***
And so bidding has begun again. Whee.
Time to say hello once again to perennial server downtime and ridiculous closed bidding (so much for "careful consideration of your priorities as each decision has an impact on your future choices" - with imperfect information, how are we supposed to make considered decisions?!)
I still say we oursource the damn thing to eBay or Yahoo Auctions.
***
Almost everyone found the Evil SCGS girl strip featured in the last post hilarious, including Daryl, who promptly Tomorrowed it. However, someone tried the Politically Correct line on me:
Friend: tt's rather scrwed up and not even true
Me: jokes are exaggerated truths ;)
Friend: no. some jokes are fabrications
Me: No one makes smart redneck, honest lawyer or rich malay jokes. No one would laugh.
Friend: those are archetypical jokes. and archetypes, as we all know, are false in their all-encompasingness
Me: If you use that line of reasoning then: ah, what is truth?
The two most annoying schools of reasoning are the one which asserts that there is no objective truth (at all), and that reality is an illusion (ie A descent into solipcism or worse), and the one which claims that there is an overarching objective truth (ie the One Truth), but we are either unable to perceive it, we do not have enough data or we will never be able to grasp it. Both of which, of course, are impossible to assert using conventional reasoning techniques, and thus require recourse to "literary hyperbole, unsupported assertions and appeals to emotion and authority".
Someone on the above: are you referring to NKF?
***
芙蓉姐姐
"D-cup breasts, round bottom, a 50-cm slim waist and weight under 45 kilograms. Wherever I go, I soon become the focus of the crowd!
Xiaxue once popular blogger, very jealous since my pictures are so desired by many. Xiaxue is photoshop beauty, 芙蓉姐姐 is NATURAL WHOLESOME BEAUTY! Xiaxue LIE and say her blog erased! Not True! She play game try to get people look at her blog because she is scared I take her viewers away!
Look at me. I am so fine. My breasts. My back. My end. Look at Xiaxue with no photoshop, she ugly skunk! You lie Xiaxue! You not beauty! I AM BEAUTY!!"
This is damn screwed up.
***
Me: so basically you still like him
Someone: I love him. there's a difference
I dislike him immensely
Me: ... women
To live with female irrationality, it is pointless to try to understand it. Hell, even most women don't. The path of serenity lies in accepting it, not trying to fathom it.
(As proof of this: many females I sent the above extract to were boggled by it too)
***
"We have a different media model in Singapore...This model has evolved out of our special circumstances and has enabled our media to contribute to nation building." - Information Minister Lee Boon Yang
I'm quite sure he wasn't the first to refer to the Singaporean
***
Christianity Revealed - Personal Introduction by Dr M D Magee AskWhy!
"Trained as a scientist, I looked for rational answers to the questions that arose, but biblical scholars seek to confirm their religious outlook. Experts in biblical studies are usually religious people, whether Christian or Jewish. Those who have no interest in religion turn to physics, molecular biology, music or literature. Though religious people might well opt for any of these subjects too, non-religious students rarely opt for religious studies.
The result is that, whereas normal endeavours of life are practised by a cross section of society in respect of religious views, religious studies are the field of religiously inclined people almost exclusively. So, in biblical studies, a subject that professes to be scientific—nowadays at any rate—the normal checks and balances that allow science to progress do not apply. I speak generally knowing that there are some who try hard to be objective but for most it is either too difficult or they are so indoctrinated in religious belief they do not want to try.
Religious experts are consequently far from a fair sample of society. They are biased towards the beliefs they have grown up with and unlikely to question their basic tenets. Quite the reverse, though they profess to be scientific, they are really apologists for their religious view. When astonishing hypotheses are published which cast doubt on the accepted views of the religious experts they will be ignored. This allows biblical scholars to continue in well-paid careers raking over the same muddy spoil and coming to false conclusions forever. Sometimes the same happens in science but there, new discoveries cannot be ignored for long. Science is too big and scientists too diverse for an important discovery to be ignored. What some group would prefer to go away, another group find is just the link or breakthrough they have been waiting for. Essentially biblical research is monolithic. Everyone wants to confirm God’s plan. No one wants to have their lifelong beliefs destroyed.
Strong pressures have always existed for biblical scholars to maintain the status quo—their peers who value the sinecures they have, their own careers within this orthodoxy, their belief that Christians are saintly people and do not tell lies except to glory God and their conviction that they could not have been wrong all their lives and the church wrong for two thousand years.
The key to it all is honesty. Sincere Christians are honest people but Christians since the beginning of their religion have not thought it dishonest to tell a lie—when Christianity benefits!
... Biblical scholars equally build themselves reputations by writing fantasies called doctoral dissertations about a few sentences of some ancient epistle, the significance of the prophet Elijah at the Transfiguration or whether Jesus ascended to heaven after a few days or forty days. Such contributions to knowledge are no different from discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a needle, the example always quoted of how enlightened we now are compared with the middle ages."
***
The Troublesome Toilet Seat: Up or down?
"Is leaving the toilet seat down after use an obligation or an act of kindness on the part of men? To most reasonable people, it isn't at all obvious why men might be obligated to leave the toilet seat down for women. For my part, I would be inclined to see it as an act of kindness more than anything else. I fail to see a single reason why it should be construed as an obligation unless maybe one could somehow prove that the sight of a raised toilet seat upsets the aesthetic equilibrium around it. But I'm sure one could come up with convincing arguments against this justification. Besides, I strongly suspect that this is not the reasoning behind most women's insistence that seats be left down. Let me even hazard a guess and say that the motivation has more to do with convenience than with aesthetics...
I ran a computer simulation of the situation for a million toilet visits, with the sex of the visitor chosen randomly each time. I found that with Scheme 1, the total work done by the system was 999,386 units, while the total work done with Scheme 2 was only 499,270 units, which is less than half the work done under Scheme 1."
***
If World War II Was an RTS
"If World War Two had been an online Real Ttime Strategy game, the chat room traffic would have gone something like this.
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard"