Tell me this doesn’t support the argument that oral sex was designed by God as well. Oh, and why would that not include gay oral sex too? Oops — probably not his intention. His argument from design is seriously underwhelming, but at least it succeeded in making creationists look silly.

Kirk Cameron from “Groin Pains” is the guy on the right. I think he laughs there towards the end because he suddenly realized how gay this whole thing looks. Here are some choice quotes:

1. “The contents don’t squirt in your face.”
2. “Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry.”
3. “It’s just the right shape for the human mouth” (makes an o-face)
4. “And it’s even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

To add insult to injury there’s the small issue of the banana he’s holding being a product of man’s design. Wild bananas don’t look anything like what he’s holding. We select and cultivate the bananas we see every day for characteristics desirable to us. Yet another victory for creationism.:

[ Edited ]

There was a story recently about Israel asking the U.S. to give them their loan and aid payments in Euros rather than U.S. dollars. I reacted strongly to this via the following paraphrase on my part:

–

Israel to U.S.: “Hey, you know those billions of dollars you give us every year out of the kindness of your heart? Yeah, well your failing money isn’t good enough anymore. From now on give it to me in Euros, i.e. currency that’s actually worth something. [spits on ground]“

United States: “O.k.”

–

But evidently this didn’t really happen. The multiple sources online are all pointing to the same single source, and that was supposedly sarcasm. If that’s in fact the case then I’m relieved, although I don’t see the “joke” as being at all unlikely.

And just for the record, I don’t fault Israel for dominating us. I’ve respected them greatly since reading a bunch of books about the Mossad back in the 90’s. I like the fact that they look out for each other and always rise to the top regardless of obstacles.

I just don’t like the fact that it seems we’re more of a pawn in their plan rather than a long-term partner. Again, that’s not their fault, it’s ours.:

I was in CompUSA the the other day and noticed quite a few people in the Apple section. I realized that this was becoming increasingly common everywhere I went. Indeed, much Apple love these days. But why now?

I mentioned to an employee in the PC section that Apple interest seemed to be getting stronger overall, and asked if he had seen the same thing there in the store. He said he’d been there for around three years and that Apple awareness was at an all-time high.

I asked him when he thought things started turning around for Apple.

–

Me: Was it the new iMacs? The iPod halo effect finally kicking in? When did you start noticing a difference? CompUSA Employee: Oh, I know exactly when it was…it was quite obvious.

Me: When?

CompUSA Employee: Around the middle of January of this year [2007].

Me: Really, what came out then that made the difference? [I was thinking Apple]

CompUSA Employee: Vista.

–

The guy was totally nonchalant about it. He didn’t even seem to care. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He wasn’t joking. He was just relaying what he saw, and he was right.

Apple didn’t give OS X the popularity it has today — Vista did.:

[ Edited ]

Ok, so someone stole my lsof article the other day, took a screenshot of it, and posted it to Digg without crediting me.

I got angry and belligerent.

It appears the guy was not actually a spammer but instead just an uninformed soul with no grasp of netiquette. Although it does seem like just basic moral instincts would tell someone that what he did was wrong.

Either way, no hard feelings. The guy seems new to things. If he learned a lesson then that’s cool (although an email from would be nice).

Fin.

Well, that didn’t take long. One word — WordPress.

If you use Safari you can’t use the WordPress editor to post to your blog. You can’t add images. You can’t even insert line breaks between paragraphs. It’s a soup sandwich.

This is a deal-breaker for Safari until WordPress gets its act together.

Until then I’ll be using Camino. The tagline is “Mozilla Power, Mac Style”, and that’s fairly accurate. It’s 70% as nice feeling as Safari, and it has 70% of the power of Firefox.

It’s not a total win but it’s good enough until one of those become a complete solution. I’m betting on Safari since the main holdup is actually on WordPress’s side.

Life goes on.:

[ By the way, if you use Camino all of your Firefox Quick Searches will automatically work after you import your bookmarks ]

Paul Graham just described his view of philosophy. He essentially said it’s the attempt to find increasingly general truths that have useful applications.

I mostly agree with this, but I’d like to offer my own definition. I see philosophy as the attempt to reveal the nature of reality through thought, logic and discussion as opposed to through the use of the scientific method.

Obviously I’m all for the application bit that he mentions, but I think any revelation that gets us closer to understanding “reality” will end up being applicable in some way regardless of whether or not that’s our goal.

In other words, if we’re starting with problems that face us here in this world, and we’re using philosophy to try and learn the truths behind these problems, those truths — once revealed — will automatically have an application.

This is what I try to do. I try and find patterns and truths in reality and then describe them. I am attempting to find the courage to do this without fear, while simultaneously being precise with my language and careful with my research.

My attempts are usually rather sloppy and feeble, but I am improving this with time. As I think Graham’s essay points out, there isn’t really all that much to learn in order to be able to proceed with good footing.

grep understanding knowledge.

I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with Firefox over the months. It’s been getting to the point where I’ve been considering moving to Safari a few times, but I never had the eggs to pull it off.

Well, Ken mentioned today that he’s going make the switch for a whole month. I told him I couldn’t do it because of Quick Searches, and he replied that they probably had that functionality in Safari through extensions by now.

He was right. I just configured my Google and Wikipedia Quick Searches in Safari. Game over.

Safari is so much tighter than Firefox to me, and now that it has THE piece of functionality that matters most to me in a browser (searching websites from the URL bar) there’s just no need to go without Safari’s advantages any longer. We’ll see how it goes…