Unbecoming Levity

Hear Hear or Here Here?

Abacquer — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:04:35 -0500

So today I found myself agreeing with someone online and went to type "hear hear" but then remembered seeing someone else type "here here" a couple days earlier.

I was pretty sure the correct phrase was "hear hear" as opposed to the other variants I'd seen ("here here", "hear here", "here hear") but I'd never actually looked it up. So I decided to check popular internet usage using Google:

"hear hear" = 1,740,000 hits
"here here" = 3,880,000 hits
"hear here" = 307,000 hits
"here hear" = 334,000 hits

Well dang. According to popular usage twice as many people say "here here" than say "hear hear". But is that correct? Wikipedia says no:

Hear hear (Wikipedia):
...Hear, hear is an expression used as a short repeated form of hear ye and hear him. It represents a listener's agreement with the point being made by a speaker.

It was originally an imperative for directing attention to speakers, and has since been used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as "the regular form of cheering in the House of Commons", with many purposes depending on the intonation of its user. It is often incorrectly spelled "here here", especially on websites...

A quick double check of OneLook Dictionary Search confirms this. Six dictionaries list "hear hear" and only one lists "here here" (and that one happens to be the wiki article above.)

Popular usage drives the movement of meaning, though, so at some point in the future "here here" may end up being the correct phrase if we don't do something about it.

So if you want to avoid yet another English colloquialism that will have your great grandchildren scratching their heads and saying "WTF?" (or whatever kids will be saying in those days) then type "hear hear" at every opportunity.

Go on, say it, you know you want to.

DRM, Electronic Arts, and Censorship

Abacquer — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:52:45 -0400

So, the creators of Spore, Electronic Arts, created an online discussion forum where people could talk about Spore. Unfortunately they made the mistake of offering a feedback forum where people could post feedback about the game, and the reviews are positively ghastly. So many people are irate about how shallow the game is and the various bugs in it that last week EA released a patch for the game, only a week after the game went to market. Anybody in software development knows what happens when you rush a patch out the door. And it happened big time... the patch made the game experience WORSE for a lot of users, fixing some bugs but creating a whole host of new ones. Interest in the game is visibly on the wane, online Spore traffic has been pretty much falling since day one and people are already clamoring for "expansion packs". It's generally not a good sign if you are looking for game expansions after owning the game for one week. By comparison I've owned Oblivion IV for over a year now and I only purchased one of the available expansions. I haven't needed to buy any more because there is plenty of content there to keep I (and my family) entertained. But I digress..

The interesting thing is (as you might expect) a number of EA's customers are not at all pleased that they are limited to 3 installs of their game before it won't install anymore, and some are unhappy with SecuRom being installed on their machines without their consent. So along with feedback about various other flaws in the game, EA gets plenty of feedback about DRM and the headaches it is causing their customers.

Which they delete.

Yeah, you heard that right. If you post feedback about the DRM in Spore, they simply delete your feedback. They don't want customers discussing DRM or complaining about DRM. And the reason is quite simply this:

DRM does not stop pirates. It never did. The day Spore was released, there was already a DRM-free hacked version available for download from the various piracy sites. ANYBODY who did not have an ethical problem with stealing the game, could simply download a fully functional pirate version. Personally, I think game makers should be paid for their efforts, so this is not an option for me.

Electronic Arts isn't staffed by morons--they have tech savvy engineers working there who know full well that DRM will not stop pirates. So why do they keep claiming they put it in there to prevent pirates from stealing their game? Why is it really there?

My theory (and a lot of other people think so too) is they want to control (or basically kill) the resale market. If you want to play Spore and figure you'll buy a used copy in a year or so, think again. By putting the install limit on the game, EA prevents you from selling your property to a third party when you tire of it. Why would anyone buy Spore if it had only 1 install left, or less? So if someone wants Spore six months from now, they're going to have to buy it from EA--or they will get stiffed on reinstalls if one is ever needed.

That's fairly evil and a number of people (including myself) have posted threads to that effect on EA's feedback forum only to have them quietly disappear.

Which is also evil.

Cut Off From the Hive Mind

Abacquer — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:15:00 -0400

So day one of my vacation was uneventful, except that I am bothered by not being able to access the internet. I guess it has so become a part of my life to be deeply connected with various remote sources of information that it is positively annoying to be cut off.

I'd like to be able to check my e-mail just in case a customer places an order on my photography business website, but I can't. I'd like to be able to check my friend's blogs and find out what is going on with them, but I can't. I'd like to be able to catch up on my discussion fora on flickr, but I can't. I'd like to check my twitter and my GoogleReader, but I can't.

*sigh* This sucks.

I woke up at 3:30 AM (so really this is day two of my vacation) and remembered that my Verizon LG phone is supposed to have some kind of web service (which I have never used). I tried it and found that I needed to pay $1.99 for 24 hours of web access. I figured it was worth $2 to find out exactly what I could do, so I opted to sign up for 24 hours. I was promptly informed that my order could not be placed at this time, and told to try again later.

So I repeated this process a few times, and eventually (FINALLY) managed to get to a page which said my order had been accepted. I was instructed to shut off my phone, turn it back on, and then wait "a few minutes" before using the service. I was further told that if I saw the "Verizon Web 2.0" signup page on my next access attempt, then my order was still processing and I would have to wait a little longer.

