This is my general discussion / rant / whatever blog. You probably won't like it if you are a religious fundamentalist, extremely devout in a non-fundamentalist sect, extremely right or left wing, a believer in conspiracy theories, a believer in quackery alternative medicine (especially homeopathy, and chiropractic), or are cephalopodophobic (afraid of nautilus, squid, octopus and cuttlefish). However, if you can handle rational discussion, you're welcome.
This is a link to my amateur radio blog. The blog contains links to Google Earth plots of my QSOs, and articles and opinion relating to amateur radio. As much as possible, I keep politics, religion, and non-amateur radio discussion off my amateur radio blog.
The Super Bowl... I don't get it. Maybe if I post this, someone can explain it to me.
There aren't a lot of football fans in Canada, especially NFL fans. Yes there are some, I even know a few, but compared to hockey and international soccer, there aren't many. This is especially true as you move away from the US border.
So what's the big deal about watching a bunch of Americans play an American game in the USA while being inundated during the ubiquitous breaks in play (the clock never runs more than a few seconds at a time in American football) with ridiculous amounts of advertising? Are people really that desperate to see commercials? I simply don't understand. I never have. Maybe I never will.
Sure, I can see having the lads over for a beer and pretzels piss-up, but I don't need the TV on for that, and I certainly don't need a football game in February. This is Canada - surely there's hockey if a sport must be a part of such a gathering. At least then we can watch Canadians play a Canadian game, possibly even in Canada.
What's funnier still is that the Super Bowl touts itself as THE premier sports event in the world, but it doesn't command the audience of a FIFA championship... it's only watched in the US and Canada, for the most part and that means mostly in the USA. Outside of that little bubble, nobody cares about US football.
I do hope that people who had gatherings had a good time. Personally, I spent the time polishing up my resumé, making some amateur radio contacts, and working on my financial status in EVE Online... apparently with some Europeans and a few Americans who didn't care about the Super Bowl either.
Yeah, I'll probably write a whinge like this when it comes to the Stanley Cup in June or July or whenever hockey finally ends these days.
We often look to Europe, and the Netherlands in particular, as the model of a tolerant and open society, free of religious and conservative bollocks that so often taints our own culture. Unfortunately, the winds of change are blowing in the Netherlands and it's an ill wind indeed.
Those Moroccan boys are really violent. They beat up people because of their sexual orientation. I have never used violence.
The truth of that statement, however, is not the issue... Wilders is being tried because people were offended - nobody denies the veracity of his statements.
Also at issue is his movie Fitna. Apparently displaying Islamic douchebaggery to the world is a crime in the Netherlands. Again, it's not the veracity of the things in the film that is being questioned, it's that he said them at all.
I make this post because Canada is not far behind. We sacrifice people on the altar of political correctness not usually because people are performing flagrantly racist, discriminatory and hurtful acts, but rather because they say things that offend people, EVEN IF THOSE THINGS ARE TRUE. That's what's happening with Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and that's what happens here. At least Wilders gets a public trial in court... in Canada he'd be jacked up in a secret kangaroo court called a Human Rights Commission.
What kind of culture suppresses truth? Certainly not a healthy one. All Canadians should be watching the Wilders trial with interest. We have hate speech laws that could easily be perverted into the same kind of truth suppression. What's really bad here is that Wilders is an elected politician... that's right, his political enemies are using a perverse law to suppress political opinion.
In a free and democratic society, nobody has the right to not be offended. You may not like what your neighbour says, but if it's true, suck it up buttercup. Part of being free is being allowed to speak the truth. People who can't handle the truth simply don't deserve to be here.
Sometime on 1 Feb, 2010, this blog passed 100,000 total hits. I hope I have been entertaining and I appreciate the traffic. My thanks to all who have visited!
If you're a Facebook user, you've probably seen this meme circulating, somewhat virally, among the various status files of people you know:
WARNING!!!!! Go in to your PRIVACY settings and click block list, type in AUTOMATIC BLOCK, there's 3 names there DELETE them they're apparantly taking pictures of our kids off our fb and there meant to be peadophiles, They were on mine and prob on yours too. 3 FOREIGN NAMES block them 1 at a time. PUT THIS ON YOUR STATUS TELL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
Now, aside from the general idea that anything that tells you to display it publicly and tell all your family and friends is almost assuredly bollocks, I'd like to look at the general claim that it makes: That there are perverts on Facebook looking for pictures of your kids.
