I saw an ant, and I now know I’m a philosopher not just a scientist.

I saw an ant. It occurred to me to wonder, ants live in colonies. Drones go out to collect food for larvae and the queen. So what happens to two ants in a situation unable to return to the den but given ample food supplies. It then occurred to me that a scientist would conduct and experiment to find the answer. At this point it occurred to me that barring the annoying assumption of most religions that there is an all-knowing creator, this is EXACTLY what any higher being might do in a given situation. Myself, I try to think broadly, so I can’t bear the experiment because I see not only the risk of death to the ant, but the possible distress in any other form. (Some might argue ants aren’t emotional – but the proof of it, much like the proof of permanent death without eternal spiritual life, can only be accepted by someone who agrees to the boundaries of your reality.) The point is – in your given situation, can you not think of a grand experiment to be conducted to deduce an answer from your current circumstances? “What would two humans in love do given poverty and a society adverse to their lifestyle?” (Yes, I just said maybe some almighty god is conducting an experiment as to what a poor gay couple would do living in the bible belt. LOL.)

Bigotry, racism, John Wayne

I was presented with the following John Wayne quote, we’ll preface it by saying the person who presented it states it shows John Wayne wasn’t being racist.

…regarding the current civil rights of African Americans:

” I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and … See Morepositions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people…. The academic community has developed certain tests that determine whether the blacks are sufficiently equipped scholastically…. I don’t feel guilty about the fact that five or ten generations ago these people were slaves. Now I’m not condoning slavery. It’s just a fact of life, like the kid who gets infantile paralysis and can’t play football like the rest of us. “

I contend that to NOT be a racist statement he would have had to say it had nothing to do with people being black, but that he would support removing rights for anyone uneducated or ignorant. He didn’t. He stated that black people were irresponsible and had to be educated to be responsible before being given rights. He singled out one race, and one race alone. It doesn’t matter if the question was about blacks rights – he answered it by saying blacks (and by leaving out every other race) blacks alone, were irresponsible.
I furthermore contend that plenty of white people, educated people, and even rich people are irresponsible. I don’t see him stating we should give them limited rights.

You’re not gay, I’m not straight

I’m going to write a minibook right here. It’s called You’re not gay and I’m not straight.
You’re not gay, and I’m not straight. They’re just labels. Get past them.
Labels are just a way of carrying stereotypes to an extreme that box you in.

Stereotypes are for ease of conversation, not matter-of-fact. You say “I like blue.” So we say “She likes blue”. It’s not to say you don’t, can’t, or wouldn’t like Red. It’s just easier to convey that you DO like blue. So you say “I’m gay.” That doesn’t mean you can’t like guys, (or girls, whatever gender you may be). It just means you haven’t met any you do so far, and you’ve been attracted to plenty of your gender.

Seriously world? Let’s get past this. We’re all people. Can we start there? I’m a person and so are you, I realize with slavery so recent that’s hard to process. So if we’re people, can a person just love another person?

With the serious bit out of the way, I’d like to add – let’s try to have a sense of humor too ok? We CAN laugh at ourselves. I’m a big goofy goth kid who thinks everyday is halloween, and you just might be the funniest queer ever.
It’s ok. We love you anyway.

PirateBay applying for retrial

From torrentfreak.com, “One of the biggest cases in file-sharing history ended last week with The Pirate Bay Four sentenced to huge fines and jail time. Today it is revealed that far from being impartial, the judge in the case is a member of pro-copyright groups – along with Henrik Pontén, Monique Wadsted and Peter Danowsky. There are loud calls for a retrial.”

Please see the torrentfreak.com article HERE for more information.

Swedish Courts Find Logic and Common Sense Unnecessary

Image used under CC license from ImmolationCentral

Just flying the flag, you should already know the story, it’s all over the media: The Pirate Bay admins were ‘found’ guilty of ‘contributory copyright infringement’. I’m stealing someone’s comparison from the comments over on the Lifehacker post, Daniel Wired says, “Piratebay never hosts files, they only link to other users in their website. A weapon manufacturer that develops guns or knives, they provide the product, but they never actually commit the crime. Is it just to prosecute the manufacturers because they are indirectly involved with a murder?”

