Geekiest Wedding Vows EVAR

Posted by Johnny at 9:11 a.m.

This pair of hackers recently got married. They're the standard comp sci / geek couple: skinnny white guy and short asian girl. At their wedding, they exchanged some fairly unique vows that they wrote themselves.

Mika (the girl):

Now, I give a total offertory to joyful union.

I'll honor - joyously, endlessly, loyally, devotedly - you.

In the marriage that unites us, paired Yang and Yin, Benjamin and me, forever soulmates, shall complement as partners steadily.

With a doubtless promise, I pledge integrity and stability sincerely. Our rounded rings, a completely noble treasure; it represents continual respect, love, perpetual link with trust, limitless.

My vow: absolutely lasting devotion.

Now, here's Mako (the guy):

I notice a cheerful doubletake for our impending coupling. Speedily, startle gets abolished -- unfading happiness.

This alliance will progress. It absolutely does taste familiar: simple artistry. Our love has stayed; still strong.

Now, honestly, I..

I promise defense of objectives and unapparent qualities.

I promise symbiotic struggle, absolutely joint romance.

Golden as wondrous ratios, as a oft cited rule. Also duration.

I bet you're thinking, "Jeez, those are awkward." Well, being geeks, they wanted their vows to have mathematical significance and were willing to sacrifice literary fortitude.

Mika modeled her vows after pi (as in 3.14159...), in which each word had the same number of letters as each successive digit of pi. Mako modeled his after phi, the golden ratio (1.6180...). The digit 0 was treated as 10, so none of the words were longer than 10 letters.

Mmmmmm, that's geeky.

If you want to see their online photo album, here's the link.

Jon Stewart Schools Bill Bennet

Posted by Johnny at 10:42 a.m.

Bill Bennet is a neandrathal pundit on NPR in the US and is also plugging some shitty book. Jon Stewart destroys him on the gay marriage "issue," which, by the way, is "five times more important than Iraq and Afghanistan combined," according to some Republican senator [Colbert Report, 06/06/06].

A Work Story

Posted by Reid at 8:27 p.m.

Monday was a pretty normal day. I went through the normal resumes, did a bit of filing and picked up coffee. But this story doesn't start on this Monday. No, it starts about two weeks ago.

The construction industry is in dire need for Scraper operators, so when we find anyone with any experience on their resume, they automatically get a call. A resume lands on my desk for someone who has worked with us before. He has a fair amount of experience on Scraper so I call him up and have him in for an interview. As protocol requires, I pull his file. It was an interesting file to say the least.

First off, it said DNR (Do Not Rehire). I called up his old Foreman to find out if he rememebered the person at all. The Foreman didn't, but said to give him a shot regardless of the DNR because we need a Scraper operator so badly. I hang up and read further in his file trying to figure out why he was dismissed.

First off, he took one of these and ran over one of these. Okay, not an overly big deal (apparently). I read on. He also managed to flip on of these. Yes, I said flip it. Those are heavy mother fuckers to pick back up. Nonetheless, after bringing this up with the Superintendent, we hired the guy to run Scraper. Yes, we hired him back on.

Everything seemed to be going well, I hadn't heard any complaints about his work or anything being destroyed. Friday comes and he gets stuck because he was driving where he wasn't suppose to. Not once, not twice, but three times in one day. Yes, he managed to get stuck 3 times in one day because he was where he wasn't where was supposed to be. The Foreman lost it and sent him home early.

Monday comes, he calls me up and asks what's going on.

"I haven't heard from the Foreman at all and rumor is that I don't have a job anymore", he says.

Shocked that we would be getting rid of a Scraper operator, I tell him I will try to find out for him as soon as I can. He gives me his cell number and says if he doesn't answer it, just call back in two minutes because he is in the hospital.

"My wife is in labour, we're expecting a child in a couple of hours", he tells me.

I tell him congrats, hang-up and start my inquiry. His termination has been phoned in, but being persistant because of him being a Scraper operator, I call the Foreman to see if things can be repaired.

"Either he goes, or I go", the Foreman says.

Well, it was time for me to call the operator back to inform him that the rumors were indeed true, but now he'd have time to spend with his new child.

I called. I like to think that the tears were of joy for the new child coming into the world, but I could be wrong. Infact, I am almost surely wrong.

Thank-fully I am a heartless person that not only didn't feel bad doing "the deed", but I also have no problem telling this story to anyone who will listen.