There are really two parts to the claim. The easier part is that there are people you don't know looking for pictures of your kids. That's probably true, but only in the general sense. There are over 350 million Facebook users (according to Facebook itself). The odds of any one random user specifically targetting YOU for pictures of YOUR kids is vanishingly small. Generally, people may stumble across pictures of your kids (and I'll deal with that in a minute), but the specific risk to you or your children is very, very, very, very small.
So the bigger question is how many perverts there are on Facebook. Given that the population of Facebook is 14% greater than the population of the entire United States of America, it's fair to say that the number of pedophiles on Facebook is likely to be about 14% greater than the entire number of pedophiles in the United States of America. Statistically speaking, pedophilia has a background level where not specifically encouraged by culture (like ancient Greece), so that's a reasoned guess. Unfortunately, there are not good statistics on what that level is. So let's give it the benefit of the doubt and say that 1 person in 10000 is a pedophile. Pedophiles are overwhelmingly men, but there are women and we've seen a few get arrested in the news lately (usually female teachers boffing male students), so let's put the gender split at 95% men.
What does that mean? With about 175 million women on Facebook, and using these estimated numbers, we can expect that there are 875 female pedophiles on Facebook right now, and over 16000 male pedophiles on Facebook right now. Sounds scary doesn't it?
But... like any population, there are other "undesirables" too. For example, this site suggests that in the USA there are 25-50 active serial killers in the USA at any given time. ACTIVE... that's not counting the ones whose crimes haven't been noticed/collated into being called a serial killer, and the ones who haven't quite flipped out yet. It's very likely, therefore, that Facebook's similar sized population harbours 25-50 active serial killers at any given time, plus serial-killers-to-be!
So really, does the existence of these people on Facebook matter to you, the friendly Facebook user? Personally, I don't worry about them. You're no more likely to be targetted on Facebook by some pervert or nutjob than you are likely to be targetted by someone picking your name out of a huge phone book. It's possible, sure, but very unlikely. And best of all, Facebook gives you some options to help reduce the likelihood of these people targetting you.
First and foremost, don't accept every friend request you get. If you don't know the person, don't friend them. If some random person walks up to your house and bangs on the door, you don't let them in to poke around your stuff do you? Why would you friend someone you have no clue about? Seriously, this simple, best way to increase your Facebook security actually requires that you NOT do something. It's so easy to ignore friend requests from people you don't know.
Second... pictures. I've talked about keeping your stuff visible to your friends only, and I'll reiterate it here. Hit the photos tab and click "Album privacy", then set your photos to "Friends only". You'll not only immediately prevent any pervert, non-friends from seeing your stuff, you'll also block people from your work from seeing your drunken, bra-on-head photos from last Friday's piss-up too (even though you should never post crap like that on the internet because The Internet Never Forgets... Ever).
Third, once you've set all your photos to "friends only" or something more appropriate, visit the Settings link and select Privacy. Go through all the little bits of information and make sure you have them set the way you really want them... Do you really want your Contact Information, for example, visible to everyone? how about friends of friends? friends only? Go through these settings and make sure they reflect your desires.
If you do this, you aren't going to have to worry about random weirdos trolling through your stuff, nor will you have to worry about Google picking up your info and blasting it to the world. And more importantly, it's a lot easier than trying to find out who the current list of pedophiles contains and manually adding them to your blocked list every day.
Perhaps these people are you? If you know who they are, contact me through this site and let me know if they want the photo back? It was found by my wife in a library book she bought at Value Village. If they want the photo back, I'm happy to return it, but I need to know how.
The Squid is reporting in from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic today!
Had to charge Beth´s iPod, so here I am at the internet café at 10 dollars (US) an hour entering a blog post. This has, of course, removed me from beach time. In any case, it appears to be working, so it is a 10 dollar lesson to remember to bring a charger with a USB connection on it.
It has been a good time so far. I have learned a few things so far.
Most recently, for example, I have learned that a Spanish keyboard does not have an obvious dollar sign, despite there being one marked above the 4.
As you can imagine, the weather here is vastly superior to the weather at home. It did rain for a few minutes a couple days ago, but for the most part it has been clear, 28 C give or take, with a sea breeze. Bountiful bosoms bounce along the beach. Unfortunately so too do gentlemen who should have better sense than to display themselves in banana hammocks. Oh well, one´s hat can always be pulled over one´s head when necessary.
The food is decent. This is a nice resort. I´ll probably have more on that later with pictures when I can extract them from my camera... I hadn´t expected to end up in front of a computer until next week, so I didn´t bring the appropriate cabling.
