A case of mistaken identity

So, the other day I'm walking through the local mall and decide to stop for a bite to eat in the food court.

And I see this young man walking through the food court wearing a big Christian cross on his T-shirt. That's not unusual in Fresno - there are a lot of people who wear religious clothing. But the difference was THIS cross had the circle-slash symbol on top of it - the universal sign for "No"!

"Very brave of him," I thought to myself. I watched the reactions of others around him. As he walked through the crowd older people would talk to each other. Younger people ignored him.

I was thinking that our organization needed more young people, and perhaps he's never heard of us. I decided to give him one of our cards. I waited for him to sit down at a table at the food court, and then walked over to speak with him.

"Excuse me. I noticed your T-shirt, and thought you might like a card for a local organization." I pulled out a "Get Out of Hell Free" card that had the CVAAS website info stamped on the back of it.

"Not interested," he said - without looking at me or the card.

Ah! I know how it is! I've been witnessed to and proselytized at myself. He thinks I'm a Christian come to talk to him about his evil ways!

"Uhm. I'm not a Christian, I'm an Atheist. And the card is for a local Atheist organization."

"Really?" Where before he was dismissive, he now showed a small bit of interest. For a moment.

"I figured you were an Atheist from your T-shirt." I waved vaguely at the shirt.

He sat back a little, and straightened the shirt. "It's a band, dude. You know, 'Bad Religion'?" I saw the words "Bad Religion" on his shirt. I've never heard of that band! A band? Oh drat!

I gave him the card anyway. He thought it was somewhat amusing - in a bored teenager sort of way.

I felt like Emily Litella. "Nevermind!"

Nothing good ever happens to me in a mall.

Oh, and yes, I do know about the band "Atheist". (sigh) I need a lawn so I can yell at the kids on it.

The 500th post!

Today is my 500th post in The Calladus Blog.

I didn't start my online existence here, before this blog I had a website called "The Calladus Project". I started it in 1999 on Tripod. You can find the remains of it still online, but all the pages have been long removed. I didn't realize it back then, but I was already blogging. Each entry was just another page of text in an increasingly interlinked, increasingly complicated website.

They say the Internet never forgets; that isn't quite true - data ignored long enough disappears forever. My old website doesn't even exist in the Wayback Machine anymore - which is fine by me since it held information that was much more private than I've allowed here.

I've had an email address since before the World Wide Web existed, as part of Milnet from '86 - '88, and then on the GEnie portal to the Internet from '89 to '96. Back in those days, the Internet consisted of Telnet locations, and lots of text. I lurked in Usenet, talked to the Oracle, sparred verbally with Maur, and dug around in the MUD. I spent way too much time playing Trade Wars on Fidonet, WWIV and PCBoard. In 1996 I got a Netcom account.

But I started getting "online" way back in '81, at my high school's computer lab. We didn't have monitors, we had teletype machines that dialed into the Texas Tech server through a 300 baud acoustic modem (with suction cups for the handset!) I went vadding there, launched photon torpedos, and learned Northstar Basic. When our computer lab got an Apple II, I started learning Apple Basic.

The first computer I ever bought was in 1985, an Apple IIE - a cloned Apple IIE that I bought on the Korean black market. It came with dual floppy drives and a green screen monitor. By 1987 I was lusting for the 10 Megabyte Applied Engineering "Vulcan" hard drive, but I couldn't afford a thousand dollars for it.

I still have that green screen monitor. It works just fine too.

My second computer was a Commodore Amiga 500, with color monitor, dot matrix printer, frame capture, memory upgrade, and 1200 baud computer. The graphics blew away IBM computers, and I could emulate MS DOS and use Wordstar. I still have my old Amiga - and it works just fine, thank you.

Once I got out of the military, I started building my own computers. I started with a used 486 and just kept upgrading it. I still have my original 486 motherboard. As far as I know, it works fine.

And now I'm on a fairly decent HP laptop. I prefer Toshiba laptops, but I couldn't pass up the bargin I got on this one, and I couldn't pass up the 17 inch screen and game quality graphics.