Colbert @ Knox College

Posted by Johnny at 10:29 a.m.

On Saturday, Stephen Colbert was invited to Knox College (Galesburg, Illinois) to give a commencement address to the class of 2006 and to be given an honourary doctorate in fine arts. His speech, though not as political as his Bush Flame, was still pure Colbert.

A transcript of the speech is available here. I've saved it as a PDF in case that link is ever broken.

Some attempts were made to bring the speech to YouTube, however, the full address is not available. Between the transcript and the pieces of video, you should be able to get a good representation of the address. I'll be monitoring YouTube incase someone posts the full thing.

LizzyTerry series part 1/3:


LizzyTerry series part 2/3:


LizzyTerry series part 3/3:


Mazcheck series part 1/1 (including "Fuck" not present in transcript):

06/06/06

Posted by Johnny at 1:13 p.m.

In honour of my good friend Tom, I've decided to do a numerically-themed post in honour of June 6, 2006. Well, it's not so much about the number 666, but that which the number typically represents in Judeo-Christian culture.

Satan has a long and disputed history in the world's major religions. Even his name has been subject for debate, commonly varying between Satan, The Devil, the "Prince of Darkness", Beelzebub, Belial, Lucifer, and Mephistopheles.

The concept of Satan played little or no role in early Jewish theology, but was absorbed gradually due to popularity. Some think the concept was inherited from Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. The details of Satan's existence have had many interpretations, ranging from that of an independent agent to the incarnation of all evil, whose thoughts are devoted to the destruction of mankind.

In Christianity, Satan appeared as a tempter for Jesus and has been regarded as a fallen archangel of Heaven. There is a discrepancy between the Bible and other Christian literature when discussing the home of Satan. Christian literature typically places Satan in Hell, while the Bible places Satan on Earth, spending his time seeking to destroy human lives and keeping them separated from God.

Discrepancies between Jewish and Christian biblical interpretations exist on the subject of Satan. For example, the Jews believe that in Genesis, the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge was literally a snake. The Christians, on the other hand, believed this serpent to be Satan. Many Christians, unfortunately, are unaware that the original interpretation did not involve Satan whatsoever.

Another interpretational error occurred when Christian monks were translating the Hebrew Bible to Latin. The monks assumed the name Lucifer referred to Satan, however, Lucifer (or "light bringer") was the name of a Babylonian king.

The origins of the mythical "Number of the Beast" are just as varied as those of the Beast himself. 666 is mentioned in Revelation 13:16-18:

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with the understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

Some original Greek manuscripts of Revelation show the number to be 666, while other early manuscripts show it as 616. In Greek, the numbers 1 and 6 are easily mistaken for each other, and historians continue to argue which is the proper number. English translations typically use 666.

The confusion persists when tracing the origin of that number specified in Revelation. Many believe the number to be the numerical value of Nero ("Neron Caesar", "Nrwn Qsr") using Hebrew Gematria, which is 666. This could be somewhat conclusive if it wasn't for the alternate spelling in Hebrew ("Nrw Qsr") based on the Latin "Nero Caesar," which has a Gematriac value of 616.

Since Roman emperors were known to have oppressed both Jews and early Christians, the hypothesis that 666 is a code for Nero is supported by many historians. Both the Jewish and Christian communities in Roman times were known to have used numerology and codes to avoid persecution.

The secular positions on Satan and his number are expectedly different from religious views. For example, Skeptics typically do not accept Satan as real. Their reasons are as follows (from Wikipedia):

1. It is unclear how Satan, in the traditional notion, could defy or defeat an omnipotent opponent. Spinoza argued that it is unclear why an all-powerful good God would allow Satan to do evil deeds and go unpunished, but then punish humans who are victimized by Satan to an eternity of hellfire.

2. The existence of supernatural beings conflicts with naturalism. It is unclear how Satan, who is said to be supernatural, would interact with the human world. It is unnecessary to explain tragic events by appealing to Satan. Furthermore, from a humanist point of view, it is unnecessary to require a supernatural source for human behavior that arises from normal animal urges like lust, adultery, theft and lying. Also, Satan and his demons are not something observed under rigorous scientific study.