Nights have generally been clear, although I haven´t had the binos out for stargazing yet (only beachgazing).
On 16 January, I was listening to the SATERN emergency net on 20 meters. This is a formal amateur radio emergency network sponsored by the Salvation Army and it is handling traffic into and out of Haiti during this time of disaster. From what I heard, the net is very well run. As an added bonus, propagation conditions have been decent as well. This is one of the things that amateur radio does for the good of everyone.
So all is well and good, right?
Wrong.
All day Saturday, some jackass was making every effort to jam the net... music, dogs barking, whistling, you name it. From my point of view, the person was likely located in the south-eastern quarter of the USA.
Now, jamming is one thing. I don't condone it, but there's a little rebel streak in some people and if annoying some informal chat net is what does it for them once in a while, well, there's little harm done. Sure, it's aggravating, but in the end nobody gets hurt.
However, jamming an emergency net, that's a different story. I certainly figured that even the worst tobacco-chewin', gun-totin', banjo-playin', rebel-flags-for-curtains, redneck KKK member has enough smarts to say "No, I'm not going interfere with an emergency service because I'd look like a complete and utter tool"... but apparently I was wrong. Somewhere there's at least one complete tool with access to amateur radio gear and enough free time on his hands to spend more than 6 hours attempting to jam an emergency net.
If I find out who it is, I'll be using the internet to publicize his details fully. Whoever it is/was deserves to be famous, if you catch my meaning. That person is certainly an embarrassment to amateur radio.
Ever wonder why rational people think religious people are crazy/dangerous? It's because religious douchebags use their privileged positions not to help people, but to hurt them (and often to raise money primarily for themselves and their friends).
In this case, it's not just any run-of-the-mill religious douchebag either... it's the popular and well-marketed Pat Robertson of the 700 Club. Read about his idiot comments here.
Pat Robertson commands a huge television and radio audience, complete with all the sycophantic toadying that such a presence begets. Instead of using this force for good - for helping people - he has chosen (again) to use it to defame and hurt people... people who basically can't fight back. What a hero!
This is the same asshole who:
On TV agreed with Class-A Religiotard Jerry Falwell when Falwell said God allowed the 9/11 attacks because of moral decay in the USA: the ACLU, abortionists, feminists, and gays.
Blamed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on God's revenge on abortionists.
On TV in 2007 warned of a major bomb attack "not necessarily nuclear" on the USA, but said that prayer ultimately saved the USA when it didn't happen.
On TV accredited God for giving Israeli PM Ariel Sharon a heart attack as retribution for trying to make peace with the Palestinians.
Wrote, in a 1992 fund-raising letter: "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians"
Suggested, on TV, that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, be assassinated by the USA.
Certainly this guy is entitled to his free speech, I can't deny that. However, thinking people must oppose his brand of idiocy wherever it appears. Use free speech to shout him down. He'll probably apologize for this after a hail of protest... until he does it again in a few months on whatever the next issue is that pops up. I'm not a supporter of the compelled apology anyway.
I'm sure there's money to be made selling videos of communist, witchcraft-using lesbians, however, and I'm surprised there isn't a line of videos at the local XXX store put forward by some arms-length subsidiary like "69 Club" or something.
If you're wondering why this is relevant to Canada (where I am), it's because 700 Club is broadcast here and this guy has a following here. I've known people who watch that show, although I do try to avoid associating with people who follow it. Right now, as you read this, there are people all over Canada thinking (if you could call it that because "thinking" isn't really the right word) "Damn Haitians... deal with the Devil and look what it got them" because of this guy.
Yes, that's what has been happening and will continue to happen until the end of the Olympics... Canada will have spent over $3 billion on preparations and operations for the Olympic fiasco. And while many of my readers might be Olympic fans, I thought I would put up a list of better ways that Canadians could spend $3 billion ($3 billion and change is all I can confirm, I've heard rumours that the total cost might be closer to $6 billion).
Realistically, the money spent will benefit very few people over the next few weeks. There will be a few thousand temporary jobs, and a handful of Canadian athletes will be able to show off their skills. The local economy in Vancouver will receive a small boost. The International Olympic Committee will benefit greatly. But realistically, for the money spent, there will be very little lasting, tangible benefit to Canada or Canadians. Although I have a level of respect for the work and effort it takes to become a world-class ice dancer, freestyle skier, or curler, the truth is, if all the athletes in Canada disappeared tomorrow Joe Canadian's life wouldn't change in the slightest.
