TheOldFart 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Turns Out TV Cord Cutters Are, In Fact, Young, Educated And Employed

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 19 Nov, 2010 @ 06:36am

    I claim weirdest

    I haven't had an antenna or cable TV since 1993.

    I could not handle the "infomercials" where such obvious sleight of hand is used to make products look "miraculous" and where obvious scams are peddled to idiots as "valuable services" (e.g. "refinance your house now for 250% of its value...")

    I've never regretted pulling the plug... never really even noticed it. I got remarried a while back and I had made plans to finally get satellite TV for the wife because she enjoyed watching TV, but she said no, she'd try "the lifestyle" (got to love an adventurous woman!)

    Coming up on two years now and she's a convert with no effort or pressure on my part. She reads more (and enjoys that immensely) and if there is a good TV series she likes she just buys the whole season on DVD when it becomes available.

    If cable/satellite companies offered a la carte service at a reasonable price, I'd consider it.

    In the meantime, the $900 to $1,000 a year that I've saved on cable bills over the last 17 years has built a pretty good DVD collection. Even blowing half the cost of cable on DVDs every month gets a lot of good quality entertainment, particularly if you simply wait a couple of months for the big boxed sets to show up online in used but perfectly usable condition for 1/4 the price of new.

    Let's see, I can pay a high price monthly to watch sleazy and in some cases outright fraudulent ads and get 20 channels of unwanted shit just to get one decent channel that has one or two decent programs a week, or I can sit down at my computer with a fresh cup of tea and surf the net for something I like and then click on 'buy' but only if I feel the price is right. Tough choice.

    If only they'd sell me a downloadable, non-DRM'ed version of the content I'd probably buy 4x as many programs as I do. I really dislike the idea of pissing away oil to make and ship the DVDs, so I tend to only buy the ones I know for sure I'll want to keep for a lifetime*

    (*lifetime means until I croak. It does not mean "until they take their DRM servers down" or "until they figure out how to make it not play on my existing DVD drive" or "until they stop supporting that particular format on the next version of Windows")

  • On the post: Are US Scientists More Likely To Fake Research?

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 19 Nov, 2010 @ 05:56am

    Re: Not sure, but Global Warming is an international fraud

    Ah yes, the global conspiracy involving 122 nations and faked so well that 22 national academies of science, groups which have never led us too far astray in the last 100 years have all been taken in.

    Don't forget to check under your bed for communists because I hear they're bringing them in by the UFO load to Area 51 and there's another rumour that they've finally succeeded in converting the entire Bigfoot community to communism as well.

    The topic, I believe, is scientific fraud, not conspiracy theory.

    Personally I think saying "it's only 2 fraudulent papers a month" is like saying "Well it's only 2 defective airplanes a month". A lot of people may be depending on those papers to make important decisions, sometimes life critical ones. It's like having "only 2 bad teachers", over time they can screw up a whole lot of people.

    But by all means, feel free to try and change the subject from discussing science to your favorite subject, conspiracies against you and why scientists worldwide are conspiring to hide the evidence that the earth is only 6,500 years old or that climate isn't changing or that Elvis is still in charge of the shadow government or whatever it is.

    [click]

  • On the post: Virginia High School Says Barring Students From Doing Outside Research Helps Them 'Think For Themselves'

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2010 @ 09:53am

    Paging Mr. Loewen

    Mr. James Loewen, please come to white courtesy phone (and use the handset to beat some sense into an idiotic history teacher)

    http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/liesmyteachertoldme.php

    (good read, if anyone is interested)

  • On the post: Archive Of Geocities Released As A 1TB Torrent

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2010 @ 10:21am

    Re: Category exception

    In two words. Tom Waits.

    If you think 70's music wasn't any good it's cause you're listening to pop. The real music of the 70's was some of the best ever written or recorded.

    Need more words?

    Dark Side of the Moon.

    Want to get the house really rocking? Look at what movies and TV shows have been using for the last 30 years. Good ol' 1970's vintage rock and roll, soul and folk music.

