit and kill has a wonderfully satisfying "thwack" behind it. Corpses flying; blood splattering; stone crumbling; book cases exploding. Everything feels weighty.

Class I'm most unexpectedly impressed by: Wizard. I did not like the wizard when I played her at Blizzcon a few years back. She seemed under-powered and uninteresting. But after dispatching approximately 4,294,967,296 enemies by shooting LIGHTING out of my FINGERTIPS, I am a changed man. And the way the lightning crackles when disintegrating enemies? Magnifique!

Class I'm most unexpectedly unimpressed by: Witch Doctor. I fell in love with the witch doctor at Blizzcon some years ago for one simple reason: Flaming Skulls 'o Doom. Unfortunately, that spell is not available in the beta. While fun, the witch doctor just lacked the oomph of the other classes.

Class I'm most expectedly impressed by: Demon Hunter. Exactly as awesome as I expected.

Design decision I'm most disappointed in: Lack of level-up choices. The original Diablo had skill points, earned upon level-up, that could be assigned to the attribute(s) of your choosing. Diablo II had skill trees which were actually the inspiration for and predecessor to WoW's talent trees. Diablo III? Nuthin. No decisions or choices are made upon leveling up. Instead, you are given a fixed train of progression. You have no choice in which skills you get next, and have no ability to put points into particular abilities. Instead, you are assigned a new skill, and merely have the choice of whether or not you are going to use it.

Add on to this the fact that, in the beta, you only have two, then later three, skills that can be active at once, and there isn't a whole lot of variety in character builds. Of course, in the final game, you'll have a couple dozen skills from which you can choose six active abilities, then customize each one with a runestone. Blizzard has stated the number of possible character builds, and it's somewhere north of the number of elementary particles in the universe.

Biggest adjustment: The concept of "lagging out" of a single-player game. What do you mean I can't play by myself because I couldn't connect to the login server? Why do I need to login to a single-player game? Why do I have latency when I'm by myself?

Exhibit A for why Blizzard should just make the WoW movie themselves, as a CGI film: This trailer, unveiled at this years Blizzcon.

To wit:

Photograph or CGI rendering? Does it matter at this point?

Approximate number of hours I will lose to Diablo III, upon release: 65,536

8/979 Postiversary!

2011-11-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

So I haven't quite written another 500 posts in the last four years. So sue me. But while we're celebrating this blog's 8th anniversary and 979th post, why don't we look at some of the best articles of the last four years?

Top 10h posts, Nov. 21 2007 – Nov. 20 2011

10. Belland Family, Inc. Announces First Expansion to Popular "Family Life" Simulator
F. "The Banalization of Sexuality"
E. Play Like a Pirate Day
D. Babby Vs. Death Star
C. Infrequently User Units of Measurement
B. Catechebulary
A. The RESPONSIBILITY of Self Defense (had to get one from Tom in there)
9. Hey! It's that Guy!
8. Once, While in a Late Night Fog
7. The Nine Most Important Words Ever Spoken
6. Beate Joannes Paulus Magnus, Ora Pro Nobis!
5. Happy Monday
4. Quaestiones
3. Offering of Indulgences: An Operations Research Approach
2. The Six-Toed Wonder
1. A Very Different Raid Night

(Others I liked that didn't make the top 10h: Magic Jacket, F.U. News Mailbag, March 18th, 2008, The Simple Emperor's Daybook, FLASH: A Woman is Pregnant!, A Moral Quandry, First Pictures of the Little One, Along the Lines of "Me on the Dating Scene", A Handy Comparison, Blizzard Story-Writing Cheat Sheet, It's Just Too Easy, Shopping for a Delli Sandwich, Cosplay Twenty-Ten, Goodnight, Sleep Tight, Don't Let Order Sixty-Six Bite, Blogging in the Olden Days, Living History)

So, four more years, and I'm still around. It's interesting to see how much my life has changed since then, let alone since I started this blog. I wonder how it will change in four more. To think that Damien will just be starting first grade....

Two Oxford Professors Go for a Walk in the Woods...

2011-11-13T15:47:00.001-08:00

Brought to you by Kevin O'Brien, who you may know better as Stanford Nutting.

(H/T Why I am Catholic)

What We're Watching

2011-11-11T09:44:00.001-08:00

So with the cancellation of V, Stargate Universe, and Heroes within the last few years, and with 24 ending its run, The Murloc and I were concerned we weren't going to have any TV to watch in the evenings, after the chil'uns had gone to bed. We were basically down to Castle, Futurama (only in the summer), and Mythbusters.

Well, the Powers That Be seemed to have decided that this could not stand, and have bestowed upon us lesser mortals more TV fare than we can reasonably consume each week. So here's a breakdown of what we're watching, so you can look down your noses at we who watch too much TV.

Sundays:
The Walking Dead, AMC: Everyone got in to this during the first season last year, and I wanted to give it a shot, but didn't. Finally, after everyone started raving about the second season premiere last month, The Murloc and I decided to add it to the list. After watching the first season on Netflix in two days (it was only six episodes), we got into this one. It's a pretty good take on the forthcoming Zombie Apocalypse, based on a graphic novel. Oh, and apparently, it's very violent. I couldn't tell you, because at some point between murdering hordes of infected with a chainsaw in Left 4 Dead 2, such that I could only see the entrails dribbling from the piles of bodies through the only little splotch on my screen that wasn't covered in blood, and causing the limbs and heads to explode off enemies with a well placed crit in Fallout 3, I became completely desensitized to violence.

Also, I have a theory that when the Zombie Apocalypse actually does happen, it will be stopped almost immediately because we'll all know what to do.

Once Upon A Time, ABC: The Evil Queen casts a curse on Snow White and Prince Charming, and everyone else in the kingdom, erasing their memories and condemning them to never find true happiness by trapping them in a small town in... Maine. No description can do it justice, and it's probably the most imaginative thing on TV in years, brought to you by the writers of Lost. The story revolves around Snow White and Prince Charming's grandson, now adopted by the Evil Queen (who is mayor of the town), who seeks out his mother, who escaped the curse, to bring her back to help break the curse. This is one of three shows that I can't wait for each week.

Mondays:
Terra Nova, Fox: In 2149, the Earth lies in the midst of environmental collapse, but a portal to 85 million BC has opened up to allow humanity to escape to an earlier time—with dinosaurs! This show had me hooked within the first few minutes, but that may just be because I'm a sucker for plots that involve dystopian future societies that limit family size. This show has an interesting premise—with dinosaurs!—and likable characters (including one played by the actor of the best character from blue-people Avatar), which are the two most important things for me in a show, which is good, because it's off to a rocky start—with dinorsaurs! The episodes so far have been a mix between forehead-slapping stupidity and genuine intrigue, much like Star Trek: Voyager, of which it reminds me—but with dinosaurs!—and with which it shares some writers. We'll see how this one goes.

Catholicism, PBS: The four episodes that were to air on public television aired here in October, and were every bit as good as I suspected. Fr. Barron just has a way of explaining the faith in an accessible, intellectual, and moving way. Right now, I'm just waiting for the remaining six episodes to air on EWTN.

Castle, ABC: The best show on TV three years running and vehicle for Nathan Fillion's awesomeness, returns for a much-deserved fourth season. Season three ended with Rick Castle professing his love to Kate Beckett as she lied bleeding from a gunshot wound. Upon recovery, she claims not to have remembered, but we know better. Come for the Firefly references, stay for the great mysteries and crime drama.

Tuesdays:
Last Man Standing, ABC: Why am I watching Tim Allen's new sit-com, which is functionally identical to Home Improvement, but he has three daughters instead of three sons? Shut up, that's why.

Wednesdays:
Mythbusters, Discovery: Stuff blows up. 'Nuff said.

Penn & Teller Tell a Lie, Discovery: Quite clever show, where Penn makes seven amazing claims, of which six are true and one is an utter fabrication. The magic/comedy duo is humorous, and interesting.

Thursdays:
Person of Interest, CBS: A genius computer programmer designs a computer system for the government that monitors everything (surveillance cameras, conversations, phone calls, emails, etc.) looking for terrorist activity. It sees all crimes, but only reports the big stuff, so the designer puts a back door into the system that feeds him the social security number of people the machine thinks will be involved in murder, either as victim or perpetrator. He recruits ex-special-forces operative Jim Caviezel, whom you may remember as Jesus Christ, to assist him. Developed by J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost, Fringe, Star Trek (2009)) and Jonathan Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight), filled to the brim with intrigue and action, this is easily in the top three things on TV this season.

Fridays:
Grimm, NBC: The second fairy tale-based series in prime time, this one focuses on a detective who is a living relative of The Brothers Grimm, who, as it turns out, wrote about true stories. The detective must "hunt the bad ones", i.e., the villains from the fairy tales. Created by David Greenwalt, who worked with Joss on Buffy and Angel, this one hasn't quite captured my attention like Once Upon a Time. However, I'm willing to give it a try to see where it goes.

Saturdays:
Used for catching up on the rest of the week.

We also find ourselves leaving the TV on Disney channel alot for Damien, so are watching a lot of shows there, the best ones being Phineas and Ferb, and Good Luck Charlie.

All Saints Day

2011-11-01T14:40:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Statistics Quiz

2011-10-31T08:02:00.001-07:00

If you randomly choose an answer to this question from the options provided, what is the chance that you'll choose the correct answer?
A) 25%
B) 50%
C) 0%
D) 25%

(H/T Shamus Young)

More Totally Looks Like

2011-10-30T23:32:00.000-07:00

Science Discovers Cure for Too Many Brain Cells

2011-10-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

I'll just go ahead and leave this here.

Special guest brain cell killing by Barats and Bereta.

The Damien-English Dictionary

2011-10-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

The complete vocabulary

Mama – Mommy (also used to identify an iPhone)
Dada – Daddy/Donald
Dadeye – Strawberry
Nana – Banana
Appo – Apple
Ba-ba – Bottle
Deedy – Mickey/Teddy
Neeny/Ninny – Minnie
Bubo – Pluto
Doody – Goofy
Daisy – Daisy Duck
Pete – Pete the Cat
Ohtoo – Toodles (Oh Toodles!)
Adda/Addeye – Anthony
Beeby – Baby (used interchangeably with Anthony for any baby/doll-like object)
C-A-T Cat – Cat
Mow/Mowf – Mouse
Esseh – Elephant
Giwah – Giraffe
Bee – Bear
Meow, Woof, Moo, Baa-a-a, Neigh, Oink, Qua (quack), Do-do-dooo (Cocka-doodle-doo), Twee (tweet, squeak), Roar, Gwah (growl), Ribbit, Hoot, Oo-ah-ah (howler monkey) – Various animal noises
Ohwy – (Oh Really?) Snowy Owl sound
Yahwy – (Ya Really!) Horned Owl sound
Dadum, dadum, dadum, dadum – Shark noises
Voom voom – Car sound effect
Choo choo – Train sound effect
Dwuh – Truck (no F-bombs from our little one)
Uh-oh, Oh no! – Various exclamations (usually said with hands on side of head or on cheeks)
Night-night! – Goodnight
Hi – Hello
Bye – Goodbye
Aww – What he says when leaning in for a hug
Yay! (clapping) – Used after a song
Wuh, Two, Twee, Fo, Fi, Si, Sehseh, Ay, Ni, Ten, Lehveh, Twev, Tootee, Fotee, Fitee, Sitee, Sehtee, Aytee, Nitee, Twehtee! – Numbers
Weh, Ownh (nasally grunt at the end), Yewo, Gwee, Boo, Popo, Bwa, Why – Colors
Whasa? – What's that?
Hussssssssss – The old woman whispering "hush"
Up, UP, UP! – Where the Snort takes the Baby Bird
Boo (short oo) – Book
Boo! (long oo) – Boo!
Deedoo! – Peekaboo!
Yoda, Ahtoo – Star Wars characters
Bah – Ball
Bwah – Block
Soosoo – Circle
Suhsuhsuh – Cylinder
Cue – Cube
Twiah – Triangle
Eye, No, Mouf, Ee (ear), Heh (head/hair), Chee (cheek), Teef, Knee, Foo, Toe – Body parts
Fafa, suh, *kiss* – The Sign of the Cross, kissing the Rosary at the end

Further bulletins as events warrant.

QFT

2011-10-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

"If you're going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back. There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled." [Emphasis added.]

--Lauren Digioia, member of the OWS Sanitation Comittee, on the vagrants in Zuccotti Park, quoted in the NY Daily News.

(H/T Mike Flynn)

The Art of Non-Argument: How to Debate without Debating

2011-10-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

There is a strand of argumentation that I have been seeing very frequently of late, and it is one of which I have become increasingly weary, and would love nothing more than if the entire world just agreed to drop the whole thing for the good of mankind. Rightly speaking, it isn't really even an argument, but rather a non-argument. It is an attempt to do away with argument, stop it cold in its tracks, so that the conversation can't continue.

This non-argument is seen in many different conversations and is stated in many different ways. It comes up in conversations about law, about justice, and about public morality. Its specifics vary from time to time, but it almost always starts with the following statement: "that may be your personal opinion, but...."

In effect this non-argument does not insist that the opposing view is wrong, but rather that the opposing view is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how reasonable, how rational, or how true the opposing view is. All that matters is that the opposing view has no place interfering with the outside world. It is not an attempt to refute the view, or show where the one proposing it has erred. It is a trump card, designed not to engage in debate, but rather to avoid debate altogether. Playing this trump card is simply an attempt to prevent the logic and reason of others from having influence on one's own thought.

And I can easily see why one might be tempted to make this non-argument. As we have seen from the ladder of inference, the premises we take to a conversation—true or false—are personal and based on our experiences. Another person, with another set of experiences, may approach the conversation with a different premise. Since no amount of rational argument or reasonable deduction will convince another person that his experiences did not happen, it is in most cases impossible to change the opinion of the other person. And since the premises—and experiences upon which they are based—are not only not the topic of the conversation, but most frequently are not even brought up, we most often don't even know why we disagree on the topic. The rude person assumes the other person has a defective brain, and calls him stupid or his views irrational. The charitable person, trying to understand how a seemingly intelligent and reasonable person may have arrived at such an unintelligent and unreasonable conclusion, may be tempted to simply invoke the non-argument. That is, "well, the person may have reasons for his belief, but since they are not my reasons, they don't affect me." Hence, the "that may be your personal belief...."

What irks me most about the non-argument, is that, in its attempt to defuse the disagreement charitably, it doesn't seem to have thought itself through very well. For, truly, aren't all our beliefs personal? If one person's argument is not admissible because it's his personal belief, why not any other's? Shouldn't we adopt the post permissible moral code possible? "Well, yes," reply the non-arguers. "To each his own." But then, does that not allow for all sorts of atrocities, from murder, rape, and torture to shoplifting, petty theft and everything in between? "No of course not! You mustn't harm another person!" But... isn't this your personal belief? And since the definition of "person" is one of the very things the non-argument is often used to obfuscate, why should we use your personal definition of personhood over any other? Taking it further, isn't it only your personal belief that personal beliefs should not be forced on others? In its attempt to marginalize the other person's argument, the non-argument marginalizes itself.

The non-argument attempts to reduce law, justice, and morality to the realm of the subjective, such that preference for one morality over another is simply like a preference for chocolate over vanilla. The problem is, I've never met someone who actually treats morality as if its not objective. Those who make the assertion that morality is always a private matter are the ones who are most indignant and most self-righteous at perceived injustices against themselves or others. If all morality is a private matter, subject to personal opinion, then there can be nothing inherently immoral about injustice. On what ground do you protest someone who commits an injustice against another? It may be your personal opinion that his actions are immoral, but who are you to enforce your personal opinions on others?