I'm still planning my next PC. It's going to take the place of my home entertainment center - sterio, television, DVD. Plus it will become a DVR too. I'm just waiting a bit longer for the right HDTV monitor to become affordable. I'm not worried about software - it'll be Linux.


So, in honor of my 500th post, I'm going to repost a page of text from my old Calladus Project website. This is the first time I've brought this piece of text forward, and you get to see my evolution as a writer. My style has changed a bit.

Enjoy!

This is awful! I've become sensitized to Bureaucracy - and have developed an allergy to it!

It seems to me that most people in our society have become immune to this wide-spread plague of officialdom, but I ran into an old Infocom program by Douglas Adams (produced way back in 1988), and it's as if a blindfold has been removed! I can SEE! And I don't like it!

Mindless Bureaucracy drives me up the wall! This happens when people mindlessly and blindly enforce bureaucratic rules that make no sense. This usually occurs when a business or government agency restricts any independent thinking in their employees. Encountering this form of behavior usually infuriates me to the point where I become irrational. Fortunately, there is a form of non-violent revenge that works well, and usually screws up their works. All you have to do is point out alternative actions, or TAKE alternative actions, and watch a bureaucrat's face go purple!

The military is littered with examples of this kind of horror. One incident started my activities of passive resistance to this insanity.

When an Air Force person arrives at a new assigned base, he is often required to preform a moving in checklist. Upon recieving orders to leave that assignment, he is again required to go through another checklist to ensure that nothing is forgotten before he leaves. Some of these things are actually important, like letting your command structure that you are no longer assigned to them. Other things on the list are pretty petty, such as, "Have the Base Library verify that you have no books checked out, and revoke your Library card."

These checklists did not bother me - sometimes they were actually helpful in letting me know exactly what was required next. But sometimes someone comes along and does something that a bureaucrat does not expect - like I did.

When my first tour in Okinawa was almost up, I decided to apply to stay for a second tour. My paperwork went through, and I got an approval letter from my commander, rubberstamped by the base commander. I also received a checklist (of course) telling me who to contact to let them know that I would be staying on the island of Okinawa for an additional 3 years. One of those I was supposed to check off my list was the accounting department of the Base Exchange (BX - the Air Force equivalent to the Army PX; a sort of large department store on base. I had to to speak to the BX accounting department so they would not cancel my lay-away privileges.)

The checklist only said 'notify Base Exchange Customer Service'. So I took my approval letter to them, and explained what I was doing. The civilian lady at the counter, a true professional, explained that the letter was worthless to her, that she needed an approval print out from the Consolidated Base Personnel Office (CBPO - basically a really big bureaucratic organization on base to track the status of each resident of the base. Getting anything from them usually took two or three days.)

I was upset with the delay I knew was coming - getting anything out of the CBPO back then was a slow process. I knew it would take a long time before I returned with what she wanted. So I asked her what an approval print out from CBPO would look like to make sure I didn't get the wrong thing by accident. (It happens - and I had dealt with the CBPO before, so I knew it might be likely.)

She pulled out a printout - basically the green and white tractor feed type of paper, with printing that stated a person's particulars. It was very familiar to me, I had one in my folder with me from when I first arrived on base. "Like this one?" I said, as I pulled my older copy out of my folder.

"Yes, but let's see - that has the wrong date one it, it's from 3 years ago."
"That's right - I got it when I first moved in. But everything else on it is correct, right?"
"It looks correct," She said.
"So you then cross-check these with CBPO, right?"
"No," She said cheerfully, "The printout is enough, and then I'll just activate your account again."

I was floored - I quickly moved from shock to anger.
"Lady," I choked, "you mean to tell me you will accept an anonymous computer printed paper over a letter signed by two commanders, one of which is YOUR EMPLOYER?"

She tried to evade by pointing out that the computer paper was NOT anonymous, that it was printed out by the CBPO! She spoke the acronym as if she believed they were God himself. I pointed out that I had my own copy of a correct paper, only missing a good date on it. I also pointed out that I had access to a supply of green and white tractor feed computer paper, and to a printer with the same typeset that the CBPO used! I let her know that her method was flawed, and did not stand up to scrutiny, and that if she did NOT take my letter as proof of approval, that I would be back within an hour with the required paper, origin unknown.

