Geek Drivel

GoddessJ and I have been watching, with a mixture of horror and incredulity, a web dustup between an outspoken atheist and a large religious group recently. Read the link if you want the gory details, but the upshot of it is that the more zealous people on the religious side are threatening to do physical harm against those who don’t agree with them.

It’s no wonder that violent and intolerant religions took over the world for several centuries. Irrational people have a definite advantage in a physical confrontation. Fortunately, the Internet puts potential combatants out of immediate physical reach of one another, and tempers irrationality by forcing people to think a little before doing something physically violent — they have to make plans to get to the object of their ire, and that gives them time for emotions to cool, and for them to consider what following through on it would cost them.

If for nothing else, that makes the Internet a wonderful thing.

There are two churches on a small stretch of a particular road we travel often. One of them usually has a Christian-oriented (but often humorous) saying on its sign. Recently it had a humorous saying that was somewhat… unexpected:

Forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them more.

Annoying people isn’t supposed to be a Christian attitude (despite what a couple of major sects seem to believe), but hey, it’s the action of forgiving that’s the point, right?

The other church, perhaps realizing that they can’t compete on the witty-saying front, just puts information about its upcoming events on its sign. At the same time as the above example of cognitive dissonance, they had an interesting menu up:

Muffins and Coffee, 9AM
A Dysfunctional Family, 9:30

Thanks, but I think some muffins and coffee would suffice for me. I’d be too full to stuff in an entire family after that, dysfunctional or not.

I’ve always liked Bruce Schneier, a very well-known security professional. Earlier this month, he tackled the thorny question of how You’ve Been Left Behind, a post-Rapture service for those who believe in that Christian concept, secures the information that you give them to ensure that it won’t be stolen or prematurely released.

If you’re not a believer, some of the comments below his article are rolling-in-the-aisles funny. (There’s one that mentions a parody site that’s quite humorous.) If you are a believer, I’d suggest simply reading the article itself.

(I’ve been too busy over the past couple weeks to keep up with low-priority things, so now that I’ve finished part of a project, I’m playing catch-up.)

One of the things that I like about Paul Graham’s essays is that they’re always thought-provoking. This one is no exception, and I recommend that anyone who has children or plans to (or even deals with them occasionally) read it immediately and take it to heart.

This outburst makes me ashamed that I was born in Illinois. Obviously there are some people who still think “freedom of religion” only means that “everyone is free to practice my religion.”

I stumbled over an interesting article, from a couple years ago, on passwords. The most interesting part, to me, was a pair of statements buried in the text:

*Cuss words were very popular. Boy, there’s a lot of aggression out there.

*I was surprised about how many Christian-sounding — for example, “Ilovejesus” — log-on names were associated with the worst cuss words.

Just a thought, but if you’re really trying to live a clean life, try using a random password generator/database instead, or learn ways to remember random passwords.

Unbelievable. After 150 years of steadily-accumulated evidence in favor of evolution, we’re still getting garbage like this Expelled movie?

Expelled expresses the opinion that the universal support of evolution in the scientific community is the product of some sort of bias or ideological inflexibility. It is, on the contrary, the result of decades of hard scientific work, building theory and conducting research. Similarly, the failure of intelligent design can readily be laid at the feet of its advocates, whose main activity appears to be to carp about the success of evolution.

The problem, to me, seems to be that scientists are thinking science — where everything is questioned, and nothing is accepted without a great deal of proof — and non-scientists are thinking politics, where everything is a matter of which alpha male pounds his chest in the most threatening and impressive manner. A generalization, I know, but not by that much.

I stumbled across this interesting quiz a few days ago:

Even if YOU don’t know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic™ knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice…or ought to consider practicing.

Of the religions it listed for me, the one I actually practice was third (a 92% match), and the top one (which it said was a 100% match) is the closest organized religion that I know of.

For those more interested in the bottom of the list: the last three were Islam and Roman Catholic (tied at 11%) and Jehovah’s Witness (at 7%). I guess I just wouldn’t make it as a door-to-door Bible pusher.

I answer a soft knock on the front door a few minutes ago, still in my houserobe because the recent blizzard has driven me into semi-hibernation, to find two soft-spoken and well-dressed men at the door. One is in his late twenties, the other maybe forty, and each carries a handful of literature and a book with the suspiciously self-righteous look of a cheap but well-thumbed Bible, bristling with bookmarks. Even half-asleep, I have a good idea that they aren’t Fuller Brush salesmen.

“Good morning, sir,” twenty-something begins. “I hope we didn’t get you out of bed.” I mentally grant him minor points for noticing my attire. “Do you have a minute?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.” They seem taken aback by this. “Well, if we could just leave something for you to read. My name is Greg, by the way, I didn’t get yours…?” as he tries to urge a Watchtower on me.

“And you’re not going to either. Good day,” as I close the door.

You know, there’s a good reason why door-to-door salesmen have all but vanished. People don’t like having things pushed on them uninvited. But apparently certain groups haven’t quite gotten that. And I’m willing to bet they never will, too.

This “Virgin Mary USB Flash drive” is just ridiculous. “Plug her in and ’she comes to life, her red LED heart starts to beat – in passive state slowly, quicker whilst connecting or saving data’ [...]”

Thanks, but I’ll take a USB Rocket Launcher instead. (Oh darn, it looks like it’s Windows-only.)