I must admit, I like exercising. Lifting weights, exercising, pumping iron, whichever form of argot appeals to you, I’m in favour of it. Now, I hate sports as much as any other self-respecting intellectual conceived in the age of the electron, but there’s something about lifting the ol’ barbells that just appeals to me. Maybe it’s the mindless repetition of hoisting heavy discs of metal that appeals to the smooth luge circuits of my brain, the ones responsible for dedicated pursuit of tasks I deem essential to self preservation. Or maybe some reptilian portion of my brain, suppressed through aeons of evolution and a few centuries of civilization comes alive and craves the testosterone rush that exercising heralds. Either way, I’ve grown increasingly fond of staying fit and getting stronger. Mens sana in corpore sano and all that.
Without further ado, take this test here, you icky proles.
Which Operating System are you?
I turned out to be Debian Linux, as shown here:
Too bad I use Gentoo, but at least I didn’t turn out to be Windows ME.
All grammatical inconsistencies aside, having employed his poetic license to the fullest, Chuck Schuldiner’s famous line above is very apt. The problem lies not in being friendly with other humans, for one can be friendly and carefree with all and sundry, it lies in trusting and expecting more of someone than is theirs to give. But who can really fathom the depths of another’s mind? What is that other human thinking of you, at any given time? Is it not an exercise in egoism to imagine that all these thoughts are of a complimentary nature?
Proceeding from that, the realistic assumption to make is that these thoughts are neutral, in the vein of ‘He’s a decent fellow’ and so on. But what if the glass is always perceived as being half empty? What then? Should one spend an eternity believing that one’s fellow humans are thinking nothing but the worst of one, at any point in time?
I suppose if you lean either way, it’s bound to end in some sort of morass, either the quagmire that defines the true homeland of the paranoiac, or the roseate illusion that only a blind optimist can see. The best route here is the one of the middle road, the well travelled path, as it were. Simply not caring what others think is always a good option too. So do apathy and indifference reign supreme in the mind of the realist then? I suppose that if they did, there would be no way to tie this post the title, so we’ll let it go at that.
Scientists have found a family that can only walk on all fours. Could it be a hoax? They don’t think so and are of the opinion that a bizarre combination of genes and inbreeding might have resulted in this. The following is taken from Family that bear crawls around
An extraordinary family who walk on all fours are being hailed as the breakthrough discovery which could shed light on the moment Man first stood upright.
Scientists believe that the five brothers and sisters found in Turkey could hold unique insights into human evolution.
The Kurdish siblings, aged between 18 and 34 and from the rural south, ‘bear crawl’ on their feet and palms.
Study of the five has shown the astonishing behaviour is not a hoax and they are largely unable to walk otherwise.
Researchers have found a genetic condition which accounts for their extraordinary movement.
And it could provide invaluable information on how humans evolved from a four-legged hominid into a creature walking on two feet.
Two of the daughters and a son have only ever walked on two palms and two feet, but another son and daughter sometimes manage to walk upright.
The five can stand upright, but only for a short time, with both knees and head flexed.
Their remarkable story is told in a television documentary, to be screened next week, which shows scientists studying their movement, but also their struggle to fit in with modern society.
Professor Nicholas Humphrey, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, visited the family twice. He said: “It’s amazing as an example of a strange, strange aberration of human development. But their interest is how they can live in the modern world.”
The five are all mentally retarded. Their mother and father, who are closely related are believed to have handed down a unique combination of genes which result in the behaviour.
Some researchers argue the genetic fault has caused the brothers and sisters to regress to a form of ‘backward evolution’. Others believe it has led to brain damage which has allowed them to develop the walk.
Rather than walking on their knuckles, like gorillas or chimpanzees, they walk on the palms of their hands, with their fingers spread upwards.
Scientists believe this may be the way hominids moved to protect their fingers for more delicate movements.
Prof Humphrey said he thought the family had reverted to an instinctive form of behaviour encoded deep in the brain but abandoned during evolution.