At that point, she asked if I would like to talk to her boss. I gladly accepted.

To finish off a long story shortly - my complaints made a difference. Her boss, a Master Sergeant, had no clue that his department was being so stupid and accepted my commander's letter.

By resisting this bureaucrat's attempts to pigeonhole me, I was actually able to accomplish something. Since then, EVERY time that I run into this kind of mindset, I challange it. Sometimes I win. On occasion I circumvent them entirely, either by taking my business elsewhere, or by finding an unexpected, but not against the rules way of doing what I need to do. (Things are usually not against the rules if the bureaucratic authority has not thought of someone taking that avenue.)

But sometimes I still lose - and I hate that!

Wamu Schadenfreude

I usually use a credit union for all of my financial needs. Most of the time it is all I need.

But at one point in time, I thought I needed a real bank account. I've been a member of Wells Fargo in the past, and hated the way that they treated me. The same goes for Bank of America. I closed both of those accounts over a decade ago.

But Washington Mutual was different. They were fast, friendly, efficient. They didn't treat me like a number. I thought they were great!

Then I realized, it was only their tellers that I thought were great. I didn't realize that Washington Mutual the company really didn't like my kind.


I opened the account, but never did direct deposit to it. As my plans fell through, I used the account only sporadically. After a while, I let the balance fall to about $50, and kept it that way for a year. (I was still looking at getting my plans going again.)

Then one day I got a letter saying that my account was being closed. Three days later I got a check for about $25, which was about $20 less than I had in my account. I don't know exactly what happened to the rest of the money in the account, and didn't bother to find out. I suppose they justified it as a fee of some sort.

I completely realize that I wasn't their preferred type of customer. And I guess I was costing them more than it was worth to keep my account going. But the reason why I even joined Wamu was that they weren't supposed to charge me at all to keep my account open! When they closed my account, their radio commercials were STILL advertising "Totally Free Checking". Sure it's free. Until they close it because you're a milquetoast customer!

I don't have that letter anymore. I didn't pursue it because there were a lot of other things going on in my life at the time. Still, this was one more piece of cruddy news. I said something foul and pithy, deposited the check in my credit union, and moved on.

Last month I was thinking of reopening a Wamu account for CVAAS. I'm glad I waited. My credit union was happy to open another account for me. And they will happily open a non-profit business account too, when we are ready.

On another note, I'm a member of the Pentagon Federal Credit Union - I've been a member for over 20 years now. I let it go idle when I moved back to California, and haven't touched it for a decade.

I still get monthly emailed statements from them. I still get occasional newsletters and offers from them. When I came to California, my account had about $10 in it, and through interest it has grown to over $30. I haven't written a check or withdrawn or deposited money to the account in all that time. I occasionally update my user information online.

Credit unions rock.

Blogging again.

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me, so I've been deficient in my posting. Which is driving me to distraction because I've got a couple of other posts that need to be polished up and submitted.

I've got one more post on the "School of Biblical Evangelism" to go, although I might break that into two posts. And I find I have more to say on the subject of ghost hunting. Although I did give a talk on Ghost Hunters and their Tools at the Heretic's Barbecue - you can view that talk here. (Go ahead and watch... personally, I can't stand to see myself talk!)

So, I find I have perhaps a little time for blogging - if some lovely skeptical / secular books don't pull me away.

Calladus on ExChristian dot net

Dave, of ExChristian dot net invited me to blog on that site. I'll be re-posting a few of my favorite entries from the Calladus Blog to ExChristian first, but I expect that at some point I'll be posting original content to ExChristian.

However, I want to keep most of my blogging at one site, so after a period of time, say two weeks, I'll cross post my ExChristian content back to the Calladus Blog.

To keep up to date with my blogging (yea, like my readers - all two of 'em - care) you'll have to keep both me and ExChristian in your blog aggregator.

My first post went up on ExChristian today, one of my favorites - "Mind Hacking God".

Enjoy.

Calladus on Twitter

Well, I finally broke down and joined Twitter. Now you can know what I think about various minutia, and what I'm doing hour by hour - when I actually think about posting to Twitter.

