12
Apr

How can I side with the ignorant?

Check your sources!

It probably took them about 20 minutes to make that sign.  They couldn’t spend 20 seconds checking Wikipedia?  Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics in 1936.  That’s the year Jesse Owens, a black Olympic athlete from the US, won four gold medals and here’s a surprise for you:

Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, an irony at the time given that blacks in the United States were denied equal rights. After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend his own reception at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Americans are protesting the Olympics being held in China because of human rights violations in Tibet.  Should the US not host it because of human rights violations in Guantanamo?

I don’t even care about the Olympics.  The only Olympic sport I ever watch is hockey.  I only got into this because of this ignorant protester.  But I’ll let Jesse Owens have the last word:

A few months before his death, Owens had tried unsuccessfully to convince President Jimmy Carter not to boycott the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow, arguing that the Olympic ideal was to be a time-out from war and above politics.

10
Apr

Patton & Me

Just testing Wordpress 2.5’s image handling capabilities by posting this picture of me & Patton Oswalt.  I was out of it from cold medicine, and Patton seemed to want to get out of there but was totally cool with posing for a pic with me.

Ok, so there was a problem with 2.5’s image handling and IE (I use Maxthon which uses IE to render the page, but has tons of great features IE doesn’t have).  I found this Wordpress Troubleshooting Forum post and the IE-Fix files fixed my problem!

02
Apr

Creative Labs Creatively — I mean Unethically — Encourages Hardware Upgrades

Full info at this Wired News article.  The gist of the problem is this:  Creative Labs has written their sound card drivers (the software that tells your Operating System how to use the hardware) so that they don’t work very well on Vista on older hardware, thus encouraging people to upgrade to newer, “more compatible” hardware.

And when someone found this out and in the processed fixed the drivers so they worked on the older hardware again?  He got threats from Creative, legal ones.

It’s time to Boycott Creative.  Don’t by their hardware any more!

01
Apr

Hilarious Muppet Blooper Reel

29
Mar

I’m about to upgrade to Wordpress 2.5.

So if things go all weird, you’ll know why.

Update:  That went smoothly and wow the backend looks gorgeous.  I’m very intersted in checking out the new features.

Wordpress team: YOU ROCK!

21
Mar

Shrinkage - A New Poker Game

I’m mostly a Texas Hold’Em player.  I’ve been introduced to other games, specifically the ones that make up “HORSE”, but right now I’m concentrating on getting better at Hold’Em over spreading out my poker skills.

But on a whim I made up a Hold’Em variant that I call either “Shrinkage” or “Burnaby Fold’Em”, and the few people I’ve introduced it to have enjoyed it so I’m posting it now to “stake my claim”, and spread the word.

Here’s how it’s played.

The maximum players you can have is 8, but it plays best with 4-5 because of the high card usage.

Blinds and bet limits are handled just like Hold’Em.  You can play Limit, Pot-Limit or No-Limit Shrinkage.  Like Hold’Em there is a small and big blind.

Each player is dealt five cards.  They must immediately “shrink” their hand by choosing and discarding one card from their hand.  The order doesn’t really matter as they are discarded face down, but if anyone cares, do it in betting order.

There is then a round of betting, just like Hold’Em.

The dealer “burns” (discards) the top card of the deck and a three-card “flop” is dealt on the table face-up.  Just like Hold’Em, these are community cards that everyone can use to build their hand.  After the flop, players again “shrink” their hands, and they are now down to three cards each.  Again, a round of betting ensues.

The dealer “burns” the top card and a fourth “Turn” card is dealt face-up.  Players again “shrink” their hands and they are now down to two cards they would have in Hold’Em.  From here on out the game is identical to Hold’Em.  A round of betting, followed by a fifth “River” card is dealt face up.  There is no “shrinking” on the river card, though there is betting after it is revealed.  Hands are built by each player using 0, 1, 2 of their own cards and the remaining cards from the cards that are face-up.

Why “Shrinkage”?

Also, the “Shrink & Drink” drinking-game variant:  At any time people are required to “shrink”, the dealer shouts “SHRINK!” and everyone quickly chooses and discards one card face-up in the centre of the table.  The person who gets their card down last must take a drink!  We haven’t tried it yet, but I’m guessing that eventually you just get slower and slower (unless you’re WKRP’s Dr. Johnny Fever) and your play gets worse and worse, so shrink those cards quickly!

21
Mar

PZ Myers expelled from “Expelled”

PZ Meyers, the man behind one of a few of my daily must-read blogs, Pharyngula was refused entry into a screening of the upcoming creationists propaganda film “Expelled“.  I’ve already talked about what a pile of crap that movie obviously is, and how it brought down my opinion of Ben Stein (who I used to think was smart and funny, but now think is half-smart and crazy).

But this is just too delicious.  Myers, who was actually fooled into being interviewed in the movie, was in line to see a screening and was told by a police officer that he wasn’t allowed in and then that he had to leave immediately!

The reason the irony is delicious instead of just typical of creationists?

They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn’t notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn’t recognize him. My guest was …

Richard Dawkins.

He’s in the theater right now, watching their movie.

Tell me, are you laughing as hard as I am?

Yes, I am!  Not only are the producers looking absolutely terrible for not letting him in, but they let in RICHARD FUCKING DAWKINS instead!

You can read his full account at his Pharyngula entry!

29
Feb

For Jess

Toothpaste For Dinner

26
Feb

What happens in Richmond doesn’t stay in Richmond

I went to play at the weekly River Rock Casino’s Texas Hold’Em tournament last night.  It’s only my second time playing at a casino tournament and I felt like I played really well up until I got into a weird mindset after coming back strong from being short-stacked and made a terrible play that knocked me out of the game.  When the hand was done I literally looked up and thought out loud “Why the heck did I do that?”  Andy Zieger thinks I was still in “desperation mode” from the short stack mode and hadn’t turned off into a more careful style of play, and I think he’s right.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Other than that huge mistake, I played very well and stood up against some really experienced players and their attempts to bully me at the table.  I bullied them right back a few times and I think I got some respect — at least until my final bonehead play.

Oh, and as I was waiting around for the tourney to get started, Roberto Luongo walked in and paid his entry fee.  I never got to play at his table, but he outlasted me.  The guy who knocked me out was his friend (not a hockey player, trust me) and they had arrived together.  It’s a bit surreal to go “Hey, isn’t that guy one of the best goalies in the world?  Oh yeah, that is him!”

06
Feb

Piclens

I haven’t been impressed by new software in quite a while, especially web-browser stuff, but wow, Piclens is amazing.  It turns browsing photos into an amazing 3D experience.  And it’s not just cool, it’s totally convenient and quick!

I haven’t been able to get it to work with Maxthon yet, but if I see how I’ll update this post.  It works great in IE and Firefox (and Safari for Mac users).