The Brown Haze

USA not the center of the world

2008-11-14T11:43:00.000Z

Humanists

2008-11-14T10:04:00.001Z

I love this. The Humanist atheist bus campaign. It’s a great way showing up the UK and the US are not just two different countries separated by a common language, they are separated by a astronomical “belief” gulf.

As you probably know, the British Humanist Association was attempting to raise some money to run a buss advert campaign in London using the slogan “There probably isn’t a god, so stop worrying about it and enjoy your life”, which is genius to start with. They set up a page on Just Giving in the hope to raise £5,500 and ended up getting over £119,495. This makes me all misty eyed to be British.

Now, they are doing a similar thing in Washington DC. I first heard about this on a AOL page that offered a voting form, is it good, or bad. Check this out:

What do you think of the ad campaign?
Thumbs down 69%
Thumbs up 31%
Total Votes: 55,656

OMG, only in America. So I did a bit more Googleing and came up with some interesting stuff:

This is from a forum:

insulting, yes. I am insulted and offended, but I'm strong enough in my faith and in my own self-confidence that things like this don't cause much of a reaction from me. Are we really that sensitive and weak as a country that we are offended by every little thing and have to make a big deal out of it? I don't like the ad campaign, but that doesn't mean I have to read it, pay attention to it, or react to it. I get what they are trying to do, but they could have chosen a better wording for the first part. Why did they have to say it in a way that disputes the existence of God? They could have easily worded it in a different way that would have been less of a religious activism stance than this. I believe in freedom of religion, but I don't want your religion shoved down my throat. I'm Catholic and not afraid to say it, but that doesn't mean you need to attack me for it. I'm not going to try and convert you. I'll tell you about my beliefs and what I stand for should you ask about it, but I'm not going to go out and try to "convert the heathens" (not my phrasing). Don't get all huffy and attack me over this just because I don't believe as you do.

Who is attacking you? If someone said they believed in a different religion are they attacking you? Next thing you will be telling me that you are offendined by non red Christmas lights. Fucking victim.

These are comments from the Fox News website:

MileHighPatriot says: "I think it's sad to what extent people will go to to combat people's faith. Do the sides of atheism and the agnostic really have such a weak argument that they must spend money on commercial advertisement? What do they even care? Why do they feel it necessary to 'convert' people?"

Eh??

sldfkd says: "Who says that atheists don't have a religion?"

Er…. Atheists for instance? You know, the people who say they are non-theist (the clue is in the name).

ANOLECOWBOY says: "Lots of people are going to have a funny look on their faces, when they find out that God is real. Especially when they are falling into the fires of Hell."

ROLF!!!111!! I love that one.

This next bit is a quote from someone Christian bigwig they interviews for the story

"It's a stupid ad," he said. "How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world."

I find that very worrying. We can only know right and wrong by what is dictated by a many thousands of years old book that had been translated from many different languages. Hell, a lot of peoples “good books” say its ok to stone people to death and mutilate the genitals of children.

Damn, I am glad on dont live in the US

Here is a good example of what I hate about the iPod…

2008-10-31T14:35:00.001Z

…And Apple in general…
…well not so much Apple as people that by Apple stuff….
…anyhoo.

So I was reading this article on the BEEB where they got one of their staff to try converting to Linux to see how it went. From what I can tell, apart from WIFI problems was this:

“The music management program - its "iTunes", if you like - let me listen to music and podcasts on my new laptop but wouldn't sync anything I loaded on to my iPod. Big problem for a music and podcast junkie.”

Hmmmm, go on….

“The fly in the ointment remains the music management software. I still can't sync an iPod and Agent Pedder reckons that I probably won't be able to - for now at least.”

You see, this guy is making this common mistake of thinking that if product A is not compatible with the incredibly restrictive way that Apple do business then it must be product A that is at fault.

I have a really easy solution to this problem. Insert iPod A in to Ebay B extract cash Z. Take cash Z and purchase a MEDIA PLAYER THAT DOES NOT DICTATE TO YOU HOW AND WHERE YOU LISTEN TO YOUR MUSIC.