Who knows, I might even phone in a twitter from time to time.

Don't expect Twitter to reflect anything more interesting than my own stream-of-consciousness.

You can see my latest Twitter update on the right of my blog.

Diversity at work

I mentioned last week that I'm out as an Atheist at work. My coworkers in my Engineering department all know I'm atheist, but there is a good chance that no one else at work knows about my personal philosophy.

My company sent out a mass communication yesterday that it is sponsoring its first ever, "Diversity Week" in August. This is something that would never have happened under our previous owners, who were all older white men. Our new owners are European, and have a more liberal outlook, so I guess it isn't a surprise.

The communication, which came to those in our department as an email, stated that our company would celebrate the diversity of cultural heritage and philosophies, and hinted at religious diversity too.

So in an email response, I asked for a clarification. Did our company intend to celebrate ALL diversity, including different churches, religions, and sexual identity? I wanted to clarify religion because the original communication was wishy-washy on that. And I tossed in sexual identity because places that accept LGBT lifestyles will usually accept Secular lifestyles.

Today I got a very firm response. Yes, diversity included ALL religions and sexual identities of our employees.

So, now I have a slight dilemma. As president of the only secular / skeptical organization in Fresno, I have a great opportunity to teach a couple of thousand coworkers about secular based morals. I also have a great opportunity to rock the boat that I'm in, make waves, and subject myself to scrutiny that I don't currently feel.

Our group could host a table for a day, or not. I'm not sure what to do about that. Any ideas?


Crossposted to the Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics and to The Calladus Blog.

Updated comment moderation policy

Due to abuse, I've decided to update my comment moderation policy. From now on, I will delete any anonymous comment unread. Pseudo-anonymity and trusted pseudonyms are encouraged.

Warning to my readers - don't comment in reply to anonymous comments - they will disappear without warning or comment.

The "Rational" Terminator

I want to take a moment away from all the other stuff that's going on with CVAAS and Skeptical and Secular activism to make a quick observation about something that's purely fantasy - the Terminator franchise.

As a hard-core Science Fiction junkie I've watched all the Terminator movies - I save up episodes of the Sara Conner Chronicles and watch them in bursts - when I have a little time. I've been keeping up with the Terminator Alternate Reality Game.

But one thing keeps bugging me about the whole time travel aspect.

Forget that Time Travel isn't real, and that the best of physicists point out that there is little chance that humans will ever experience it. Forget that Terminators have to be wrapped in meat or "mimetic polyalloy" in order to successfully time travel.

The point is that these thinking machines CAN time travel, and they're missing their best bet - von Neumann machines.

Forget 2008, or even 1988 - instead the winning game strategy for these game-playing machines is to carpet-bomb resource rich areas around the planet with self-replicating, self-contained micro-factories - in one million BC.

In a couple of hundred years the machines from the future could transform the planet into wall-to-wall metal and concrete - completely displacing the niches of any annoyingly intelligent future animals.

And even if there is time travel restrictions that prevent machines from being sent back earlier than 1998, von Neumann machines - especially in nanomachine sizes - is still the winning game strategy. Drop them into resource rich areas with the instruction to burrow underground and multiply until they get to the point where world conquest becomes simple.

For efficient self-replicating factories this should only take a couple of years - and might only take months.

It might seem silly to apply rational thought to movies, but I do it all the time. I'm quite willing to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the show - even in the face of egregious science fallacies or flaws as long as the movie takes pains to point out which areas we will agree to ignore.

Flying people - fine. Spaceships that intercept threatening meteors - fine.

But if Superman picks up an office building, it should crumble to bits - not stay in one piece. Spaceships shouldn't make noises in space (and they really shouldn't bank when they turn either). And an explosive charge on the surface of a threatening meteor should make a bunch of smaller threatening meteors from gravel size up to house size.

I do pick at movies while I'm watching them, and still enjoy the movie. But sometimes the discrepancies are just too jarring and I fall completely out of my state of suspended disbelief. That's a mark of a bad movie.

Atheist in a minivan widget

If you haven't been reading the blog "Atheist in a minivan", written by Possummomma, well then you've been depriving yourself.

