07 Sep 2012
"If gay marriage becomes legal, are you worried that all of a sudden you'll start thinking about penis? 'Oh shit. Gay marriage just passed. Gotta get me some of that hot dong action!' Will all of your friends suddenly turn gay and refuse to come to your Sunday Ticket grill-outs? (Unlikely, since gay people enjoy watching football too.)
I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children. They won't magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster."
Chris Kluwe just won the internet. This is exactly the way the debate about gay marriage should be framed.
And it all comes from an NFL punter. Who'd a thunk it? Kudos, sir. This is phenomenal.
(Via Deadspin.)
27 Aug 2012
"As some of you may have already noticed the download link for the Tweetbot for Mac alpha no longer works. Twitter’s latest API Changes means now we have a large but finite limit on the number of user tokens we can get for Tweetbot for Mac. We’ve been working with Twitter over the last few days to try to work around this limit for the duration of the beta but have been unable to come up with solution that was acceptable to them. Because of this we’ve decided its best for us to pull the alpha."
The recent Twitter API changes were restrictive, but there were at least rumors that Twitter was being "cool" about working with the existing developers and apps out there. You know, so Twitter's users don't suffer.
But this is a sign that Twitter is going full speed ahead on their doucherocket.
I get that they want to dissuade new developers from entering the space. I think it's stupid and short-sighted and that, in the long run, Twitter is condemning themselves to a world where they'll be a new AOL or Friendster. But I get that this is how they think they need to make money (rather than, say, making it possible to have developers build their apps in way that is complementary to Twitter's advertising/revenue model).
This is just capricious, though. How should devs test their apps? A small group of beta testers with a required "Revoke Access" at the end?
I expect that, over the coming 12-24 months, a lot of folks Twitter usage will start to erode. Not enough for Twitter to feel it in their numbers, but it'll be the early adopter, bleeding edge folks. The folks who get covered in the media, who set the tone for "what's cool." The folks who Twitter built their business on the back of.
Once a high profile user (i.e. celebrity) defects, I'm guessing it'll be enough to get the ball rolling.
Twitter will revise these ridiculous requirements. It's just going to take some time.
If I were Facebook, I'd be looking at building a status-type application and embracing the developer community.
(I don't think app.net is the answer, but maybe it'll ruffle a few feathers before imploding.)
(Via The Tapbots blog.)
20 Aug 2012
Sorry. More politics.
You want a summation of what's wrong with the GOP, and its terrorist wing, the Tea Party?
In an effort to explain his stance on abortion, Representative Todd Akin, the Republican Senate nominee from Missouri, provoked ire across the political spectrum on Sunday by saying that in instances of what he called ‘legitimate rape,’ women’s bodies somehow blocked an unwanted pregnancy.
Ok. Reprehensible statement. Idiotic. But not unexpected from a pro-lifer.
Mr. Akin, a six-term member of Congress who is backed by Tea Party conservatives, made it clear that his opposition to the practice was nearly absolute, even in instances of rape.
Yeah. So, he's a Tea Partier. That makes a bit more sense. In their world, everything is black and white.
“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.
Err. Ok. In context, that's way worse. Not only is it just morally reprehensible, and politically suicidal, that shows a complete lack of understanding of basic elementary science. Oh well, just another politician who has no regard for science. I suppose it could be worse.
Mr. Akin, who has a background in engineering and is a member of the House science committee
WHAT?! He's on the House science committee? How the hell does someone who doesn't understand how babies are made get onto the House science committee? Double-you. Tee. Eff.
(Via the New York Times.)
05 Aug 2012
Political talk follows. If you think your politics are different than mine, and you don't want to start hating me, you should stop reading. You should also probably be smarter.
This has been on my mind for a while. I think I have a draft post going back almost a year. I'm probably going to alienate people on both sides. That's not my intent. I just want to point out that there really aren't two sides to this argument.
