There's no place like home

Take the Nerd, Geek or Dork? test!

My disappointing score:

Joe Normal
43% Nerd, 34% Geek, 21% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.

This is not to say that you don't have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you--we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren't much of an outcast.

An awesome video by the Aslyum Street Spankers

Whoa! Here is a page that lets you search all the code samples in all the O'Reilly books.

Way cool.

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has launched a First Freedom First Campaign to stake a stand on church-state separation. If you haven't already signed it, please consider signing now.

We, the undersigned, call upon elected and appointed officials to join us in reaffirming America's religious freedom by demonstrating a commitment to the following:

• Every American should have the right to make personal decisions -- about family life, reproductive health, end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.
  
• American tax dollars should not go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.
  
• Political candidates should not be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.
  
• Public schools should teach with academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or belief.
  
• Decisions about scientific and health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on religious doctrine.

I happened to see a copy of Robert A. Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars at the library the other day, so I picked it up for Stephanie to read.

Podkayne of Mars is the last book that Heinlein wrote in his collection of books for juvenile readers, so I figured that Stephanie would like it.

She wanted me to read it to her, so we've both been enjoying it quite a bit. It's fun to read it to her and then have her ask questions about it. There are lots of science concepts introduced in his books that she is unfamiliar with and so far I have been able to explain all of them.

We are getting near the end, so I just requested Rocket Ship Galileo from the library.

I'm going to see if we can make it though all 13 of the books and then we will start on his more adult harder stuff (which I own a lot of.) Maybe we will mix in some Larry Niven and some Jerry Pournelle (man, what an ugly web site - and I can't seem to find a bibliography on it) and maybe some Stephen Brust and Fritz Lieber (I know, that's not Science Fiction, but I like Fantasy too). Actually, what would be really fun would be to read Terry Pratchett's Discworld books to her.

It's fun to see Stephanie getting into Science Fiction.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind--that it's modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious. . .

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech . . .

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

I believe in the reality of progress.

But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

H. L. Mencken was such a good writer. I think I need to check out some of his books.

I sent the YouTube links for Richard Dawkin's The Root Of All Evil show (part 1, part 2 and part 3) to a co-worker today, triggered by a conversation we had over coffee.

She wrote back with the following comment:

But it's fanaticism, not really religion that is the problem. Not all religions are like this... there are wonderful things that believing in a god can bring to society.

So I challenged her to name three.

She came back with the following three statements - I'll interleave my replies with them:

- a sense of responsibility to a higher power, something unworldly and therefore more powerful.

Why do I need this? Why does believing in some "sky daddy" help me in my life? Because I can blame him for all that goes wrong and not take any personal responsibility? It was "God's will"?

Why do I need to pretend that there is something living in the sky and watching everything I do (Santa Claus)? What possible use is this to me?

As for a sense of responsibility, I have that. I have responsibilities to my family. I have responsibilities to my community. I have responsibilities to my job. Hell, I have responsibilities to the world. Why do I need some "god" to be responsible to? I don't need a "higher power", I have plenty of things that I am already responsible to.

- the value of forgiveness and redemption.

Why do I need to be forgiven? I have not done anything. "Sin" is a concept created to get people to go to church. The whole forgiveness thing bothers me. I can go out and do bad things and the only thing that I have to do is ask the priest for forgiveness, and then pray a couple of times and I'm a good person? And this promotes good behavior how?

Redemption? Isn't that what you do with green stamps? What does redemption mean? That I'm going to some fairy tale "heaven" when I die? Sorry, I don't buy that.

- promotes faith. faith is a great thing, it gives some people hope and comfort.

Faith is not a good thing. Faith means you believe in something without any evidence or proof. Faith is wooly thinking and leads to making bad judgments based on your beliefs instead of the real world.

How does believing in a "sky daddy" give me comfort and hope? If this "god" is all powerful and beneficent, why does he let people die horrible deaths? Because they are not "saved"? Because they don't "believe" in him? Or perhaps because he doesn't exist?

I'm sorry, but when you die, you are dead. You are gone. You don't come back as a bug, an animal, another person. You don't go to some magical place in the sky.

The Islam suicide bombers believe that when they die, they go to a heaven with 72 virgins. And we don't believe this. We think it's crazy. Yet Christians believe that when we die, they go to some magical place where they will see all our friends and family again. Or we go to some place of eternal torture if we are "bad". How is this less crazy than the Islam beliefs?

Why are they wrong and we are right?

I call bullshit.

I believe there are more bad things that come from religion than good. I think it's a blight and a virus that should be wiped out.

Monty Python's How Not To Be Seen sketch done in Halo.

Finally. Congressman Murtha has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for the immediate resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Whereas —-

After 9/11, the United States government had unprecedented support from international allies as well as the American people for military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan

The initial phase of the war in Afghanistan was successful in dismantling al Qaeda operations, removing the Taliban authority which was harboring al Qaeda, and allowing for the Afghani people to establish a representative government

The Secretary of Defense imposed a cap on the number of ground forces in Afghanistan prior to the war in Iraq

The Bush administration concluded in April 2002 that Osama bin Laden was in Tora Bora, Afghanistan during the battle for Tora Bora in December of 2001 and that the failure to commit the sufficient number of ground forces directly resulted in the failure to capture him

A resurgence of Taliban influence and violence is now occurring in Afghanistan

In the months prior to the war in Iraq, The Secretary of Defense repeatedly and forcefully asserted to Congress and the American people that there was no question that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that they were a threat to the United States, which is now known to be false

The Secretary of Defense rejected estimates from top military commanders regarding the troop strength that would be required to secure Iraq, failed to anticipate the level of violent opposition among Iraqis to US occupation, and publicly doubted the war in Iraq would take [longer than] six months

The Secretary of Defense expressly forbade his staff to develop a plan for post-war Iraq and threatened to fire anyone who raised the issue

The Secretary of Defense failed to ensure that US troops had adequate protective gear for their mission at the start of the Iraq war, including a shortage of 40,000 protective body armor units, radio frequency jammers to thwart remote detonation of improvised explosive devices, and up-armored high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs)

You can read the rest of it over at Crooks and Liars.

Not that it will happen or anything.

Cory Doctorow has a nice article in Locus about copyright and how it is broken and how it should work.

So this is where copyright breaks: When copyright lawyers try to treat readers and listeners and viewers as if they were (weak and unlucky) corporations who could be strong-armed into license agreements you wouldn't wish on a dog. There's no conceivable world in which people are going to tiptoe around the property they've bought and paid for, re-checking their licenses to make sure that they're abiding by the terms of an agreement they doubtless never read. Why read something if it's non-negotiable, anyway?

The answer is simple: treat your readers' property as property. What readers do with their own equipment, as private, noncommercial actors, is not a fit subject for copyright regulation or oversight. The Securities Exchange Commission doesn't impose rules on you when you loan a friend five bucks for lunch. Anti-gambling laws aren't triggered when you bet your kids an ice-cream cone that you'll bicycle home before them. Copyright shouldn't come between an end-user of a creative work and her property.

Worth a read.