Of course, I'm being a little unfair here by grouping everyone who makes the non-argument into a group with those who deny objective morality. Many who non-argue are not opposed to the concept of a universal moral law, but rather, simply misunderstand the opposing view. The non-arguer may not understand the reasons behind his opponent's views, and just simply infer that it's for some mysterious unknowable reason. "You only say that because you think the Bible tells you to." But this, again, is a non-argument, because it doesn't address the actual reasons behind the view, just the inferred reasons. It ignores the appeals to natural law and objective truth, and instead simply attacks a strawman.

Despite these obvious (to me) problems with the non-argument, I continue to see it used whenever someone doesn't want to admit a view contrary to their own into the debate. Whenever someone takes a stand for traditional marriage, the non-argument will be made "that's just your personal opinion about marriage! You can't force that on others!" Whenever someone says that it is an injustice to deny the unborn their rights, someone else will non-argue "but that's merely your opinion on personhood! You can't deny a woman her right to choose!" Whenever someone explains the moral difficulties of euthanasia, the non-argument appears, "keep your morality off my body!" In none of the cases is the non-arguer actually making a case about the nature of marriage, the rights of the human person, or the dignity of human life. All he is saying is that all such arguments are irrelevant.

World of Warcraft: Attack of the Pandas

2011-10-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

Following on the heels of their success with 2004's hit World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment upped the stakes. For their 2007 expansion The Burning Crusade, they introduced the corrupted demon-hunter Illidan Stormrage, Lord of the Black Temple.

You are not prepared!

To up the ante even further, for 2008's Wrath of the Lich King, the brought out the Lich King, Arthas, ruler of the Scourge: a race of undead monstrosities, who terrorize the people of Azeroth.

His frozen heart lies beneath the tundra of Northrend.

And building upon that, 2010's Cataclysm introduced Deathwing to the world, a dragon aspect consumed with hatred for all that lives, and whose explosive release unleashed a wave of destructive force across all the world.

The world shall burn.

So what can Blizzard possibly introduce to top this incredible lineup of menacing villains? What is the next horror the denizens of Azeroth face?

Giant Pandas!

Their superpower is the Power of Love.

Hateful Kitty

2011-10-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

Kathleen De Vere, of my favorite Commodore 64-based Canadian sketch comedy group "Loading Ready Run", has seen fit to draw an entry to her webcomic "Things My Cat Hates" based on a suggestion I sent her.

You should go check it out by clicking here.

Or here.

Or here, if you like to wait until the last minute, but that will be your last chance.

Of course, Kathleen, herself, had one of her tweets used in an Old Spice internet response ad last year. For those keeping track, this gives me an Old Spice Man Your Man Could Smell Like index of two.

(OK, I lied. This is really your last chance. For reals.)

Premises, Premises

2011-10-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

So, I've had the idea for this post for a while, but haven't been able to put it in words. I had planned writing a long, rambling, boring post, but I realized it could probably be said better shorter.

Also, it helps that SF author, statistician, amateur philosopher and historian, and all around Cool Guy Michael Flynn has done the bulk of the work for me. Recently, he wrote a piece on the "ladder of inference". You should go read it. No, seriously. Go. I'll wait.

All done? To summarize for those too lazy to read, the ladder of inference is basically the process we mentally apply whenever presented with facts. It goes like this:

I observe objectively.
I select data from what I observer.
I add meaning to what I have selected.
I make assumptions based on the meaning I have added.
I draw conclusions, which prompt feelings.
I adopt beliefs about the world.
I take action based on my beliefs and feelings.

Now, there is a loop, called the Reflexive Loop from step 6 to step 2: our beliefs influence what data we select from our observations. This is why two people can be presented with the same set of data and draw completely different conclusions about it. Based on their beliefs, developed from previous experiences, people will notice different things, infer different meanings, and make different assumptions from the same things.

For our purposes, I will refer to these beliefs that influence our observations and actions as "premises". These are not, of course, philosophical premises in the sense of "first principles", since they are based on prior experiences. But, for a given situation, they are the things we assume are a given, and not topics for discussion.

Now, the problem is people tend to assume that their experiences are universal, and internalize their premises to such a point that they assume everyone else shares them. So when two people observe the same data, and come to different conclusions, if they've climbed too high, too fast, on the ladder of inference, they'll be completely at a loss to understand how the other person came to another conclusion.

This is why arguing on the internet is, for the most part, completely futile. Every time you see two people going at it in comboxes, each one talking past the other, it's typically because one (or both) have climbed too high on the ladder. Each one assumes his premises to be true, based on experiences he assumes are universal. And since the premises are usually not the things being discussed, the "conversation" continues apace, with neither party actually hearing or addressing the points made by the other.

Every time you come across a pro-life person lamenting how much pro-choice people hate babies, while the pro-choice person bemoans that pro-lifers hate women, it's because of the ladder. When you see a same-sex marriage advocate calling a traditional marriage advocate a homophobe, while the latter insists that God intended marriage to be between a man and a woman and why-oh-why can't the homosexuals understand this, it's the ladder. And when you see an atheist call all religion irrational while the theist is calling atheists blind, it's the ladder. None of the parties are acknowledging that the other person may have a different starting point for his beliefs because of his different life experiences.

(Note: I'm not saying that neither person is correct, or that both views are true; I'm just saying that someone's reasons for holding a belief are, in the vast majority of circumstances, rational and well-intentioned, no matter how wrong it might be.)

So it's a particularly treasured moment when someone reveals in plain language, right off the gate, what his premises are. It allows one to see why, exactly, that person holds the beliefs that he holds,

This is all a very, very roundabout way of introducing the topic of a document released by the International Planned Parenthood Federation called "Exclaim!: Young People's Guide to 'Sexual Rights'". An old college buddy of mine linked to it on the blog of his psychotherapy practice as an example of the "philosophy and social conditioning that the youth of today experience in our culture."

I found it fascinating because it puts the premises of the the sexually promiscuous culture right out front, plain to see. For instance:

Other newly-discovered rights: the pleasure of eating irrespective of desires for nourishment; the right to breathe without respiration; and the freedom to jump off cliffs without falling.

Simply put, it is a premise of the culture of death that everyone has a right to sex without babies. From here, it is easy to see how you end up with the right to abortion. If you have a right to actions without consequences, when the consequences occur, they are interfering with your rights. It's also easy to see why they think that pro-lifers are "denying a woman her rights".

This is important, because any pro-life argument that fails to address this mentality is doomed to failure. Any argument that starts with the humanity of the unborn is a futile argument. What a fetus is does not matter to a woman's right to "sexual freedom". If stealing candy from African AIDS orphans was necessary for sexual freedom, that would be justified by this premise.

This explains the cognitive dissonance exhibited in other places in the document. For instance, on page 8, IPPF defines all human rights, as universal, inalienable, indivisible, interrelated and interdependent, and impose obligations, then goes on to define inalienable:

INALIENABLE: Everyone is entitled to human rights simply for being human [NB: "for being human". Not "person". This undercuts the "the fetus isn't a person" objection]. Human rights cannot be taken away or given up from anyone, irrespective of their age [So... a 10-week gestational human being cannot have its rights taken away?], gender, ethnicity, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability, HIV status or health status.

Then, on page 19, while listing human rights, they state:

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and to be free from harm."

There are, of course, implications to these two statements. But the ladder of inference can prevent someone from seeing them.

Ever Get the Feeling that You're Being Watched?

2011-10-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

Is This the Line for the Apple Store?

2011-10-12T21:42:00.000-07:00

I don't normally recommend the webcomic Least I Could Do, but when I do, it's freaking hilarious.

The "Occupy Wall Street" protests bring three things to my mind:

Why should I care if my neighbor makes a million times more money than I do? Anytime I see some statistic like "the discrepancy between rich and poor is the greatest it's ever been in history" or "the wealthiest 400 Americans have as much money as the poorest 150 million," my reaction is "so?" This is nothing more than a red herring. If the poor have the necessities they need to survive, then it doesn't matter how much money the rich have. If the poor don't have the necessities they need to survive, then it doesn't matter how much money the rich have.
The anger and rage seems to be aimed at "bankers" and "Wall Street". If the protesters could name names and deeds of people who have committed crimes, they may have a point. But to blame "Wall Street" or "bankers" seems to blame a class, rather than a person. You might as well just blame the Jews.
"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Ex. 20:17)

Also, this was interesting, for those who haven't seen it:

Chesterton Quote of the Day/Week/Month

2011-10-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

For you mothers.

Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

--G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with he World, Part 3 "Feminism, or the Mistake about Woman", III "The Emancipation of Domesticity".

Some Much Needed Perspective

2011-10-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, let's get something straight. I've seen a risible idea circulating lately and I cannot let it stand, so I have come to set the record straight.

You ready?

Steve Jobs Did Not Change The World.

Blasphemy! I hear you say.

But get over it. He did no such thing.

To prove my point, here's a list of 11 things that Changed the World:

Christianity
Islam
The Roman Empire
Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy
The scientific world view (that material causes can explain empirical observations without invoking supernatural causes, not that everything can be explained scientifically, I mean).
The Protestant Revolt
The Enlightenment
The steam engine
The industrial revolution
The automobile
Electrification

Here are 5 things that have not changed the world, but have made life slightly more convenient for those living in the first world:

The graphical user interface
The portable MP3 player
The online music store
The smartphone
The tablet PC

The personal computer probably has changed the world (although since it's less than 50 years old, it's hard to say how much those changes will matter in 1000 years), but Steve Jobs did not invent it. Speaking of which, here is a list of 5 things Steve Jobs did not invent:

The graphical user interface
The portable MP3 player
The online music store
The smartphone
The tablet PC

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not a one. What he did is best summarized in this Basic Instructions: Steve Jobs is the kid who copies off your test, then gets a better grade than you.

What Steve Jobs did is shape the development of one world-changing device, and several minor conveniences. All would have developed without him. They might not have developed in the same way. Some ideas may not have been implemented, or taken longer to refine. Maybe the wouldn't have caught on and been as widespread, But they'd still all be there.

If Steve Jobs never existed, you would still own a personal computer. You'd still be reading my writing on your color rasterizationator through the intertubes. E-Commerce would still exist. You could still listen to music you purchased online on your portable MP3 player. You could check email on your phone. You might do it all differently; you might not do any of it at all, but you still could do it all.

Contrast this with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. As Mike Flynn points out, without them, there may never have been a scientific revolution. Universities may not have put such an emphasis on natural philosophy. Middle Ages and Renaissance scientists may never have said "what if" and asked how the world worked. Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler may never have seen a need to update Ptolemy (it worked; why fix it?). No science, no industrial revolution, no modern life. To be sure, those things may have come, but it may have been centuries later. We might be living in the technological equivalent of the 17^th century.

Introducing a fundamental change to the way people view the world, whose echoes still shape thought 2000 years later. That's changing the world. Not making a device that allows rich people to listen to music on the go.

Photodump

2011-10-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

Totally Looks Like

Anthony totally looks like Perry the Platypus.


Damien totally looks like Anthony


Therefore, Damien totally looks like Perry the Platypus

Come to think of it, why has no one ever been able to take a picture of both Damien and Anthony at the same time?

There we go.

On the Occasion of the Resident Toddler's Second Birthday.

This is inaccurate. Two weeks later, the pediatrician measured him at 37".

According to the Baby Center Height Predictor, this puts him within 2.1" of 6'4" at age eighteen, with 90% confidence.

Chief Engineer Smiles O'Brien, Reporting for Duty.

Polite Babbies Always Drink their Milk with Pinky Fingers Extended.

All I Ask Is a Carrot to Ride and a Cake Wreck to Steer Her By.

A reference to the infamous "Carrot Jockey" cake wreck.

Catholicism on Public Television

2011-09-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

Father Robert Barron's Catholicism will be airing on PBS stations nationwide, as well as on EWTN. You will want to catch this one. It's inspired by Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and looks to be amazing. You can find out more (and watch clips from it) here.

You can also find out air dates for your area here.

For those of us in LA/Orange Counties, episodes 1, 3, 4, and 5 will be on KLCS (channel 58) Mondays at 9pm, starting October 3rd. KVCR (channel 24) will air it Tuesdays at 8pm, starting on the 11th. Those in Lake Elsinore, I assume, can get KVCR (Riverside/San Bernardino).

If those in Bakersfield can get Fresno stations, KVPT will air all four PBS episodes on October 23rd starting at 11am.

In the Tampa area, you can catch it on WEDU on Wednesdays at 11pm, starting October 5th.

In Chicago (Fr. Barron's home diocese), it will be on WTTW Thursdays at 8pm starting October 13th, with encores the following Sundays at 4pm.

In South Bend (I think I have readers there?) it will be on WNIT Thursdays, October 13th and 20th, from 9-11pm.

If those in the DC area weren't so busy trying to raise well-adjusted children, and still had access to on-air television, they could have watched the first episode on Maryland PTV this past Thursday at 8pm, and the second this coming Thursday, the 29th, at the same time.

If I missed anyone, check here for your market.

The remaining episodes (2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) will air on EWTN on November 16th-19th, repeatedly.

And if you can't catch it on TV, potentially because you're lame or because you live in a stone-age commune and don't have TV, you can buy the DVD box set for a kingly sum of $150 (I know what's going on my Birthday/Christmas list this year!). Or you can wait for your parish to host a showing, unless you go to some hippie new-age parish.

There's also a book to go along with it. Again, you will not want to miss this.

How to Make a Kia Commercial

2011-09-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

(With apologies to Shamus Young)

How To: Install an App from the Apple App Store™ to your iPhone

2011-08-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

The great thing about Apple products is how easy they are to use. This is no less true of the iPhone. Installing apps on Android is so hard, what with the choice of vendors. Do I want to buy something from the Android Marketplace or the Amazon App Store? So many decisions. It just makes the process so complex.

Well, Apple doesn't have that problem. In fact, they make it so easy to download and install a (free) app. How easy, you ask? Well, it's so easy I can explain it in 82 simple steps.

Step 1: Locate the app you wish to download on the App Store™. To do this, enter the app name in the "search" tab of the App Store™.

When that doesn't find it, as it probably won't, try every conceivable spelling of the app you want. Try boolean search operators. Then finally give up and pray that the app is easy to find in the Top 25 or in Categories.

Step 2: Tap the "Install" button and enter your Apple ID account password.

Note that this guide assumes you've already created an iTunes account and linked it to your iPhone. If you have not, you will need to read the 453 page manual on how to accomplish that.

Step 3: If it has been a week or more since your last download from the App Store, Apple will have locked your account "for security reasons". This is because they assume that if you don't purchase something from them at least once a week, something is Wrong with you. Tap "Reset" to reset your account.

Step 4: You will be taken to "iForgot" which assumes you are a stupid idiot who has forgotten his password. Enter your Apple ID to unlock your account, then tap "Next".

Step 5: You may either unlock your account by email or by answering your security question. For this example, we will answer the security question.

Step 6: Verify your birth date.

Step 7: Answer your secret question.

Step 8: You may now unlock your Apple ID.

Editor's note: since these screenshots were taken, Apple has removed the "Unlock your Apple ID" option. You must now reset your password to unlock your account. You may not set the password to one you have used within the last year.

Step 9: To unlock your account, re-enter your Apple ID account password, then tap "sign in".

Step 10: Congratulations! Your account has been unlocked!

Step 11: Repeat steps 1 and 2. Re-enter your Apple ID account password.

Step 12: Before proceeding, you will need to verify your payment info. This step is necessary even to download free apps.

Step 13: Re-enter your Apple ID account password.

Step 14: Confirm your credit card information. Tap "Done" when finished.

Step 15: Repeat steps 1 and 2. Re-enter your Apple ID account password.