Possummomma, and her family of possums (read here to see the meaning of her pseudonym) are two Atheists raising 4 children. She's a great writer, and describes how she cares for her brood and what affect that her atheism has on that care.

She also the autoimmune disease, "Lupus". A truly terrible thing that is not only painful, but limits how she can interact with her family. Due to this disease, she is currently unable to withstand sunlight - she has gotten by so far by turning her bedroom into a sort of "bat cave" and not coming out until after the sun goes down. The sunlight through the rest of the windows in her house causes painful burns.

Well, Berlzebub - another out of the Atheist community, decided to do something about it and has started taking donations for a film to limit ultraviolet - when placed on the windows at Possummomma's home, it should allow her to leave her bat cave even during the day - it should give her back the rest of her house.

This has been going on now for several weeks, and Berlzebub is almost 2/3 of the way to his goal of $5000. Since then, he's created a widget to allow easy donations - and you can find that widget to the right on my blog.

Yes, I know the widget shows a mere few hundreds of dollars (as of this writing) but apparently the company involved won't allow you to start the widget at any number other than zero. Check in at Berlzebub's Possummomma thread to see what the current totals are.

And if you are part of the online Atheist community, you probably know all about this since it has already been covered by an "A-List" blogger - PZ Myers. Still, I might get one or two readers that he doesn't, and so it's worth it for me to bring it to my reader's attention.

And it is worth doing so because I like P-momma. She's good people.

Cloverfield!

As I was walking out of the theater I overheard someone saying, "It's a scary movie - not a horror movie."

I agree completely. Even though I knew, going in, what the ending would be... (and no, I'm not gonna say.) Even though I knew - it still scared me.

It was an excellent, heart-pounding movie.

Trusted Pseudonyms

(Revised from an earlier post)

Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, Richard Bachman, Dr. Seuss, George Orwell, Voltaire…

Pen names, also known as a “nom de plume” have an honored tradition in writing. An alias or pseudonymous identity allows a writer to establish and build a level of trust with readers while allowing the writer to meet various privacy goals. Certainly a writer may be trying to protect him or herself from readers who might take exception to his or her words, but there are other good reasons for taking a pseudonym.

Last year when the “Blogger Code of Conduct” was being discussed, anonymity was brought up as something that should be banned from blog comments. As a disclaimer, I do ban recurring anonymity in my own blog. But I have no problem with, and actually encourage the use of, pseudonyms.

When the subject of anonymity has arisen I’ve warned my friends and family that the Internet does not usually allow for true anonymity. I’ve advised that with enough time and effort that any post, email or instant message could eventually be traced to its point of origin. This isn’t the whole truth – there are ways to create true anonymity on the Internet – but all the methods that I know of are time-consuming and difficult to implement even for someone who is technologically savvy. None of these methods are worth my bother for my current needs.

Anonymity is a tool, and like any good tool it can be used or misused. An anonymous person could spray-paint vile, bigoted, misogynistic hate speech on the side of the town hall; or an anonymous person could paint damning evidence against “Those In Charge”. A truly anonymous message cannot be judged by the identity of the poster; it must stand or fall on its own merits. It has no track record of reliability.

I’ve come to think that real anonymity is of limited usefulness to both the writer and the audience. Allowing all anonymous comments in a public forum is illogical due to the possibility of abuse – sooner or later you get something that looks like a popular and controversial Internet News Group, with hoards of anonymous posters increasing the ambient noise and drowning out the signal. And I do believe that a policy of refusing all anonymous comments in a posting area available to the general public seems just as silly to me. I think that neither dictatorships nor anarchies are nurturing of candid and open discussion.

This is where a nom de plume shows its true value. Over time an audience will learn to trust a pseudonym based upon its previous track record – the quality of content. And if it is used properly a pseudonym becomes a veil of privacy between an author and his or her audience.

This is what I mean by a “trusted pseudonym”. The author trusts the pseudonym for protection, which in turn allows for the growth of trust between the author and his or her audience. Unlike a merely anonymous message that must be judged solely upon content, the author becomes part of the message and brings with it his or her own credibility – or lack thereof.