    So nyeah! :p

    Last words (from a quick glance through my CDs)

    Queen
    Jimi Hendrix
    Lynrd Skynrd
    ELP
    ELO
    Steve Goodman
    John Prine
    Loudon Wainwright III
    Bob Marley
    Jeff Beck
    Allman Bros
    Moody Blues
    Jackson Browne
    Fleetwood Mac
    Captain Beefheart
    Lou Reed/Velvet Underground
    Elton John
    Genesis
    Black Oak Arkansas
    Eric Clapton/Cream
    War
    Black Sabbath
    Joan Jett
    Grateful Dead
    Kinks
    Tom Petty
    Yes
    Jethro Tull
    Foghat
    Billy Joel
    Weather Report
    Return to Forever
    Edgar Winter
    Dr. John
    Steve Miller

  • On the post: Archive Of Geocities Released As A 1TB Torrent

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2010 @ 10:09am

    I'm a hoarder

    Emphasis on "old hoar"der.

    I use the freebie HTTrack package to nab a copy of any sites that are important to me. (I'm not associated with that project in any way, just a long-time happy user of it)

    Yes, I'm a copyright "criminal", so sue me. I got my best pal's website safely archived (she died 5 years ago) along with a good friend's old geocities site that had lots of pictures of our road trip together a decade ago.

    I also have a couple of Russian and English grammar reference websites squirreled away. The original sites disappeared more than a decade ago. I found them very handy and they predate the age of shitty Flash/Flex/Silverlight crap that can't be searched so they're very easy to use and if I don't know the correct name of the rule or term I'm looking for, I can just search for examples or related ideas using grep or Windows search.

  • On the post: US Lost Touch With 50 Nukes This Weekend

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2010 @ 11:31am

    The "lose codes" claim is probably bogus

    More than one person thinks there are some pretty significant holes in the claims made in Shelton's book.

    http://hoffman.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/10/21/what_s_missing

    Seems more likely that it's an author trying to sell a book based on sensational claims.

    IMO what happens with/to land based missiles is high in snore factor. The only serious threat to anyone are the submarine launched missiles. With a land based missile you have a fair amount of time to recover from a mistake. With a submarine launched missile you may have as little as 10-15 minutes to find and press the "Unf**k It" button before the open-air people crisp market has its grand opening.

    I can't think of any agency in the federal government who can react within 10-15 minutes of anything except the Department of Spin Control and I doubt they have access to that bright yellow button with "Oops! Don't Panic!" written on it in large, friendly letters.

  • On the post: Local News Website Says You Need To Pay To Read Its Stories, Says It's Collecting Visitor IPs To Sue

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 26 Oct, 2010 @ 11:03am

    It's struggling

    I got a couple of broken socket failures and one timeout before I got to the site.

    I read three stories, but my memory is so short I forgot the first two by the time I read the third one. Does that count as only consuming one story or am I going to be arrested along with the rest of you filthy criminals?

    I'll just wait right over here on the Group W bench.

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2010 @ 07:27pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: To quote Peter Walker

    Why oh why oh why can religious people never take the time to read, consider or understand basic concepts like Pascal's wager?

    You just wait, when you find out the Easter Bunny really exists he's not going to give a fried egg whether you genuflected the correct number of times or sacrificed the proper number of oxen or went to church every Sunday.

    Are you afraid now? Are you scared that it doesn't matter to the Easter Bunny?

    That's *precisely* how much concern I have over what a god might think. It's an imaginary being, it's a story, a legend, a mythical creature, a movie character, it doesn't exist, it doesn't think, it doesn't have any plans for your or me and it sure as hell has no power over me or anyone else, unless they're dumb enough to think "right, well, I've heard about this invisible being and I better obey whatever it is they currently think he wants me to do even though I can never know what it is he wants me to do".

    If I believed he existed, I would reject him anyway for being the horrific piece of crap that he would have to be to allow children to suffer and die and allow such horrific things to not only happen naturally but to allow them to occur in his name.

    Go search youtube for "Harlequin baby". That's your invisible being in action. Wow, that's the kind of invisible being I'd choose to bow down before, yesiree. That's who I want to follow. Yeah, someone that'd do that to a child, or by inaction allow it to happen. Great moral example there.

    There are roughly 3,000 gods, historical and current. Are you *sure* you picked the right one? Positive? Because if not, you better think about what the real god thinks about your statements and actions. Maybe you better study up on the other 2,999 gods that you know nothing about?

    To quote Stephen Roberts: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours"

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2010 @ 11:36am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: To quote Peter Walker

    Naw, it's far more obscure.