That was 45 minutes ago and I still don't have web access. So I gave up and started writing this... using notepad... knowing it would probably be 7 days before I could post it. How annoying. I think one of my missions today is to try and find someplace in New Hampshire where I can get internet access. Either a library or an internet cafe (if they have such things here) or something. I can try asking at the office here, but I don't expect much luck.

I seem to recall asking them last year and getting a mystified "why would you want to get on the internet--you're on vacation" sort of response. I can't really buy into that silliness... I'm sitting in a cabin with electricity, beds, a kitchen including a stove, sink, refrigerator, and microwave, hot water, fans, and a television with built in DVD player. Hell I even still have my annoyingly-web-useless cell phone! I'm on vacation? From what? Beyond a far less comfortable bed, how is this any different from being at my house? I suppose the fact that I'm maybe 100 yards from the highway here and can listen to cars zooming by all through the night is a little different. Ready access to a swimming pool is also a little different, but other than that all I can see is that I've traded a living space with far more entertainment value for a much smaller living space with far less, at considerable expense.

My main reason for being here is to be with Patty. She doesn't see our house as a place of comfort or pleasure, but instead as a long list of chores that need to be done. It's true that there is always something that needs to be done, and she seems far more acutely aware of that than I. When she's here she's on vacation from the house. I have to respect that. Somehow, the exact state of things that drives me crazy, is precisely what relaxes her, and vice versa. Oh well... that's what marriage is like sometimes... doing things you don't enjoy in order to make your spouse happy, finding the enjoyment in the happiness of your spouse. Methinks I need to work on that a little. Maybe a little cabin off the highway in New Hampshire is the right place to do it.

Lens Cults and The Isoceles Field

Abacquer — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:14:59 -0500

So early this morning I couldn't sleep and I ended up writing an article on flickr in one of the many "what lens should I buy" discussions that goes on there. I have noticed, in my days on flickr, that certain pieces of equipment and certain techniques have a following, and often get recommended simply because of the following rather than because the equipment/technique is actually suited to the purpose of the person asking. In an effort to supply a counterbalancing opinion, I found myself in need of trigonometry.

The Argument

One such "cult" item is the "nifty fifty" (the EF 50mm f/1.8) lens made for Canon EOS cameras. It is very sharp, very fast, and very cheap ($80). If you are on a tight budget (or even if you aren't) it makes sense to have one for your EOS camera unless you have a better 50mm prime, or don't need a 50mm prime.

While I will not argue that it is probably one of the best value-for-money lenses, it is not versatile at all, and yet it seems to get hailed as a magic-bullet lens. I regularly see people making claims like "it never comes off my camera". And after having used it myself, I can only conclude that these people shoot one type of thing and one type of thing only, or it never comes off because they don't own any other lenses.

There is a certain love affair with the 50mm focal length because it was the standard focal length for 35mm film for decades. But in the age of digital SLR cameras, things are different for the less expensive consumer DSLRs. These DSLR's tend to use an image sensor that is smaller than 35mm film. The APS-C style sensor, or crop sensor, does not render the entire image cast by a standard lens, but only a smaller piece in the center. This results in an apparent magnification factor of 1.6. Hence if you put a 50mm lens on a crop-sensor camera, it's like working with an 80mm lens (50 x 1.6 = 80). The end result is a smaller-than-expected "field of view" (FOV).

On an old Canon 35mm film camera, a 50mm lens has a FOV of 46°. But on a crop-sensor camera the FOV is a hair under 29°. This loss of over a third of the FOV means that on crop-sensor cameras the EF 50mm f/1.8 lens has distinct limitations as to how much you can fit in the frame.

Fortunately, on my EOS 5D the 50mm behaves as expected. Because the 5D is a full frame camera, its sensor is the same size as a 35mm film frame. So I get 46° out of my EF 50mm, just as nature intended.

The "nifty fifty" on crop-sensor cameras is often described as a "portrait lens". With the crop factor, the 50mm lens behaves like an 80mm lens, and 80mm is ideal for portraits. But if you want to shoot anything larger than a head-and-shoulders portrait with the EF 50 1.8 on your Rebel XT or 30D, you'd better have a lot of room behind you, because you are going to need to back up... a lot.

But how much?

The Trigonometry

Well that's where the trig comes in (you can skip this section if you don't want to see how I figured it out). In order for me to say how much, I needed to be able to reliably compute the distance necessary to view an object of a given width. But how? I started by drawing a diagram like this one:

V is my viewing angle. Okay it's not 29° (or 28.98333° which is the actual FOV of the nifty fifty on a crop sensor), but close enough. The legs of the triangle extending out from V represent the edges of my FOV as the distance to the subject (marked by the dashed line, d) grows. The base of the triangle (marked as w) is the width of the field of view at the distance d. Basically this is a representation of the wedge or cone of that falls within a particular FOV, in this case 30°.

I can pick any distance I want for d, but what I really need is a way to say what d should be to accomodate a subject of a certain width. In other words, to fit a subject 10 feet wide in my viewfinder, how far back do I need to stand with the nifty fifty on my EOS 30D camera? I supposed that given a formula for that, I could solve the formula for the width so that one could also compute the maximum width viewable given a distance.