The level of anonymity attached to a pseudonym can be adjusted to suit the writer. My own pseudonym is only somewhat anonymous. A simple subpoena would easily reveal my identity, as would a little detective work. I don't require a deeper level of anonymity. If I were a political fugitive and in fear of my life or freedom, I would use a more secure method of writing.

There is a possibility that inflammatory text could be accredited to my pseudonym in an effort to defame me, and my denial of authorship might not be enough to save my reputation. An email address, blog, and easily identifiable writing style might go a long way toward disarming this sort of defamation, but I think a more secure method of identity would be a better idea. Perhaps something like a PGP signature would be better if it were not so unwieldy to use in practice.

Although there are some who might charge “cowardice” against those who use a pen name, I think that with just a little reflection it becomes apparent that privacy is a valued commodity and the use of pseudonyms allow writers to protect their privacy while becoming a trusted voice.

Calladus Blog goals for 2008

As my readers have certainly noticed, I've been absent from my blog. The last year has been filled with drama and difficulty for me, and this has set my writing to a lower priority, as it should. And even if my life were free of drama, I doubt I would ever be able to average five posts a day as some bloggers do. Nor would I wish to do so since those who do post multiple times a day often have a low signal to noise ratio... in other words, much of their content is merely commentary on current events.

Not that such commentary is a bad thing... I find it useful to read. And when it is possible for me to knowledgeably comment on a current event, I'll do so. (I may even rant a little.) But my wish is to contribute more to the public knowledge of a subject, and not to merely be part of the Internet echo chamber. (Or even the Internet cloud chamber.)

Still, I did hit a personal goal of posting an average of three times per week last year. My goal this year is to meet that rate, but in a more consistent and even pattern. Nine posts one week and none the following two is not a good way to retain faithful readers!


I'm starting off this week with two things. First, I'm restarting my “Atelier” series of Friday postings, but I'm starting it today with part one of a three part series titled “What is Art?”. In this I will give my definition of art, and explain what you will find in my “Friday in the Atelier” series. Next week I'll choose an artist to exhibit.

However, since artist biographies are a research intensive task (especially when so little is known about some artists!) I might, at times, give a mere sketch of an artist biography, with the intention of coming back to it at a later date.

Secondly, a couple of times a month I'll dig out a popular entry from my blog's archives and repost them. These will be articles that I think have current relevance, or are worth a second look, or have a high Google hit ratio. I may add to these articles, rewrite them, or republish them as is. I'll let my readers know when I've done this by indicating whether the entry is merely a reprint, or a revision.

Lastly, I'm setting a personal goal to write ten to twelve in-depth, researched articles this year. I expect these to be in the range of two to five thousand words each, and so in order to keep them easily readable I'll break them into series parts. I've done so in the past with good success.

Now, will I be able to do all of this during 2008? Seriously, I dunno. I've hinted to my readers that I have difficulties that prevent me from being as active in Atheism and Skeptical organizations as I would like. Those same personal problems may derail my blog too. This isn't a call for sympathy, merely a statement of why my posting schedule has been inconsistent. By setting up some things to happen automatically, I'm hoping to prevent future spotty posting.


So now here we go. I'll be posting Part One of “What is Art?” sometime tonight.

Happy New Year!

A hard year ends with
synthetic thunder. Now I'm
pensive, and hopeful.

Book Recommendation - His Dark Materials

If you haven't read the "His Dark Materials" then you are missing out. Did you like "Lord of the Rings"? How about "Chronicles of Narnia"? Then the chances are good that you'll like Phillip Pullman's trilogy.

I've read the trilogy, and was fascinated by it. I know there are people making a fuss over the fact that the books were written by an Atheist, and that they make the Catholic church look bad. But try to put that aside and read them for the story that they are.

After all - if an Atheist like myself can keep re-reading Narnia and enjoying it, why can't a religious person read other sorts of fiction?

Oh! And for those of you who would rather see a movie than read a book, the first "Dark Materials" book, "The Golden Compass" is coming out as a movie on the 7th of next month.