This post is just what one needs to redeem one’s faith in humanity. Read the rant below, by a social worker, posted on Craigslist:
A social worker finally snaps
Reply to: anon-65806895@craigslist.org
Date: Mon Mar 28 09:45:08 2005After years of idealism, I have finally decided that I am sick and fucking tired of helping the disenfranchised and oppressed. I have a master’s degree in social work, and I’ve worked in a number of different settings. I’ve been a social worker for Children’s Protective Services, a therapist on a psych ward, and I’ve worked as a case manager for a non-profit that shall remain nameless. I’ve had a number of clients over the years that I would now like to thank for helping me come to the realization that certain people are beyond help.
1) The mother and father who forced their newborn son to nurse from the family dog: Thank you!! I thought it was going to be just another typical Monday morning. You know, examining 4 year olds and finding anal warts encrusting their little rectums, watching 7 year old little Johnny masturbate the way that Daddy taught him to, and removing little Suzie from her home so Mommy wouldn’t be able to put cigarettes out on her thighs anymore. Boring, run-of-the-mill stuff. Then you two beautiful people entered my life. Just in time, I might add! I was beginning to think that abusive parents were losing their sense of creativity. Silly me! What’s that? Oh, I know it wasn’t your fault. Of course not. No, I agree, formula IS really expensive these days. You’re absolutely right, sir, it WOULD have been worse to just let the baby starve. Can I ask you just one question though? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, you could have used your WIC voucher to purchase some formula instead of selling it so you could buy a goddam crack rock? Fuck me, you say? Nope. FUCK YOU, you smarmy pile of rhino shit! Fuck you and your crack whore “baby mama”. Your child is coming with me! Merry Fucking Christmas!
2) The meth addict with Borderline Personality Disorder: Sweetie, here’s a word of advice. When you are in the midst of a legal battle in which your parental rights are at stake, it is BAD for your case if you show up for your weekly supervised visits with your children spun out of your fucking mind. Also, if you’re going to have fresh track marks all over your arms, you should at least wear a long sleeve shirt so I can’t see them. We talked about this before, remember? I have to write a report to the judge in a few months, and I can’t in good conscience recommend that the court return your children to you when you insist on showing up to your weekly visits high as a kite, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a toothless grin. Also, it does not help your case if you assault me after I inform you that no, you can’t see your kids today due to your inebriated state and your exposed vulva. I know you grew up in poverty, and I sympathize with your plight. Hell, I was poor as fuck growing up. My family was broke as a motherfucker. We lived in the projects and never had no cheese for our hamburgers or nuthin. Somehow, though, we still managed to find ourselves some fucking PANTS when we went out IN PUBLIC!
3) The guy who cut his own dick off and left it sitting on the altar at the Catholic church: Dude, the psychiatrist gave you the Haldol for a reason. You should really try taking it every now and then. You’re really gonna kick yourself when you come out of this particular episode and realize that your johnson has transubstantiated into the body of Christ. Look, I agree that the Catholic church did some fucked up shit back in the day, but was this really necessary? What exactly did you think you were going to prove? Oh I know, I know, the voices told you to do it. But if the voices told you to go jump off of a bridge, would you do it? Wait, forget I said that.
4) The crackhead mother with 27 cats: I called you in advance to set up our appoinmet. You KNEW I was going to be at your house that day and that I would be evaluating your progress in making your home habitable so that your kids could be returned to you. So why, oh why did you answer the door with a CRACK PIPE IN YOUR HAND???? Oh, it’s not yours? You were just holding onto it for your neighbor? Sure, I’ll buy that. Let me ask you something though. Are those your neighbor’s cat turds overflowing in the kirchen sink? No, you’re right, those litter boxes ARE expensive. Perhaps you shoud consider getting rid of a few of the cats so there will be room for your children. Just a thought. By the way, is that your neighbor’s blood coagulating over there on the couch?