$3 billion is a lot of money. Here's how it could be spent... these are in no particular order, and are listed just as they came to mind:
The government could bail out the pensions of all the people horned by the collapse of Nortel. If bailing out the auto-workers is a good use of billions of taxpayer dollars, surely bailing out a few thousand computer geeks must be no big deal. What is so special about the auto industry that they get cut so much slack while high tech gets told to suck on it? This would probably cost less than $3 billion and benefit both the economy and thousands of people for the rest of their lives.
A cheque for $100 could be issued to every man, woman, and child living in Canada. This would benefit every person in Canada and the economy as a whole. It would benefit athletes too, much more than any Olympic competition would as they could put the money toward equipment and training. It might be enough to get some kids into a sports program that their families can't afford right now. Or it might just be blown on beer and pizza, but that helps the economy.
An extra $3 billion could have been poured into an invested fund from which athletic programs in Canada could draw money instead of begging from the government for dribs and drabs. This would also have cost less than the cost of the Olympics and would have the benefit of improving the quality of our athletes.
It costs much less than $1 billion to have an election so that Canadians can get the government they seem to want and hush their bitching for a few weeks. In theory, that would benefit everyone.
Our soldiers, sailors and airmen could have a massive boost with $3 billion added to the defence budget. We could solidify our arctic sovereignty.
Imagine $3 billion being put toward research and development of clean energy.
This is a back-of-the-napkin calculation, but I think that $3 billion would allow the government to replace every car and truck over the age of 5 or 7 years for every person who has one in Canada. This would boost the auto industry, boost the economy, and clean up the air. Every junker could be taken off the road.
$3 billion could improve the quality of post secondary education at every college and university in Canada.
$3 billion cold be invested in research and development generally, helping restore our place as a world leader in this area.
We could use the money to annex the Turks and Caicos, allowing us a warm, sunny spot to go to without having to be subjected to US air security/paranoia. $3 billion will keep the T&C operating for a long, long time.
$3 billion could probably settle every outstanding native land claim, or cut the list down significantly.
For less than $3 billion, every family in Canada could be given a decent laptop and high speed internet access.
As I said, those are just some ideas... Personally, I couldn't give a rat's ass about whether or not we get any Olympic gold medals. Such things have no benefit to any significant number of Canadians. When money is tight, as it is now, we should be looking at more effective spending - spending on ways that benefit a lot, or a majority of Canadians. We should not be looking at ridiculous spectacles that line the pockets of some tiny number of corporations.
This is one of the most popular articles on my blog, based on the referral hits I get: Picking Lottery Numbers. The topic is very popular with users of nearly every search engine. Because of this, I thought I would take the opportunity to expand a bit on the original article.
If you don't want to hit the link and read the article from 14 Jan, 2009, I'll summarize here: A lottery is a random drawing, and it doesn't matter which numbers you pick. In fact, the "patterns" that people see are assigned solely by one's own brain. If they took the numbers off the balls and just put random pictures of granite from a quarry, so there was no discernable mathematical pattern to the figures on the balls (or lots, or whatever they use to make the draw), people would probably not waste so much brain power trying to figure out the "best" pattern.
In fact, picking 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 as your numbers for a pick-7 style of lottery is just as good as any other set of numbers, and that other article shows this by way of the chart for the old Super-7 lottery here in Canada.
Because people keep searching and hitting that article, I have had the opportunity to look at the search terms people use and have come up with a series of informational bulletins that, I hope, will impart a bit of knowledge about lotteries in general and how to pick the best numbers.
Lottery Fact 1:The only way to win, is not to play the game
WOPR realized that in Wargames and the world was saved from nuclear destruction. It's a fact, that the best bet you can make on a lottery is not to play at all. If you look at the chart of Super-7 winnings from the previous article, you can see that the numbers selected would have won a cash prize of $10 a few times (the match-4 and match 3+bonus), and a stack of free tickets. If we assume that a player saves his money and only plays the free ticket, the maximum win for the entire life of the chart is $710 over a bit more than 13 years.
Statistically, that's about what you can expect from such a lottery. Yes, you could win the jackpot, but your odds are vanishingly small. Still, there's a chance (about 1:75000 over the time in the example), so let's add 1/75000 of a typical jackpot of 25 million to the pile just so that the lottery is presented in the best statistical light. Your total expectation of winnings would therefore be $710 plus $333.33, or $1043.33... let's call it $1100 for a round number. That's the simple reality... over 13 years you can EXPECT to pocket somewhere around $1100 on a pick-7 lottery.