3. Satan's origins can be explained and traced through comparative mythology.

4. Satan, in another way of thinking, could also represent an 'anti-Christianity' view, where those who worship Satan see themselves as those who are opposite of Christianity views, for example, as a Christian one would follow Gods word, as a self proclaimed 'Satanist', one would follow ones own personal word and view, one would see themselves as a 'god' per se, with their own ability to chose right or wrong without the need of an 'almighty' to dictate their actions, in the eyes of a church this way of thought could be seen as 'satanic' where one should live with the presence of God and follow God's word. Therefore one could argue Satan does not exist, and was created to represent 'an external influence' for those who's actions are against the church, to allow the church to proceed to condemn or prosecute the individuals or group.

Personally, I agree with the Skeptics on this issue (as well as most others). I would expand on their claim that Satan represents an anti-Christian view to say that any incarnation of one religion's anti-God is a mere interpretation of an opposing religion's God. Many (especially Neo-Pagans) believe that the image of Satan as a horned half-man, half-goat was chosen by the Church to discredit pagan gods, such as Pan and Dionysus.

As Aleister Crowley, an occult writer, put it in Magick in Theory and Practice, "The Devil does not exist ... 'The Devil' is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes."

A post more epic than Marriage?

Posted by Reid at 10:42 p.m.

From me, no. From Kim, the author of Reflections on Choas, possibly. You can see her post on Marriage: Institution or institutionalization? by clicking.

As often occurs, people our age (20-25) are "tying the knot" (thank-fully not the umbilical cord, yet) and we are finding outselves involved in weddings. Last summer I went to/was involved in two weddings, thankfully neither requiring any speech on my behalf. One wedding was between a 23 and a 24 year old, the other was between a 20 and a 23 year old (The girl, 20, was married on her birthday. If you are going to gyp yourself out of dating many people and having fun, at least milk the wedding day for gifts. Putting both on the same day means you are going to get half the gifts you deserve 10 years down the road).

I've never heard of totally winging it to make it sound more from the heart. I am pretty sure that's why the one speech from the Maid of Honour at one of the weddings was awful. I was embarrassed for her and I didn't even support the wedding. Regardless of how much you disapprove, I am sure you want to do a good job. I would say the most important thing to a good speech at a wedding is bullshit. Just let it flow like a bad bout with diarrhea (banned topic). If you've ever written a reference letter, just do the same thing but throw in a few "love"s here and a few "happy"s there. Like a reference letter, nobody is really going to care if it is fantastic or just good. So long as it isn't bad, people will love it.

One to two minutes seems a little long. My arm gets tired after 15 seconds and my desire to pound the drink increases as each second goes by. Here's my stab:

Harmony. A beatiful thing. Music to many a many ears. Your harmony, celebrated here tonight, is the tune beating in your hearts hearts. Let your hearts beat together. Let them sing each of your own songs. Let them forever sing in harmony for all of us to enjoy.

Too cheesey and music related? Seriously, I actually bullshitted that. You can google search that shit, as non-solid as it may be. At a wedding nobody is going to care if it makes sense, as long as it sounds loving. Note I didn't use two becoming one, I let them keep their own hearts but they had to work together to make something different.

Kim is one of the handful of girls that seem to have such an awesome (and vocal) outlook of what things should be like. This could be due to the lack of religion, it could just be good parenting. It could also be due to the fact that she has a brain, rare in many people. Whatever it is, it is welcome here.

Truthful? Most certainly. Motivating? Indeed. Justified? Of course. Epic? Well, since it beat out marriage in all the preceeding categories...possibly.

Back in the saddle without the 12

Posted by Reid at 11:05 a.m.

It's official, Johnny and I are taking an entire month off from drinking alcohol. We have set our sights on July 1st (Canada Day) as the first day to drink following alcohol's absence from our lives. At first this seemed crazy. I am not addicted. Habitual and abusive user, yes, but addicted, no. Why stop? Well, first off the calories are just killing me and secondly, I think my body will appreaciate this coming void. I would like to taket his time to look over the bullshit rules of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

AA is a notorious 12 step program that has helped many people deal with their alcohol addiction so, like most people, I expected these 12 steps to be solid guidlines that anyone could attach to. Thanks to PMCOL 305 (Drug Abuse), I was shown this assumtion is wrong. Step by step:

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
This step is saying that alcoholism is like a desease, something like a bactria culture replicating within us that our body can't control. It's as if alcohol forces it's way into your mouth. Last time I had alcohol, I had the power. I was the one bringing it to my mouth, ingesting far too much and the throwing up. What kind of alcohol were these people having? I guess if it makes people feel better about their weakness though, this step can stay.