*pant* *wheeze*

Ahem,

Of course, I imagine that he would not want to do this because he would not be able to get his music collection off of his iPod, which is YET ANOTHER OF THE STUPID FUCKING ISSUES WITH THIS STUPID MEDIA PLAYER….

*cough*

Excuse me. I will attempt to maintain my composure.

As I think I have said in the past, I don’t have a problem with the iPod having these short comings, my problem is how everyone is so quick to overlook them because…. Er… um… it’s a pretty device? Or perhaps because Apple is “cool”, I don’t know, but it baffles the shit out of me.

And while I am ranting (for a change) lets have a look at that fist quoted sentence I pasted above:

“The music management program - its "iTunes", if you like”

Well, hang on, how about windows media player or winamp, there are other products out there that are not created by Apple, are there not? Its like the Google Android phone post I did a few days ago. Why does the poncy fucking i[whatever] get in to all of these non Apple related features.

You can imagine if every time someone reviewed a sofa a rug or some other piece of household equipment they mentioned the Dyson hoover (the iPhone of vacuums if you will). For instance:

“This expensive Persian rug was fantastic quality, although I did find it hard to push my Dyson hoover over it so I took it out to the back garden and set fire to it”

Or

“The new 42” plasma telly has a great picture, but I needed to unplug it from the power point to plug my Dyson in, so it must be rubbish”

Or

“the new range of sex toys you can purchase from Ann Summers are great, and some of them make a buzzing noise, which is a bit like a Dyson hoover…. Sort of.

A pox upon the Apple and all who worship them.

Maps of war

2008-10-23T13:48:00.000Z

If you have ever said "ooh good, Second World War, in Colour is on" this may be for you

www.mapsofwar.com

ubuntu

2008-10-23T10:05:00.001Z

the brownhaze is 6 this week

2008-10-22T14:40:00.003Z

btw, it was TBH's birthday on monday. It is now 6. in that time I have made 953 posts. Thats almost a post every two days.

gosh.

Android vs iphone…… why?

2008-10-22T13:37:00.000Z

I have just been reading some of the lifehacker hands on review of the new HTC G1 phone running Android, googles new Smartphone operating system (like windows mobile or Symbian) and, for some reason, the reviewer is reviewing it in comparison with his (fucking) iphone.

Why, I don’t get it.

I know the so called “Jesus phone” is the new best thing ever, replacing sliced bread, to some people, but it’s a dumb comparison. The iphone is a nice looking media phone with a very inventive touch interface. The HTC G1 is a Smartphone, a computer in your pocket. I think this was the most telling moment to me:

In the course of four days, I still haven't connected the G1 to my computer—everything I need is in the cloud at Google and on the phone, period

Connect your phone to your computer, what for, why would you do that. Which computer are you going to connect it to, I use about 10 computers. This guys is stuck in the mindset that a you connect your device to your main computer and it acts like a peripheral to your main box. WRONG. It’s a computer, a little one that cant do all the stuff your main ones can do, but a proper little computer, so treat it as such.

I keep my (non sensitive) data on the internet in one form or another so that I can access it form wherever I am, and yes, that is quite often with the little computer I carry in my pocket.

Anyway, why was this review not done in comparison to a Symbian or a windows mobile smart phone? Because they were not made by apple and they don’t give these sudo geeks a big hardon.

I fucking hate the iphone soooo much.

Geek Cred

2008-10-20T10:00:00.001Z

Sometimes you see someone spend such a lot of time and effort on creating something that is of basically no use, but you cant help but be impressed. It just goes to show what men are capable of if they cant get a girlfriend. For Instance:

The Dream Trooper
This guy created a portable Sega Dreamcast out of bits and peaces. It works really well too.

Extend-a-moped
A chap with access to his own workshop who had a goal to make the worlds longest moped

DIY wall of death
Same guy as last time. This one really gets my geek cred award. Building your own wall of death out of pallets and crappy old bits of wood. Then riding it….. on a moped.

Has Prison Break jumped the shark?