The triangle depicted above is an isoceles triangle, as both the legs are the same length, and consequently the angles where the legs meet the base is also to the same. I spent some time looking online for computations for isoceles triangles, but what I was looking for didn't appear (namely, given the length of the base, and the angle of the peak, what is the height or altitude of an isoceles triangle?)

I studied trig over 20 years ago so I remember very little of it, but I did remember there were a lot of simple equivalences for right triangles (that is, triangles where one of the angles is 90°). And I realized while looking at my diagram that the line I had drawn to represent the distance, bisected V and split the triangle into 2 right triangles, each of which looked like this:

Bisecting V gives me a 15° angle (V'), and a base width exactly half of what it was before (w'). So if I could take a given distance d and come up with a formula for w', then I should be able to solve that formula for either d or w', keeping in mind that V' is V/2 and w' is w/2.

Doing a quick check online I found the two rudimentary trignometric equivalences for right triangles: for either of the angles other than the 90° one, the sin of that angle is equal to the length of the opposite side divided by the length of the hypoteneuse, and the cos of that angle is equal to the length of the adjacent side divided by the length of the hypoteneuse. Here are those equivalences for the right triangle above:

Sin V' and cos V' I can get with a pocket calculator, and I'm going to pick a value for either d or w' and solve for the other. I can solve the equation on the left for w' [w' = (sin V') * h] and I can solve the equation on the right for d [d = (cos V') * h], but both of these solutions require me to know what the hypoteneuse of this triangle is.

But in order to get w' from d or d from w' I need to do more work, mostly because I am not going to know what the hypoteneuse is. I'm only going to be starting with either V' and w' or V' and d. So what I need to do is solve one of the equations for h, and then plug that into the other equation. That should give me a formula I that I can use to solve for either d in terms of w' and V' or w' in terms of d and V'. So I picked the equation on the right. Solving that for h gives h = d / (cos V').

So I should be able to substitute d / (cos V') in the equation on the left, like so:

Now I'm good. I know what V' is, I can get sin V' or cos V' from my calculator, and I am going to pick either d or w'. So now I can solve for either one, like so:

Done, right? Well, yes, if I want to know what the appropriate distance is for half the width of my subject using a lens with half the field of view. Now I want to substitute in the equivalences that w' = w/2 and V' = V/2. In the equation on the right that will put w/2 on the left of the equal sign, so I will multiply both sides by 2 to solve the equation for w. That gives me:

Okay they probably aren't the cleanest formulas in the world, but they work and let you get the height of an isoceles triangle from its base width and peak angle, or vice versa. Using these formulas I could handily compute the needed distance for a given width in a given field of view, and this allowed me to present something more concrete than "gee whiz, that EF 50mm 1.8 is awfully confining on a crop sensor camera."

Back to the Argument

So how confining is that nifty fifty?

5 feet wide = 9.7 feet away
10 feet wide = 19.3 feet away
15 feet wide = 29 feet away
20 feet wide = 38.7 feet away
25 feet wide = 48.4 feet away

Pretty confining! If you are trying to capture 3 people sitting on a couch which is 8 feet long all in one shot, you need to stand 15 feet 6 inches away. Better have a big living room, or one where there isn't a TV 10 feet from the couch. Or maybe if you moved the couch outside... that would be cool for an album cover, but for Aunt Bea, Uncle Joe, and Granny, it is probably less so.

Working with the EF 50mm f/1.8 is a good exercise though for learning how to push a lens to do what you need, and it's plain old good exercise, because you're going to be backing up a lot. You can get that 8 foot couch in shot if you shoot from an angle, but then you will need to stop your aperture down to widen up the depth of field so that everyone will be in focus... which means you can't shoot low light anymore so you might need lamps or a flash. Or you could give up on that shot and shoot the people individually.

Or, you could simply not get the EF 50mm 1.8 in the first place, if you are not planning to shoot primarily portraits. If you want to consider the traditional FOV that the great 35mm film artists shot with, you need a lens that gives a FOV on a crop-sensor camera similar to a 50mm lens on a 35mm film camera (i.e. 46°). The closest bet would be a 28mm lens, like the EF 28mm f/1.8 or EF 28mm f/2.8. These have a crop-sensor FOV of 47.25°. With one of these lenses the width to distance figures look like this:

5 feet wide = 5.7 feet away
10 feet wide = 11.4 feet away
15 feet wide = 17.1 feet away
20 feet wide = 22.8 feet away
25 feet wide = 28.6 feet away

Much more reasonable. And quite interesting how the distance to subject is almost the same as the width of the subject. No surpise that the 50mm lens became the standard on the cameras of old.

Who is the Plastered Dragon?

Abacquer — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:28:11 -0500

As I go from discussion forum to discussion form, I repeatedly get asked that question in some form or another. "What's 'Abacquer' mean?" or "What is a Plastered Dragon?" When that happens I get to tell a story that I've told many times. And each time I tell it I embellish it a little more than the last time. But writing it over and over again each time it happens is a bit silly. So I've decided to put the latest incarnation here so that I can just refer people to this article in the future. It will save me on typing. Good friends of mine already know this story and have already heard some of these jokes before. But if you are really curious, read on...