For that, you will have paid $2 per week for 13 years: $1352, a net loss of somewhere between $250 and $640. Not a good investment. In fact, if you invested $2 a week at a mere 2% over that whole time, it would mature at about $1500 over the same time... and that's at a pathetic rate of return.
Lottery Fact 2:But somebody has to win!
You might think that, but you'd be wrong. That's why most lotteries have a progressive jackpot - nobody must win, and they often don't give away the jackpot each draw. It (or a portion of it) gets lumped in the next week. That makes the next jackpot bigger causing people to buy more tickets in the deluded hope that they can win. Of course, with more tickets sold, the odds that someone will win increase, but since the jackpot is also split, so too do the odds increase that the jackpot will be split and thus be less to each winner.
A lottery is not like a school-yard raffle or a bingo game. Nobody must win, but the vast majority absolutely must lose.
Lottery Fact 3:I saw a thing on the web about a math student/psychic/software user who wins big
The technical term for what you saw is bullshit, although I'll qualify that a little.
There have been lotteries that have come out with mathematical problems. It is possible, if you have the math skills and the financial backing, to score those lotteries. However, once flawed lotteries are discovered, they are shut down immediately. Thus, your window of opportunity is VERY small, and it only applies to new lotteries. It's fair to say that any established lottery very likely does not have such a flaw. At the end of the day, any lottery is a business and if the business is flawed it dies. A flawed lottery would simply go bankrupt very quickly, especially once word got around. So if you have the mathematical chops, feel free to try and beat the system on new lotteries, but odds are you'd be wasting your time.
Psychics and astrologers don't win big in lotteries. If they did, the richest people in the would would not be the Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, they'd be Sylvia Browne and Uri Geller. If it comes out of the mouth of a psychic or astrologer, you can bank on it being bullshit. Enough said on that.
Now, many lotteries use a system of numbered balls that are bounced about in a machine and allowed to drop, forming the draw. There are many software programs out there that will analyze the drops and look for trends. The information is typically available from the lottery web site anyway, so the software really just downloads the info and saves you the trouble of learning the math to do the analysis yourself. But does this analysis work? Certainly you can find plenty of marketing claims that it does... but if it works so well, where are the lottery quadrillionaires topping the list of the world's richest people? The truth is, analyzing past draws to predict future outcome doesn't work. If it did, the game would be flawed and would go bankrupt quickly.
The ball-based lotteries replace the balls regularly. Thus, even if there are tiny variations in weight or shape that might affect the outcome over a large number of draws, any given ball doesn't stay in play long enough to affect the outcome in any serious way. Similarly, the balls have no "memory" so any given number is just as likely to come up next week as it is this week as it was last week. Past results do not affect future outcome... this should be every gambler's mantra, and if you can't or won't understand that, just mail me your money because it will be the same net result for you and at least you'll have the pleasure of knowing SOMEONE will be made happy.
OK smart guy, I know you play lotteries and I know you win
It's true, I play 'em, and it seems like I win. Of course, you don't see me lose... because I don't mention it when I lose. I win no more than anyone else, but when I win there might be a coffee for my friends or maybe a beer if that's more appropriate to the size of the winning.
I consider lottery playing to be entertainment and nothing more. It comes out of my entertainment budget, from discretionary spending. Winnings go back into the entertainment budget. On the balance, all my lottery playing has been a net loss by a long shot. I consider playing the lottery to be "stupid spending" like playing the games at a carnival... mildly fun, but I know I'm getting it in the rear just by putting my money in.
Whatever... How do you pick your numbers?
Well, I often pick the first n-numbers required (1,2,3,4,5,6,7 on a pick-7; 1,2,3,4,5,6 on a pick-6 and so forth). If I am feeling creative, I try to draw a little picture on the fill-in-the-squares slip, although it's hard with only 5-7 "pixels". Sometimes I start at one corner of the pick-box and make little
knight's-moves (up 2, over 1; or up 1, over 2) moving around the
chessboard of the pick sheet. If I'm feeling lazy, I just get a quick-pick. It makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
Summary:How to pick your lottery numbers
The best bet - Don't pick any numbers. Don't buy a ticket. Save your money.
Going to play anyway - It doesn't matter how you pick them. Wing it... picking is part of the fun of playing. Definitely don't pay anyone else money for software, psychic reading or any of that crap. Playing a lottery is a waste of money, but paying some nimrod money to pick numbers for you is something even Forrest Gump would be ashamed of...
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