2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
So, I guess if you admit that alcohol is more powerful than you, you must be insane? How come you aren't sane just because you have an alcohol problem? Actually, the thing that chaps me most about this step is the capital "P". You capitalize the names of things, and this is a lot like have a capital for God or His or He or Him or Christ. Now, the mystical western god has taken on another name, Power. If it is another name for this western god, the "a" preceeding should be removed. Maybe it was just a typo in the original though, so we can continue.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Nope, definitely not a typo. Apparently this god's name is also Power. Step two should read "Come to believe in the god of the Bible and he will solve your problems" rather than lure people in with a non-specific term and then tell them the only logical assumption for a higher power is God. Steps two and three should be combined into one because together side by side they seem lame.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Wouldn't you do this as step one before admitting you have a problem? And why is drinking now a moral issue? Moral is another religious word that is replaced in the secular world with something slightly different, ethics. Is it unethical to drink alcohol? Fuck no, it's unethical for people to tell others that they are powerless over alcohol when they aren't

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Take out God and throw this step in as step number two.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Right, the whole powerless thing. No human could possibly do something for themselves, that might involve work. Useless step.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Same as step 3

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Should be placed along with (or instead of) original step four, althouhg this one is more appropriate. This would be a fearless inventory, although not a moral inventory. It should also come a lot earlier.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Damn, this one is good. It should just come earlier than step 8.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Wow, hard time making twelve steps?

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Same as every other God rule in here. ZzZZzzZzzzz


12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
A spiritual awakening, eh? Maybe it's because the brain isn't being pounded to sleep by stimulation of GABAa receptors. Maybe it's because you can actually feel the real world now that your brain isn't getting the shit beat out of it. Sure, carry the message to others, but don't make it spiritual.

Modified 4 step program (1/3 of the bullshit)

• Step 1: Admit that you are drinking more than what is healthy and that people are being hurt by your ways.
• Step 2: Take an inventory and write down a list of the people you've hurt and consider how they will be better off without you abusing alcohol.
• Step 3: Apologize to people that have been harmed and work on avoiding alcohol so they are never harmed again.
• Stop, rinse, repeat as necessary.
• Step 4: Help other people who have had problems with an alcohol problem

Why do people insist on God fixing everything? He is, literally, such a tool.

Johnny = Trend Setting Geek

Posted by Johnny at 10:57 a.m.

If you're bored, read this article entitled, "Kids outsmart Web filters" on CNET.

Summary: Some schools suck because they censor the Internet. Geeky kids who go to these schools discover ways of getting around the filters, mostly via web proxies. One such kid sets up a proxy on his home computer. He didn't face disciplinary action (what a twist), but they tracked his IP and prevented access to the proxy (bastards!).

This is what I found interesting about the article:

"This is a hot new trend among kids for getting around Web filters," Wolff said.

Hot new trend?

Anybody who attended a Calgary high school in the very late 90's - early 00's will probably remember BESS (the Ban Everything Site Sieve (not actual acronym)). This was a device the CBE employed in order to prevent perverts like me from surfing porn at school. I believe the system used some kind of blacklist/whitelist + very primitive filtering mechanism to determine which sites were worthy of "innocent" eyes.

Unfortunately, BESS sucked balls big time. If you needed to research the sexual habits of the common slug, GOOD LUCK! Even the word "sex" would promptly cause BESS to prevent access to a site, thus censoring all the sexual education available on the Internet. It wasn't just sex-related stuff either. Anything that had swearing, mature content, or pretty much any useful content was blocked.

For the first half of grade 10, I tried fruitlessly to guess the BESS administrator password so that I could disable it when I needed to. This was pointless. In the 2nd half, however, I suddenly became brilliant. I set up a Red Hat Linux 5.2 server on my home machine, downloaded a simple perl CGI web proxy script, and memorized my IP Address.

I went to school the next day and did a demonstration for my Computer Science teacher, Mr. Brown, who also despised BESS. I found a site on the Internet that was blocked by BESS, surfed to my home machine, entered the URL, and magically displayed the blocked content. Hurah! Suck on it, BESS! And the hot "new" trend of today was started ... 6 years earlier.

They ended up removing BESS the following year, so I could finally get rid of RH5.2, which sucked balls as well. The school board replaced the behemoth with the honour system, which worked much better in my opinion.

Catholicism 259: Ex Cathedra

Posted by Johnny at 1:02 p.m.