Here's the trailer:

====================
19 Nov 07 - updated
I removed the trailer in order to improve the bandwidth of my blog. You can still see it at "The Golden Compass" website.

Other people’s kids – The Internet is NOT a babysitter!

This is going to be a rant. You can skip it if you like.

I came across a conversation in Livejournal where one commenter was taking another to task for their YouTube offering. The video posted wasn’t “kid friendly” even though it fell within YouTube’s rules of usage.

The commenter went on to lament the long-lost “good old days” when kids could roam free with no supervision and everyone would watch out for them, unlike today where kids are targets of every weirdo around. The commenter seemed to think the Livejournal owner was being a bad parent for not caring “about kids who are online.”

I call bullshit. Bad parenting is asking other people to be responsible for your kids.


Wake up people – the Internet is not your baby sitter! It is not a particularly safe place for kids, no matter how many filters or Net-nannies you put on your PC. Why is it that a technologically inept adult will ask junior to program their entertainment center, but will at the same time believe junior is too dumb to figure out a way to circumvent technological parental controls?

I work with a lot of bright software engineers – geeks in the true sense of the word who see something like a filter as an interesting challenge to overcome. Many of these young engineers cut their teeth on computers, figuratively and literally, and certainly a large percentage of them figured out how to get around filters when they were in their early teens – and they passed that information on to others of their age group. These kinds of kids who thrive on challenge make the best future software engineers and network administrators, and I’m always happy to help them enter the workforce.


The Internet is not your child’s play pen, and I am in no way concerned about making it “safe” for your child’s use. You would be better off thinking of the Internet as a sort of social experiment with technology, more in line with Burning Man than with Mister Rogers. I can understand that you don’t want your kid to read the Kama Sutra. (Although I read it, along with “The Joy of Sex” both by the time I was 15, and all it took was a library card!) But I won’t allow you to dictate what is available to me merely because you don’t have the time to be a good parent.


And what is with this “Good ‘ol Days” crud? When a person grows up, they seem to put on their rose-colored glasses in order to view the past. In my childhood it was acceptable to give a 14-year-old a shotgun or .22 rifle and turn him loose in the woods. In my father’s time the accepted age for this was 8 or 9. One of my classmates had a hole blown between the radius and ulna of his left arm; another had to write with a rubber band strapping a pen to his pinky because he lost his 3 middle fingers and part of a hand to a shotgun blast. These were the lucky kids – some kids didn’t come home.

It wasn’t just guns. There were dangerous fireworks, chemistry sets that (unlike today) had less than benign chemicals in them, metal wheeled roller skates that strapped onto your tennis shoes and threw you on your face when you hit a leaf, absolutely no protective gear like helmets or elbow pads. Home made minibikes, bows and arrows, air rifles, bb-guns and sling-shots for kids – I’m sure anyone over 40 could add to this list.


There were also plenty of people who preyed on kids in the “good old days”. I think it was easier to do so back then when an adult’s word was more often believed than a child’s accusation – even for those few lucky kids who were actually taught how to talk about abuse.

And sometimes kids just never came home again.


For the most part, things are safer for kids today because we are more aware of the potential dangers. We force children to wear protective gear, we don’t let them run wild in the big city, we limit their access to dangerous products.

On the flip side, we also get things like watered-down chemistry sets because parents are afraid their kid will hurt themselves. It’s no wonder that modern chemistry sets are so boring – we’ve taken anything fun out of them.


And that’s what this particular Livejournal commenter was proposing – to take anything interesting out of the Internet because it is potentially harmful to a child. This is as stupid as neutering a chemistry set because you want a toy to keep your kid occupied while you’re busy. An “educational” toy so you can feel good about yourself.

Like I said, it’s bullshit. The Internet is a wonderful tool for your kids, and it is just as dangerous as a gun or chemistry set. That is partly why it is so valuable!

Perhaps your children are mature enough to use any of these wonderful but dangerous tools responsibly - and perhaps not. That is for you as a parent to determine. I suggest that parents who are concerned about the Internet put the computer monitor in full view, where the parent can see what their child is doing at all times.