In a sort of story I wrote once (a D&D campaign really) there was a dragon who had a penchant for getting drunk.

As the story goes, many hundreds of years ago the residents of the little community of Wayside and many people from the surrounding towns and environs are gathered at the Wayside Inn for the annual Oktobrefest--a huge party which sees partygoers from all over their country--all manner of tradesman, adventurer, and race is sure to be there. And many get swilling drunk of course, particularly the gnomes (as is their custom) who prefer to drink more than anyone else (as is their custom) from a trough (as is their custom) and then beat each other senseless until they pass out (as is their custom).

So anyway as I said this party was going on one brisk Oktobre morn when all of a sudden this young bull drake appears in the sky, circles the town, and promptly lands right smack dab in the center of the town green. Nobody knew what to make of it. It was neither a metallic nor a chromatic dragon, so nobody was certain what its disposition would be, but it was also quite young as dragons go and would therefore be "easily" put down by the town guard if need be.

It turned out that need did not be, because the drake trotted to the trough of ale, stuck his head in, drank the whole thing in about 30 seconds flat, let out a loud burp and promptly passed out, to much admiration from the gnomes. The party continued about the sleeping beast unabated. Apparently the dragon was simply another partygoer, Wayside's first of that particular variety. And he quickly became the life of the party once he woke up and started dancing to the fine music provided by the local musicians. And apart from the inevitable property damage, his performance was well received.

It was the beginning of a long friendship, and as the years went by, the half-seas-over reptile would return each Oktobre to drink himself silly and make merry during Oktobrefest. He explained to the townspeople (in a rare sober moment) that his name was Abacquer (that's pronounced AB-bah-kur) and that his unusual coloration was due to his curious pedigree. His father was a benevolent copper dragon of some fame known as "Morrich the Claw". His mother was a chromatic dragon (specifically a white dragon) that had been raised as a foundling by copper dragons, who went by the moniker "Tiarrel the Rime". By his own admission, as a White/Copper hybrid, that made him a "Whopper Dragon", a fact that brought him much amusement and was sure to produce a beery guffaw from him whenever he brought it up. And given that his white dragon descent included a frost breath weapon, he could immediately chill your drink for you, so most people put up with hearing the story over and over, for his company was a good one, even if a bit sozzled.

Abacquer took a liking to Perronian Pink Champagne in particular, and the Wayside Inn began to stock up on it for his annual appearance. Once word of the inebriated dragon began to spread, the Oktobrefest became even more of an attraction that helped put Wayside on the map like never before. People would come from all over New Irth just to catch a glimpse of the "plastered dragon".

Upon reaching adulthood, Abacquer, like all dragons, chose a title for himself. He chose "Abacquer the Belch", much to the consternation of his parents, in recognition of his uncontested claim to the longest running belch in recorded history (12 minutes 48 seconds).

Later in life he made his aerie on Sherenpate Pyke and became something of a protector of the surrounding communities and vineyards. Especially the vineyards. Go figure. In his massive ice cavern he welcomed visitors and even had one visit of note from the musicians of a nearby farming village. A painting produced by a local artist hangs in the town's music hall commemmorating this event. In the painting the band is seated and playing in Abacquer's aerie while nervously glancing up at the (clearly intoxicated) dragon as he dances upside down on the ceiling. Of course white dragons can walk on any frozen surface seeming without regard for gravity, but as a half-white, Abacquer's icewalking ability was, according to him, "a little spotty". According to records of the event, the Belch informed the musicians that they needn't worry, his icewalking only gave out when he was drunk. Somehow that wasn't very reassuring, but the event went off without a hitch although all further concerts in his honor were held in town.

Eventually the fame of his story became so great that the Wayside Inn was renamed Inne of Ye Plastered Dragon (or simply, the Plastered Dragon Inn), and the rest is history. His life was long and colorful and he did many great deeds in spite of being a complete sot. He was knighted by the gnomes of Perro (there's a switch, as Abacquer once noted, being a knight and a dragon both meant that if he ever took a damsel hostage he would have to slay himself and then marry her, and not being the marrying sort, that was probably best.) And it is said that he is up for canonization in the gnomish pantheon, which is kind of a big deal. All previously canonized gnomish saints were bartenders and Abacquer has no talent for mixing drinks anywhere but in his belly. But the gnomes of Perro say (as is their custom) that he is "noseworthy", and I guess when it comes to binge drinking, nobody would be a better judge than they. And besides, being the biggest single consumer of Perronian Pink Champagne in all of New Irth (200 barrels a month) there's a certain economic interest among the gnomes of Perro in staying on his good side. But I digress... as is my custom.

I've always loved the Abacquer character, and so over the years, my online name has always been Plastered Dragon, or PDragon, or some variant thereof. And that's the story behind it--at some great length!