Step 16: It is likely that the iTunes terms and conditions have changed. Apple changes them about every month. You will need to agree to the new terms to continue.

Steps 17-78: Read the 62-page Terms and Conditions and Apple Privacy Policy, in their entirety, on the screen of your phone. We'll wait.

Be sure not to skim or skip, because it would be a lie to say you've read and agree to the terms when you haven't. Apple doesn't want you to lie.

Step 79: Tap "Agree", then tap "Agree" again. Remember: no lying.

Step 80: Thank you for accepting the terms. Please try your purchase (of a free app) again.

Step 81: Repeat steps 1 and 2. Re-enter your Apple ID account password.

Step 82: Congratulations! You're done! The app will now begin to download. Please make sure to connect to a WiFi network for faster download, or suffer the fickle and arbitrary AT&T 3G network. Also, be sure to tap the screen at least once per minute, otherwise the device will enter standby mode and the download will be interrupted.

See how easy that was?

On the Motion of the Moon in the Margaret Wise Brown Classic "Goodnight Moon"

2011-08-12T18:12:00.000-07:00

Please observe the following composite image, taken from several different exposures of the moon.

It is clear from the non-linear motion of the moon across the sky that the orbit of the moon is not a simple ellipse. This is probably because the planet inhabited by the race of sentient bunny-like aliens (henceforth: Planet Bun) is probably in a non-stable multi-body system. It likely involves multiple other moons, planets, and potentially stars, although we can clearly see from the view out this window that the stars must all be opposite Planet Bun from the observer. The intense gravitational forces from the other unseen bodies of the system must steer the moon in a strange path, and not in an elliptical orbit around Planet Bun.

Also, based on the fact that the pattern of the background stars changes so rapidly between each exposure, we can conclude that Planet Bun itself must be orbiting or rotating at a very high velocity. In fact, the "moon" may not be a satellite of Planet Bun at all. It could very well be a double planet or, judging by the lack of surface features, a white dwarf star that Planet Bun itself is orbiting. In fact, judging by just how quickly Planet Bun's view of the background stars changes, it may be quite likely that the "moon" is in fact a neutron star, which Planet Bun orbits in hours or minutes. The orbital distance is likely quite close in order for a small star to have such a high angular diameter.

Note also how the apparent motion of the "moon"-like neutron star speeds up between the fixed-interval exposures. This is likely because Planet Bun is in a highly-elliptical orbit and it is approaching perigee, causing the vast orbital speed increase.

The (Big) Boy

2011-07-28T19:10:00.001-07:00

Lest we forget about the firstborn, a couple Damien stories.

On Sunday, as we were rushing out the door to Mass, Damien apparently thought we weren't rushing fast enough and wanted to leave. So he grabbed me, pulled me over to the hallway closet, opened it, took my hat out, put it on my head, then ran to the front door. He knows that daddy putting on his hat is the last thing that needs to be done before we leave.

Then today, after changing him, I had left his shoes on the floor because I was in a hurry to change Anthony. Damien picked up his shoes, took them to the closet, opened the closet, put away his shoes (in the proper place), then closed the closet.

Anne Marie comments that he's better about putting away his shoes than I am.

Peas and Pods

2011-07-26T23:51:00.000-07:00

Can you figure out which picture is which brother? (Highlight to read answers.)

Anthony on left, Damien on right.

Ha! Trick question. Both are Anthony.

Damien on left, Anthony on right.

Anthony on left, Damien on right.

I just pray that they grow up as close to each other as I did with my brother.

Twins, separated by two years.

A Better Pain Scale

2011-07-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

H/T Hyperbole and a Half

Key:

0: Hi. I am not experiencing any pain at all. I don't know why I'm even here.
1: I am completely unsure whether I am experiencing pain or itching or maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth.
2: I probably just need a Band Aid.
3: This is distressing. I don't want this to be happening to me at all.
4: My pain is not @%&!ing around.
5: Why is this happening to me??
6: Ow. Okay, my pain is super legit now.
7: I see Jesus coming for me and I'm scared.
8: I am experiencing a disturbing amount of pain. I might actually be dying. Please help.
9: I am almost definitely dying.
10: I am actively being mauled by a bear.
11: Blood is going to explode out of my face at any moment.
Too Serious For Numbers: You probably have ebola. It appears that you may also be suffering from Stigmata and/or pinkeye.

The Laboring Murloc says her contractions fall between a 4 ("My pain is not @%&!ing around") and 5 ("Why is this happening to me??"), so we're heading to the hospital now. All further updates will be on Facebook.

The Official Rankings (Updated)

2011-07-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

Anthropomorphic Superheroes
Anthropomorphic Monsters
Anthropomorphic Robots
Anthropomorphic Old Guys, Dogs, and Boyscout
Anthropomorphic Cars
Anthropomorphic Rats
Anthropomorphic Toys (third time)
Anthropomorphic Fish
---The good/great dividing line---
Anthropomorphic Cars (again)
Anthropomorphic Toys (again)
Anthropomorphic Bugs
Anthropomorphic Toys

Although it was not made by the studio whose mascot is an anthropomorphic desk lamp, last year's "Anthropomorphic Princess with really long hair" fits between #2 and #3 on this list, and although it was not made by the company whose mascot is an anthropomorphic mouse, last year's "Anthropomorphic Dragons and Vikings" fits between #4 and #5. Those are the only two non-anthropomorphic Desk Lamp 3D animated feature films that I can think of (off the top of my head) that fit somewhere on this list.

Happy 100th Birthday, Gian Carlo Menotti!

2011-07-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of the composer of the first television opera (Amahl and the Night Visitors), we present to you a bit of culture.

The Telephone, an opera in one act, by Gian Carlo Menotti, heard in this 2000 recording, directed by Dr. Susan Treacy, with Celeste Ingram, soprano, Daniel Morton, baritone, and Yr. Obd. Svt., piano accompaniment.

Living History

2011-07-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I read, with a strange sense of loss, that perhaps the most historical man I'd ever met passed away. I am, of course, talking about Otto von Habsburg, who passed away on July 4th at the age of 98.

To give you an idea of what a piece of living history this man was, let me give you some background. He was born November 20th, 1912, the eldest son of Blessed Charles I of Austria (who you may remember, Blessed John Paul the Great beatified in 2004). Charles I was the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and a great Catholic statesman. Austria was the only power that did not engage in chemical warfare during the Great War, mainly because of Charles' abhorrence of it, and warfare in general. So dedicated was Charles to peace that he sought a separate peace with the Allies, apart from Germany (but the French managed to ruin that).

Otto von Habsburg was the last Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a pretender to the thrones of about half of central Europe, and—through his family—a link to the once-great Holy Roman Empire. He was a stalwart opponent of both Nazism and Communism, for which the former group sentenced him to death for opposing the Anschluss in 1938. He was instrumental in aiding the Allies during World War II, and played a role in the downfall of Communism in the 80's.

During my Adventures in Austria, circa 2001, I had the great privilege of meeting this man, this living historical figure. The director of the Austrian program had invited him to the Karthause to speak to us students, and graciously, the Archduke agreed. I was interested in his visit, because as a recent graduate of Miss Smyth's Grand History of Western Civilization, I was well versed on House Hapsburg. He spoke to use students at length, one evening, giving a rambling talk about Austria, her history, her people, and his place in it. While the details of the talk have become hazy in the ten years since, I still remember a couple details quite clearly.

His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke and Prince Imperial Otto of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, seen here in this 2001 file photo. Photographer, Your Truly.

What struck me most about his talk was the personal, eyewitness accounts he gave of momentous historical events. He told stories about how he personally delivered Hungarian spy reports to FDR, or how, as a representative of Austria during World War II, he was given advanced notice of the Allied bombing raids. Invariably, each week an Austrian church or monastery would be targeted. He would speak with Roosevelt's assistant who, as a good Irish Catholic, would manage to postpone the raids that targeted churches.

One story I remember most clearly was the one he told about when he discovered the Allies' plans to divvy up Austria and give the lion's share (including Vienna) to the Soviet Union, as part of the peace treaty. He immediately rushed to see FDR and said, while he had always admired him and his methods of resisting the Communists, this was a bad idea. FDR agreed and told Otto that if he could get Churchill to agree, he would renegotiate. Otto immediately rushed to Churchill's room to speak with him. The secretary said that Churchill was sleeping, and he wasn't to be awoken, unless it was a matter of life or death. Otto said it was, and met with the sleepy Churchill, and convinced him to side with him and FDR. In the end, the Soviet Union took only a very small part of Austria.

Travelling Europe and seeing the history is interesting for an American such as myself, particularly one from Los Angeles, where anything older than 50 years is considered ancient. Seeing all these great monuments from ancient Rome, or cathedrals of the middle ages, or castles of the Renaissance. It's just something we don't have here. But there was another interesting side to Europe as well, and that was the history of the last hundred years. In that time, Europe had been the battlefield for the two greatest wars mankind has ever waged, and the site of the two most evil regimes the world has ever known. Here was a man who was linked to all of it, and spoke of it off the cuff, off the top of this head, as if this recent history was an old colleague of his.

Truly, the history of the 20th century is now just a little more remote.

Messe Secunda, by Fr. Michael Haller

2011-06-25T10:31:00.001-07:00

For those of you poor saps who were unable to make it to the concert last night, here is the rendition of the Mass that we performed.

I will upload the other parts of the concert as time permits.

**Update**

The Vox Caelestis women's ensemble's set is also up:

Place Ya Bets... Again!

2011-06-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Birthday: _______
Weight: _______
Length: _______

As before, 5 points for each day by which your birthday guess is off. 1 point for each ounce, and 2 points for each quarter-inch. Also, a new rule this time around: if your name starts with "K" and ends with "atie Belland" you get 15 points automatically just to make it fair for those not gifted with powers of divination. (Kidding, of course.)

As before, lowest score wins.

For reference. Damien was:
July 25th (his due date)
7 lbs. 7 oz. (best guess)
20 inches long

Anthony is due July 23rd.
The Pregger Murloc's weight gain so far this pregnancy has been less than that of her first.
Anthony really likes stretching out, more so than Damien did in the womb.
Also, Rie's OB-GYN Kenobi has said she doesn't want her to go too much past her due date, to avoid a C-section. Narrow birth canal and all. There has been talk of inducing at some point.

Interesting Point of the Day/Week/Month

2011-06-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

(H/T Mike Flynn)

'"Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person"
-- Weiner publicist Risa Heller to New York Times last Saturday.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi concluded that his behavior required medical intervention. (also in the Times)

There is a strange notion implicit here: heterosexual behavior can be cured! Who knew? But isn't there something dehumanizing about the supposition that homosexuals are helpless victims of their urges while (with professional treatment and medical intervention) heterosexuals can learn to control them?'

!!Breaking News!!

2011-06-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

Did that get your attention? I hope so! The news isn't actually all that breaking, but I just wanted to make sure you were listening.

For those loyal readers (hi Mom!) in the Southern California area, I have an important announcement.

Well, not actually that important. I just want to make sure you're paying attention.

Anywho, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church's Latin Schola, of which yours truly is a member, will be performing our first ever concert on June 24 (the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist) at 8:00pm. The concert will begin with a low Mass in the extraordinary form (in Latin, priest faces ad oriens (that is, he is oriented correctly, in the same direction as the people, so the Mass isn't a staring contest)). This will be followed by actual singing. Our showpiece is the "Messe Secunda" by Fr. Michael Haller, a 19th century Palestrina scholar, who wrote this gorgeous 3-part (SAB) Mass in the style of the great Renaissance sacred works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Other works we will be performing are: the chant "Ut Queant Laxis", a chant to St. John the Baptist, from which the solfège "do re mi..." originates; César Franck's "Panis Angelicus"; and maybe one or two others (if you're lucky!).

(Did you notice all the bold text? I put it there. It was designed to subtly catch your eye and make you more interested. Did it work?)

So, come and bring a friend, why don't you? Bring ten friends. Bring a hundred friends! You probably won't regret it™! (That's my personal guarantee!)

Oh, yeah, and we also have this cool flyer.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "wow, Joe, that's a cool flyer! How could the concert not be awesome if it has such a cool flyer?" (Yes, I know you think in bold text.)

Well, you, that's a good question. How could the concert not be awesome if we have such an awesome flyer? The answer is: there is no conceivable way the concert could not be awesome with such a cool flyer. This has been rigorously proven by science-type people, like this guy.

This Guy? Tell everybody why it will be awesome:

The concert will be so awesome, because it has a cool flyer. I have proven this scientifically!

You know you can trust him because he wears glasses. That means he's got, like, +5 to science!

And that's why you need to come! You probably won't regret it!™

Too Clever By Half

2011-06-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

So, in Boston, Sarah Palin makes a reference to Paul Revere warning the British...

...for which she is roundly ridiculed by the Left. Everyone knows that Paul Revere's ride was to warn the towns of Lexington and Concord of the coming British invasion. We all read the poem in middle school.

Of course, it turns out she was right. In Revere's own words from a 1798 letter, he had warned the British that “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”

Perhaps before mocking someone's ignorance, we ought make sure we are knowledgeable on the subject ourselves?

The Left's response was, of course, telling. Upon having their ignorance pointed out, they merely insisted that, "OK, maybe Sarah was right, but she couldn't have known she was right. She just got lucky." This is a wonderful argument: it is absolutely unprovable. It is simply assertion about what someone else was thinking. Since no one knows what anyone else is thinking, the assertion cannot be proven false.

But of course, for the Leftists, it can be proven, by their weird logic. Remember, these are the Cultural Elite. The Brights. The Educated and Informed. They don't get their news from stupid channels like Fox News. They get it from reliable sources, like MSNBC and NPR, which never spin and are never wrong. They have degrees from Columbia and Berkley. They're smarter than you.

So, really, it's quite simple in their logic:
M. Leftists are smarter than right-wing rabble.
m. Leftists did not know that Paul Revere warned the British.
C. Therefore, Sarah Palin could not have known that Paul Revere warned the British.

You see? Quite clever. Too clever, one might say, by half.

LinkDump

2011-05-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

First, two recent John C. Wright posts:

The Argument of Antimonogamy.

Disloyalty to the Void.

Now, my response to his second piece.

And his response to my response.

What do you think? Is Mr. Wright right, and there's a place for fuming and thunder? Or am I right and we should chose words carefully so that others are more inclined to listen to us?

And what's the answer to his question: "In the case given above, where Bukkake and BDSM and prostitution are portrayed as normal — what is the correct tone to set? That of Socrates, honest, detached, ironic, polite? or that of John the Baptist, who warned of the wrath to come?"

What's Wrong with this Picture?

2011-05-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

I snapped this screenshot of Bejeweled 3 right after the words "No more moves" appeared and right before the gems exploded off the screen. See anything wrong?

Double-ewe tee eff, Popcap. Double-ewe tee eff.

(For those interested in what causes this bug to occur, it sometimes happens during a cascade. In the middle of the cascade, the words "no more moves" appear, yet the cascade continues. When it finally comes to rest, there might still be moves, but the "game over" flag has already been tripped. It appears that their algorithm that checks for game over conditions only checks if valid swaps can be made, and does not check if gems are already matched.)

In a Parallel Universe Somewhere...

2011-05-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

...a Vancouver police officer, speaking to college students about a recent crime wave, has suggested that, to avoid mugging, people shouldn't go walking through bad neighborhoods at night, flashing around large wads of cash. This has caused quite a stir, and many people are now accusing the officer of perpetuating a "blame the victim" mentality. In Europe and a few American cities, people have organized protests, called "cash flashes", where they stuff their pockets with large denomination bills, and walk through high-crime areas. Some have been seen carrying signs that say things like "Don't tell me not to flash my cash. Tell thieves not to steal."