5) The crack addict who prostituted her 8 year old son to support her drug habit: Congratulations! You have just managed to turn me into a supporter of the death penalty! What’s that? You’re concerned about having your little boy placed in an abusive foster home? Oh don’t worry, your son is fine, dear. He won’t be going to a foster home after all. You see, we had to place him in an institution because he now likes to save his feces in plastic bags so he can use them as lubrication when he jacks off onto women’s panties. He also tries to rape other children. What causes him to do such awful things, you ask? Well, I’m not sure dear, but I’ll hazard a guess. I could be wrong, but perhaps his current behaviors have something to do with the fact that his MOTHER RENTED OUT HIS ASS TO HUNDREDS OF PEDOPHILES TO SUPPORT HER CRACK HABIT!!!! Bitch, I hope you get ass-raped by Genghis Khan in hell for all eternity. I’d love to beat you upside the head with a tire iron and take a big steaming shit on your chest. I’d probably lose my license if I did that, though.
6) To the woman who didn’t want her child to be adopted by those “faggots”: It’s so refreshing to meet a woman who cares so much about her child for once! You’re right, honey. The Bible DOES say that homosexuals are an abomination to God. Tell me, what does the Bible say about punishing your toddler for crying by sticking him with your dirty syringe needles, thereby infecting him with HIV and hepatitis? I know the Bible says “spare the rod and spoil the child”, but I don’t remember anything about sparing infectuous diseases and spoiling the child. Perhaps you were reading the New International Version? Incidentally, those two “faggots”, as you call them, have a few important things to offer your child that you have neglected to provide. What can a couple of faggots offer YOUR child, you ask? Well, first and foremost, they have JOBS!!!! Yes, that’s right, JOBS!!!!!!! These jobs provide them with a trivial little thing known as HEALTH INSURANCE, which will be used to cover the medical treatment your child has to receive for the diseases that YOU gave him. These abominations to God are also capable of providing something called a HOME THAT IS NOT INFECTED WITH LICE AND CRACK. Finally, and most importantly, they will give him something known as LOVE. Ever heard of it? Now, kindly go euthanize yourself you miserable cunt.
Ok, I feel much better now. I think I might go back to school for an MBA or something. I’m tired of working to help these people for 60 hours a week at $35,000/year.
In other news, Borduria has stopped supplying financial aid to Syldavia, although Syldavians are permitted access to the geysers and tin mines. San Theodoros has stopped the weekly exports of bananas and baboons into Borduria, an event which, one hopes, will greatly hasten the onset of peace in Bordurians’ minds. Meanwhile, Syldavia stll has the occasional border spat with San Theodoros. The outcomes vary greatly. San Theodoros, though the smallest of the three republics has 10,000 young, battle-hardened men ready for war. This elite force is respected by Bordurian and Syldavian alike. Borduria, the nation with a history of pacifism, runs third in terms of battle manpower, simply because they spend too much time and money unlocking the secrets of the universe to care about petty squabbles with other living things. Borduria’s superior level of technological skill gives it a distinct edge against the other two republics.
The uneasy calm over the winter 2005 prevailed for a brief period before a brief flare-up last month over an incident on the Syldavian-San Theodorian border. Syldavia, being the biggest importer of livestock and machinery from its neighbours, is perenially indebted to San Theodoros. Indeed, it is said that most Syldavians watch more San Theodorian television than their own. International observers have also noticed the apparently cyclical nature of combat between the two neighbours. Not unlike the brief lulls in sniping in Kashmir, the two neighbours are not averse to taking potshots at each other occasionally when they realize that no one is going to be truly hurt.
There has been talk of an international ceasefire in the recent months, one that will be agreed to by all three nations. Under the auspices of the U.N., the three republics will agree to a complete cessation of hostilites by the start of summer. Additionally, they will seek other trade partners to ease their inter-dependence on each other. Will peace really hold? Only time will tell.
Usenet has always been the seedy underbelly of the Internet, the dark alleys where trolls eat the naive and feed on the bloated carcasses of the deformed, pulled down because they tarried too long on an unsavoury topic.
Apart from that, though, before the emergence of the WWW and forums and messageboards and all that fancy stuff (thanks, Berners-Lee), Usenet, or Internet newsgroups were the watering holes for most of us, rapidly adjusting to a new medium.
So after the mandatory visits to alt.sex.your.fetish.here and alt.binaries.*, where could one really lurk? Find a place to call home? Relax one’s tired feet at the end of a long day?