Andrew Meyer's Shocking Performance

Abacquer — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:06:45 -0400

It's funny that James wrote about this today, because I wrote about it last night on a discussion forum. I'm pleased that James and I saw the same videos and came to the same conclusions. If you haven't heard, a young man (Andrew Meyer) caused a disruption at a John Kerry Q&A forum and finally was removed by the police. During his removal he became more combative and resisted the officers which ended up getting him arrested and finally tasered as it was the only way to get him to stop shouting and remove him from the hall. Predictably (I suppose) people have seen an editted version of the video that makes Mr. Meyer look like more of a victim than he actually was and the most outspoken conclusions I see on YouTube basically boil down to "he asked a question 'they' didn't like so he was tasered and arrested, wake up America, we are living in a dictatorship". *yawn*

Anyway, here's what I wrote on a discussion forum where someone had posted the editted version of the video under the heading "A Most Terrifying Video":

The video was editted to make the kid look more like a victim than he was. There is a more complete video with commentary that makes the kid's behavior easier to see through and makes the cops behavior more understandable:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1na1hcGQCHg

I'm a liberal and I believe in civil liberties. The kid was totally in control of that situation, he WANTED a big scene and he got it. He was totally playing to the cameras.

The cops were standing behind him because he had a reputation for causing trouble at public events. The moment he took the mic and began speaking one of the college officials went to the police and said "he's a troublemaker, watch out". This made the police suspicious of him. At one point a police officer told him to finish his question and let Kerry answer, he responded rudely (through the mic so everyone could hear) and continued. As Kerry tried to answer the boy's first question, he ignored Kerry and launched into his second question. It was clear at that point he was there to talk not to Kerry, but to the crowd.

Well it's cool if you want to talk to a crowd. You can put a video on YouTube, or you can schedule your own rally and see who shows up, but you can't just grab the mic, take the floor, and talk whatever crap you want as if it is your show. It's not your show and the organizers are going to eject you if you won't play nicely, which they attempted to do at the end of his THIRD question which is the part you got to see. No surprises there.

All this boy had to do is say "sorry officer, I'll cooperate" and in all likelihood they would explain to him why they were ejecting him the moment they got him out of the room. Which by the way, they did, except you don't get to see that because the video that was posted at the top of the thread doesn't include it. Heck, if he had cooperated they probably would have let him go at the door.

This video does show his detainment once they get him outside the room:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NWukZhsiBw

Watch that video where he reveals by his own behavior just how much of a neurotic nut he is:
"They're going to give me to the government! They're going to kill me!"
Those of you who think its actually okay to scream HELP HELP and WHY WHY when a police officer has decided to detain you should take heed: when the police arrest you, they are allowed to hold you and don't have to charge you with ANYTHING for 48 hours. That is the law of this country. If you don't agree with it, please contact your representatives and work to get the law changed. If a police officer tries to escort you out of a building, you DO NOT have a right to know why. If a police officer chooses to arrest you, you do not have a right to be told immediately why you have been arrested. If a cop tells you "stop shouting, and stop resisting me or I am going to arrest you (or taser you)" and you choose to continue shouting and resisting, well duh, do the math.

The rights you do have upon arrest are read to you in long form, or in the abbreviated form:
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to be speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense."
Did you see "you have the right to know why you are being arrested" or "you have the right to scream loudly and resist arrest"? Me neither. That's because we don't have those rights.

It's a shame this boy provoked the police into tasering him by repeatedly refusing to cooperate. I'm sorry he got tasered, but freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to disrupt a political rally. Watch the full video and pay attention to the commentary, and watch the second video that shows what happens outside, how he keeps craning his neck so he can shout to the cameras... because he's all about the cameras.

1. http://youtube.com/watch?v=1na1hcGQCHg

2. http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NWukZhsiBw

I'm trying not jump to conclusions (paranoia is unhealthy). As far as I can see, this boy orchestrated what happened to him through his own behavior and could have put a stop to it at any time.

There are a lot of affronts to free speech in this country, serious ones that we should be concerned about ("free speech zones" for example: http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/04/hilden.freespeech/index.html), but this nut and his bad performance art does not qualify. He should have been ejected, and he was.

I've Been Stumbled Upon

Abacquer — Sun, 20 May 2007 13:49:29 -0400

Well apparently somebody really liked my "Why I am an Atheist" post yesterday because they linked me up over on StumbleUpon.com. The end result? Last night my blog had over 3,700 hits on that article, and 860 hits on another article I linked to from within that article. Total bandwidth consumed 319,389,696 bytes. That's about 304.5 Mb, or a tenth of my monthly bandwidth.

Not that I mind! I'm excited that my hits have temporarily tripled... always nice to have readers. (Hopefully we'll get some new regulars here at ULev.) But I was a little worried about my bandwidth, so I ordered up another 5 Gb from BlogHarbor just for this month, just in case. In all likelihood I probably won't need it, but better safe than sorry.

The last time something like this happened was when I entered a submission to one of FARK's photoshop contests. That time the graphic I had linked to got so many hits I had to delete it... like 9,000 in the first hour. Crazy!

Various

Abacquer — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:34:24 -0400

Okay, here's a bunch of little things I want to talk about. None of them really deserves its own article but I want to share it anyway. I suppose I should caution you that I am on percoset right now, so I am a little loopy... I apologize if this is a scatterbrained.

