Silicon Valley Redneck

Spurious?

Insty links to a site filled with spurious correlations.  Fun!

But: how certain are we, really, that the correlation between mozzarella consumption and civil engineering doctorates is truly spurious?

After all, pizza is the basic fuel of engineering students.

On the checking of privilege

Now Patterico's linked to one of these things, noting how pointless it is.

Had I rather more idle time and inspiration, I might throw together a privilege-check quiz aimed at those most likely to invoke the catchphrase.

A few sample questions:

• Have you ever had a job from which you could be fired?
• Have you ever had a job providing a product or service which the customers could choose to buy, or not, without compulsion?
• Have you ever had a job at which your performance could be objectively evaluated?
• If you lost your temper, would your behavior be automatically excused on the basis of your sex or ethnicity?

Anyway, you get the idea.  There are plenty of people out there in real positions of privilege, often acting on behalf of, and shielded by, the State.  Those who throw around casual accusations of privilege are often members of this group, or aspire to membership.

The idea that yer basic working stiff is privileged brings to mind an old Jewish joke....

The Ultimate Collection of Two Cows

Here.

A brief history of philosophy

Put down your drink - don't say I didn't warn you! - and read this.

(Via LabRat.)

And now for something completely different

It's the Guinea Pig Olympics!

Apparently this is meant to be a 2009 calendar from Icarus Arts, but I dunno where you'd buy one.

What, so women don't shop at Digi-Key?

Mike on Ads (never heard of him?  Neither had I) has a cute gimmick.  Surf on over to the gender guesser, enable Javascript, and click the button.

My results:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 19%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 81%

Site	Male-Female Ratio
google.com	0.98
snopes.com	0.74
tinyurl.com	0.83
slashdot.org	1.74
digikey.com	2.7
microcenter.com	2.08
maniacworld.com	0.74

(Via El Reg.)

OK, if you didn't like the title...

...of that last post, then you should definitely not click here.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Iowahawk has posted another of his little Art-Hoppe-esque fantasy stories, this one involving the Ratt of Phynkia, er, His Excellency Gromulak of the Cess-Mutants visiting a college to address the students.

Any resemblance to actual events is of course a figment of a diseased imagination.

Now there's a disclaimer for ya!

Laughing Wolf has posted what appears to be a comprehensive and all-inclusive (or should that be all-exclusive?) disclaimer.

While I certainly admire LW's style, I personally favor short and simple disclaimers.  Back in my days of posting to Usenet from a company account, I used this one:
    The author is insane.  Any opinions are those of Great Cthulhu.

"None of the above"

Joe Sherlock says there are not Two Americas, but eight, and lists them.

Oddly enough, I don't seem to fit in any of them.  Nor do most of my friends, but I guess they mostly inhabit Weird America too.

(Via Four Right Wing Wackos.)

Pick a side, any side!

There are many more to choose from!

(Via CDR Salamander.)

Oy. There's always someone worse off.

With all my kvetching about my recent illnesses and injuries... Stephen Green has had a much worse time, in the same few months.  Like, at our respective worst points, his weight was just about half mine... and (a) he's two inches taller, and (b) I wasn't exactly spherical.

The good news is, his condition is treatable.  The bad news is, it's a lifetime of treatment.  (My problems can most likely be managed, in the long run, with minor lifestyle adjustments.)

I was going to complain about having developed sore muscles on today's piddly 7-mile hike with moderate hills.  Compared to someone who's struggling to do one pushup... hey, I don't have it so bad.

Get well, Steve!

Warning labels

Great commentary on a stupid warning-label trick here.  (Via the Volokh Conspiracy, where else?)

Short form: falling out of an upper bunk can hurt.  Don't do it.  Instead, go read the long form at the aforelinked article.

Thursday morning silliness

The Norm links to a new Web toy: Google Fight!

Give it two words, and see which one would win!

Monkeys beat Aquaman, of course.  TOPS-10 beats RSX-11M.  KDE beats Gnome, but only by a narrow margin.  Mozart beats Holst.

OK, so some people...

...just have altogether too much time on their hands!

Now making the rounds is The Unified Field Crossover History of the Universe, an amazing unified timeline of history, religion, and, er, other things.

Break out the flensing knives!

Worried about the coming fuel crisis?  Don't believe the Great Corn Boondoggle is the answer to all our problems?

Chuck Z. has a characteristically modest proposal!  It's even better than a return to whale oil, as it uses a resource that's much more plentiful, and faster to renew, than whales.

A belated link

Found linked at SSDB: Why Lincoln Stopped Blogging.

Awright, now this is just silly.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Aratinga S. Bird!

