A guitar that tunes itself by measuring the pitch of each string as you play it.
Also in that story, another automatic tuning product that has a library of different tunings, and allows you to switch between them on the fly — even in the middle of a song.
Now, how do I convince Gail that I need this?
It's Saturday morning around 7:45. My kids (8 and 5) are watching Popular Mechanics for Kids, their favourite show. I'm not watching with them, but I'm sitting in the kitchen reading the newspaper, and I can hear the TV, and I have been in a couple of times to see what they wanted for breakfast, and stuff like that. During this show, there have been commercials that featured scantily-clad models (for an HD TV), feminine hygiene products, and even one for Viagra. I'm no prude, but there is no way that a Viagra commercial should be aired during a show that contains "For Kids" in the title.
I sent an email to the National Geographic Channel telling them that someone needs to revisit the types of commercials that are aired during kids programming. Not only are these completely inappropriate for kids, but totally pointless from a marketing perspective. Their sponsors pay them for a certain amount of air time or a certain number of commercials played — would they be happy that their commercials are being played to an audience that has no chance of buying their product? It's not even that kids have little money are so aren't likely to go out and buy these products — that's true for many toys that are advertised as well. But the kids aren't going to ask for these things for Christmas or birthdays, which is pretty much the sole purpose of toy commercials. Do the manufacturers think that the kids are going to think "Hey, maybe for Christmas I'll buy mommy some of these Always with Wings, since the women in the commercial seem pretty happy about them"?
I'm not one of those parents who wants to shield their kids from the "evils" of the world so much that the kids grow up in a bubble. (If I were, I'd be pointing them at Conservapedia.) But at the same time, some things are simply inappropriate for kids. The Viagra commercials may not be explicit (they're entirely innuendo, which my kids don't get, though I think most of them are quite funny), but I still think they fall into this category.
If you're a fan of the TV show 24, and you know anything about computers, you have to watch this video, which places the show in 1994, rather than 2007. Not only does it capture Jack and the gang pretty well ("dammit!"), but the computer references are hilarious.
"He's hacking into the mainframe"
"We just installed Windows 3.1, there's no way!"
OK, so Windows 3.1 was about three years old in 1994, but still.
Well, folks, here it is — the encyclopedia you've been waiting for if you're afraid of the truth and want to live in your own little everything-is-wonderful world. It's called Conservapedia.com, "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". I don't even know where to start with this one. It's wikipedia except they abandoned the Neutral Point of View concept, and decide to write everything from a conservative Christian point of view (which is fine), but then treat that point of view as fact (which is not). Its criticisms of Wikipedia are funny — a Wikipedia article can present all kinds of facts about something like homosexuality, but because it doesn't explicitly say "Homosexuality is immoral" or "wrong" or "an abomination", they view this as an endorsement and therefore Wikipedia has a liberal bias. Because you are allowed to describe years and time periods using BCE/CE in place of BC/AD, Wikipedia has an anti-religious bias. Because you are allowed to use British English rather than American English on pages about British topics, Wikipedia has an anti-American bias.
The articles use all kinds of faulty logic — how can evolution be true if smart people like Archimedes, Aristotle, and Isaac Newton didn't propose such a theory? Plus, Hitler believed in evolution. A quote even hints that Hitler's evolutionary beliefs caused him to believe that Germans were superior to other races, and that Jews were to be segregated. Ergo, if you believe in evolution, you are evil. Also, atheism is obviously evil because Stalin, Lenin, and Karl Marx were atheists. And of course, the old standby, "If science cannot currently conclusively prove something, it must be false" (eg. evolution, the Big Bang, a genetic basis for homosexuality). Yup, definitely trustworthy.
Here are some "trustworthy" "facts" that I learned from Conservapedia:
Obviously there are going to be articles that have incorrect facts on them; I'm sure you could go through Wikipedia and find plenty of incorrect information. However, the article on homosexuality has thirty-five sections, 290 references, and at least two thousand edits. It's not like someone added some incorrect or misleading information — many people have. The virginity page doesn't even mention sex, but to give an accurate description of what virginity is would require actually discussing sex, and we can't have that, now can we? In order to "protect" people from a description of sex (and come on people, this can be done without an explicit description of how it is performed), they choose to publish something that is patently untrue. And I'm supposed to take this site seriously?
The Conservapedia article on Wikipedia is also particularly "trustworthy". The following quotes all take place within the opening two paragraphs of the article:
There's even a page on how Conservapedia differs from Wikipedia. One of the 16 listed reasons is: "We do not allow liberal censorship of conservative facts. Wikipedia editors who are far more liberal than the American public frequently censor factual information. Conservapedia does not censor any facts that comport with the basic rules." This is laughable, since Conservapedia not only allows but encourages conservative censorship of liberal facts, though I suppose they are up-front about it. Also, they treat the Bible and biblical scholars as a source of "facts" and conveniently ignore scientists whose findings don't agree with their agenda.