* * *

I wonder how much of the controversy has been caused because society has lost the concept of temptation. John C. Wright once wrote about how difficult he found it to adjust to the Christian lifestyle because, prior to his conversion from atheism, his code of ethics was basically defined such that anything he wanted to do was morally allowable. Once he realized that certain things he really, really wanted to do were not OK, he struggled with keeping his passions in check. (I may be mis-quoting him. I don't have time to find the story.)

In today's society, where "anything goes", I suppose that many people simply are unaware that it can be difficult to order your appetites and passions to your intellect. The prevailing attitude is "I can do what I want, and it's your job to not let that affect you." Much of this attitude might simply be due to ignorance of human nature.

Of course, it could also be because the police officer violated the 1st commandment of the Post-Christian West: "Thou shalt not tell me what to do."

* * *

The interesting thing about the "Slut Walks" that have been going on, and the attitude "I can dress however I want" is that, in a perfect, unfallen world, that would be true. If there were no original sin, then there would be no sexual predation, and no need to protect yourself from it. Of course, in this fallen, sinful world we live in, prudence (and charity) demands that we take measures to protect ourselves from the weak-willed, as well as take reasonable measures not to tempt them.

Like all philosophies that deny God and original sin (Marxism and Nietzsche-ism come to mind), these ideas fall apart in their belief that man can be perfected in this life.

Nothingness, I Embrace You!

2011-05-02T17:41:00.000-07:00

Best comment on YouTube: "This ideological propaganda for the bourgeois is disgraceful. Gene Roddenberry's collaboration with Camus had fundamental authenticity, subtle but evocative artistry, and phasers."

(H/T Mike Flynn who H/T's Mark Shea)

Beate Joannes Paulus Magnus, Ora Pro Nobis!

2011-05-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

As far back as I can remember, I've wanted to see the Pope in person. No, not any pope. The Pope. The newly-beatified John Paul the Great.

On the occasion of his 1987 visit to Los Angeles, my school sent a bus of students to see him along his motorcade route. Only fifth grades and up got to go. I was in first grade. My brother, who was only in fourth grade, got to go because he was accompanied by my sister.

For the 1993 World Youth Day, the youth group we participated in sent a bus of teenagers to Denver. Only those over 15 were allowed to go. I was 12. My brother turned 15 a mere two months before the event. Once again, I was denied the opportunity because I was too young, while my brother just barely snuck in.

I remember in 1987, when I was told that I wouldn't be able to go with my school, I cried to my Mom that I wanted to see the pope. "Well, when you're grown up, you can take a trip to Rome and see him," she offered in consolation.

"Yeah, but it's going to be a different pope then! I want to see this pope!" I'm not quite sure why, at the age of six, I had such a love of JPII.

Fast forward to 2001. I'm in Austria for a semester, and astoundingly, Blessed John Paul the Great is still the pontiff. I remember one day, upon learning that our scheduled trip to Rome and Assisi would include an audience with the pope, how overjoyed I was. I sat in my room, nearly in tears, that I was finally going to receive my childhood wish and see the pope! I remembered back to the 1987 visit to Los Angeles, and the 1993 World Youth Day, and even my mom's advice. "When you're grown up, you can go to Rome yourself." I was grown up, and I was going to Rome!

Fast forward to the Rome/Assisi pilgrimage and, as it turns out, the regular Wednesday papal audience was cancelled that week, because the Pope was going to be on retreat.

*Sniff*

But wait! There was hope! On Sunday of that week, Blessed John Paul the Great would be leading the noon Angelus from the balcony of the papal apartment. Of course, we had only just arrived in Rome the previous evening, and we had a tour of St. Paul-outside-the-walls, the Coliseum, Imperial Palace, and Roman Forum that morning, which ended at about 11:45, but if we hopped on the crowded Roman metro, sped across the city, and sprinted the half-mile from the metro station to the Vatican, we might just make it.

You better believe I ran. It's amazing how quickly one can move, even while carrying a full backpack, when one is motivated.

Yay! I got to see the Pope in person! And I even received the papal blessing (as did my rosary)! My childhood wish had been fulfilled! He had only been a speck in a distant window, but I could go home now, satisfied.... Mostly.

* * *

About this time, I began to notice about myself what everyone around me took for granted. I distinctly remember on one of our tours in Rome how I would always rush to the front of the group, cut in front of other people. I always had to be in front. I remember during the tour that my friends were strolling along in the back, enjoying themselves, telling stories and laughing. I wanted to be with them, but I just couldn't be bothered to walk that slowly. It was then that I realized what my mother had known for ages.

I was just too gosh-darn impatient.

Lent had just begun, and I was looking for a penance besides simply giving stuff up. So, there in Rome, that week, I resolved that for Lent I would be patient. I would slow down and enjoy the ride. I would stop to make sure those around me came before me. I would put myself last.

* * *

The rest of the trip was eventful, but not in a way that's particularly relevant to our tale here, so we'll skip ahead a few weeks, after we'd returned to our home in the Karthause, in Gaming, Austria. For Easter, we would have five days off from classes, and everyone was planning what they would be doing. I was thinking of just spending it in Vienna, Saltzburg, or just staying in Gaming, without any further ambitions. However, another of the students, an acquaintance of mine, but not a close friend, asked me if I'd like to come to Rome with him. He had connections to the Legionaries of Christ, and was planning a trip to stay with them. My reputation as "the beacon of all light amidst the darkness" and master trip planner (I could read train schedules) had spread around the small campus, and he asked if I would like to help plan, and lead a group of men, so we could accommodate those with different class schedules and had to leave later. I jumped at the chance.

We left after classes on Wednesday of Holy Week, arrived in Rome on the morning of Holy Thursday, and checked in to the seminary of the Legionaries in Rome. Thursday was spent in a silent retreat, with mass celebrated by a Cardinal at the seminary that evening.

Then came Good Friday. That afternoon, we left the seminary to attend the Good Friday service in St. Peter's. When our group arrived and entered the basilica, I was about to rush to the front of the group to enter first, as was my habit, when I remembered my Lenten promise. "No," I thought. "It's Good Friday. The day to truly live up to our Lenten penances." So I was patient. I let my brothers--there were about 20 or 30 of us--go ahead of me, and enter first. It was only when I got inside that I saw how the seating arrangement would work.

The way this was going to work was that at the beginning of the service, the Pope was going to process up the center aisle, on a little motorized cart (he was old and frail at this point, and couldn't walk well). There were waist-high walls on the center aisle, so people entered the rows of chairs from the sides. Those who entered the row first got seats on the aisle, right next to where the Pope would pass. Obviously, these seats were most desirable.

So, I patiently filed into the row, after all my other classmates who had come on retreat with us, and was patiently seated on the very, very farthest end from the center aisle, patiently separated by a sea of heads. We had arrived about an hour early, so I had that much time to stew in my patience and meditate exactly on where my patience had gotten me. I enviously looked down the row at the other students who hadn't made stupid Lenten resolutions to be patient. That could have been me. That would have been me. I would have been on the aisle to see the Pope up close and in person, just as I had wanted to since first grade, if I hadn't tried to be so gosh-darn patient!

I think I went through all five stages of grieving while I was there, from "I can't believe I missed my opportunity to see the Pope up close!" to "well, maybe the Pope won't even process down the main aisle. He is old and frail, after all," to "this is all someone else's fault for not seeing how patient I was being and letting me go first," to finally "you know what? I'm here in St. Peter's, with the Pope, for Good Friday. This is a special moment."

About five minutes before the start of the service, one of our Legionary guides came up to me and the student next to me—a very holy young man named Anthony Fiducia—and said "one of the guards has told me that they have two seats, towards the back, on the aisle and has asked if I have two young men who would like to sit there."

So there I was, seated at the back of St. Peter's, four seats away from the center aisle, praising God, and feeling stupid for being so upset that I had tried to be more holy. Of course He had a plan. Of course He would look out for me. As we waited the last few minutes for the service to start, Anthony, as if he was reading my thoughts, remarked "God does good things for those with patience." Amen.

And that's when I took this picture.

I should like to point out that photo is unzoomed.

After the procession, we returned to our seats on the end of the row with our classmates, and I could only feel contentment. But it got better.

Communion was chaotic, this being Rome where they have no concept of that British idea of "the queue". It wouldn't have worked here, anyways, since the center wall prevented you from actually leaving your row. Instead, priests walked up and down the center aisle, distributing communion, and you had to fight your way through your row to the center. It was then that our Legionary guide said "Ok, everyone switch places, so that those on the end of the row can be on the aisle for the exit procession." So Anthony and I, once again, ended up on the aisle.

And that's when I took this picture.

Not pictured: then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), who followed immediately behind Blessed John Paul the Great. I tried to take a picture of him, but had over-taxed the flash capacitor on my camera with all the pictures I had been taking, so it was still recharging.

Following the service, we went to the Colosseum for Stations of the Cross, again with the Pope, before returning to the Legionary seminary for much-needed sleep. That night, as we prepared for bed, I meditated on the day's events and realized that in the midst of this was a very important lesson: so long as you do God's will, it does not matter where you end up; that's where God wants you to be. To be a good Christian does not so much mean that you should be preoccupied with where you're going, or with what's going on around you, or with any external events. All that matters is that, in all that we do, we strive to do God's will. Wherever that brings us is exactly where we need to be. No matter what hardships we encounter along the way, God has a plan to bring us through them. It's a lesson that I frequently fail to live up to, but one that I've never forgotten.

* * *

The rest of the trip was glorious. Saturday, we attended the Vigil at St. Peter's. The Legionaries got us in to the section reserved for Diplomats.

Sunday we attended morning mass in St. Peter's square. The Legionaries got us into the section right behind the Cardinals.

It pays to travel Rome with the Legionaries, is what I'm saying here.

But, anyways, on this, the day of the beatification of John Paul the Great, and shortly after the tenth anniversary of my trip to Rome for Easter, I thought I'd share my silly little story of what this Saint meant for me.

Blessed John Paul II, pray for us!

Slow House Elves

2011-04-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

My desk, circa Feb 2010

My desk, circa April 2011

The house elves around here work too slowly. Obviously, I need to beat them more.

Easter Yummies

2011-04-26T17:46:00.000-07:00

"The Banalization of Sexuality"

2011-04-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Murloc sent me an article the other day, asking me to tear it apart. So tear it apart I shall.

The article is called "Why I Want a Male Birth Control Pill", by Kyle Munkittrick and can be read here.

The first paragraph is perhaps the most egregious, so we shall save it for last. Let's start with, this:

"Sex as we know it has two major biological problems: disease and unintended pregnancy."

It boggles my mind that one could look at the natural function of a biological process and call it either a problem or unintended. This is akin to saying "eating has two major problems: food poisoning and nourishment," or "breathing has two major problems: smoke inhalation and respiration."

Consider the phrases: "I intentionally at the entire cheesecake and accidentally gained weight." "I intentionally jumped off the roof and accidentally fell to the ground." "I intentionally had sex and accidentally got pregnant." The first two make the speaker sound like an idiot, but the third one, for some reason, is how people actually think.

Of course, this is just the contraceptive mentality: the delusion that sex is not for sexual reproduction, but rather for pleasure, and the reproductive aspects of it are an unintended side effect. It's a mindset I frequently see in the post-sexual revolution apocalypse. And one Mr. Munkittrick seems to be afflicted with.

Dave Barry (hardly a hero of the pro-chastity movement) even made a joke about this, with one of his book titles: Babies and Other Hazards of Sex. Of course, the joke here is that we all know that babies are what's supposed to happen during sex. It's comical to pretend that they're a hazard, and not the natural end, of the act. It's like saying, "my wife and I took a plane trip to visit her mother but, unfortunately, it didn't crash." The joke is that what was supposed to happen, happened, but we didn't want it to happen. The joke is that we want the opposite of what we do.

But it's only humorous when intended, like Dave Barry's book title, as a joke. Mr. Munkittrick seems to think it seriously.

For men there are approximately four ways of dealing with these issues without the need for a partner’s help: abstinence, condoms, coitus interruptus, and vasectomies. Abstinence prevents everything, including sex itself, so it’s kind of like avoiding food poisoning and gaining weight via fasting: yes it works, but it isn’t exactly practical for most of us.

I assume when he says that abstinence isn't practical "for most of us" that he is referring to married men whose wives have a very active sex drive, and are required by their vows to love their wives as Christ loves his Church, and so must make the hard sacrifice of always being available to satisfy her. I have a hard time imagining in what other circumstances abstaining could be "impractical".

In his most recent book-length interview with journalist Peter Seewald, Light of the World, Pope Benedict XVI said that robbing banks with an unloaded gun may be a first step for a criminal to being more responsible.... No, wait, he said that a prostitute using a condom may be the first step to being more responsible, a first step to realizing that not everything can be allowed. Of course, the pope can't say "condom" in an empty room without creating controversy, and there was much discussion in the media that the pope had said it was morally permissible to use condoms (he didn't) and whether this indicated a reversal of teaching of the Church (it doesn't). But lost in the controversy was, I think, a very wise, and very insightful statement by His Holiness that cut right to the core of everything from the abortion holocaust to the AIDS epidemic. The Holy Father says in part,

[T]he sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being. (p. 119, emphasis mine)

After reading this quote, I began to be more aware of this attitude towards sex, that it is a drug to be administered. How often do we hear someone speak of a "need" for sex, or go to extreme or even dangerous lengths to get a fix? And indeed, even from a neuroscience viewpoint, sex does act like a drug on the brain, releasing chemicals that cause pleasure and can lead to addiction.

From this viewpoint, Mr. Munkittrick's statement makes sense. It is "impractical" for most men to abstain in the same sense that it is "impractical" for a junkie not to shoot up, or it is "impractical" for an alcoholic not to get drunk, or for a chronic gambler not to hit the slots; not in the sense that avoidance would be physically impossible or harmful, but rather in the sense that the addict lacks the willpower to stop.

Of course, the way one deals with a junkie or a drunk or a gambler who insists that it's impractical to avoid his vice is not to make sure that he has a steady supply of whatever it is he craves, but to teach him self-discipline, so he can avoid the destructive behavior. Society has a sexual addiction. We insist, like the addict, that it's "impractical" to end our addiction. But what is really needed is a 12-step program. We need to admit that we have a problem.

Condoms are the best option men have, as they both protect quite well against disease, prevent accidental pregnancy and still allow, you know, sex.

This line doesn't sit well with me, and it took me a while to figure out why. I think it's because, to a large extent, it undermines the point of the rest of the article, particularly from a viewpoint on this side of the sexual revolution. He's arguing for a male birth control pill, and in the course of his argument, mentions that men already have a birth control method that also protects (to some extent) against disease. So what will happen if a male birth control pill is introduced? Well, we already know that.

I read an article recently about a study by the UK government on the effects of their program to make Plan B freely available. Not only did it not impact teenage pregnancy rates, but it increased rates of STIs. And it's easy to see why. "We don't need a condom; I'll just take Plan B tomorrow!" People, particularly teenagers, in the throes of passion are notoriously bad at making sound, objective judgments. Of course, the UK government, on discovering the utter failure of their £15 million program to bring about any good, did what any normal post-Christendom government would do: they increased the size of the program.

Women have a whole range of birth control options, including hormonal ones, for which there is no male analog: IUDs, sponges, cervical caps, the Pill, and Plan B. All of these options require planning ahead, going to the doctor, thinking about what sort of sex might happen and what to do if the birth control doesn’t work. Further, a woman is often required to think about all of these problems knowing her male partner is blissfully unaware and probably unconcerned with them. Guys just don’t have the same societal pressures or signals. Men don’t think about birth control or pregnancy as much. With a male pill, guys would be forced plan beyond just a condom in the wallet. [Why?] We would have to chat with our doctor, try different methods (ultrasound or hormones?) and get regular check-ups. Birth control would finally be on our collective male minds.