Eating

I still can't chew, and won't be able to for another week at least. So I am exploring different things that I can eat without chewing. Stuff that has worked out well has been jello, applesauce, soup broth, rice in thick gravy, spagettios, small bits of bread soaked in broth, yogurt, pureed fruit mixed with yogurt and juice, and so forth. Pureed baked beans is really grainy, and I don't like it. Gonna try baked beans again sometime soon where I just try to swallow the beans whole, unchewed. I've found I can eat Italian Ices, but all the acid in fruit juice is making this bothersome.

All this nigh-liquid food combined with drugs that mess up my sleep schedule, and amoxicillin (to avoid infection) is making my stomach pretty upset. But I'll get through. (It's not like I have a choice!)

NPR Podcasts

When I go to bed I like to listen to music or speech on my MP3 player. I find that listening to the same stuff every night helps me sleep. But eventually I get tired of the same stuff. The NPR website has always been a great place to go to stream shows you've missed, but at some point they began offering these shows as podcasts. (The difference, from my perspective, is that you can download old shows as MP3 files, drop them on your MP3 player or your computer, and listen to them anytime.) You guys were probably aware of that, but to me it's big news... streaming is great, but it is much nicer to grab the last few episodes of my favorite NPR program and listen to it whenever (in my case, when I go to bed.) NPR has a huge podcast directory with shows from all their member stations. Here's a link to the directory... you can subscribe to these shows as feeds in Google Reader or just hit the URL directly and save the MP3 files.

The podcasts (shows) that I am most interested in are:

Stem Cells

So I was listening to one of those podcasts of NPR Science Friday where the topic matter was stem cell research. A guy called in who equated a 14-day-old blastocyst with a person. He was in the crowd that considers a fertilized human egg to be a human being, what he framed as "life begins at conception". Obviously holding that view, there was no way he could get behind stem cell research since it involved killing embryos.

Then one of the guest experts offered the caller a challenge which I committed to memory because I never wanted to forget it:

Imagine you are a fireman dealing fighting a fire in a fertility clinic. You enter a room and find in it a six year old girl, and a tray with 20 frozen embryos. You can either save the girl or the tray of embryos. Which one do you choose?

In my opinion, the caller chickened out. He said something like "that would be a call I would have to make as a fireman... it would depend on who was closest to the door and who was most likely to survive." I felt his answer betrayed that he couldn't really equate 20 embryos with 20 people... if he could, the decision should have been both straightforward, and patently ridiculous... as if anyone could ignore a 6 year old girl screaming for rescue from a fire and instead choose a rack of test tubes.

Although it isn't clear exactly when an embryo becomes a person, it seems downright obvious that a 14-day-old blastocyst is far less a person than a six year old girl. I'm going to remember this challenge. It really made me think.

Birdies

I've been feeding the birds in my yard again lately. I stopped many years ago, but started up again after my Dad passed away. It's funny, I sort of got him interested in birds and birdfeeding years ago, and now he has sort of gotten me back into it. Things haven't changed much. Regular wild bird food doesn't have enough millet in it, and has some other seeds that most of the birds don't eat. So I went back to one of my old recipes and it worked like a charm, but it involves buying parakeet food and mixing that into the seed, which is expensive. I have to find a place where I can get millet cheap. Anybody know a place?

Dawkins Discussions... on Amazon?

I've been following some discussions on Dawkins which are popping up on Amazon. Apparently any product for sale on Amazon gets its own discussion forum. So at the bottom of the amazon page for The God Delusion are the hot forum topics related to that book. It's amazing what lengths some people will go to in order to discredit Dawkins. Check it out, if you dare. This is where I found out about the "Dawkins Pause" video... this particular discussion links to the video (it's something of a relief to see that the theists seem to be in the minority on this forum.)

If you need more Dawkins, here's a feed for RichardDawkins.net which you can drop in your news aggregator.

I'm about halfway through The God Delusion myself. Having trouble reading it right now... mostly because of the percosets.

Topix.Net

Don't know if I've recommended this before, but topix.net is a nice source for regional newsfeeds for small towns. They incorporate feeds for local newspapers and blogs, and all you do is enter the zip code of the town you are interested in, and topix.net will generate a feed for that town that you can plonk into a feed reader like bloglines, Google reader, and so forth. (It's my understanding that IE7 has a feed aggregator built right in.)

My Shared Shite

I've been regularly flagging articles in the feeds I read as shared so that other people can enjoy them. You can access the GoogleReader page devoted to my shared articles here.

3Hive Decency

Some fairly decent stuff has cropped up on 3Hive since my last article about indie music. I recommend The Autumn Defense and Lymbyc Systym.

The Internet -- Take a Gander at it

Abacquer — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 17:44:07 -0500

So while convalescing here in my study, I went on MTGO to play a couple games of cards, when this stupid discussion happened.