Do I want my kids perusing Wikipedia? To be honest, no. There are indeed explicit and disturbing pictures on some pages, as well as explicit descriptions of things that an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old really do not need to have described to them. However, Conservapedia, while family-friendly, presents opinions as facts, and tries to spin homophobia, general intolerance, and anything that disagrees with their beliefs (however misguided) as "faith". Faith has as much to do with hating gay people as Islam has to do with murdering Americans. A few extremist crackpots ruin it for the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims, and similarly, the people who created this site are simply Christian extremists teaching hate and masquerading it as faith. I won't let my kids anywhere near this site until they are old enough to be able to distinguish facts from bullshit presented as facts.
Another example of how trying to do your part to save the environment doesn't seem to help.
A week or two ago, Gail bought one of those new Tim Horton's reusable mugs. She figured that she gets at least one (decaf) tea a day when she goes to work, so this would cut down on cups that get thrown away. Sure they get recycled and not just thrown away, but reducing and reusing are still preferred over recycling. Plus Tim's charges 10 cents less for the tea when you put it in one of these mugs.
When she stopped at Tim Horton's this morning for her morning tea, she watched what the (attendant? waitress? I refuse to use the idiotic made-up term "barista") lady was doing. First, she misunderstood the order, so she made a decaf coffee rather than tea. The thing is, she made it in a paper cup, then poured it into the reusable mug, then threw the cup away. When Gail told her that it was supposed to be decaf tea, she apologized, poured the coffee out, and made the tea in another paper cup. Then she poured the tea into the reusable mug and threw the second cup away. Even if we ignore the ordering mistake (which could have been avoided if Tim Horton's were to use my brilliant idea), she's using a paper cup, which completely defeats the purpose of having the reusable mug in the first place. When Gail asked about this, she explained that she's not allowed to put the spoon she uses to stir the tea into the reusable mug, so she mixes the tea, milk, and sugar in a paper cup, then pours it all into the reusable mug once it's mixed. (I would think that using a disposable wooden stir stick to stir the tea in the reusable mug would be less waste than the cup.) I understand the logic, but if that's the case, why bother introducing the reusable mugs at all? I suppose if you don't take anything in your coffee or tea, then there's no need for stirring and no extra cups would be used. But what percentage of Tim's customers don't take any milk or sugar? Just listening to people ahead of me in lines, it seems to me that "double-double" is by far the most popular order.
I also get a tea on my way to work almost every morning, so I was considering getting a reusable mug too. When I heard Gail's story, my first thought was that I shouldn't bother, since a cup is getting thrown away for each tea I buy anyway. Then I remembered that I always ask for a second cup, since the tea is too hot for me to hold when I get it, and the second cup insulates it. If I get the reusable mug, it's insulated anyway, so only one cup gets thrown away instead of two. There. That should put an end to this global warming stuff once and for all. You're welcome.
iTunes Survey copied from cahwyguy:
How many total songs?
6919 songs, 20.9 days, 41.79GB
Sort by song title - first and last
First: A by Barenaked Ladies
Last: 99% Of Us Is Failure by Matthew Good
Sort by time - shortest and longest
Shortest: You to Me (0:04) by Bystander (entire lyrics: "Everybody says '<bleep> you' to me" — the <bleep> is an actual bleep in the song)
Longest: Octavarium (24:00) by Dream Theater (second longest is "A Change of Seasons" (23:08), also by Dream Theater)
Sort by Album - first and last
First: "Abacab" by Genesis
Last: "90125" by Yes
Sort by Artist - first and last
First: AC/DC
Last: 54-40
Sort by Album Artist - first and last
I'm not sure what this means - why is "album artist" different from "artist"?
Top five played songs:
The top song is In Between by Linkin Park with 4, and then the next 20 (the rest of Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight album, all of Saga's debut album, and a Robben Ford song I was trying to learn on guitar) are all tied at 3. Not a very useful stat thus far. Ask me again in a couple of years.
Find the following words. How many songs show up?
Sex: 6
Death: 4
Love: 239
You: 535
Home: 42
Boy: 34
Girl: 60
First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle
1. Extra Pale by Goo Goo Dolls
2. 5 Days in May [Live] by Blue Rodeo
3. Naked Sunday by Stone Temple Pilots
4. The Journey by Joe Satriani
5. The Master & Margarita by The Tea Party
We went to see We Will Rock You in Toronto again last night. Gail and I saw it back in August, and we loved it, and since my dad's 70th birthday is coming up, we decide to take my parents and my sister to see it. They all loved it, as did we, although the crowd didn't seem to get into it as much this time as the first time. The guy singing the lead role ("Galileo Figaro") was the usual guy, and he was very good, but when we saw it in August, the guy playing Galileo was not even the understudy, he was the second understudy, and he was simply amazing. He had easily as strong a voice as the regular lead, and I found his speaking easier to understand, since he didn't have the slight French accent that the regular lead does. The female lead, Scaramouche, was played by a Toronto girl named Erica Peck in her professional stage debut. The fact that it's her debut is unbelievable to me, since she was simply outstanding. Her acting was great, her singing voice is incredible, and she just looked really comfortable on stage. The entire cast was really good, but Scaramouche was my favourite character, and Gail's too.
