Homo Sum:
humani nil a me alienum puto

You may have noticed a while back that I turned on gravatars for comments on the blog.
What this means, in a nutshell, for those who aren’t already down is that if you have a “globally registered avatar” at Gravatar.com, then your comments here will show the image beside the commentor name. (Assuming that you use [...]

Sometimes I am very glad that I only have to deal with the relatively more abstract, if no less scary, concerns of modern Western society.
Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after [...]

I like the latest “why the recording industry is in the tank” theory from Esquire this week–it’s not the same old piracy or consumer selectivity or even “end of format shifting” arguments, but instead a simpler economic argument. I have no idea whether or not it’s any more true than any other, but it seems [...]

Measure backs ‘American values’ in state schools
Arizona schools whose courses “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization” could lose state funding under the terms of legislation approved Wednesday by a House panel.
SB1108 also would bar teaching practices that “overtly encourage dissent” from those values, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious tolerance. Schools would [...]

OK, let’s do one of those patented link posts to clean out some of these open tabs…
Let’s start with Mario.

As far as programming goes, I’m a kernel guy–an engine guy. I don’t do UI, and trust me, you’re happy I don’t. I make it work under the covers. As such, I often deride and disparage [...]

This one via Gwenda
1. Have you ever killed a man? Only in my heart
2. With your own hands? No. And if I were to, it wouldn’t be.
3. What, in your opinion, is the best way to transport contraband across state and country lines? In a middle class car. With a child seat.
4. Even if you’re [...]

Pinched from Richard, the one word meme thing. Making the answers one word and resisting the temptation to expand is harder than you might think.
1. Where is your mobile phone? Coat
2. Your significant other? Versatile
3. Your hair? Gone
4. Your mother? Obstinate
5. Your father? Missed
6. Your favorite thing? Stories
7. Your dream last night? Threatened
8. Your favorite [...]

You’re feeling: Extremely tired and that special kind of drained that comes after particularly good times.
To your left: Immediately, the hardcover fiction, Abbey-to-Carroll, shelving. Left and back, a rack with 2TB of RAID storage, a laser printer, a colour inkjet, a wireless N router (with custom firmware), a cable modem, and around another 1.2TB of [...]

My Personality

Neuroticism

57

Extraversion

64

Openness to Experience

98

Agreeableness

9

Conscientiousness

39

You are poised, confident, and clear-thinking when stressed, however you feel strong cravings and urges that you have difficulty resisting. You tend to prefer short-term pleasures and rewards over long-term consequences. You have a generally cheerful disposition. You are a moderately imaginative person who enjoys a good balance between the [...]

There’s an evil tableau for you: the callous torturer stands up with blood on his hands and a lie in his teeth, while the priest draped in gilt reassures him of his righteousness. How often has that scene played out in history, I wonder?
You know, I wouldn’t change a word in what Paul Myers says [...]

Last night my mother sent me one of those horrible “email forwards”. She’s the only person with my email address who actually passes these hideous things on to me, knock on wood.
This one was one of those tedious things that abuse casuistry to snark at people who put reason above faith–you know the type, the [...]

Regular effort was planned to resume here today–but the phoenix-like resurrection of Demonoid has distracted me.
I did manage to update several plugins, and introduce the nifty new collapsable archives thing you will see at the right, though.

…NEVER say that I got left behind.
I have not been here, because I have been driving ridiculous distances around North America to visit friends and to see the Oysterband live (third time!)
I think I had an idiot grin on my face for about six hours after the show.
I will be discussing this at length at [...]

Apparently if I had been paying more attention to some of my sources, I could have taken advantage of being in Boston for work to pop into a lengthy panel at Harvard’s Institute of Politics last night on the topic: The HBO Series The Wire - A Compelling Portrayal of an American City. (Well, if [...]

A while back my wife passed me a PDF copy of an academic paper entitled “Polite, well-dressed and on time: secondary school conduct codes and the production of docile citizens” by Brock University researcher Rebecca Raby. The citation shows the paper as having originally been published in The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology; Feb [...]