2:54 Tobleron: hmm I was 16 when that came out anyone want to take a gander at my age? hehe
2:54 pdragon616: a "gander"? Gander does not equal "guess".
2:54 Dork: lol @ pdragon for not knowing what gander means
2:55 pdragon616: gander == "look" or "the mate of a goose", but not "a guess"
2:56 pdragon616: Look it up before you laugh at me, Dork, and learn the language. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gander

At this point, I received a private message from the MTGO adept (basically, a room moderator, who's sad existence largely consists of telling people to stop talking.). He told me I was not allowed to post links to anything other than Wizard's website, it's a violation of MTGO policy. This policy was established to prevent people from posting links to competing sites, or inappropriate sites. I informed the moderator of that fact and went on to say that the policy was never intended to be enforced in a knee-jerk fashion... a link to the dictionary should be pretty safe. I'm just pissing off everyone today, I guess. Anyway I figured the conversation was over, but Tobleron and Dork were not through with me:

2:56 Tobleron: you can take a gander however
2:56 Dork: 2.Slang. a look: Take a gander at his new shoes.
2:56 Dork: You look it up, moron

Are you as mystified as I? Tobleron clearly used it to mean "take a guess" and here Dork calling me a moron because it can be used to mean "take a look" which is, unless I'm mistaken, what I just said. But you know me, I'll say it again:

2:56 pdragon616: No duh you can "take a gander", but that means "TAKE A LOOK", silly!
2:57 Boyardee: take a gander= take a look or have a look-see!
2:57 pdragon616: thank you
2:57 Tobleron: I was the one that used it lol. scroll up
2:57 pdragon616: yes, you are the one who used it WRONG
2:57 Dork: were in america, people use words in slang forms, we use words in other ways than they are meant

So a person chimes in to agree with me, Tobleron seems to think I'm confused about who said what, and Dork thinks the entire internet is in America, and that I don't know what "slang" is. I expected that at this point, other people might start jumping on Dork. I was right. It was also time for more chiming in of relevant and irrelevant commentary:

2:57 Tobleron: we're where?
2:58 Campton: Dork talk for yourself
2:58 OceanBreeze: a gander is a male goose
2:58 Boyardee: Dork you're an idiot, but when i say that i mean "idiot" as in "cool guy"
2:58 pdragon616: Dork, in american slang "take a gander" does not mean "take a guess" no matter how bad you want it to mean that, foo
2:58 Campton: take a gander means have a look
2:58 OceanBreeze: its means retrieve a male goose
2:59 pdragon616: 'take a gander at' - Look at, glance at, as in 'Will you take a gander at that woman's red hair!' This slangy idiom, dating from the early 1900s, presumably came from the verb gander, meaning "stretch one's neck to see," possibly alluding to the long neck of the male goose. For a synonym, see 'take a look at'.
2:59 Tobleron: k I am glad I made you all debate and look in the dictionary I am off to the lake!!
2:59 Boyardee: whats good for the goose is good for the guess?
2:59 Durante: All right now, who's stealing geese?

Durante wants to know who's taking all the ganders. Conversation over, right? Nope. First comes more PM's from the moderator. I'm having a discussion again, and that's not permitted, and apparently I'm harassing Dork. As you can tell, my patience for the MTGO moderators is pretty thin. Let me describe for you the MTGO casual room window. At the top of the screen is a list of all the active "tables" (games), you can sort this list in any manner you like, although the most sensible way to sort it is by "Status" as this puts games that are waiting to start at the top where you can easily see them and decide what game you'd like to play. Beneath this is a list of completed games, and beneath that is the chat window, where all the players can post chat messages. However from the moderator's perspective this is what that window should look like:

Joe: std
Barney: ext
Alice: std
Fred: classic
Dork: std
Peanuts: ext
Jank: prismatic
Bored: ext
Kablooie: singleton

This exciting conversation is players posting a note to say that they just opened up a new table (game) and the format of game they've started... std=standard, ext=extended, etc. This is, however, inherently stupid, since all open games can be sorted in the game list window, so there really is no need to advertise games in the chat window. And therefore players tend to ignore the moderator and have discussions until he threatens to ban someone, and it's a good thing too, because otherwise hanging out in the casual room would be pretty dull. According to the moderators, discussing MTG is acceptable, but any discussion that lasts for more than a minute, even one about MTG, will result in the moderator telling people to be quiet or take it to another room. Anyway while I'm getting harangued by the moderator, the conversation continues, Dork isn't going to give up, and he's got iron-clad proof:

2:59 Dork: 5. gander 4 up, 6 down a guess based on only assumptions, www.urbandictionary.com
2:59 Dork: look for your self Gander - a guess based on only assumptions
3:00 Durante: pdragon is right
3:00 OceanBreeze: best conversation ever
3:00 Dork: urbandictionary is a user submitted dictionary, word submitted on December 18th, proving that OTHER people use it as a form of "guess"
3:00 Dork: therefore, you're WRONG
3:00 Durante: other people are idiots...
3:01 Abrogate: nobody says gander anymore cause we are too urban to think about geese
3:01 LoinGirder: Newsflash: Just because you can find other idiots who use a phrase incorrectly does not make it correct
3:01 Durante: I would go with standard usage over one person
3:01 Dork: 2:58 pdragon616: Dork, in american slang "take a gander" does not mean "take a guess" no matter how bad you want it to mean that, foo ---- you wanna say that again? make your self look like more of an idiot, you got really quiet really fast

Apparently during this two minutes while I was dealing with the moderator, I didn't post anything, and Dork took this as some sort of triumph. In the meantime another couple people have chimed in to tell him he's wrong, and Abrogate's post still makes me laugh. We are too urban to think about geese. It's kind of hard to take 'urbandictionary' seriously since all the defnitions are user submitted, and there is even less oversight there than at wikipedia. It certainly isn't like a real dictionary of slang.