    Les Barker, possessor of a sick and twisted senska hummer, wrote a poem called "My Snails Have Not Yet Arrived" about a fast food restaurant in France serving... you guessed it... escargot. He marries and separates, has several children, learns to recite War and Peace by rote etc., but his snails have still not arrived.

    If you're not allergic to bad puns, "Up the Creek without a Poodle" will induce laughs in most cats and several humans.

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 07:22pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: To quote Peter Walker

    "As for science proving anything, it has never disproved God."

    As for Logic 101 class, most of us managed to at least get the gist of the idea that proof of a negative is not only impossible, it's right up there with Godot, escargot and Zeno's arrow when it comes to never actually arriving.

    Science has also failed to disprove the Easter Bunny, Bigfoot, Santa Claus, or that Elvis is dead. That's your standard of "evidence"? Does that mean we should believe in all those too? Or only the invisible things you tell us really do exist?

    (and a free virtual beer to any or all who know where the escargot reference comes from)

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 06:21pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: To quote Peter Walker

    You used the magic word: faith.

    James Carse does a great job of explaining where the religious go wrong. When they lose their faith and adopt a belief system, they have lost their way.

    To have faith that a god critter invented the universe (or that a god critter lays colored eggs in baskets full of grass for that matter) is a matter of personal belief. People are entitled to their own beliefs.

    Where the religious go wrong is when they lose that personal faith and come to believe that not only are those subjective statements of faith true for themselves, but they are also the objective truth, true for others regardless of evidence, logic or their own faiths.

    That's where I draw the line. Someone wants to say "I have faith in my invisible god-thing", that's their right, they're welcomed to it. When they switch to saying "My god is real and his acts and thoughts and will as I interpret them apply to every person and every natural process in the universe", that's when I tell 'em to go take a flying f at a rolling doughnut.

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 06:07pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Flame on!

    The Onion will always rate highly as a great source for news. Ever since they published the headline "Reagan's Body Dies!" I have sacrificed small animals and the occasional child who wandered away from its mother, just to keep the Gods of Onion appeased.

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 06:05pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: To quote Peter Walker

    According to some, the basis is the annual flooding of the Nile/Tigris/Euphrates.

    All the stories in the bible are re-hashes of older stories. The virgin birth, the 12 disciples, water into wine, the three wise men traveling to the birth site, the birth at the winter solstice, all of it is just adaptations of more ancient stories.

    Just for starters, if you're interested:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 05:59pm

    Re: Wow

    Maybe you're being laughed at for making a ridiculous claim? Since your claim is obviously ideologically founded and that claim is identical to what young earth creationists claim and therefore every bit as ridiculous, did you expect anyone to think otherwise?

    You claim that one person's opinion printed in the popular press is equivalent to a falsifiable scientific theory and a couple of centuries worth of science across dozens of scientific disciplines.

    Why not just say we can't believe any scientific theory or any scientist because we can always find individuals with science degrees who claim the opposite in the National Enquirer?

    You obviously don't understand science or the scientific process, but you want to cry foul because people associate you with the usual suspects who make identical ridiculous and uninformed statements?

    As my mom used to tell me, "Son, if you're looking for sympathy it's between 'shit' and 'syphilis' in the dictionary"

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 05:11pm

    Re: Re: Re: Wow

    "Having said that, evolution as the theory currently stands doesn't do the complete job either. There's just too much missing information...."

    Huh? Missing information does not mean the theory is incorrect. It doesn't even imply that the theory might be incorrect.

    It took a long time to fill in the details of quantum theory. There is still a lot of missing information. No one thinks that quantum theory is wrong because there are things we don't know or how things we do know actually fit into the theory. The theory is falsifiable, the theory allows scientists to make fantastically precise predictions that have repeatedly been validated.

    Likewise the theory of relativity. Einstein never thought we'd be able to actually observe gravitational lensing. He and Bose predicted the Bose Einstein condensate 60 years before we had the technology to actually create it. Those predictions were *spot on*.

    The theory of gravity works. The theory of relativity works. Quantum theory works. Evolutionary theory works, it's falsifiable, it makes predictions. Gaps in our knowledge of any of those areas do not invalidate those theories and they certainly don't open the door for suggesting that invisible beings are responsible for any aspect of them, something that the OP insists is not just a possibility but an absolute certainty.

