Month: October 2007

I attended a conference this past weekend, and I noticed that the average age of the population of the conference has trended dramatically upward over the past four years. Four years ago, most were in their twenties and thirties with a smattering of older people. Last weekend, it was much more like a thirties/forties gathering with a large number of much older people.

Now, I like old people, don’t get me wrong, but an absence of young people, IMHO, indicates a movement that isn’t doing a good job appealing to the next generation of activists. This has been lurking in the back of my mind, and this morning I read a scathing commentary on the Freedom From Religion Foundation Convention (which, coincidentally, took place the same weekend as the convention I was a part of):

There was something like 700 or more people in attendance, and almost all of the meeting time was spent in tight focus on one person standing behind a lectern.

What is our goal at these kinds of meetings? It is to organize. To interact with fellow freethinkers. To get ideas that we can carry home to help advance our goals. To meet new people and to network. To be entertained. Strings of long talks do this very poorly.

Another problem: attendance at this kind of meeting is largely on the gray side of middle age, with very little in the way of young people. Why? Because it’s boring! We should be engaging and recruiting more college-aged people, and this format just won’t do it.

Mix up the format a lot. Every session does not have to be a talking head above a lectern…

I strongly recommend to anyone organizing this kind of freethought convention that they get in touch with some members of the SF community. Science fiction people know at a deep level how to put together a first rate meeting experience that will engage diverse interests, and be informative and entertaining, and most importantly, will appeal to people under the age of 60.

IMHO, a lectern and a speaker with a Powerpoint presentation is the last resort of an uncreative concept. I look back at my weekend, and the best part of it was the part I didn’t record: the meeting of people between lectures, the long hang-out-and-talk-and-drink sessions in the hospitality suite, and the encounters with other conventioneers outside of the convention halls at restaurants, homes, and hotel rooms.

I’m not saying such activist-style conferences should be totally unstructured, but they really need a way to engage people. I have a long tolerance for sitting on my butt and listening to people, and even I grew weary during several presentations.

So I’ve heard that Murphy of MurphyMania has a kick ass AV setup in his house. Well, the time has come to finish my basement, and I could use some suggestions on how to work the AV side of it.

Here’s what I’ll have:

1) Main family room. Will have the home theater in this room as well as a second TV in the kitchenette. 2) Bedroom, want to be able to watch TV 3) Gym, want to watch TY and/or listen to music 4) I also want to be able to throw music outside on the deck.

Now, that’s 4 TVs to add. I have no desire to have to add 4 cable boxes to get video to all 4 of them. That’s where I’d like to know the abilities of the Slingbox. Or Alienware has some cool MediaPC offerings. Do these allow you to take one signal and power 4 different TVs. I know it would work for basic cable, but what about the HD cable you need a box for? If that doesn’t exist, I might as well just split my cable and save money.

I was looking at getting a higher-end receiver to do the audio to 3 rooms, Any suggestions there?

Thanks in advance Weed

OK, just started catching up on Numb3rs. Cool cop series.

That is all.

Me: “You know, we haven’t traded massages in a little while. We should do that.”

Her: “You bet, I like that idea!”

“The massage oil we have though… it’s that Wal-Mart stuff, the self-warming…”

“Yeah, not so good, it smells bad.”

“Heh, tastes bad too.”

(giggles) “We also have that K-Y oil, but it’s really thin and not very good for back rubs either.”

“Maybe we should pick up something nicer? I mean, because if we’re not exchanging back rubs because the oil is gross? Maybe I should hit Bath & Body Works for some.”

“That won’t work. I’ve hunted for hours for decent massage oil there and they don’t have anything good.”

“Huh, I wonder where they might have some?”

“Maybe you should go to a naughty store. They have the good stuff.”

(giggle) “That’s a funny name, because the naughty store is actually kind of…”

“…Nice?”

“Yeah, nice.”

In the last seven days I have…

1) Literally saved a dude from dying. 2) Pretended to be Woody from Toy Story for the President of Hair Cuttery. 3) Had a baby pee on my feet. 4) Pretended to murder 72 people, and got praised for it 5) Yelled at my sister and had her tell me I did a good job at it 6) Saw my face on the cover of a commercially released DVD 7) Written a rap about Santa Claus and Angelina Jolie 8) Put makeup on other men 9) Helped my wife color her hair

and

10) (how white trash is this) Ate instant Mac N Cheese with Red wine at 3am

My life is really strange.

No.. its not a typo..

This is the top story on yahoo News right now.. and once again, Fox has screwed Whedon fans…

CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY

Basically, there was a live event that would play the episode “Once more With Feeling” from buffy, with live actors a la “Rocky Horror” and Fox has shut it down.. (The people involved made a good faith agreement with a group called Criterion which evidently has some say in these things)

Fox has shut it down saying that they have no right to do this..

The big question is.. why not broker a deal. there’s no money in this for Fox. Why do this, except that they want to “protect their rights”..

Well.. look over at aintitcool or whedonesque.. Buffy fans and Browncoats know that Fox has screwed the fans for a long, long time (see: Firefly episode airing and cancellation) – and now this is mor ebad blood. Foolish, I say.. what about you?

Time to revisit an old topic, but one that gets brought up year after year when talking with family and friends:

There has never been a random Halloween candy poisoning in the US.