2008-10-17T08:30:00.002Z

I have watched the first few episodes of the new series of prison break, I a show which I thought was great for the first two series, and I find myself asking if the show has “jumped the shark”. Let’s look at the evidence:

All of the people who where in prison in the original series have ended up working for the FBI, some how, as a team working to “take down the (evil) company”. Pretty unbelievable….

…Oh, and they are based in a dockside warehouse with a selection of vehicles and other resources like some sort of second rate super team. Oh dear.

Sara Tancredi has come back from the dead. Or at least, it turns out that she was never dead to start with. The head in a box that was delivered to Lincon was, in fact, not her head, but it was dark so he could not tell.

The head baddy, formally known as “Pad Man” because he only communicated by writing short notes on a pad due to his server paranoia is now chattering away all the time, almost as though it was just too difficult for him to only write messages to communicate if he was playing to play a larger part in the show.

Schofield has had his famous all over tattoo lasersd off by the FBI for reasons that they never really went in to, almost as thought it was just too much trouble to paint it on his body every time his showed an arm or part of his torso.

Now, the techie stuff, which is always bad, but they are taking disbelief suspense to a totally absurd level. For instance:

The “wireless hard disk” which can “soak up” information from any electronic device. So they have a hard disk which you can put next to a USB pen drive, and it will absorb all the data off of it. What with? Magic?

Or how about when they had to retrieve an e-mail that was sitting on a “router” which happened to be in the server room of a typical office which was only a short drive away. In fact they weren’t after an email, they were after its “shadow file” whatever that is. Anyway, they find the server room which has a massive internal window running down the side of it (like all good server rooms) from which their geek (who the FBI has assigned to them) goes in to and, for some reason, is able to access this system largely because he was in the same room as it. oh, also, this room sucks all the air out of it for fire suppression (like all good office server rooms with internal windows)

Or how about the way that the Company secure there communications. If I wanted to send an private message I guess I would split the message in to several encrypted sections and send them via various different encrypted routes, such as SFTP to one computer, perhaps an encrypted instant message session to another, so that my recipient would need to collect the parts from various different computers, that would make even resembling the message to attempt to crack the encryption pretty difficult. I would not do the following: send two plaintext e-mails, one a advert for Viagra and one an advert for a “star gazers club” (you get them all the time don’t you) from the same computer on millisecond apart, where you *print both messages out*, cut holes in the stargazers club advert where the stars are and lay it over the Viagra advert to show a few words which are the secret message. So, we have all the power of modern encryption available, let’s use technique that has been in use for hundreds of years, but just send it by e-mail. Sigh.

I think I will continue to watch the series, but it will be with progressively more gritted teeth.

ZOMG Starwars Last Supper

2008-10-06T10:29:00.000Z

supper?

Ubuntu? Popular?

2008-09-26T09:51:00.000Z

in case you were wondering?

why we drink

2008-09-24T13:08:00.001Z

instant karma

2008-09-19T10:45:00.002Z

http://view.break.com/572163 - Watch more free videos

mccain

2008-09-19T10:45:00.001Z

I wish somone had done this to Beedle

2008-08-27T14:30:00.003Z

"I dont fucking care if there is a hidden camera, you painted on my merc, bitch!!!"

Im not saying all Americans are stupid, but....

2008-08-12T10:22:00.000Z

I'll take two

2008-08-06T08:44:00.000Z

Watchmen

2008-07-31T15:40:00.000Z

There is no way the watchmen movie is going to be as good as it looks

Face Plant

2008-07-31T09:10:00.001Z

Nothing makes me laugh quite like a good face plant. What I particularly like about this specific type of mishap is that the person who suffers it was showing off in some stupid way before hand, so you don’t even have to feel sorry for them.

(that's going to be sore in the morning)

(not really a faceplat, but and old fave)

The batsmans holding the bolwers wijlly - ala USA

2008-07-25T07:54:00.000Z

hmmm

2008-07-24T15:12:00.000Z

I am ashamed to say...

2008-07-18T09:38:00.000Z

I actually quite like this tatoo

Pirates

2008-07-18T09:12:00.000Z

fact checking

2008-07-18T09:09:00.000Z

1..2..3. Awww

2008-07-18T08:39:00.000Z

I think these guys have more balls then sense. Its a seriously touching story though.