    BTW, ID is not anything different than creationism, it is precisely the same thing. They simply did a search for "creation" in their ridiculous "literature" and swapped that term with "intelligent design". That was what the court case (I believe in PA) was all about, the judge found that it was an attempt to whitewash creationism.

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 12:56pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: To quote Peter Walker

    You claim you know how the universe came into being.

    You "know" that Thor created it and why. In your own words:

    "The universe was not made for us, we and it were made to glorify God."

    Who told you that? Where did you get this "knowledge"? You claim specifically that "we and it were made to glorify god". How do you know that it wasn't made for us to laugh at god? How do you know it wasn't made for Thor to take his frustrations out on? How do you know it wasn't made as a prototype, a proof-of-concept to show to the other gods what he was thinking about doing for real?

    How do you know? How can you say for sure that none of those other gods or other stories are correct and only your god story is?

    Religion *is* for feeble minds. It's the 21st century, did you know that? Every single "god did it" has fallen by the wayside as science and technology have come up with explanations of how the world and the universe actually work. Religion has been in retreat for more than 5,000 years. We know where lightning comes from now. We know how earthquakes happen. We know how tiny seeds become trees. We're learning in excruciating detail the role of DNA in living things. All of the "oooh, it's scary, a god must have done it" crap has been retired. Now we know that the universe is flat and that random quantum fluctuations provide all the required conditions for the universe to exist.

    We know all that, we can prove those ideas, there is evidence to support them, in some cases we can demonstrate through experiment that they are correct.

    Meanwhile, where is the evidence for a god? Any god will do, evidence of Thor, of Odin, of Mars, of Baal, of Brahma, or the god of Abraham.

    Your "evidence" is contained in a book known for two things: extreme violence and absurd tales for which there is no evidence for and an entire universe full of evidence against.

    Only a feeble mind would cling to that last straw all the while injecting "santa claus...er... the easter bunny... er... thor... er... god did it and I *KNOW* that he did because this old book says so" into every conversation about science.

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 12:41pm

    I'm not sure Drake's equation is applicable

    ...for the reasons you've listed. We've got bacteria living miles down in the Earth's crust, just on chemical energy. Seems to me that even burned out remains of planets that once had life are likely to still have it unless they're too hot or too cold for "orderly" chemical reactions to occur.

    Drake's equation is about civilizations and life forms detectable by radiation they generate. If the "aliens" invent cable TV or satellite TV before they invent broadcast TV then technically speaking they would never show up in that equation because the radiation levels would be too low to ever detect. Well, assuming they're not stupid enough to set off nuclear weapons on their own planet anyway...

    (what did that recent demotivational poster say? "The truth behind atomic bombs: they actually contain midgets that divide by zero")

    Going back to the original article, the declaration by one astronomer that there is 100% chance of life is not science, it's just the personal opinion of one guy, so the implied slight on science/scientists in general is a pretty flimsy construction anyway.

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 12:14pm

    Re: Re: To quote Peter Walker

    How do you come to claim that you know the mind of god?

    How could you possibly know what Thor was thinking when he created the universe?

    What possible basis is there for such a ridiculous claim? Where is your evidence?

    Here's a hint: quoting books written by near primitives, and in particular books that also claim absolutely that rabbits chew cud, that bats are birds, and that the sun goes around the earth and that all of those are the result of an invisible being who lives in the sky is not evidence of anything other than a feeble mind that is completely satisfied by written compilations of ancient superstitions created from hundreds of even earlier and more primitive beliefs and tales.

    So you might want to try the evidence route rather than claiming you have divinely inspired knowledge of what Thor was thinking when he created the universe.

    BTW, found any evidence of that flood yet?

  • On the post: Planet Declared As 100% Likely To Have Life… Now Can't Even Be Found

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 11:04am

    To quote Peter Walker

    "The supreme arrogance of religious thinking: that a carbon-based bag of mostly water on a spec of iron-silicate dust around a boring dwarf star ... would look up at the sky and declare, 'It was all made so that I could exist!'"

  • On the post: Sunday Times: Pay Up To Have Us Tell You How We Were Totally Wrong In Our Climate Change Story

    TheOldFart ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2010 @ 02:33pm

    If you could sue for...

    ..."deformation" I know a lotta folks that could retire by the end of the month.

    (I know, I know, special level of hell reserved etc. etc. etc. At least I left out the thalidomide jokes)

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