There have been cases of parents murdering their own children by poisoning candy, a homeowner accidentally handing out marijuana in Snickers wrappers because he decided to use candy that showed up where he worked at the dead letter office, a child putting ant poison on his own Snickers bar to freak out his parents, children finding stashes of drugs and dying from an overdose with relatives sprinkling the drugs on Halloween candy to try to protect the abuser, and other incidents. No random poisonings, ever. But, this Halloween, your kids are not going to get poisoned by some random person in your neighborhood handing out poisoned candy.

Next up: foreign objects inserted into candy. There is a small chance — less than the risk of your child dying from choking on a piece of broccoli — that there may be a needle, razor, or other foreign object inserted into candy. Your kid might get a poke or a cut. There have only been 80 incidences of foreign objects found in Halloween treats in the USA since 1959; 70 of them were hoaxes perpetuated by the “victim” or immediate family.

My question with all of this is: why the obsession? My parents made a huge deal out of this when I was a kid, counseling me to cut up apples and discard suspicious-looking candy (no matter how good that smooshed-up Snickers looked in the bottom of the bag). Could it be that, even though most of us know this is a hoax, we instinctively feel some need to instill in our children a distrust of free gifts from neighbors?

Today I decided to read the comments on an article in the Salt Lake Tribune regarding this weekend’s upcoming Exmormon Foundation conference. One comment stuck out to me. I reproduce it below, posted by an individual with the alias of “Blessingstoyou”:

sistermissionary wrote: “Same old thing. Those who leave the Church cannot leave it alone.” It saddens me that you would write such a thing. From growing up in the church I heard this rhetoric many times before, and unfortunately, I still hear it today. Why is your heart so hardened that you feel the need to diminish the feelings of others because they think or believe differently than yourself? Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you purchased a car without doing any research on the make or model or read any consumer reports on the vehicle and never had it inspected by a third party mechanic before you bought it. You simply believed everything about the car the salesman told you. You bought it because it ‘fit you’ in that time of your life and made you look good and feel good while driving it. The price was right, the color was your favorite, mileage was good and everything on the outside seemed to meet your needs. It was what you thought at the time … the perfect car for you. You bought it and drove it off the lot, happy as can be. It served you good and got you from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ except for what you thought were a few minor problems that kept coming up, but you were able to give them temporary fixes to keep it running without taking it in to a mechanic. Sooner or later, the problems with the car continued to multiply to the point where you could no longer ignore them. You had no choice but to take the car into a mechanic. Once at the mechanics, after lifting up the hood, you got the bad news that the car you bought had several recalls, and that the engine, steering and gas tank were faulty and it was a miracle you had driven the car as long as you had without any serious accidents. You stand there shocked and appalled. You had no idea it was as bad as it was. The mechanic tells you that no amount of money you can throw at it will make it any better. There is nothing he can do to fix it. It is a lost cause. You go home and start doing your research. You find out all the problems with the car, read about all the recalls, and are sick that you believed everything the salesman told you. You feel you should have known better. You think back to that day when you were so happy to buy that car. How it made you feel. You even remember the first song you played on the radio. You remember how it smelled. All the good feelings you experienced when you bought it come rushing back to you. On the other hand, you also feel angry at being taken … believing foolishly in the salesman who sold it to you. You want to call all your friends and family and warn them. You don’t want them making the same mistake you made. When you make your calls to warn others and tell them about your experiences and what you found out about your car and what the mechanic told you, all you hear is that there is nothing really wrong with your car at all. They tell you to ignore the recalls, and that the mechanic is blowing smoke up your skirt. It’s really all your fault, for taking it in to a mechanic in the first place. This logic from others escapes you because you know the car had problems after you purchased it. You know it did, because you experienced them first hand. After all, that is why you finally had to take it in to a mechanic. The problems wouldn’t go away and you finally had to do something about them, only to get the bad news that the car couldn’t be fixed. Everything you have read about the car confirms what the mechanic told you. You even research others who bought the same car and find out that they too experienced the same problems you did. So what do you do? Do you believe your friends and family who tell you there is really nothing wrong with your car? Do you continue to drive it knowing that it is faulty and may cause an accident and cause harm to your self and others? Do you believe the mechanic and the recall reports and the consumer reports? Who do you believe? Answer that question to yourself. What would you do? This is similar, to how many feel about their religion that they were born into or may have converted to when they have the whole picture to look at instead of just part of it. If you found out from a friend that they were going to buy the same car as you did, would you sit quietly by and let them do it without at least giving them warning of your personal experiences? Or would you encourage them to read everything they could find on the car and have all the facts in front of them before making such a financial investment. Religion should not be treated any differently than any other part of our life decision making process. Why is that we just accept what we are being told because it makes us ‘feel good’ even though we get that nagging feelings that something may be off? Is it the feeling we want to keep having? Does it make us feel all is well with the world? Is our way of not coping with what is … but our wanting to cope with what we want it to be – whatever that is?

I have a random signature generator which I use with all my work emails. Today, it found a quote which I thought was surprisingly appropriate given another topic I wrote about last week:

I live the way I type; fast, with a lot of mistakes.

I only had a friend clue me in to this phenomenon, and all I have to say is OMGWTFBBQAWESOME. I laughed so hard I cried.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc6w4SzIUN0

(Note: Safe for work, but your co-workers may wonder what you are watching which involves so much bleeping…)