1. During severe windstorms, Aratinga S. Bird may sway several feet to either side.
2. You should always store Aratinga S. Bird in an airtight container in the fridge.
3. If you put a drop of liquor on Aratinga S. Bird, she will go mad and sting herself to death.
4. All swans in England belong to Aratinga S. Bird!
5. Aratinga S. Bird can fly at an average speed of fifteen kilometres an hour.
6. More than one million stray dogs and half a million stray cats live in Aratinga S. Bird.
7. The canonical hours of the Christian church are matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, Aratinga S. Bird and compline!
8. Aratinga S. Bird has only one weakness - the colour yellow.
9. Aratinga S. Bird can run sixty-five kilometres an hour - that's really fast!
10. In a pinch, the skin from a shark can be used as Aratinga S. Bird.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Silliness generator via AFSister, via Castle Argghhh!

ID badges for everyone!

An amusing picture & anecdote over at Miserable Donuts bring back memories....

When I first started working at Cyras, back in the summer of 2000, I sometimes took Tinga to the office... early on, because she was recovering from an injury and sometimes just monitoring her via webcam just wasn't good enough; later, sometimes, when I was working on a weekend and comic relief was in order.
After a few months, somebody had the bright idea of photo ID badges for everybody.  Since I got wind of it a little ahead of time, I had the opportunity to prepare... and showed up for my photo sesion wearing an outrageous shirt and a plumed hat.
Not long after that, I decided Tinga should have an ID badge too.  So, I fired up Sketch, created a "close enough" badge template, pasted in Tinga's name and a fake employee number (mine with a suffix, if memory serves), printed the result on glossy paper, laminated it, and presto!

When Cyras got bought out by Ciena, Tinga was the first to have a new Ciena badge - forged, of course.  Not having any idea what the real ones looked like, I just threw together something with the Ciena logo on it, and of course nobody else there new what the real ones looked like, either.
Somewhat later, I forged a Ciena badge for myself, in yet a different (and still wrong) format.  People were still fooled.  Even some who knew me.

Still later, we got our genuine Ciena badges, and of course I showed up for the photo with the plumed hat again - by this time, it was famous.  Rumor had it that someone at Corporate had taken exception to my old photo and decreed a "no hats" policy; in case this turned out to be true, I naturally had a backup plan: being fairly certain there wouldn't be a "no makeup" policy, I was prepared to take my hat back to my cubicle and put on war paint instead.  As it turned out, the war paint wasn't needed; I got away, again, with wearing the hat.

I also forged badges for special occasions - mostly for Halloween, when it just wouldn't do to have a badge that wasn't in character.  Somewhere in the box of archived office clutter, I should still have them... including the "Erich von Wilner" variant that went with my Boskonian space pirate / Imperial German Space Corps costume.

Much later - in the spring of 2004, I believe - there was an emergency retroactive "no hats" decree, and I had to have a hatless photo taken... after the company directory had sported a hatless, and suspiciously Asian-looking, face above my name for a few weeks.  (I started claiming that my job had been outsourced, and my name along with it.)  This happened just after we'd had a bunch of mysterious visitors who looked to me like mid-level Naval officers dressed up in company polo shirts.  It subsequently developed that Ciena had gotten some sort of military contract, so maybe they were poorly-disguised Naval officers, and maybe this had some connection with a sudden demand for seriousness in the ID photo area....

A question not answered in its place

Instapundit links to a survey for those who don't fit in at church.

This is one of those surveys that I don't seem to fit at all... maybe because I fit too well, in the sense of completely not fitting in at any known church.

One of the questions, though, gets my attention:

Do you (or did you) feel that you don't fit in because you were mistreated by the church, or because you are a relatively shy, introverted person? Please give specific examples of ways in which you feel different and/or out of place.

OK, now this brings up a memory of the last time I attended a regular church service.  I wasn't brought up religious, and generally shun any sort of consecrated ground (because my kind don't belong there, or because the stone walls of churches keep the Goddess out, take your pick), but several years ago an ex-girlfriend was all inspired about a new church she'd joined (I don't recall the name, but a certain well-known software guy is a member) and insisted on taking me along one Sunday.
I certainly wasn't mistreated.  Everyone was friendly, and they all seemed like nice people, but...
...I just couldn't relate to their theology.  No how, no way.  The whole Christianity business is utterly alien to me.  Whether I'm congenitally apsychic or merely genetically programmed to reject heretical religious beliefs*, I just find the whole Son-of-God thing (and, for that matter, the personal anthropomorphic Creator of the Universe thing) incomprehensible.

*Heretical relative to what, I don't know.  Possibly some form of paleo-Judaism.  So far, I haven't found a religion I could relate to**, but then I haven't exactly been looking.

** Not strictly true.  I can, for example, relate just fine to Asatru.  I just don't believe in it.  This would seem to put it in the fun-but-pointless category.