Birth control will never be on the promiscuous male mind as much as it is for women for the simple reason that men can't get pregnant. We don't have to deal with the life-changing impact on our bodies and our lives in the same way as women. An unwanted pregnancy doesn't make us grapple with the decision to abort, and bear the scars and guilt of that for the rest of our lives, or carry to term and fear how our friends and relatives will judge our swelling belly. No pill will ever be able to make pregnancy as much of an issue for men as it is for women.

No, the way to get a man to think about pregnancy is for him to be in love, agape, with a woman; to make him swear a solemn vow before God and man that he will, henceforth, forsake all others and cherish his beloved unto death; that he will lay down his life for her and their children; to give him a solemn duty to her, and make him responsible for the care and upbringing of their love incarnate. That is what makes a man think about pregnancy, not giving him a pill and telling him "fornicate with as many women as you want! Just be sure to take this."

Women, particularly young women and teenagers, are often not just embarrassed to go on the pill, but are seen as promiscuous or easy for doing so. They are slut-shamed out of making responsible decisions.

Considering the concept of slut-shaming, I have only one thing to say, which is more of an aside and not connected to the point being discussed: anytime I read a defense of chastity, invariably a commenter will equate it with "slut shaming", that is to uncharitably mock the sinner, as if it is impossible to abhor the sin and yet love the sinner. The pro-sexual revolution types seem to argue that one simply cannot argue for sexual purity without putting down those who don't live to the ideal. This is a similar to the tendency I see that whenever one speaks out against homosexual acts, he is also labeled a "homophobe", again, as if it is impossible to say an action is wrong without hating those who commit it. I find this telling; one of the marks of a guilty conscience is that it is extremely sensitive to being called out for its sins. Perhaps the shame is inferred rather than implied.

Since I do not wish to be accused of arguing with a straw man, I point out that this is not in rebuttal to anything that Mr. Munkittrick has said. I don't know if he adopts this position, so my comment is not addressed at his words.

Many parents actively prohibit their daughters from going on the pill because they (falsely) believe that 1) fear of pregnancy will prevent early sex (it doesn’t) and that 2) the use of the pill will encourage their daughter to sleep around without other protections (it doesn’t).

Hm, perhaps I should just end this rebuttal right here. It is clear that I am completely unqualified to debate Mr. Munkittrick, since he quite clearly has met every single female on the face of the planet, and is familiar enough with each of them to know that not a single women would ever not engage in sexual intercourse out of fear that she would get pregnant.

Sarcasm aside, he may have a point. Jennifer Fulwiler mentions that:

On multiple occasions when I was a young teen I recall hearing girls make the comment that they would readily risk dangerous back-alley abortions or even consider suicide if they were to face unplanned pregnancies and abortion wasn’t legal. Though I was not sexually active, it sounded perfectly reasonable to me —that is how much we desired not to have babies before we were ready. Yet the concept of just not having sex if we weren’t ready to have babies was never discussed. It’s not that we had considered the idea and rejected it; it simply never occurred to us.

She describes the effects of the contraceptive mentality. When the idea that we have a right to enjoy sex without consequences becomes ingrained firmly enough in our mindset, it is possible that people will no longer even consider the consequences of sex. Of course, the solution to this is not to further entrench this simple madness, but rather to ingrain that pregnancy is the nature of sex.

Concerning his point that the pill encourages sleeping around, or discourages other protections, 1) see previous point about Plan B and STIs (I have read that The Pill has a similar effect), and 2) anecdotally, my mother once told me a story about a friend she had in college, whose mother, being the progressive and caring person she was, gave her daughter The Pill before she went off to college, as protection. My mother said that her friend had not been planning on sleeping around, but her mother's lowered expectations affected the friends attitude. "I have the pills," she said. "I might as well use them." And in a larger view, there is evidence to suggest that the contraceptive mentality changes the way people approach sex.

The enormous problem here is that while girls are forced to contemplate STDs and pregnancy early, boys are largely unconcerned until they have sex for the first time. In many cases, it will be the girl who asks about a condom or says “I’m on the pill, it’s ok” or something else responsible. If the two do have sex without any protection, the girl is forced to deal with the consequences, be it Plan B, abortion, or pregnancy. A male pill would dramatically alter some consciousnesses. [How?] Both sexes would be having discussions about preventing pregnancy as well as preventing diseases in sex-ed. The burden of responsibility would be equalized early on.

Mr. Munkittrick keeps insisting that a male pill would change the way men think about birth control, without ever really explaining the mechanism. Considering he has already conceded that men already have a form of birth control (the condom), how would providing another method make them think about it more than they already do? What magic properties would this pill have that would force men to focus on it so much? Why would they not just treat it as another condom? And if this new male birth control method required so much more planning and foresight than just a condom in the wallet, wouldn't most men just say "screw it" and grab a condom? People tend to take the path of least resistance. One of the criticisms I've heard of NFP is that it requires planning and foresight, as opposed to the pill, which you just take without thinking.

Another major perceived problem is, of course, is that taking the pill will be emasculating. I emphasize “perceived” because I’ve always found this argument baffling. I don’t know why anyone thinks being responsible is emasculating.

Well, it would be emasculating, almost by definition. The sexes are defined in relation to each other, particularly in the sex act. Males beget children, females nurture them. For a man to sterilize himself goes directly against his masculinity; it removes one of the primary distinctions of his sex, and moves him towards androgyny.

You know all those “man up” and “be a man” and “this looks like a job for a man” slogans? Well, they imply repsonsibility. A man takes care of things. Why can’t one of those things be his fertility? [Doesn't he mean "virility"? I was taught that women are fertile; men are virile.] I don’t want to have a kid right now, so I nullify my fertility with a pill. That sounds pretty manly to me. But the male pill isn’t just about me. I want the men around me to start taking responsibility.

Responsibility. He keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

"Responsibility" means taking account for one's actions, and not shirking one's duty. It does not mean doing whatever one wishes, trying to pretend the consequences don't exist, then being surprised or caught off guard when they happen anyways. Responsibility means preparing for the outcome of ones actions, and not engaging in an act if one is not prepared for the results. Responsibility means swearing fealty to a woman before bedding her, so that should she get pregnant, both she and the child will be cared for.

That's what I learned when I meditated on the pictures of Damien and Anthony in the womb. Responsibility, I knew, means never putting my desires before their needs.

The male pill is something that men are going to talk about. “Are you on it?” “Feel any different?” Suddenly birth control isn’t something you think about right before or right after sex, but daily, in the locker room and at the office and every day when you take the pill. There will be ads on TV (no more footballs through the tire swing, please) [Please], your doctor will ask if you want it, and it’ll come up in entertainment.

Yes, me and my boyfriends, when we go to the bathroom in groups, as we always do, will talk about the pill and share our feelings about it.

Sheesh.

When an accidental pregnancy happens, suddenly it won’t just be “did you use a condom?” but “why weren’t you on the pill?” It’s easy to forget a condom in the heat of the moment, it’s hard to explain why you weren’t on the pill.

I can easily see this argument being reversed. "It's easy to explain why you weren't on the pill, because of the hassle, or because you're not sexually active, but hard to explain why you didn't just use a condom. That's easy."

[O]ne of the major benefits that goes ignored is that a male pill would destigmatize the female use of the pill. Currently, birth control is a single sex issue. The pill is a women’s rights issue, a “special interest group” issue, an identity politics issue, a liberal issue. Male birth control is not, because male issues are not often labeled “special interest group” issues (which is another problem and discussion all together).
[...]
Now for the real kicker: once the male pill is readily available, it will normalize birth control. Even conservative parents will want their sons to have birth control pills, because conservative parents know “boys will be boys.” Male sexuality and virility is a point of pride for the Fox News father. Might as well make sure the boy doesn’t cause too much trouble while he’s sowing his wild oats, right?

The fact that Mr. Munkittrick even makes this argument betrays how fundamentally he misunderstands conservatives. I suppose he must be one of those who thinks that if men got pregnant, abortion would be sacred.

This is a straw man, plain and simple. Misrepresent your opponents views (create a "straw man") and knock them down easily, because they are only an absurd facsimile of the original, and can't stand on their own. Even better, make unwarranted and unprovable assumptions about the secret inner reasons for your opponent's position. This takes the form "you're only saying that because...." E.g., "You're only opposed to birth control because you're a man and it doesn't affect you."

The opposition to contraception has nothing to do with it being a "women's issue". If it was purely a matter of women's rights, then the opposition would, by and large, be men. And yet, the fiercest proponents of chastity I know are, surprise, women. And of course this is so. As pointed out before, they're the ones that get pregnant, so they have the most to lose in a society that indulges the contraceptive mentality.

And for those with a fragile male self image, just consider the increased male responsibility, normalization of birth control and reduced accidental pregnancies as fringe benefits.

Ah, I see. So those who oppose male birth control have a fragile self image. See "straw man argument" as discussed above, with a generous helping of argumentum ad hominem.

Finally, the male pill will put a real dent in abortion rates.... The combined impact of increased male responsibility, birth control normalization, and male pill usage would probably reduce accidental pregnancy by an order of magnitude.

I think one of the greatest lies of the post-sexual revolution apocalypse is that contraceptives reduce unwanted pregnancy. It makes sense, right? You're more likely to get pregnant if you have unprotected sex than if you have protected sex, right? But that begs the question that sex is inevitable, and ignores the influence of contraceptives on one's mentality.

Consider the city of New York. I read an article from a woman who had researched the city's approach to sex education. According to her research, New York has one of the most comprehensive "safe" sex education programs. Each year, they have spent more and more on sex education, even adjusting for inflation. Birth control is available like candy, in the city. The New York Metro had a promotional program, recently, where you could get condoms decorated with the Metro's colors. And yet, their abortion rate is 41% (60% among blacks), or nearly twice the national average.

A survey of Spanish women ages 15-49 from 1997 to 2007 found that over that ten-year period, contraceptive use increased from 49.1% to 79.9%. Over that same period, the abortion rate also increased, from 5.52 per 1000 women, to 11.49.

According to the Guttmacher institute, about half of the 3 million annual unintended pregnancies in the US happen to couples who use contraceptives in the month they become pregnant.

Citing a non-pregnancy-related statistic, the only country in Africa to post declining AIDS infection rates in recent years was Uganda, which also had the strongest abstinence program. The countries that received the most international money for contraception programs, such as South Africa, had among the highest.

And yet, the sexual revolutionaries keep crying for more contraceptives to cure the scourge of unwanted pregnancy. And yet it's contraception that gives us the concept of unwanted pregnancy. If sex is approached from the viewpoint that pregnancy is the natural consequence, and people behave responsibly, then the only pregnancies that occur will be wanted. Pregnancy only becomes unwanted when they think they can have sex without it.

I don’t want my only birth control options to be a condom, vasectomy, or trusting her.

"Trusting her." Because he doesn't want to have to trust the person he's sleeping with. See sexuality, dehumanization of.

But when he asks for a male birth control pill, he's asking women to trust him. This undermines his previous point about reducing the unwanted pregnancy rate. A male birth control pill will just provide men with another way of seducing women. "It's OK," Don Juan says, "I'm on the pill." Of course, Don Juan doesn't care if she gets pregnant, as he won't see her after tomorrow morning.

How many women will be left in tears, sitting in the bathroom, holding the pregnancy test? "He told me it was OK." No, even from a pro-revolutionary perspective, its best if she who bears the consequences maintains the safeguard.

And, as I promised, the first paragraph last:

The 50th Anniversary of the Pill was last year. Lots and lots of people mentioned how good, bad, unimportant, or essential the Pill has been. Our society changed the way it thought about sex, about reproduction, even about love and relationships.

Yes, it did. Now, sex is merely for pleasure. Reproduction is like getting struck by lightning—an accident that happens for no good reason, and love and relationships are disposable.

Women being able to take control of their reproductive abilities is one of the greatest advancements in the history of modern human biology.

The Murloc laughed at this line. The Murloc—who has never touched a Pill, IUD, patch, diaphragm, sponge, cervical cap, or injection, and has gotten pregnant exactly twice, exactly when she wanted—laughs at the insinuation that a pill is necessary for her to control her reproductive abilities.

That aside, really, Mr Munkittrick? Greatest advancement in the history of modern human biology? Greater than the polio vaccine? The rabies vaccine? Early detection and treatment for cancer? NICUs? Insulin injections? X-rays? MRIs? Anesthetics? Antibiotics? All these methods that have saved perhaps billions of lives, and one of the greatest he can come up with is something that allows him to get his jollies with no consequences?

What a tool.

Even if it isn’t universally beloved, the Pill is worth defending and improving. It makes the world a better place. Female hormonal birth control is an exemplary form of human enhancement.

We now present the closing arguments in the trial of the contraceptive mentality, and the effect it has had on the world. Speaking for the defense is Roosh, a professional Pick-Up Artist:

Sleeping with a ton of women has some mental consequences that aren’t ususally talked about. Here are four things that I have noticed:
Inability to view women as equal human beings. My default opinion of any girl I meet is “worthless dirty whore until proven otherwise.” When so many girls have opened their legs up for me so quickly and easily, it’s hard for me to respect them (and their opinions or ideas) like I would a family member or close friend. I think this is leaking out into other areas of life as someone pointed out to me that I seem to read books written only by men.
Decreasing ability to sympathize and empathize with the female condition. Because I learned early on that talking to a girl about her problems or issues is the fastest way out of her pants, it’s become habit for me to simply nod or say “That sucks” when a girl has a genuine problem, even one that I can help solve. I have no desire to help a girl out with her life, and I don’t care if she falls flat on her face.
Decreasing patience to work things out. I don’t give a girl more than one chance to act “right” because it’s so easy to find a new whore at the bar. My ability to stay in a long-term relationship, putting up with its natural ups and downs, is evaporating as I adopt the mentality of a dictator, with my bitch the subservient who must attend to my needs without making any mistakes. Over the years my temper has greatly shortened.
Decreasing view of sex as a beautiful act of love. Sex is a mechanical means for me to relieve the pressure building up in my sack and nothing more, one small step above jerking off with my tight-gripped hand. I do not feel any closer to a girl when I pump her, and most of the time I respect her less because my opinion of her as a worthless dirty whore who probably likes being choked was proven correct.
The only way I see to reverse these consequences is to step out of the game completely and go through a massive cold streak that makes me value a woman again, to see her as something important that I need. Since I don’t see this happening, the odds that I will meet a new girl who I genuinely care for and maybe even love will be about the same as me winning the grand prize of a scratch ticket lottery game. And I’m fine with that. For now. ("The Dark Side of Game")

Speaking for the prosecution is Pope Paul VI:

Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. (Humanae Vitae, 17)

The defense and prosecution are in agreement, it seems.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, because it bears repeating: a society in which everyone strives for the ideal of chastity, where women are held as sacred, sex is not sought except within marriage, and even then it is always open to life, is a society where families stay together, children have two loving parents, divorce and domestic violence are rare, unwanted pregnancy is unheard of, and abortion and STIs are unknown. The society where chastity is unheard of is... well, we all know that society. We live in it.

Unwanted pregnancy, AIDS, sexual abuse, divorce and broken families, fatherless children, and abortion are the prices of turning away from chastity. Are they really worth a few fleeting moments of pleasure?

Watch This to be Lulled to Sleep by the Dulcet Sounds of my Voice

2011-04-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

...as I talk about one of the most boring subjects known to man.

For those of you with persistent insomnia, a macabre fascination with what I've been doing at work over the last few years, or my adoring fan who just have to know what I'm up to (hi mom!), read on.

