Daveman

Smart stuff. As a user of Ubuntu, it makes me glad to see someone with enough brains to see through the kind of hype that Linux fanatics spread around. Not that hype or Linux-related fanaticism is a bad thing, of course. But when the die-hard enthusiasts are wrong, someone has to be around to call them on it. Otherwise, it just makes Linux people look bad.

Bio-hacking; science hobbyists messing with DNA. I've been thinking about this sort of thing lately, and it's pretty interesting. I know a bit about the hacker culture that grew out of nowhere during the second half of the 20th century. They've driven the development of computer technology like no one else. Next is genetic engineering, for sure... but what does that mean for society, and for science? Interesting stuff.

Can I drop a table in here? Here's hoping the thing they gave me works...

55017 lab.drwicked.com

Anyway, I tried this thing out, and it seems pretty interesting. Heck, it inspired me to write something down, even if it was random unusable nonsense, it at least got the creative parts of my brain going again. It's worth a try! And I fully support and recommend the use of this by National Novel Writing Moth participants.

Wow. Who knew it was so easy to log in as root, on any Linux machine I can interact with while it's booting, as long as it uses Grub?

Would it be possible to write an automatic script that does this, and, for every folder in the /home directory, it generates a new password with completely random characters for that user name? Or, instead or merely changing passwords, it could run one of these commands instead? Could someone (hypothetically) make it into a .deb package that one could trick people into downloading and installing (an act that requires root privileges anyway, to the point where people don't even think too hard about it), and once installed, it executes itself the next time the computer reboots (which, if you use Ubuntu, is every time they send you a kernel update)?

Why would any sane developer leave such a giant security hole in their system? Why have I never heard of any Linux box being owned by such a script?

How bizarre.

Ubuntu user: "Dude! I was, like, driving down the highway and -- guess what?! I saw ... I saw ... a freaking BILLBOARD advertising the operating system that I use!"

Windows user: "Er.... so?"

Ubuntu user: "It was so cool!"

Windows user: "Why?"

Ubuntu user: "Uh... I don't know. I guess I've just never seen one before..."

Windows user: "Linux people are weird."

Okay, let's see here. The only thing I can tell from this is that relativism, or at least the refuter's own interpretation of relativism, is just slightly flawed. I can't invoke the straw man fallacy here, because I don't know anything about relativism. On the other hand, maybe everyone's interpretation of relativism is equally valid, even if a person intentionally reinterprets it to be illogical and self-contradictory.

Here's what the straw relativist presented in this page would have to believe in order for their argument to be internally consistent:

1. Many truths are relative. Which truths? It may or may not vary depending on the situation.
2. It may be true that there are no absolute truths, but not absolutely.
3. I believe that you believe things to be true that I believe to be false. (I am willing to accept being wrong about this.)
4. Whether anything can be known for sure is probably unknowable, although I don't know this for sure.
5. Your perception of reality is probably not the same as my perception of reality, because if it were, I think I'd have to ask you to get out of my house. I may or may not perceive the contradictions you perceive between your reality and mine.
6. We might be perceiving what we want. If you want to perceive that you are not perceiving what you want, then that's probably what you're perceiving right now. If I'm perceiving what I want, then clearly, I must want what I perceive, even though I don't understand my desire to be a fat nerd making a silly philosophy-related Internet post in the middle of the night.
7. This relatively relativism-like philosophy cannot be refuted using logic, except for when it can, which could be all the time or never. (Although, if you believe you have already refuted my arguments, and someone else believes you have not, is it even knowable who is right?)
8. We seem to all perceive different things. There seems to have already been a general consensus that some people's perceptions of reality are untrustworthy. Whether or not your perception can be trusted is unknowable.
9. If what you perceive and what I perceive has an equal chance of being a lie, then our perceptions must be treated as equally valid. I don't truly know whether this is true, and I don't know whether I know that I don't truly know whether this is true, but it seems to me like I believe this way. Your perception may vary.

Wow, this may be the lack of sleep talking, but I think I've just blown my own mind.

This is the stupidest comic book related list I've ever read. I mean, I know I've read some stupid ones before, but this guy outdoes them all. I mean, I know something like this couldn't possibly maintain objectivity, but at least that human could either try to choose characters for reasons more compelling than "I'm a sucker for clichés", or "this character looks cool", or "I read this book and liked it a lot". Or the list could have been titled "50 Comic Characters I Thought Up, Off the Top of My Head, Who I Like a Lot", which would have made me feel less disappointed.

An anti-xkcd stick figure comic. As hard as I try, I'm actually not sure what to say about this one. but it seems worth noting simply on principle. Unfortunately, it fails at being funny or interesting, and since xkcd has been funny and/or interesting on occasion, the point of this comic is lost.