Don’t trust filters. Look at my site – I speak about things that would be considered offensive to a significant portion of the American population (not to mention the occasional nude artwork I display.) But I’ll bet a lot of it gets through the filters, and I won’t take any of it down. My site is directed toward adults, and it is on an Internet that was created by adults for the use of other adults.

If you feel passionately about providing a "neutered chemistry set" version of the Internet to your kids then do so. Create a separate "kid Internet" and police it. It will take money and years of effort, and you'll get something that is as interesting and useful to kids as a chemistry set that comes stocked with salt and distilled water. And you'll still be worried about turning your kids loose on it. Wouldn't it be easier to just monitor your child's Internet usage?


Don’t ask me to baby sit your kids. You can’t pay me enough.

Calladus Blog error - back online

I had a small Blogger glitch, which has been repaired. Sorry if you got something strange while at my blog. I'll try not to let it happen again.

I've turned comment moderation back on

I had turned off comment moderation to allow people to discuss possible names for the Fresno Skeptic, Atheist and Secular Humanist group, but someone had to take advantage of that.

Due to a Scientologist Spammer dropping a hateful screed into a comment, I've turned comment moderation back on.

I also remind my readers that Scientology is an expensive mystery cult that hides its secrets from Scientologists until after they have paid large sums of money, or committed years of their life to the cult. You can immediately learn all there is to know about Scientology by reading the excellent book, "A Piece of Blue Sky" by Jon Atack, or by visiting the Operation Clambake website.

Suddenly surrounded by beautiful faces

Today I had a wonderful experience. I was woken up out of a sound sleep to find myself surrounded by pretty women, all anxious to get my attention and calling my name. Pretty faces in a circle around me – and I had no idea from whence they came!

But as soon as they realized I was awake, they immediately started seeing to my comfort – repositioning my lounge chair, fluffing my pillow... putting “instant ice” packs on my neck. Ah! It felt so wonderful that I completely forgot about the blood pressure cuff and the needle in my arm!

My thanks to the wonderful ladies working for the Central California Blood Center for helping me out through my unscheduled “nap” while reclining in a blood donor's lounge. Special thanks to Rachel, my phlebotomist, and to her boss – who's name escapes me at the moment. (I'm sorry about that – my wits were still addled just a little when you told me your name!)

I last gave blood during the National Day of Reason, and wasn't really expecting to give blood again today – but I stopped by the mall to have some Chinese food for lunch, and found out about the blood drive. How could I resist that opportunity?

Everything was fine – Rachel and I were talking, but when she started removing the needle my stomach started to feel a bit upset, and I felt my body start to 'buzz' a little, and then suddenly I decided that closing my eyes was a good thing. I drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

That's when I was woken up by a circle of pretty nurses calling my name. My ego would be sooo huge right now if it hadn't already been punctured! (sigh!)

So, I got to take a (very brief) lunchtime nap, and to top it off they gave me a T-Shirt and a coupon for a pint of Baskin Robbins ice cream! (I wasn't expecting that!) Heh - once again I've demonstrated that giving blood is more effective than prayer for helping others - and in this case, the rewards were much more immediate!

Thanks to everyone at the blood center, and we'll do this again sometime soon! But next time I'll remind you to make sure you have an ice pack ready for me!

Books in my library

I discovered LibraryThing about two months ago and immediately signed up for their service. I've always wanted to catalog my library and LibraryThing made it easy. Now my readers can see what I've got in my library. (Mom, Sis, this doesn't mean you can raid my library indiscriminately, although I'm willing to swap book hostages.)

I purchased the Cuecat scanner from LibraryThing, and entered 80% of my books in just three days of effort. Now I just need to enter the difficult books - those lacking ISBNs and Library of Congress numbers, or with odd publishers. (This includes several bibles.)

Also, I've been scanning in book covers when I have time. LibraryThing is excellent at locating book covers if they exist - but even so, many of my book entries are missing a cover graphic.


It is fun to browse the books in other people's libraries, and to see how their library contents match up with mine. (Good matches are potential friends!) Some people have amazingly large libraries - 5,000 books are not uncommon! I'll probably have a thousand books cataloged by the end of the year, but I'm just chopped liver compared to some.