Firstly, point your web browsing thingamabobber to (I'll give this in the phonetic): India Sierra Oscar Golf Romeo Alpha Papa Hotel (dash) Sierra Oscar Foxtrot Tango Whiskey Alpha Romeo Echo (dot com). If you entered it correctly, you will be greeted with a smattering of words—or as I like to call it, a smwordening. You may close the smwordening (or if you're really interested, you can click to learn more).

No, you will not understand what half these terms mean.

Once you're into the website proper, click the "Downloads" link on the right side of the menu that runs across the top of the page. To continue, you will need to fill out a download form with your name, company, address, and the time that you leave for work. If you don't want to fill out this form with your own personal information, just do what I do:

Ask for Jenny.

Or you can just put that you're Joe's mom and you want to see what he's been hard at work on.

Where it asks for your email address, be sure to use the email address of some poor sap who you don't know, but who has a convenient-to-type address. Or just something random and funny. I recommend using joecool(at)gmail(dot)com.

Once inside the download area, select the first "Download" button.

Then wait. And wait. (Our FTP server is kinda slow.)

After the hamsters have personally delivered the requisite bits to your ISP, you can run the installer. Psych! No, you can't. You need the password to install! Alas and alack, that is not something I can post here, even in the phonetic. To get the password for the demo installer, you will need to contact me via email. I can be reached at something_random_and_funny@gmail.com, or some.poor.sap@yahoo.com.

Once I've given you the password—which isn't "password", "swordfish", or "xyzzy"—you can install Reliability Workbench. It requires the .NET framework 4.0, which will be installed if you don't already have it. When it's done installing, run the program. The "demonstration mode" dialog will appear. Click "Continue in demonstration mode".

OK, now you're ready to see what I've been doing for the last few centimeters of hairline. If you've followed me up to this point, you should see something that looks like this:

Rollover to see the UI terminology.

Choose "Reliability Growth" from the module selector.

The Reliability Growth module is my baby. Even before Damien was born, I was hard at work nurturing it and developing it into something worthwhile. My boss basically said. "We need a Reliability Growth module. Here's a document that explains what that is. Here's the framework for the program. Go." I did all the coding, UI design, testing, and documentation.

But what is Reliability Growth, you ask? Excellent question! Reliability Growth is an analysis method used to determine if the reliability of a system is increasing, decreasing, or staying about the same over time. It can be used to examine the effectiveness of design modifications or changes in a maintenance policy. For instance, by recommending oil changes every 3000 miles vs. every 5000 miles, does the engine reliability of a fleet of vehicles increase? By using a different weight of oil, is their an appreciable impact on performance?

There are three basic Reliability Growth methods that our software uses: Power Law, Power Law for grouped failures, and the Crow Discrete method.

The first method, the Power Law model, is suitable for continuously-operating systems with immediately-revealed failures. Data consists of the time to each failure. The software will analyze the times to failure to look for an increasing or decreasing trend. It also provides a statistical test for growth, as well as a goodness-of-fit test that verifies the predicted growth curve matches the data.

To begin, select the Add, Growth Set menu option, or corresponding toolbar button. The Growth Set Properties dialog will appear. Choose the "Items" tab and enter the following data:

Click OK when done.

Let's pretend that we tracked the failures of our disgronificator over time. We want to know if our new maintenance policy is having a statistically significant impact on its reliability. We recorded the time at which each failure occurred, and so we enter them into the Growth module.

If it is not already shown, select "Plot" from the Right Window Mode selector. The program will show a plot of the cumulative number of failures vs. time.

If it is not already selected, choose the "Power Law" option from the Method selection drop down list on the toolbar, and select the Analysis, Calculate Method Parameters Automatically menu option or corresponding toolbar button (big red Eta on the toolbar).

The program will automatically calculate values λ and β such that:

E[N(T)] = λT^β

Where E[N(T)] is the expected number of failures to have elapsed by time T. These parameters describe the best-fit growth curve, and are displayed to the right of the plot. Also, the curve described by λ and β is displayed on the plot.

λ is the scale parameter. Ignore it. β is the one we want. This is the shape parameters. β > 1 indicates negative reliability growth (or the reliability is getting worse), β = 1 means zero growth (neither improving nor worsening reliability), β < 1 indicates positive growth.

Next is the U statistic. I won't go into details on how it is calculated, but you can look in the Help file if you're interested. Under the hypothesis that there is zero growth, U will be a standard normally-distributed random variable. By comparing U to the critical values of the standard normal distribution, the Growth module can determine if there is evidence of positive or negative growth. A two-sided test at the α significance level has critical values u_1–α/2 and –u_1–α/2. If U falls between these two values, we can say that U is a standard normal random variable at the α significance level, and that there is no evidence of reliability growth. If U < –u_1-α/2 or U > u_1-α/2 then there is evidence at the α significance level for positive or negative reliability growth, respectively.

Don't pretend you understood any of that, unless your screen name starts with "M" and ends in "r. Pickles".

You can change the significance level in the Growth Set Properties dialog. Double-click "GS1" in the project tree on the left; select "GS1" and choose the Edit, Properties menu option or corresponding toolbar button; or select "GS1", right-click it, and choose "Edit Properties" from the context menu. Either way. I'm not picky.

You can choose the significance level on the Analysis Options tab.

The program will show the calculated U statistic, the standard normal critical value for the chosen significance level, and a line indicating whether there is positive, negative, or no growth.

The program will also perform a goodness-of-fit test to determine if the power law model adequately fits the supplied data. This is done by calculating a Cramér-von Mises statistic and comparing it to the Cramér-von Mises critical value for the 10% significance level. If the statistic is less than the critical value, then the test is passed and the curve fits the data.

I don't pretend to understand how that one works.

Lastly, the program will also calculate the 90% upper and lower confidence bounds for β, as in "I'm 90% confident that I don't understand a lick of this, more or less."

If you want to see the reliability trend, you can also view graphs of the failure intensity and the MTTF (mean time to failure) over time. Select one of those plot types from the Plot Type selector above the graph.

Plot Type selector

(You might wanna go back to the Cumulative Number of Failures plot when done.)

Next up is the Power Law model for grouped failures, also known as case two of the power law. Like the regular Power Law model, this is used for continuously-operating systems, but differs in that the failure times are not known exactly. Instead, data consists of discrete time intervals, and at the end of each interval is a known number of failures.

Add a new Growth Set (Add, Growth Set menu item, if you've forgotten), and enter the following data:

Click OK when done. Pretend this data represents the hyper-electronic transducent geoplasmic nodal collectimizer component of our disgronificators. If that component fails, we don't know about it until we open up the disgronificator and check. Every 200 hours we check all our disgronificators and see how many have failed. We make some repairs and continue. We want to know if the changes to our repair process are improving reliability, so we enter the number of failures that each inspection detects, and let the software figure it out for us.

Select the "Power Law, Grouped Failures" option from the Method selector drop down list. As before, the program will calculate λ and β, test for growth and goodness of fit, and give upper and lower confidence bounds. However, here the test for growth and goodness of fit are both based on the chi-squared distribution, which in itself was a bit of a challenge. It was tricky finding an algorithm that would calculate chi-squared critical values for an arbitrary number of degrees of freedom. In the end, I found an old open-source math library for C that I adapted. Nothin' like debugging 20-year-old uncommented code written by Some Guy on the Internet.

The last method is an adaptation of the power law for discrete systems, known as the Crow Discrete model, for its developer, Dr. Larry H. Crow. Now, let me tell you something about this method. I curse the day Dr. Crow was born. The grief he and his discrete power law method has caused me is greater than that of Andromache felt for her beloved Hector. Allow me to explain.

Like the Power Law model, the Crow Discrete method finds λ and β such that E[N(T)] = λT^β. However, this method is suitable for one-shot systems, such as a rocket launch, which are either successful or failures. Testing takes place over successive stages. Each stage consists of several trials, each of which is either successful or not. After each stage, a design change is made that will impact reliability. We want to see if there's an increasing trend in reliability.

No problem! says Dr. Crow. That's easy! The answer will be the values of λ and β that satisfy these equations:

Yeah, have fun with that.

Where k is the number of stages,
t is the cumulative number of trials through stage i,
n_i is the number of trials in stage i, and
m_i is the number of failures in stage i.

"AAARRRGGGH!" says I. Of course, nowhere did Dr. Crow give any advice on how to solve these equations.

To put this problem graphically, if you plot the sum of the absolute values of the two equations for a range of λ and β, and invert the graph, you get this:

λ = 0.02 to 2.0, β = 0.01 to 1.0

Your mission is to algorithmically find the highest peak of that graph. Oh, but it's not even so simple as try a range of λ and β, find the highest peak and iterate towards the solution from there. Oh, no no no. Those peaks have fractal-like complexity. It's most likely you'll just hit the side of a mountain and discount it as having too low a value.

λ = 0.565 to 0.664, β = 0.73 to 0.83

My first attempt at solving this involved sitting in the corner of the room and crying. That didn't work. My second attempt involved sacrificing a goat to Baal. Didn't work either.

After Googling around, I stumbled upon a paper that suggested a genetic algorithm approach. I followed that, implemented it, and hey! it worked! Kind of. Sort of. Well, so long as I didn't blow on it too hard, it sometimes gave me the correct answer for one particular sample data set. But most of the rest of the time it was hilariously bad. And slow.

But it was cool! It taught me evolutionary programming and genetic algorithms and awesome buzzwords. I was so sad when I had to remove it from my code. I left a haiku in the comments:

A work of genius,
This code was simply awesome,
But superseded.

Anyways, I stumbled along with that method for a while, right up until final beta testing when I realized I would be ashamed if we charged customers for that module. So, with the clock running down until final release, I turned back to the internets.

After some searching, I found an obscure DOD document site that sold a paper that, while first researching the problem, I had only heard of in songs and stories. The paper is called "Maximum Likelihood Estimates for the Discrete Application of the AMSAA (Army Material Systems Analysis Activity) Growth Model", by William P. Clay, written in 1987. (AMSAA is the organization Dr. Crow was working for when he invented the Crow Discrete reliability growth model.) I bless the day Mr. Clay was born.

You see, William Clay not only described an algorithm to solve the Crow model (I didn't completely understand it; my eyes glazed over when he started talking about iteratively solving the double-partial derivatives to find the maximum likelihood estimators), but he provided the code for a computer program written in FORTRAN 77! Let me tell you, never have I been so happy to have taken a semester of FORTRAN in college. "Never use it," my left kidney.

So anyways, after converting a FORTRAN 77 program to C#, for which I think I insulted my compiler for not being object-oriented enough, I got it to run and solve the problem.

So you can appreciate all my hard work, add a new Growth Set with this data:

So suppose we were testing nuclear bombs by dropping them on Moscow. In the first 14 attempts, 5 failed to explode. We made a design change and then tried again. In the next 19 attempts (trials 15-33), 3 failed to explode. After another change, we made 15 more trials (34-48) and had 4 failures. After the last change, we had 20 trials (49-68) and 4 failures.

Click OK, and choose "Crow Discrete" from the Growth method selector.

We now see that we are more reliably nuking Russia.

Don't say I never do anything for you.

Problem (Partially) Figured Out

2011-04-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

A couple wrong emails I received recently:

<<<

From: Hermann Strohlos <<snip>@online.de>
To: me
Date: Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 12:06 PM
Subject: XDA Facebook version Beta 4.5.2 Alpha Data Refresh

Hey,

try to use XDA Facebook in the above mentioned version on HTC HD2, windows mobile 6.5, Kaspersky for windows mobile installed. when opening the functions “profile”, “friends” with their specific sub-features, the application always closes with the added error log. Don’t know why and what to do???

Regards from Germany!

Hermann

>>>

And,

<<<

From: Michelle Espinoza <<snip>@gmail.com>
To: me
Date: Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 11:23 AM
Subject: HTC HD2

Hello Joe,
How can I install the XDA Facebook 4.5 to my htc hd2? The Facebook app that is already on the phone is not that great and I would like to check in on FB and of course I can't on the htc hd2. Your help would be very much appreciated.
Thank you,
Michelle Espinoza

>>>

After a few weeks of periodically receiving emails similar to this, I began to wonder what was up. What's XDA? Did I accidentally code and distribute a mobile Facebook app in my sleep? Is a mobile developer really so clueless as to give the wrong email address on his web page? I mean, is "support(at)XDAFacebookApp" really that close to "joecool(at)gmail?"

I decided to investigate.

Googling "XDA Facebook" came up with this page: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=630992.

Ah, so XDA, I learn, is a language for Windows Mobile-based phones. Not only that, but one of the developers goes by the handle "joe_coolish"! Coincidence? I think not!

I scour the page, but can't find any place where he's given the wrong email. I check his forum profile, but can't see it without logging into the forum first, and I don't have a forum account. I could create one, but that seems like a lot of work just to see if he's given the wrong email address on his profile. I suppose I could try and log in as him and hit the "I forgot my password" to see if it gets emailed to me.

(True fact: I routinely get emailed other people's password recovery info, because they listed my Gmail address when creating an account on another page. Periodically, I'll receive (unprompted) emails from Google's account recovery that lists all the Gmail accounts associated with my own. There are currently seventeen, only one of which is my alternate account. If you ever need a fake email address, hit me up.)

Going back to the XDA developers' forum, I follow the link to the Google code project site: http://code.google.com/p/xda-winmo-facebook/.

Aha! Now we're on to something! Take a look at the project information:

Hmmm....

Of course, that isn't the project lead's actual email address. Google, in their infinite wisdom, will abbreviate the email address to hide the real address from bots that scour the net looking for email addresses. Clicking his name takes you to his Google projects profile, where, after answering a CAPTCHA question to prove that you're human (yes, I felt sad), you can see his real Gmail address: joe.coolish.

Of course, we all know how Gmail, in its infinite wisdom, treats dots in email addresses, right? Basically, it ignores them. Which means that, in an attempt to hide the XDA Facebook app's lead developer's email address from the prying scripts of bots, they give my address instead. W2G, Google. Of course, they've not only fooled the bots, but also stupid humans who don't know how to fill out CAPTCHA, but instead will just copy and paste the first email address they see.

So there we go, the cause of some of my many Wrong Emails has been discovered. Now, if only there were a solution....

Oh, and Michael Vondra, your order from naked.com has been accepted. You can log in with your username "mogadz" and password "123456". And you might want to change your password. It's only one digit more secure than the code on my luggage.

F.U. News Cage Match: Manly Men

2011-04-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

The contenders:

The Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World.

The Old Spice Man Your Man could Smell Like.

Fight!

Round 1: Facial Hair.

The Old Spice Man has a mustache underneath his mustache.

The Most Interesting Man's organ donation card lists his beard.
AND
His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body.

Point goes to:
The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Round 2: Animals.

Did you know the Old Spice Man can ride a horse backwards?

Sharks have a week dedicated to The Most Interesting Man.
AND
Every time he goes for a swim, dolphins appear.

Point goes to:
The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Round 3: Cars.

The Most Interesting Man owns 3 sports cars and rents 5.

The Old Spice Man has won 1 or 12 medals for exotic car-throwing competitions.

Point goes to:
The Man Your Man could Smell Like.

Round 4: Scent.

The Old Spice Man sells cologne.

The Most Interesting Man's blood smells like cologne.

Point goes to:
The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Round 5: Internet Presence.

The Old Spice Man has a dedicated YouTube page which has all his commercials, and his video responses to fans' tweets. His official videos alone have over 204 million views on YouTube.

The Most Interesting Man's YouTube page has only a few of his commercials, with barely over half a million views. To find his commercials, you have to scour the internets.

Point goes to:
The Man Your Man could Smell Like.

