Tag Archives: Stupid

Apr 16 2010

Vatican Forgives the Beatles?

From UltimateGuitar.com:

Vatican Finally Forgives The Beatles For Religious Comment: An article in the L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, praised the band saying Lennon’s comment is now considered “meaningless” because of the beauty found in the group’s songs.

Well, at least it take 300 years like it did for Galileo!

Uh…. and Ringo, referring to the clerical sex abuse scandal, followed this up with:

Didn’t the Vatican say we were satanic or possibly satanic? And they’ve still forgiven us?” he said. “I think the Vatican, they’ve got more to talk about than the Beatles.

Yah think??? Hey!, today is the Pope’s birthday. Maybe he’ll give the world a present and resign for the good of the church? Maybe? Right, probably not.

Oh, and for the record, if you watch the interview and listen to John Lennon say it, he was not bragging that the Beatles were somehow bigger, or better, or more important that Jesus. He was lamenting the fact that they seemed to be for the youth of that time, and that it was kind of crazy.

Apr 5 2010

Young men who smoke have lower IQs

From Science Daily:

Smoking is dumb: Young men who smoke have lower IQs, study finds: A study led by Prof. Mark Weiser of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Psychiatry and the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Hospital has determined that young men who smoke are likely to have lower IQs than their non-smoking peers. Tracking 18- to 21-year-old men enlisted in the Israeli army in the largest ever study of its kind, he has been able to demonstrate an important connection between the number of cigarettes young males smoke and their IQ.

Hmmm…. I’ve always maintained to my daughters that anyone that starts smoking today, with all we know, is a moron. I’ve even gone out of my way at times to point to the teenagers out in front of the movie theater and exclaim as much. Now I have scientific proof to back me up.

Thankfully, they understood, and never started. Now, if we could only reach the rest of the impressionable youth.

Feb 18 2010

Amen, Brother George

From The Washington Post:

Sarah Palin and the mutual loathing society: Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska’s governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states.

You got that right George. What is the attraction of Sarah Palin to the Republicans, or even the Tea Partiers? Ok… I kinda understand the whole sexy librarian thing, but other than that, she’s as qualified as… as… a sexy librarian.

Please people, can we stop paying attention to her so she can just go away?

Sep 24 2009

A Review of Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories”

From Entropy Production:

Entropy Production: All Medical Science is Wrong within a 95% Confidence Interval
or: A Review of Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories”: Recently I read a very impressive book by Gary Taubes, previously a reporter for the journal Science. The work in question is, “Good Calories, Bad Calories.”‘ In the book, Taubes collects research to challenge the common knowledge of nutrition: that fat is bad for you, that we should eat polyunsaturated vegetable oils, that we should exercise for sixty minutes a day, etc.

…

One cannot help but wonder how a number of the weak hypotheses that Taubes explores came to become common knowledge in the field of nutrition? Taubes paints a picture of a few egotistical researchers who were able to effect what was essentially scientific fraud, by fitting their bias to the data rather than examining it critically. In Taubes words (p. 451), “it is difficult to use the term “scientist” to describe those individuals who work in these disciples [ed: nutrition, chronic disease, and obesity], and, indeed, I have activity avoided doing so in this book.”

This article is a fantastic summary and commentary on Gary Taubes enlightening book. I highly recommend purchasing and reading the book. It changed my life for the better (starting with article that Taubes wrote for the New York Times Magazine). Since reading the article / book and following (for the most part) it’s tennets, the following has happened to me personally:

  • I’ve lost 50 pounds
  • My blood cholesterol has dropped from 220 to 160
  • My trigycerides have dropped
  • My blood pressure has dropped

If you are overweight or borderline diabetic, you NEED to read this book.

Sep 24 2009

Microsoft Says Google Chrome Frame Makes IE Less Secure

From Slashdot.org:

Slashdot Technology Story | Microsoft Says Google Chrome Frame Makes IE Less Secure:
The release of Google Chrome Frame, a new open source plugin that injects Chrome’s renderer and JavaScript engine into Microsoft’s browser, earlier this week had many web developers happily dancing long through the night. Finally, someone had found a way to get Internet Explorer users up to speed on the Web. Microsoft, on the other hand, is warning IE users that it does not recommend installing the plugin. What does the company have against the plugin? It makes Internet Explorer less secure. “With Internet Explorer 8, we made significant advancements and updates to make the browser safer for our customers,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. “Given the security issues with plugins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plugin has doubled the attack area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.”

I’ll let some of the responses speak for me… The whole response from M$ is just laughable. Here’s some thoughts:

… stones/glasshouses …

… Friends don’t let friends use Internet Explorer anyway. …

… What do you expect; “This is great now our customers can access standards-compliant sites and have a faster, smoother web experience”? …

Of course it doubles the attack rate of malicious scripts… It makes Javascript run twice as fast.

In other news, Microsoft has said that Moores Law is a security risk, because viruses can install themselves twice as fast every 18 months.

‘Nuff said.

Apr 15 2009

Vista Safest? Yeah… Right!

From Slashdot:

Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet: pkluss noted Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft making the proclamation that “Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we’ve ever built. It’s also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It’s the safest and most secure OS on the planet today.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Feb 20 2009

Bill Would Require ISPs, Wi-Fi Users To Keep Logs

From Slashdot:

Bill Would Require ISPs, Wi-Fi Users To Keep Logs: suraj.sun notes CNet reporting on bills filed in the US House and Senate that would require all ISPs and operators of Wi-Fi hotspots — including home users — to maintain access logs for 2 years to aid in law enforcement. The bills were filed by Republicans, but the article notes that the idea of forcing data retention has been popular on both sides of the aisle over the years. “Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that… would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates. … Each [bill] contains the same language: ‘A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user [i.e., DHCP].'”

That means that I would have to keep logs of my wireless router at home, which I use only for personal internet connectivity (i.e. I don’t provide a service)??? What drugs are they taking, and did they bring enough for everybody?? This is what happens when you have people that don’t have a clue about tech trying to make laws about how the tech should be used and controlled.

Jan 27 2009

Senate OKs delay of digital TV transition

From CNN.com:

Senate OKs delay of digital TV transition: Overcoming partisan divisions, the Senate on Monday night unanimously voted to delay the digital television transition until June 12

This is a mistake, and is the same reason that we’re still not on the metric system. Everyone is ready, the die is cast, it’s a done deal. We’re only 3 weeks away from completing the transition. Why do politicians do things like this?