A few links to show what blogs I like to read ( LOL ):

http://lifehacker.com/5216483/bittorrent-site-the-pirate-bay-admins-found-guilty-sentenced-to-a-year

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/17/pirate-bay-defendant.html

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html

Religion should NOT be a ‘necessary evil’

     Did the title get your attention? I’m sure it’s been said many times in different ways but I just want to throw my version out there: The human race should not require the threat of almighty impending doom or holy finger shaking to inspire compassion. It’s sad that I have to preface it this way, but I am not an Atheist – I just think they have some good ideas. I am not religious per se either, but more a spiritual and ethical person. I don’t need someone else to tell me that harm is wrong. I don’t need a doctrine to say I shouldn’t kill another person. If you can’t make that out for yourself, then there’s the evil right there. Personally, my ethics and interpretation of the interactions in the world probably go a little beyond what most modern people even put thought into. My son is taught that the meal on the table comes from living creatures, and we need to be thankful for their sacrifice. It almost sounds familiar doesn’t it? Except I’m not telling him just to be thankful to an omnipotent being, but to the creatures themselves who gave their lives (not necessarily willingly) so that we may eat.
     I love Bill Maher, but I don’t agree with him on everything. (Hence he’s an Atheist, and I’m not.) Atheism in and of itself promotes disbelief in anything magical or supernatural. I think that’s really somewhat impractical in the long run. Yes, I understand skepticism, and a quest for proof and truth. What I’m getting at though is that a disbelief itself does not prove something isn’t real either. Take magnets as an example. We all know about magnetic fields and their interactions. What if there really are other such interactions around us that we as of yet know nothing about? Put more bluntly: You don’t have to believe to let others believe. It’s just a question of how far a person is allowed to take their beliefs. I say the line is simple to spot, it’s right there between you and everyone else. So long as your beliefs are not forced upon, do not interfere with, and cause no harm to anyone outside yourself you just feel free to believe anything you like. That’s your right. However, I would like at least a little consideration before you go praying for me – ASK! I might not want your prayers. I might not trust that what you pray for me is in my best interest. Shouldn’t that be up to me?
     So maybe that’s something else we need to take care of. A unified ideal of individual freedom of and from religion. Honestly, we need to take it full course and have a unified ideal of individual freedom period. After all, so long as your crack smoking doesn’t affect my life, the only right I should have is to tell you I don’t agree with it.

ConkyMounts script by Wyn, my custom Conky Config (LINUX ONLY)

     I use Conky on my Ubuntu system to keep me aware of what all is going on in my system. For those of you who don’t know, “Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop. Conky is licensed under the GPL and runs on Linux and BSD.” I was irritated when I found the basic way to display file system information such as free space/total space was to hard code each volume into the conky config file. So, I spent a few hours relearning basic, then converting my brain into linux shell scripting, and wrote a script to automagically do it for me. See the section under MOUNTED DEVICES in the screenshot below.

Click on the image to open full size in a new window/tab.

–EDIT– I improved my script and it is no longer separate files. To display mounts, simply add this line to your conky config:
${execpi 30 grep -v -E ^fuse|^udev|^lrm|^securityfs|^binfmt|^devpts|^tmpfs|^varlock|^varrun|^sysfs|^/proc /etc/mtab | cut -d” ” -f2 | while read line ; do
echo $line ‘${goto 160}${fs_used ‘$line’} ${alignr}${fs_size ‘$line’}’
done }
To download my Conky config, click HERE.

Full desktop and more info after the jump!

RIAA/MPAA – spin words, propaganda

You know what I love? The spin words “costing the industry”, “costing record companies”, etc. Why are they spin words? Cost implies they are actually paying something, or losing something they already had. In fact, it’s simply that they are not getting a piece of revenue. I realize this is semantic, but when it comes to things like these propaganda and PR are really what make or break it. I like to say “Record companies allege they would make an additional $x Billion were it not for file-sharing.”

…allege because the recording industry likes to pretend it is a constant that the people downloading mp3s would just as well purchase the music otherwise. (Obviously, because there’s no other way they are out any money – they didn’t produce the mp3s, they didn’t spend the time ripping cds, etc.) That’s not the case. A large portion of mp3 downloads are ‘sample’, where a potential fan downloads a song to make a decision whether or not it’s worth listening to.

Voter privacy? Where? Mark posted this over on BoingBoing

How to find neighbors who think they are registered but probably aren’t – Boing Boing

“Project Vote has now posted online lists of people (with their addresses) who filed registration applications in various counties but who were not put on the voter rolls by election authorities because of alleged or actual deficiencies in their applications.”

So what about “registering” to vote? What’s up with that?

     In keeping with the theme from last week’s post, today I’d like to say a little about voter registration. I personally think voluntary voter registration borders on moronic. By requiring voluntary voter registration voter turnout is lower, and it seems to me to be one more piece of information that can be used to track you. As for the latter, I would know because I have spent some time assisting in repossession and tracking people.  For instance, if I were to use a few publicly available resources I could obtain the following information from your voter registration: Full name, Date of Birth, Gender, Maiden Name, County, Precinct, Physical Address, Mailing Address, Voting History – Election Date, Election Type, Election Party, Election Voting Method