If you preferred ads relating to buying and selling chattels, it would be a place like van.forsale. But if you liked thrash metal or anything heavier, there was no better place to mill about than alt.music.slayer, despite what those poseurs in alt.rock-n-roll.metal.oldschool might tell you. The regulars were knowledgable about metal as only people who truly love something can be, true connoisseurs of the metallic genre indeed.
Woe betide anyone who admits to liking mall-metal, or some of the more commercial forms of metal floating around at any given point. While the occasional Nevermore fanboy crawls out of the woodwork, most of the regulars are a hoary bunch, not shy of letting their disdain for anything released after a band’s first album show.
The other regular features of this newsgroup are the postings by the Anus.com troll, an individual with pretentious claims to intellectual sophistry. Almost everyone hates this Hessian, but he reposts his tripe every week, on top of committing the cardinal sin of cross-posting to a million newsgroups at once.
A lot of the famous regulars have all but disappeared now. There was the mighty Venmlegion, older than Father Time himself, who had seen Metallica on their first tour. There was Significant Pickle, who was the calm voice of reason and possessed a rapier wit. Brutal Noodle took on the more belligerent role, but came across like a good guy, like Steven Seagal in one of his innumerable B-movies. War Nipple argued with everyone over everything, most notably Venmlegion in one of the longest running threads in thrash history. J, from England was the typical token Britisher disgusted by the lack of civilization in the colonies. Kramer, who stopped posting for long periods, would show up intermittently and post crazy talk. There was cailinsdad, a former metalhead turned system admin who still loved thrash. CalgaryRob from Calgary was the grim Canadian on the site, who revelled in tormenting Mike Mosh. Mike Mosh who had pictures of himself in front of Nazi swastikas, desperately awaiting the start of the Fourth Reich. Matt Tulini, who posted pictures of himself looking like a stoned Italian metalhead, which he was, big surprise there. John Chedsey, of SSMT fame, would cross post his lists of CDs for sale.
That was then. Now, of all the people mentioned above, the only ones who post regularly are Brutal Noodle, Significant Pickle albeit under a different handle, and Wyrd. Wyrd is not of the above, but has been there since 1999 or so and has been Brutal Noodle’s trans-atlantic comrade in gay jokes. When the level of homo-eroticism reaches massive levels thanks to these two, they taper off for a bit, but then slowly resume again. Despite its name, a.m.s is a deep reservoir of knowledge about all things metal, and almost all genres, be it black or thrash or doom or grind or melodic or Swedish or old school or whatever, you name it. In fact, in recent years, there have been lesser and lesser posts about Slayer and more about all types of genres in general. This might be because there is a limit to the number of times one can name their top ten Slayer songs, or top five albums or whatever.
Yes, alt.music.slayer is one big happy family and you should visit today.
Having been a science fiction afficionado since as long as I can remember, I feel it’s only right to make a list cataloguing some of my favourite science fiction authors. Some of these are well known, the others not so well known.
The Big Four would have to be
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke
Robert Heinlein
Philip K. Dick
Some of you might raise eyebrows at Dick’s inclusion in the holy circle, but his presence is fully justified, from what I’ve read of him, which is everything.
I shudder to use terms like ’second tier’, or ‘lesser calibre’, it almost reminds me of when fanboys would compare bands like Testament to bands like Slayer, ah the good old days of alt.music.slayer. Never was Godwin’s law invoked with more machine-like precision than in the glory days of 1998-2003. But I digress. Back to science fiction we shall go.
Second tier authors:
Harry Harrison
Harlan Ellison, the outspoken critic of everything, but always done with vigour and good taste
Ray Bradbury (up there with Saki and Roald Dahl for emotive short stories)
The Strugtasky Brothers – the chaps who came up with “Thinking is not entertainment but an obligation!”. Truer words were never spoken. Very Russian, very Soviet, very good.
H. G. Wells (yes, he was Victorian and wrote classic literature, but he still counts, one of the founding fathers)
Jules Verne (the French analogue of Wells, unrivalled in his day)