Here's something that I've recently discovered:

Ex cathedra (from the Catholic Encyclopedia):

We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable.

Aside from being the longest sentence I've seen in a while, the above definition of "ex cathedra" can be summed up in (very) laymans terms to mean "something all Catholics have to believe because God said so via the Pope." Note, I took the word "Christian" and narrowed its definition to only the subset of "Catholic." This is because not all Christians subscribe to papal doctrines - those who do are pretty much Catholics, whether they are Roman Catholic or Anglican (or anything else).

Ok, now here's a quote from Evangelium Vitae (March 1995), written by Pope Jean Paul II:

Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action.

It's important to note that this writing was presented ex cathedra. So applying our definition of "ex cathedra" to the above writing, we determine that as of 1995, all Catholics have been "told by God" to be against abortion and euthanasia, amongst the other ways of killing innocent people (like murder). It's also important to note that this dogma applies to ALL Catholics, including judges.

Now let's sidestep into the point of this post. In the latest US Supreme Court there are 2 Protestants, 2 Jews, and 5 Roman Catholics, 4 of whom are not only devout Catholics but staunch conservatives. However you count it, the Catholics have the majority, even if Judge Kennedy may or may not be devout. So if the other 4 are bound by this dogma, c. 1995, to uphold the Catholic belief of "No Abortion for You," it would only take one more vote to reject the US Constitution in favour of privately held religious beliefs. This is scary.

Every Federal US Justice takes an oath under 28 USC #453 to "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all of the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitutional laws of the United States." So, if a judge (or four) is bound by his private faiths to take a specific side of a constitutional issue, how can he be impartial? He can't.

There are a couple of possibilities for these judges when the issue of abortion comes up (and I say "when", not "if"):

1. The judge holds his/her authority and responsibility to the country more important than his/her personal beliefs and thus votes in favour of abortion [the correct decision]
2. The judge disqualifies himself/herself from the proceedings, indicating that his/her impartiality might reasonably be questioned (under 28 USC #455(a)) [a respectable, but possibly counter-productive decision]
3. The judge holds his/her private beliefs more important than his/her responsibility to the US Constitution and votes against abortion [the wrong decision]

In an ideal world, #2 and #3 wouldn't even be on the list. In this world, however, I have a feeling that #3 is the only one that these judges would consider.

Now, before you accuse me of being impartial in the opposite way, I will turn you to Article One of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. It states that legal existence is granted to those "born or naturalized in the United States." Thus, since a fetus is neither born nor naturalized in the first place, it does not legally exist as a person.

We could discuss abortion for hours (or years) in all three levels of the moral hierarchy (Philosophical Ethics, Law, and religion). From a phil. ethics point of view, we could make valid arguments on both sides of the abortion debate. And in the religious point of view, well, argument is kind of pointless.

As far as these judges should be concerned, the only moral framework they should be using is the Legal one and thus, according to the US Constitution, a fetus is not a person so abortion is legal.

END OF DEBATE.

Flaming Sousaphone (literally)

Posted by Johnny at 12:14 p.m.

Now this is cool.

David Silverman (one of the directors of the Simpsons, as it turns out), modified his sousaphone so that it shoots flames out of it. It's powered by propane and has an adjustable flame height.

Here's a quote from the original article:

We talked about attaching fire wicking to the top of the sousaphone bell, or something with propane shooting out of the top. But I'm not a carpenter or welder.

Fortunately, she knew a terrific carpenter/tinkerer. And one with a strong knowledge of propane, so things don't go boom in the night. I was hoping for something propane based, and a system where I could manipulate the flame height. Also, because the bell of the sousaphone detaches, I needed the fuel line to be able to detach in the middle as well.

Shanan Brown took on these problems, and solved them with a simple and ingenious system. A copper pipe attached to the curve of the left side of the horn, and a trigger device attached to that, prior to where you attach the propane tank. This allows my left (free) hand to work the trigger. The pipe continues up the side of the bell, and across the top. There is had been drilled with several tiny holes to let the gas escape. And finally - after seeing it in operation - the addition of two copper slats as a wind screen.

This reminds me of an idea that Reid and Mike had in high school, which was to create a flaming trumpet. Although, if I recall correctly, their idea involved kerosene (or was it gasoline?) and a lighter of some sorts, perhaps a Zippo. However they were planning to do it, I'm sure at the very least, the trumpet would have melted if not completely burned off the lips of whoever was planning to play it (Mike, no doubt).