Round 6: Google Fight.
Best two out of three

Fight 1: "Man your man could smell like" vs. "Most interesting man in the world"
28 million to 16 million, Most Interesting Man

Fight 2: "Having Isaiah Mustafa as my wingman will get me laid" vs. "Having Jonathan Goldsmith as my wingman will get me laid"
6,460 to 405, Old Spice Man

Fight 3: "9 out of 10 ladies prefer Old Spice" vs. "9 out of 10 ladies prefer Dos Equis"
1.8 million to 1.5 million, Old Spice Man

Point goes to:
The Man Your Man could Smell Like

Round 7: Coin toss

For this toss, a fair $50 American Buffalo 24-Karat gold coin from Random.org was used.

Old Spice Man is Indian heads, Most Interesting Man is buffalo (tails).

T-H-H-H-T-H-T

Point goes to:
The Most Interesting Man in the World.

That's right. He wins coin tosses even when he calls the wrong side.

The means the victor is....

The Most Interesting Man in the World!

Stay thirsty, my friends.

In the end, the Old Spice Man Your Man could Smell Like put up a good fight but really, how can you compete with a man who lives vicariously through himself?

Learn more about the Most Interesting Man in the World here.

Blogging in the Olden Days

2011-04-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

"What's that?" The Murloc asked me.

"Ink, on paper," I reply, holding up the article my mother gave to me. "The ink forms shapes which are used to represent sounds. Sounds can be combined into words which express ideas."

She rolls her eyes. "I mean, what's it from?"

"First Things."

"I've never heard of it."

"You've never heard of First Things?"

"No. Is it like a blog?"

"I suppose, yes it is, although it pre-dates the word. You see, before the internet, we called blogs magazines. Each month, you had to have blogs hand-delivered to you. A nice man would come to your house with the new issue of your favorite blog, printed on paper. And if you wanted to leave a comment, you had to give your comment to the nice man, and it could take up to a couple months for it to appear on the blog."

"I don't know why I married you," she says, shaking her head.

"Neither do I. As soon as I found one that didn't run away from me, I slapped a ring on her finger before she came to her senses."

Great Minds?

2011-04-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

From Google: motion-controlled Gmail.

From Blizzard: motion-controlled StarCraft.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

April Fools

2011-04-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

Celebrate Human Achievement Hour!

2011-03-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Everyone turn on your lights! It's human achievement hour! Celebrate all the wonderful advancements cheap electricity has enabled us to make. From heating our homes, to providing food for our families, to treating the sick with advanced medicine, to enabling more women to work outside the home, there's no doubt that cheap electricity has improves our everyday lives in myriad ways that we take for granted.

Watt's Up with That? – Earth Hour: A Dissent.

I Can Has?

2011-03-22T18:29:00.001-07:00

Our Little Boy, The Charmer

2011-03-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

Hi!

So Damien's favorite word is "hi!" He says it to everyone and everything. Today, at Mass, he was standing in the back, next to the door, and greeting everyone who came in with a "hi!" and a wave.

He was also giving hugs to a lady in the pew behind us. Later, we might need to explain strangers and personal space to him, but right now, he's just too cute.

Point/Counterpoint: Japan's Nuclear Plants

2011-03-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

Point: There is no cause for alarm

by Jethro van Goterhoffeschen, Doctor of Nuclear Science and Other Smart-Sounding Stuff

While the news of a release of radioactive material may sound alarming, I assure you there is no reason for concern. It is true that after the earthquake in Japan, a small amount of radioactive material was released into the air. This is mostly only a problem for those in the immediate vicinity, who are rightly being treated for potential exposure.

The prevailing winds in the jet stream are indeed blowing eastward, towards the west coast of the United States, but the cloud of radioactive particles has not reached that high altitude. Instead, it seems to be caught in the low pressure zone formed over the north pacific.

For this reason, it is highly unlikely that any radioactivity will reach the west coast. And even if it did, the radiation dosage you get from eating one banana would be greater than that from the Japanese nuclear reactors. 6000 miles is simply too great a distance for the radiation to maintain any significant concentration.

While the reactor meltdown is a concern, this incident is nowhere near as bad as the Chernobyl incident, which poisoned the surrounding area with nuclear fallout and caused the deaths of at least 50 people. We should not allow emotion and fear to lead us into rash behavior and abandon our successful nuclear program.

Counterpoint: Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die!

by Hugh Jass, Professional panic-stirrer and New York Times correspondent

Did you hear that? There's a giant cloud of nuclear waste heading towards the United States! It was caused by a catastrophic nuclear explosion--think mushroom cloud--which is due to the total meltdown of several nuclear reactors in Japan.

The radioactivity is being carried by winds to the west coast of the US, which will sometime today be completely enveloped in the noxious cloud! Everyone run for the hills! Shortly after, the cloud will creep over the rest of the states, and people in New York will be dropping dead in the streets by next week!

Quick, everyone buy up all the Potassium Iodide tablets you can! Only that can save you from the fallout which will likely cause a nuclear winter!

This is the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl! Everyone abandon nuclear power--wait, that isn't enough. We should abandon electricity altogether, since it was the melting of the polar ice caps caused by global warming that caused the tectonic shift that started the earthquake to begin with! This is all the fault of Big Oil! Come get your pitchforks, torches,and Potassium Iodide!

And run for the hills!

This May Be the First Time I've Ever Agreed with a Clinton

2011-03-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

"Obviously, she’s not happy with dealing with a president who can’t decide if today is Tuesday or Wednesday"

Full article

Of course, Obama can't decide if it's Tuesday or Wednesday on a Sunday.

And for a limited time only, two links for the price of one!

Idiot of the Day/Week/Month

On Wednesday, church founder Robert H. Schuller said he strongly disapproved of the covenant [which states that Crystal Cathedral ministries preaches chastity] because it goes against what he has built his church upon.

"I have a reputation worldwide of being tolerant of all people and their views," he told the Orange County Register. "I'm too well-educated to criticize a certain religion or group of people for what they believe in [further evidence for Dennis Prager's maxim that the more time you spend in college, the dumber you get]. It's called freedom."

Full article

(So what, exactly did he build his church upon? A wise man builds his church on the Rock.)

Reminds me a of a certain adjunct community college professor.

I will not tolerate intolerance!

Goodnight, Sleep Tight, Don't Let Order 66 bite

2011-03-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

"What were you doing last night?" The Murloc asks me.

"Hm?"

"When I came into the room to give you a goodnight kiss?"

I give her a dear-in-the-headlights look.

"You were, like, flailing. I was just giving you a goodnight kiss."

"Oh! That. I have a good reason."

She cocks an eyebrow.

"I thought you were a clone trooper."

In my defense, she did wake me up, and all I could see was a strange dark shape looming above me. I was a little disturbed that a clone trooper would try to give me a goodnight kiss, but I also felt rather safe and reassured, knowing no battle droids would harm me while I slept.

I guess that's what happens when you read Star Wars novels before bed.

F.U. News Mailbag: Pi Day Edition

2011-03-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

So last December, I received this email, which I'm sure is from a scammer or spammer or some other nefarious person:

***Begin Transmission***

From: Pierce [If that is his real name] <*snip*>
To: JoeCool (at) gmail (dot) com
Date: Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 4:21 AM
Subject: I love your blog! [This is how I know he's up to no good; no one who is not related to me biologically or through marriage, a former college roommate of mine, or my confirmation sponsor, loves my blog]

Hi Joseph Belland, [Not only is he evil an untrustworthy, but he's also a mind-reader! How else could he know my full name? Maybe he's a Sith. Oh, wouldn't that be cool to have an evil Sith who's stalking me via my blog?]

I really enjoyed reading your blog. [More lies!] In particular, I liked your link to the Pi Song (2007) and the 10,000 Pi digits (2006) [Okay, those were kinda cool]; you offer up some great suggestions on how to celebrate Pi Day as well! [Well, thank you, evil Sith lord!]

I just finished this cool infographic on Visualizing Pi and thought you might be interested. You can check it out here: http://www.onlineschooling.net/visualizing-pi.

I thought your readers might enjoy the graphic and wanted to see if you would consider posting a link to it from your blog [I'll consider it, but no promises]. Let me know what you think of it.

Thanks! Pierce

Pierce Brown Online Schooling.net *snip*@sreducationgroup.org

***End Transmission***

What do I think of it, eh, Pierce? I think I don't have to worry about content for Pi day this year!

That and the graph is pretty cool. You should check it out, but for the fact that Pierce is probably an evil scammer Sith lord, and visiting his site will download Dark Side midichlorians to your computer that will fry your CPU, erase your hard drive, and steal your personal information, in that order. Such is the power of Dark Side midichlorians. That and they have the ability to make thousands of fan boys cry out in terror.

What I found most interesting was the part about how many significant digits are required to compute various accuracies of circles. Of note: 39 digits can compute the circumference of any circle within the observable universe to the width of a hydrogen atom. Looking up the width of a hydrogen atom in Planck lengths (3.1x10²⁴) on Wolfram ~~Hart~~ Alpha, tells us that 63 digits of pi would be the theoretical limit to accuracy. Meaning any more digits of pi past 63 could not, in any physical way, give you a more accurate measurement. And yet pi is infinite. Trippy, huh?

Source: Online Schooling

Update on the Little One

2011-03-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

So Damien's learned a new word... "Yoda". We start them young.

You ask him "Where's Yoda?" and he runs and gets his little Yoda toy.

* * *

He's also putting his analytical engineering mind to work, trying to unlock the secrets of the remote. After his Mickey Mouse cartoon ends, he runs to the table, pulls out a chair, climbs on it, reaches for the cable box remote in the center of the table, points it at the TV and starts mashing buttons. He knows it's used to start Mickey Mouse, it's just a matter of figuring out how.

Top baby scientists are hard at work on these pressing concerns.

* * *

He's also learning inflections. One way to decipher his babblings is by listening for the inflection. "Duh-duh-duh?" with an upwards inflection means "May I have it?" "Duh duh!" with a downwards inflection means "thank you!" and is usually said when he's giving something or after he's given something.

He also counts, in this fashion. We started playing a game with him, where we'd count to three then drop him on the couch. Now he does it himself. He stands on the tables behind the couch (see, climbing), and counts "duh? duh? DUH!" and throws himself onto the cushions. Sometimes he hilariously rolls feet over head onto the floor. Hilarious for me, at least. He doesn't think it's funny.

* * *

Another one of his favorite tricks is pretending to drink from a cup. A few weeks ago, we were at a friend's house. My friend took a big drink from her water bottle, then set it down with a gasp of refreshment. Damien decided to imitate. With the bottle cap on, he tilted the bottle way back, set it down and said "Ahh!" He now does this all the time, particularly when the Murloc or I am drinking. We'll give him one of his sippy cups to pretend to drink out of. He tosses it back, slams it down and gasps "Ahh!"

But he still won't actually drink from anything other than a bottle.

* * *
He's also learned the throw temper tantrums. Hilarious temper tantrums. He throws himself on the floor, screams, and bangs his head on the floor. Then he really screams, because it hurts to bang your head on the floor. For all his smarts, he still doesn't have much common sense.

On Desserts, and the Lack Thereof

2011-03-11T18:00:00.000-08:00

I think for me, the hardest part of Lent--harder than not posting stupid trivialities to Facebook, or pwning n00bs in Medal of Duty: Modern Battlefield Assault--is the constant feeling of hunger. Not from fasting, or lack of food, or lack of meat. Simply from the lack of sweets. My body seems to have some mechanism, in which I don't actually feel satisfied until I've had dessert. It doesn't have to be much. But the sugar somehow tells my brain, "ok, you're done eating now." Without that trigger, I never feel satisfied, no matter how full I get.

The mechanism for this was always clear to me, as a child, and yet my mother, for some reason, needed to be schooled in the basic principles. I clearly remember one dinnertime meal when I informed her that-after having finished the meat or pasta or whatever we were having, and leaving the vegetables untouched--I was completely stuffed, and couldn't possibly eat another bite. Of course, it was entirely coincidental that I happened to fill up right before getting to my veggies.

Shortly afterwards, the ice cream came out for those good boy and girl who had cleaned their plates. I informed my mother of me desire for ice cream, too. "But how can you have any ice cream when you're so completely stuffed full?"

She thought she had me, but that was really only a sign of her ignorance. I, of course, being the good, charitable little boy that I was, corrected her error, and informed her about the basic anatomical lesson that all little boys who wanted dessert but not vegetables knew. "My dinner pipe is full, but my dessert pipe is still empty." I mean, duh. How could she not know about the different pipes where food was stored? How could she not know that dessert went into a different bodily compartment than dinner?

Sheesh.

So for Lent...

2011-03-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

Giving up the usuals:

Sweets
Hot Chocolate
Soda
Alcohol
Vidjamagames (~~including~~ especially Bejeweled for iPhone)
The Internet

Extra practices:

Reading; set aside time for both spiritual reading and fun reading each day
Writing; set aside time for writing (blogging or fiction) whenever possible
Floss every day
Daily rosary

Aside from that, I'm not sure what else to do. Ideally, Lent ought to be used to deepen the practice of one's faith. Last year, I got into the habit of daily mass (which, amazingly, I've kept up for a whole year). I'm not sure how to build on that. I suppose I could get up a half-hour earlier and join the Norbertines for morning prayer, but I'm reluctant to do that because I'd either have to go to bed earlier, which would cut into wifey time (as it is, we only have about an hour together after Damien goes to bed), or I'd be even more tired at work. Maybe I'll save morning prayer for Fridays only.

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, mainly because I do that during Lent. I also try to use this time to focus on one aspect of life where I need personal improvement. In past years, I've focused on driving and given up changing lanes and speeding. There was also that one year where I resolved to be more patient and trusting of God's providence, and we all know how that ended, even if I still don't manage to live by the lessons I learned. What? I've never told that story on this blog? Well, remind me to tell it sometime.

This year, I'd like to focus on coming out of my shell, being more involved and helpful to others, and not just be such a flaming huge introvert. How bad my introverted tendencies are was driven home last week when, as I was leaving the parking lot after morning mass, I noticed that another car had a flat tire. I was about five blocks away before I realized that the proper response would have been to, y'know, wait for the person to tell him his tire was flat (it was the passenger-side, rear, so it would be unlikely he'd know) and offer to help change it, or at the very least leave a note so he wouldn't drive away. When I got to work, all I could imagine was hearing an announcement the next day about some poor parishioner who died in a fiery auto crash when his tire shredded on the highway at 80 mph, and oh, if only he could have known his tire was flat! But, of course, for me, it's a toss up between the guilt of walking away from someone in need and, y'know, talking to someone I don't know. Actually, it's not a toss up. I would much prefer just to walk away. Which, perhaps, is a problem that ought to be worked on.

Unfortunately, "be less shy" doesn't exactly meet Fr. Philip's criteria of a good resolution, that it must be specific, practical, and renewable. Choosing a specific goal would seem to be in order. I think, though, that God, in his infinite patience and providence, already has a goal in mind. I'm getting faint hints that maybe I ought to involve myself more in parish life.

Being friends with the priests of the parish is always a good idea. I'm reminded of my parents and Fr. McHugh, who, if he saw the trademark two-tone blue van, would sometimes wait around for Mass to let out so he could invite us up to his apartment for tea. That kind of fraternity with priests is a wonderful thing for children, especially boys, to grow up with, and I'd love for Damien and Anthony to be familiar with the priests of their parish.

(While we're on the topic, I've also always been envious of my mother's ability to start a conversation with anyone, anywhere, at any time. That is, alas, an ability I do not have. My attempts at engaging strangers usually end up with stupid chit chat and awkward pauses.)