3:02 pdragon616: urbandictionary is created by popular submission you twit, it isn't an authoritative source!!! YOU could submit your ignorant definition there. Big deal, proves nothing.
3:02 Abrogate: lol take a look and take a guess are obviously different in meaning
3:02 OneRingToRuleThemAll: of course
3:02 Orbital: probably did submit his own definition while you were all chatting, lol
3:02 Dork: exactly, you said no one uses it as guess, I proved you wrong, people do use it as a form of "guess"
3:03 OneRingToRuleThemAll: Dork,no one uses the words guess and look interchangably
3:03 pdragon616: urbandictionary also says that "Gander = Dander", as in "gets my gander up", obviously submitted by a halfwit who doesn't know what he's talking about and misheard the phrase... urbandictionary is the toilet-bug of dictionaries... Don't waste my time.
3:04 Orbital: urbandictionary = joke
3:04 Orbital: this argument is really getting my gander up
3:04 PutzModerator: Please stop this discussion now

At this point Dork finally went away. Probably because he too was getting harangued by the moderator. And I pondered this conversation for a bit and decided to share it here. I hate trying to have discussions on the 'net anyway. Nobody ever understands anyone and it usually devolves into pointless quibbling. So anyone here think I was wrong to disparage UrbanDictionary.com?

Funny .Sig

Abacquer — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:01:10 -0400

Saw this signature line today on a post somewhere and it made me laugh:

You should walk a mile in someone's shoes before you criticize them... because that way if they get mad at you, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.

Not Science

Abacquer — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 12:24:08 -0500

Having recently been named 2005's "most missed member" of the Magic Online Trading League (MOTL) discussion forums, I decided to peruse their general discussion (GD) forum last night and see what was being discussed. There was a thread on intelligent design (my favorite topic). The basic question being asked in the MOTL GD forum was "Is ID science? Does it belong in the science classroom?" So I posted a lengthy article on the subject last night...

List of Fallacies

Abacquer — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:28:58 -0400

I found this today while tooling about the 'net. It's a list of common fallacious arguing tactics with explanations. Neat!

Office Crossbow

Abacquer — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 11:00:00 -0400

Just what we need in today's times of workplace firearm rampages. Here's a pictorial demonstration of how to build a crossbow from office supplies.

Fat, Inebriated, Redneck

Abacquer — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:00:00 -0400

Apparently, I'm a fat, drunk, redneck! This is news to me since I (a) don't drink, (b) don't farm or otherwise work in the sun so as to acquire the aforementioned neck redness, and (c) well okay, I am a bit portly, you got me there. Check out this discussion forum and scroll down a bit.

See anyone familiar?

Bandwidth theft is always better when it comes with insults.

Bloggers / Websurfers React to Terrorist Attacks in London

Abacquer — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 10:44:24 -0400

londonist.com -- this blog is on top of things in London
The Guardian Blog -- a newsblog with up to date articles and photos
Wikipedia Page for London Bombings -- being updated regularly.
Project Nothing -- covering attacks and British blogger responses
Photos related to London bombings on flickr; blog coverage. -- article at Boing Boing
UnSpace offers A Prayer For London And the World -- imploring God to help Christians fight the desire for revenge
Four London Blasts Kill 40, Injure 300 -- Yahoo News Discussion, pointlessly turned to a political mudslinging fest between conservatives and liberals, democrats and republicans. It's sad to see how Americans turn on each other at times like this.
London Geofriends, Thoughts and Prayers -- Geocaching Discussion Forum
Multiple Explosions Rock London -- EA Forums Discussion
London Terror Attack -- MOTL Discussion Forum

Top 10 Speech Peeves

Abacquer — Tue, 11 May 2004 09:57:16 -0400

Okay, I admit it, I'm a stickler for language. My written English is certainly not the best, but its quality reflects at least a passing attempt to proofread and edit. When writing in discussion groups I may take anywhere from one to three hours to write a post because I take special care to make sure that I'm expressing my ideas clearly and thoroughly. Nothing pisses me off more after doing something like that than a curt reply which makes plain the responder didn't bother to do the same?

Christianity vs. Islam -- Intolerance as the Catalyst of Evil

Abacquer — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 00:02:26 -0400

Recently in a discussion forum I ran across someone comparing Christianity to Islam. He was describing Islam as a religion of hate and Christianity as a religion of love. To the comment "Islam is not a religion of hate" his response was: Yes it is. It tells you to KILL christian and jews. The bible does not give instruction to kill.

Since when?...

Opinion Versus Propaganda -- Saying Goodbye

Abacquer — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 15:58:57 -0400

This morning I had to say goodbye to the General Discussion forum on the Magic Online Trading League (MOTL). In recent weeks I was receiving harsher and harsher responses to my commentary from an increasingly vocal Conservative element of the forum. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, and if that was all it was, I'd still be posting away on MOTL...

It's 2004 -- Clinton is not the President

Abacquer — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 00:33:35 -0500

Why is it that as soon as someone makes any sort of critical remark regarding our Commander in Chief, that Conservative wingnuts begin waving their arms around screeching about Clinton?...