I "get" (where "get" means "I understand how someone could think that way") a lot of the things that people do that are bad/abusive/douchey. I don't agree with these things, but I can wrap my brain around how people can feel that way. For instance, I "get" how someone could think racist things, how someone could live in a world or be brought up in a world where they're taught to believe that. I don't agree with racism; I find it repugnant and inarguably wrong. But I can see how someone, when brought up in a certain situation, could end up holding racist views. And I feel bad for those people. I don't excuse their behavior; being raised that way in no way excuses their ignorance when they've reached the point that they can make their own judgments. Time and history will show them the error of their ways. Society has moved on, and they are being justifiably, left behind.
I "get" how someone could be homophobic. The particularly religious, the juvenile, the sheltered. I can see how you could, as an adult, arrive at the point of view that being gay is not ok/against nature/whatever that person wants to tell themselves to make them feel like they're ok in being discriminatory against homosexuals. Again, I can see how someone could arrive at that opinion. I don't agree with it, I think it's a ridiculous point of view (and won't even dive into the ridiculous things you would have to believe if you took the Bible literally), but I can see how you'd feel that way.
Those were two of the hardest paragraphs I've probably written here, mostly because I'm fairly certain at least someone people will take away from it that I think being a racist or homophobe is ok. I don't. I think it's reprehensible. I think it's ridiculously outdated thinking. Expressing those views makes me immediately assume the person's views on everything are moronic. That clear enough?
That being said, even if I can rationalize being against homosexuality, I don't "get" being against gay marriage. I just can't wrap my head around it. If I put myself in the shoes of a "traditional marriagist" (and let's be honest, these days, traditional marriage seems to mean having two or three marriages and an affair [rimshot]), I can't get from point A (gay marriage) to point B (gay marriage is bad).
For instance, let's say there's a gay couple. Today (in the US, let's not address the world as a whole), they can be monogomous, live together, share a bank account, pay their taxes (separately), own common goods, eat waffle fries from Chic-Fil-A. The only thing they really can't do in most states is get married and take advantage of the legal things that bestows on them (shared health insurance, visitation rights in the hospital, combined taxes, etc.)
How does any of that impact anyone but the couple?
Put another way, if every state in the US passed a law tomorrow allowing gay marriage, what would happen? How would your life change? More specifically, how would your life change if you were against gay marriage?
Your church can still choose to not perform gay marriage.
You can still choose to think homosexuality and gay marriage are an abomination.
Your can still teach your children to hate gay people.
In other words, you can continue to be an enormous asshole.
Everything is exactly the same. The sun is in the sky, birds are chirping, and you can still be a giant douchebag. Except now we've bestowed common human rights on gay couples. And I can get waffle fries without feeling that I'm losing a small piece of my soul.
I imagine their are two arguments that folks cling to. First, that gay marriage is against the Bible. Second, that gay marriage is a slippery slope to something even more untowards.
The Bible argument is illegitimate. The Bible being against gay marriage simply means you can continue to be against gay marriage. Your church doesn't have to allow gay marriage. Hell (I wrote that without immediately understanding the small amount of irony in word choice), your church can disallow gay members entirely. That's fine. It's a private institution. Be as douchey as you want.
The slippery slope argument is even more asinine. "If we allow gay marriage, what's next, a man marrying a dog?"
No. Stop being an asshole. That's the Godwin's Law of gay marriage arguments. Seriously, stop being an asshole.
So, here we are. I can get why someone wouldn't want homosexuality to exist, but since it does, I can't wrap my head around any legitimate reason to be against gay marriage. Hell (there it is again), wouldn't it be better to wrap some Godliness around a gay couple by putting them into a monogamous relationship? Wouldn't that help to stop the spread of the "gay"?
Again, I'm editorializing my own work here. Obviously, the stereotypes that homosexuals are promiscuous or that homosexuality can be spread like a sickness are ridiculous. And for me to state them is offensive. But, isn't capitalizing on those stereotypes to show why the "traditional marriagists" should be in favor of gay marriage worth it? If not, I apologize to the offended. Unless you're a homophobe. I'm glad you're offended.