But anyways, faint hints. At the parish ministry fair several months ago, one of the ushers asked if I would be interested in becoming an usher. I said I'd think about it, which was true, but I never acted upon it because that would involve two fears: talking to strangers and telephones. The usher, and Irishman named Dennis, gave the selling points for usherhood: most were Knights of Columbus, and they were all drinking buddies. Last Sunday, the Knights had a booth set up outside church and one of them approached me specifically and asked if I had thought about joining them (why yes, I have, as a matter of fact). He gave me the details of an informational meeting they'd be having soon. At the same mass, Father Philip announced, for the third consecutive week, that the Latin schola would be putting on a concert and they were looking for more singers. After mass, Mrs. Bainbridge, who also sings in the Schola, stopped me to chat, and of course at one point we began talking about the Schola (how did we sound this week?) and mentioned their desperate need of male voices. As if that wasn't enough, after Ash Wednesday mass, instead of rushing back to my car, I stopped to check out the booth of Crusade Catholic Stores, which was selling books. They had two I wanted, Light of the World, and Unplanned. While waiting to buy them, I ended up chatting with the lady next to me, who, as it turns out, sings in the Schola. And to top it off, the Schola Mistress was right next to my car, and I ended up chatting with her and may or may not have accidentally volunteered to help with their concert. (She actually wanted me in Schola at Sunday mass, but I explained I had a little one, with one on the way, that need supervision.)

So I don't know what any of this means, or where it will lead. I don't know if I'll be an usher, or a Knight, or sing in Schola. I just think that, maybe, I should follow this path that's been laid out before me, hold out my hand for Our Lady to lead me, and see where I end up. That's the great lesson I learned during Lent in Austria and Rome.

But that's another story. Remind me to tell it sometime.

Quaestiones

2011-03-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

Question 1: Whether Blogging Is Permissible when One has Given Up the Internet for Lent.

Objection 1. It would seem otherwise, since the blog itself, and the means of posting to it, reside on and require access to the Internet, respectively.

Objection 2. Furthermore, merely writing the blog posts offline in a word processor, then uploading them on Sunday would also violate this resolution, since the essential nature of the promise--to avoid the frivolous use of time on the Internet during Lent--is still broken by spending time on a pursuit that has as its natural end a form of communication that requires the Internet.

On the contrary, blogging is not essentially different from writing for printed media, which is a worthwhile and non-trivial pursuit, and not covered by any promise to give up the Internet for Lent.

I answer that, the vow to give up the Internet during Lent is a shorthand method of stating "giving up frivolous pursuits using the Internet," which the Philosopher surely would have agreed is one of the primary usages of the Internet. However, especially for one who has vowed to spend more time writing during Lent, blogging is not necessarily a frivolous pursuit, so long as care is taken to avoid the Five Lowest Forms. In fact, for one who has promised to spend more time writing, a blog is no different than any other media for the promulgation of the written word.

This simplistic understanding of the prohibition of the use of the Internet during Lent, in fact, stands as an obstacle to one who must write more, especially if his primary word processor is an online application. Clearly, one can promise to write more and also simultaneously not waste time on the Internet.

This is particularly evident for one whose job requires use of the Internet and email. Since his Lentent penance cannot supersede his duty to use the just fruits of the Internet to do his job, it can clearly be seen that giving up the Internet for Lent does not include all uses of the Internet, but merely those that are contrary to productivity.

Reply to Objection 1. While blogging does indeed use the Internet in myriad ways, both as a means of creating the content (form) of the blog post, and of posting the content for others to read (matter), this usage of the Internet can promote a self-betterment and more effective use of time, which is not what is intended to be avoided when one gives up the Internet for Lent.

Reply to Objection 2. That blogging is not essentially different from other forms of the written word seems to lend credence to the idea that blogging is allowed to one who has given up the Internet for Lent. If an act is no different from another act, any prohibitions against the one ought apply to the other, and should the first be acceptable, so ought the second.

Question 2: Whether Posting on Facebook, or Linking to Blog Posts on Facebook Is Prohibited to One Who has Given Up the Internet for Lent.

Objection 1. It would seem otherwise, since if one is permitted to upload the written word to a blog, one ought further be permitted to promote that written word in other venues.

Objection 2. Furthermore, what is a Facebook status update, if not a short blog post?

On the contrary, Facebook is a tool for socializing. To post a status update or link a blog post without a continued presence does a sort of violence to one's friends who reasonably expect to converse, but the continued presence constitutes a trivial usage of the Internet, which is not allowed by the vow.

I answer that, Facebook is, by its very nature, a frivolous use of the Internet. Surely, it is written, "can anything good come from [Facebook]?" The limitation of status updates to a mere 420 characters means that a status update cannot contain any of the intellectual depth of a blog post. These status updates cannot ever be considered anything but triviality.

Additionally, while simply posting a link to a blog post may not, in and of itself, violate the prohibition against the foolish use of one's time, the Theologian surely would have written that Facebook represents such a great time suck that one should not even log in, even for such a noble purpose as publicly promoting the written word, for the temptation for he who has given up the Internet for Lent is simply too great to justify the noble intent.

Reply to Objection 1. Promotion of the written word ought always be guided, as should every aspect of life, by the virtue of temperance. Because one is allowed to further the cause of the written word does not mean one should use every conceivable method of doing such. This is particularly true for those methods that tend towards triflingness.

Reply to Objection 2. While the Five Lowest Forms may tend towards the puerile nature of a Facebook status update, the latter, by its nature, must be different from a thoughtful and intelligent blog post. Those things which are said in the High Forms of blogging cannot be replicated in a Facebook status update.

Question 3: Whether a 19-Month-Old May Post Pictures to Facebook when His Father has Given Up the Internet for Lent.

Objection. It would seem otherwise, since 19-month-olds cannot use the Internet, let alone Facebook, without the assistance of their fathers. And since fathers who have given up the Internet for Lent are prohibited from using Facebook, the 19-month-old must respect his father's sacrifice and not tempt him to post picture on Facebook.

On the contrary, Lenten prohibitions must never fall on others to enforce. A father's vows should not in any ways place undue burden on his son.

I answer that, the duties of a father cannot be superseded by his Lenten penance. Since many depend on him, such as his son who cannot use the good fruits of social networking without him, and his parents, who depend on the numerous photographic evidences of the well-breeding and good rearing of their grandchild, the father must never abandon them. Surely, the Angelic Doctor would agree that the judicious and temperate assistance lent to his son to post pictures on Facebook does not violate prohibitions against frivolous use of his time on the Internet.

Reply to Objection. The 19-month-old's inability to share in the fruits of friendship without his father's assistance means that the father's penance cannot preclude the possibility of assisting his son.

Preach it, John, Preach it!

2011-02-26T19:04:00.000-08:00

This:

Only a modern thinker, by which I mean ‘only a morally retarded one-dimensional thinker’ could regard both the Eve by whose proud disobedience all mankind was condemned, and the New Eve by whose humble obedience all mankind was saved as ‘weak.’ Heroines and villainesses on whose decisions turn the fates of worlds can be called a lot of things, but the Marxist and feminist interpretation of life only has two words for life in all its complexity: strong and weak. Whatever is strong is an oppressor, an exploiter, and guilty, and whatever is weak is oppressed, exploited, and innocent.

Being feminine does not mean being weak. That is a Marxist lie, produced by the morally retarded one-dimensional and therefore stupid idea that all human relationships are mutually hostile power struggles about power. Being feminine means being not masculine.

Male pride is brittle. I am sorry, fellow guys, but we have weaknesses particular to our sex, and a woman can shatter us with word, if it is the right woman and the right word. Women, at least old fashioned & old school women, seem to have more endurance and more stick-to-itiveness and more Christian charity than men, by and large.

They go through pregnancy, and THEN look forward to doing it again. Sheesh! Who says feminine girls are weak?

It is the masculine girls who are weak, the Buffy Vampireslayers. They have the brittleness and pride of touchy male pride — feminists are as sensitive to any trifling slights against their honor as a Spanish Grandee — but they do not have the corresponding masculine virtues of chivalry, generosity, and honor for the fallen foe that Christianity introduced to ameliorate the savage pagan attitude that glorifies strength and despises the weak.

...is the point I was trying to make in clunky fashion here.

Also, this:

Of course, I also agree with St. Paul that men should love their wives as Christ loves his bride the Church, which is to say, men should regard marriage as crucifixion. It is not fun and games, loverboy. You think joining the army demands total commitment from you? Marriage, you do not get R&R, do not get leave, and you are never off duty. You are husband and father forever and aye, till death do you part, amen.

You might come to marriage for the sake of Eros, romantic love, or for the sake of Philos, because you seek the companionship and friendship of the beloved, because you like her as well as love her. But marriage is Agape, self-emptying, self-denying, self-sacrificing love. So do not rejoice if St. Paul crowns you with the crown of marriage, husbands, and asks your wives to submit to your leadership and rule, because the crown is a crown of thorns, and the rulership is like that Christ refused of the devil when offered the kingdoms of this world. Your task, husbands, is to take second place in your wife’s affections once children arrive. You live for them, not they for you.

...is probably the best exegeses of Saint Paul's letter to the Ephesians that I've read.

It's (Officially) a Boy!

2011-02-25T18:11:00.000-08:00

Introducing Anthony William!

As it turns out, one of his great-great-grandfathers was named Antonio (Anthony), and another was named William. This is coincidental (or is it?).

We've kinda known that it was a boy since the 13-week genetics ultrasound. At that point, it can be pretty hard to tell the difference, but both the doctor and ultrasound technician were pretty sure.

Hoag is now doing 4D ultrasounds. They didn't do that with Damien.

We've had the name picked out for over a year and a half. Shortly after the genetics ultrasound, we spelled out "Anthony" on the refrigerator under Damien's name in letter magnets. One day, Damien found his way into the kitchen, grabbed the "o" out of "Anthony" and started playing with it. The Murloc barked at him, "Damien, leave 'Anthony' alone!"

I'm sure that's only the first time of many we'll be hearing that.

Ummm... don't look now, but our baby is missing half his head.

I think he already looks a little like Damien. Is that a dimple I see in his chin? We may have another lady-charmer on our hands!

Such a lady's man!

iConfess I'm Shocked

2011-02-10T21:54:00.000-08:00

So my friend's iPhone app has been doing quite well, apparently.

It's now the top paid app in the "Lifestyles" section of the app store.

And it's also in the top 25 purchased apps in the app store.

It started small, with the Catholic blogosphere.

Thomas Peters at American Papist praised it.
Mark Shea called it "very cool."
Father Z called it "useful but flawed."
Father Roderick tweeted about it.
Even Father Barron recommended it.
Early on in the viral outbreak, Patrick himself appeared for an interview on one of SQPN's podcasts.

Then it got big.

ABC: Confession App: Catholic Church Sanctions New iPhone App.

CNN: New app helps Catholics confess on the go.
Fox: Church Approves 'Confession' App for iPhone.
CNBC: Bless me iPhone for I have sinned.
New York Times: Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Linked.

Time Magazine: Smartphone Sins: Catholic Bishop Approves iPhone Confession App.

Associated Press: New iPhone, iPad app helps you keep track of sins.

USA Today: U.S. Catholic Church blesses iPhone app for confession.

The Guardian: Bless me, Apple, for I have sinned.

NPR: Confessing Sin in the Age of the iPhone.

HuffPo: Confession App Sanctioned By Catholic Church.

PC Magazine: Hail Mary! Catholic Church Blesses iPhone App.

(I'm tired of linking. Find the rest yourself)

It was also covered on segments on Fox News, CNN, and the Today Show (I don't have the clips). Apparently Conan made a joke about it on his show. Something about butt-dialing God.

Even Perez Hilton mentions it.

Some of the coverage was good:
AP: Religion Tech: Confessing Sins on Your iPhone.

Other, well, not so much, prompting Get Religion to correct The Times (of London).

Then it got... really big.

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, commented on it, saying it is not a replacement for confessing to a priest. Of course, Patrick already new that and never intended that it would be used as a substitute, only as an assistance.

This caused a fair amount of confusion as several news outlets announced that the Vatican "excommunicated" the app. Seriously.

HuffPo: Vatican Bans Confession Via iPhone App.
Reuters (via LA Times): New iPhone app helps Catholics through confession.
The Telegraph: Vatican bans iPhone 'God app'.

Of course, you can't say the phrase "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic" in an empty room without stirring up controversy. The range of criticism showed the Chesterton effect in full force. Complaints in the comments sections on the blogs and news articles ranged from "the Catholic Church is so silly for offering this backwards and outdated rite. Why, a Catholic can commit the most outrageous sin and simply confess to a priest to receive absolution! It makes wrong-doing so easily forgiven as to encourage it!" to "the Catholic Church is so silly for offering this quaint and un-biblical rite. Why, anyone can receive forgiveness by simply offering contrition directly to God! Involving a priest simply adds needless complexity to obtaining redemption to the point of encouraging people not to seek it!" to "the Catholic Church is so silly for offering this wrong-headed and hurtful rite. Why, telling people to confess their sins to a priest makes them feel guilty and shameful about ordinary behavior! The guilt-complex it creates is responsible for driving gay teens to suicide!"

(In case you don't believe me on that last one, this HuffPo piece makes a connection between Pat's app and teen suicide. For reals.)

Despite my earlier protestations, I did end up buying the app today. The personalized examination of conscience is good. This is what it gave me when I entered my name.

Perhaps a little too good

iConfess

2011-01-31T22:01:00.001-08:00

Let's try this again, shall we?

So, there's an interesting new iPhone app that's climbing the charts. I'll let the press release explain it:

South Bend, IN—Little iApps, LLC is pleased to announce the release of Confession: A Roman Catholic App, its very first application for iPhone™, iPad, and iPod touch®. Developed for those who frequent the sacrament and those who wish to return, this confession helper is priced at $1.99 and is available for download at the iTunes store. This announcement follows directly on the heels of Pope Benedict’s message for the 45th World Communications Day address in which he emphasized that new media, “if used wisely, can contribute to the satisfaction of the desire for meaning, truth and unity which remain the most profound aspirations of each human being.”

Designed to be used in the confessional, this app is the perfect aid for every penitent. With a personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step guide to the sacrament, this app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance. Individuals who have been away from the sacrament for some time will find Confession: A Roman Catholic App to be a useful and inviting tool.

That's right, an app to help you in the confessional! Just what this world needs! (Seriously, have you been paying attention to what's going on out there? Confession is just the thing for it.) I, personally, haven't picked it up yet. A) I already know how to make a good confession, thank you very much, and B) storing a "personalized examination of conscience" on a portable, easily-lost-or-stolen device makes me uncomfortable, password-protected or no.

But this app is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, it's the first iPhone, iPod, or iPad app to receive a nihil obstat and imprimatur. Secondly, it was written by one of my college buddies, Patrick, who I went to Austria with, and shared a house with my senior year.

He didn't write it by himself, mind. Anyways, the app has been doing very well in the app store, making its way into the top 25 paid apps in the "Lifestyles" section, almost surpassing the "Adult Sex Game HD" app in terms of popularity.

Interesting juxtaposition

So, if you're new to the sacrament, or a frequent-goer, perhaps you could check out my friend's app? I'll let him close out this post:

Pope Benedict’s general prayer intention for January 2011 was, “that young people may learn to use modern means of social communication for their personal growth and to better prepare themselves to serve society.” Little iApps developer and co-founder, Patrick Leinen, said, “Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology. Taking to heart Pope Benedict XVI’s message from last years’ World Communications Address, our goal with this project is to offer a digital application that is truly ‘new media at the service of the Word.’ The app has already aided one man in returning to the sacrament after 20 years. We hope many more will take advantage of this new confession resource.”