I seriously dislike a number of people you probably think are cool.

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 2 Comments

I’m starting to think I like riling up outrage. Too bad I’m not actually attracting much outrage thus far. So, here’s me taking another stab at it, by attacking three of the most venerated religious figures of all time.

Given the hypothetical situation that Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama are all drowning, and you only have time to save one of them, what would you do? Personally, I’d probably take a whiz on whoever was closest. That’s right — in my estimation, none of them would be worth saving, for various reasons.

Continue reading “I seriously dislike a number of people you probably think are cool.” →

I seriously dislike a number of people you probably think are cool.
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My conversation with God

Jason Thibeault, 14 Comments

So tonight I had a conversation with The Big Kahuna Himself, obviously taking a break from his telepathic chat-bot duties, and trying out his typing skills on a live question-and-answer website (I guess being God means you can carry on more than one conversation at once!). Here’s how the conversation went.

Me:
Hello God.
God:
Hello child. What is your name?
Me:
Jason.
God:
It’s good to see you, Jason.
Me:
What can you tell me about the Higgs Boson?
God:
I will search for it
Me:
Fermilabs and the LHC are already searching for it.
God:
I think there might be a few exception.
Me:
Do you think you will find it first?
God:
I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it. If you could have any kind of robot what would it be?
Me:
Don’t change the subject, God.
God:
Sorry I thought we were done with that topic.
Me:
No, you haven’t told me anything about the Higgs Boson yet.
Continue reading “My conversation with God” →

My conversation with God

Happy birthday Jodi!

Jason Thibeault5 Comments

Jodi turns 23 today. She won’t be around to see this until after work (her first day of work at the vineyard, in fact), so I want anyone who’s a regular reader to wish her a happy birthday. Do a guy a favour, huh? If not for me, then for her!

happybirthday
I wanted to buy her an iPod Touch, but they’re too bleeding expensive. Plan B was a Sony Erikson with pay-as-you-go for the phone service, but it was also pretty expensive, despite being significantly less so, and she wouldn’t get any cell phone reception at the vineyard anyway. Sadly, due to having done our inspection and taxes, we’re pretty broke this month. So, instead, I special-ordered us two Galileoscopes so we can go stargazing (this IS the International Year of Astronomy, after all). Sciencey, less expensive, and I get bonus points in the romance department.

If you’re close enough to want to buy her gifts, she’s asking for Home Depot gift cards. But don’t feel obligated, a heartfelt happy birthday here I’m sure would be greatly appreciated.

Happy birthday Jodi!

Our new eye in the sky

Jason Thibeault2 Comments

As an antidote to the last post, and the backward march religion seems intent on making, here’s a piece of scientific progress that proves humanity itself, despite certain member factions, will progress, pushing forward into the darkness. The Kepler mission has successfully launched, and is now a solar satellite, having escaped the bonds of Earth’s gravitational pull.

For those of you not in the know, the Kepler mission is intended to search for extrasolar Earth-like planets (meaning specifically, planets within a star’s Goldilocks zone of a roughly Earth-like mass, with detectable organic compounds and water). We’ve been finding extrasolar planets in the hundreds lately, so finding out how likely it is for an Earth-like planet to exist is just one more step in the march toward finding a habitable planet that we can colonize, and/or another planet on which life has formed or may potentially form. Finding other planets where life formed could potentially give us an idea of just how lucky we are to exist, or just how common life is in the vastness of our universe. Remember, there’s roughly 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and roughly 100 billion galaxies visible to us presently. Just like our planet is not the centre of our solar system, our sun is not in the centre of our galaxy, and our galaxy is not in the centre of our universe, in either a physical or metaphorical sense.

As Phil Plait says, this is a new era in astronomy. No exaggeration.

Our new eye in the sky

… and your Pope, too.

Jason Thibeault, 1 Comment

I was seriously considering praising the Vatican for their recent decision to accept evolution, much like they did in 1992 with Galileo’s heliocentric theory a few hundred years after expelling him from the country, in light of the fact that disproving all the available evidence is a task better suited for God and since He’s obviously not interested in doing so, it must be right. However, something stayed my hand (Goddidit?), and now I’m glad I didn’t post anything laudatory about those monsters.

RIO DE JANEIRO – A 9-year-old girl who was carrying twins, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather, underwent an abortion Wednesday despite complaints from Brazil’s Roman Catholic church.

My problems with this include a) the fact that they didn’t actually complain until AFTER the girl had the abortion, thus allowing them their petty moral outrage without actually preventing this girl from getting this necessary medical procedure; b) the Catholic church’s stance on abortion implies that the life of the rapist’s potential offspring blastocyst is more important than the life of the raped woman; c) a woman’s role is nothing more than a baby factory; d) “allegedly” raped?  Like a nine year old had consensual sex that led to her being knocked up?; and e) despite having endured the hardship of being raped, possibly repeatedly, by her own stepfather, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH STILL HAD TO STICK THEIR FUCKING NOSES IN!

Fuck you, Catholic Church.
Fuck you, Catholic Church.

Update: Hat tip to PZ… Holy fucking shit! Those sons of bitches have now excommunicated everyone involved in the abortion but the child! Evidently, not excommunicating the child herself is some measure of “mercy” on her in their eyes.

… and your Pope, too.

Spot the photoshop!

Jason Thibeault2 Comments

I’m bored, so let’s play a game.  I’ll post three pictures of babies, and you guess which one is photoshopped.

Baby #1 - mutation of P53 gene causing pigmentation shift and altered aural organs
Baby #1 - mutation of P53 gene causing pigmentation shift and altered aural organs
Baby #2 - the newest addition to the Langdale family
Baby #2 - the newest addition to the Langdale family
Baby #3 - tested for unusually high midichlorian levels
Baby #3 - tested for unusually high midichlorian levels

Let the games begin! Post your guess below, and whoever gets the correct answer will win many internets!

Spot the photoshop!

Epic want!

Jason Thibeault3 Comments

Such a consumerist I am.  Something bright and shiny comes along, and I can’t help but lust after it.  But really, when it comes to gadgetry, I’m sure I could make an excellent case for why you’d want this particular piece of geek kit too:  it’s called the SheevaPlug, and it’s a 1.2GHz, 512 meg DDR, Linux-based computer with USB 2.0 capabilities and a Gigabit ethernet port, that runs entirely enclosed within a 5-watt power brick.  Also, it costs only $99 USD.  Want a Linux server but don’t want to have to spend on the power consumption or configuration hassles?  Buy one of these suckers and an external USB 2.0 hard drive, and you’ve got yourself an SSH, print, FTP, VPN, website, proxy and/or media server, or whatever else you can think of running on Linux.  It also runs multiple distros of your choice — yes, including Ubuntu.

I don’t care that the author of this review considers the lack of video configuration such a big disadvantage, either.  If all it had was a command line, I’d be happy, being that I routinely prefer the command line for performing very simple or very complex operations in Linux, but then again I’m not exactly the average computer hobbyist.  In fairness, I don’t think anyone who has seriously considered implementing RFC 2324, AND has most of the parts you’d likely need to do it (if you omit most of the mechanisms for delivering ingredients to the appliance, making my potential implementation an admittedly incomplete one), could consider themselves “average” any more.

Epic want!