Anyway, I would like to get past this human rights hurdle early in my life so that we can move onto surmounting bigger issues. Cancer. The environment. The economy. Getting Dan Harmon back onto Community. We're wasting so much time, mindshare, and hurt feelings fighting a battle that will be over in the next 10 years. Like it or not, gay marriage will be legal in almost every state within the next 10 years. I will state that here confidently. Let's stop pissing into the wind and move on.
It's (well past) time to grant homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. It's the right thing to do. It's certainly the moral thing to do. (And, arguably, the Christian thing to do.)
When we do, I'll be able to eat some waffle fries again. And they will taste awesome.
Awesomer than ever.
02 Aug 2012
Even knowing the results of the Olympic Women's Gymnastics team finals, I was still spellbound by the athleticism and ridiculous poise under pressure.
The Atlantic Wire captured it all in an awesome pictoral display, showing how the US won, Russia folded, and letting you relive pretty much all the greatness of Tuesday night. And they partially explain how the hell gymnastics scoring works.
To keep it simple, if you want to win, you need a score above 15 on beam and floor. You want at least a mid-15 on bars. And you want as close to 16 as possible on vault.
The greatest part of the article is the images. You need to check it out. So. Much. Greatness.
Image from The Atlantic Wire
02 Aug 2012
Lame title aside, I've not had much time to write in the past few weeks. So, while I've got a few minutes of downtime, I figured I'd brain dump a few of the things I've learned about Mountain Lion, as I've been using it since it came out last week.
- I regained about 15GB of disk space after installing Mountain Lion. I'm not sure this will happen to everyone, but I'm guessing between clearing out old caches, probably clearing out some of the 32 bit components (since it's a full 64 bit os), and just going through a full reboot, I got back a whole boat load of disk space.
- Notification Center is cool, but reasonably useless. Until more apps support it (which means updating and releasing in the Mac App Store, it tends to be a no man's land for me. I use Growl a ton, and in a few weeks (hopefully), Growl 2.0 will be out, which will pipe all of those fun Growl notifications right into the Notification Center. That will be nifty.
- Brett Terpstra hooked up a nice script that lets you pipe stuff into the Notification Center. If you do anything in the Terminal, or script anything at all, it's pretty awesome.
- iTunes continues its slide towards suckitude. For whatever reason, iTunes performance seems to be worse. The podcast interface, intermittently, throws crazy beachballs when just clicking on a podcast. Could just be me, but I'm guessing it's something in the newest build.
- Safari is good again. Safari gets really good for a build, then falls behind Chrome for a while, then gets really good again. iCloud tabs are great, the speed is great, as is finally merging the search and URL bar. A few months from now, I'm guessing it'll have drifted behind Chrome again.
- iCloud is getting better. Slowly but surely, iCloud is getting really useful. The aforementioned iCloud tabs are great, and for some apps, iCloud for documents is really good. There are a few things missing (can't share docs between apps; not enough apps using iCloud), some bugs (Contacts still seems to flake out sometimes), and some performance issues. But by and large, iCloud is useful. It's just not as useful as Dropbox, yet (for files).
- Twitter integration is sort of cool. It's nice to be able to quickly tweet from Notification Center, or to sync up a contact's Twitter user with their address book entry.
- AirPlay Mirroring is badass. Too bad it only works with newer Macs. I'm sure someone will hack it to work with others.
- It's $20 bucks. Just buy it.
I haven't really played with dictation, but I'm guessing that'll turn out to be pretty cool. For instance, I just dictated this line right here. Works well enough, though the lack of response while you're speaking is disconcerting (because it is sending everything out to Apple's servers, rather than doing it locally. so it can't keep up with your speaking).
Anyway, seriously, it's $20. Go buy it.
And yeah, I probably should have just come up with a tenth fact.