While looking through the program before the show started, I noticed a vaguely familiar name in the band — the drummer was a guy named Sean Kilbride, and it took me a few seconds to place the name. He was the drummer for Haywire, a PEI-based pop-rock band in the 80's that I was a fan of. This is the second time I've noticed something like that at a musical theatre performance — when we went to see The Lion King a few years ago, I found that the musical director was a guy named Rob Preuss, who was the keyboardist for both Spoons and Honeymoon Suite back in the 80's.
I just found out that a blog entry I wrote last year about circumcision was quoted in an article on Slate magazine:
At Cut the Chatter, anti-snip Graeme Perrow retracts some of his criticism of the practice in light of these findings. "These results are certainly interesting, and if I lived in sub-Saharan Africa, I would have to seriously reconsider having it done to my kids. However, incidence of HIV among heterosexual non-drug-using men is far lower here than it is there. … I must take back my (implicit) assertion that it's pointless and has no benefits."
A few scattered things...
In the past couple of years, I've actually hoped that the Leafs wouldn't make the playoffs, so that this would send a clear signal to the Leafs' management that serious changes needed to be made, not just little tweaks here and there. They've missed the playoffs two years running now, but nothing really significant has been done, so this year, I'm hoping the Leafs miss the playoffs again so that management is replaced. Ferguson has done a lousy job of building this team, so he needs to be sent packing. I'm hoping that Tannenbaum et al have noticed the dramatic changes in the Raptors after they went out and got Bryan Colangelo (last year's NBA Executive of the Year); maybe that will force them to rethink the Leafs' situation. Rather than just getting some guy to run the Leafs, they need to go out and get the guy — someone with a proven track record who is not afraid to blow the team up and rebuild. I have no idea who the guy is (would Lou Lamoriello ever leave New Jersey?), but Ferguson just ain't getting the job done.
Wil Wheaton has a new book out called "The Happiest Days of our Lives", which is a collection of some of his best blog entries, and talking about the best blog entries on Wil's blog is really saying something. I ordered the book a few weeks ago, and shortly after, Wil (I call him "Wil" like he's a friend of mine) complained that the Canadian orders had to be processed by hand, and he was doing it himself (Monolith Press, who's publishing the book, is Wil's own publishing company). Lo and behold, my book arrived last week, and the envelope had a customs sticker on it signed by Wil himself. It's not an autographed book, but pretty close...
When I first got my iPod, I spent a month putting all my music on it, and as an afterthought, I subscribed to a couple of podcasts. Since then, I've found that my main use for the iPod is listening to these podcasts on my way to and from work every day. I don't know how I'd manage this if I didn't have a 45-minute-each-way commute. Since you asked (lookin' at you, CaHwyGuy), here are my podcasts:
I have also downloaded, listened to, and enjoyed a couple of audiobooks from audible.com. So far, I have only listened to audiobooks from guys named Stephen: Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and Colbert's "I Am America (And So Can You)". Just the title of that second one is enough to make me giggle, and the rest of the book is also very funny; I literally laughed out loud on numerous occasions while listening to it.
I found this on Boing Boing, and could not stop laughing. Author John Scalzi has written a review of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, which is a museum that promotes "young Earth" creationism, i.e. the Bible is literally true, and the Earth was created in 6 24-hour days about 6000 years ago. The other things that these young Earth creationists also believe are mind-boggling:
The whole creationist thing seems to come from the dizzying logic that "the Bible must be true because it's the word of God. How do we know it's the word of God? It says so in the Bible." It's best explained by this.
I put the cover on the air conditioner on Sunday. The leaves are all raked up, mostly. I've had to scrape the windshield of my car a few times already. The kids have been wearing hats to school for a week. We all wore hats and mitts at the pumpkin patch just before Halloween. I will be putting the bikes and summer toys in the shed or basement over the next week or so, so that I can get the car in the garage. And summer's coup de grâce, It was snowing a little bit this morning as I got to work. Winter is coming.
Bring it on.
Here are ten reasons why the guitar is a more difficult instrument to play than the piano:
Note to piano players — don't get all bent out of shape. This list was made tongue-in-cheek.
I understand the idea about why music sharing is wrong. If I want to listen to a CD as much as I want whenever I want, I should have to buy it, and the artist and record company should get some financial benefit from that. If my buddy buys a CD and I rip it, then both of us are listening to it as much as we want whenever we want, then the record company has only received payment for one CD. When I rip it, the record company and artist each lose some potential income so in a sense, I've stolen it. I get that.
Recently, I went to the local library and borrowed a CD by Liquid Tension Experiment. I listened to it for a while, and then returned it. Since then, every time I've been to the library and I look on the CD shelves, the one I borrowed is there on the shelf. In theory, every one of those times I could have borrowed the CD for another two weeks. I live in a small town, so the odds are high that I can get this album pretty much any time. I called the library (holy crap, look at me doing research for a blog entry!) and asked them if I was allowed to borrow a CD as many times as I want, and they said that as long as I return the CD to the library now and again (I can renew it without returning it, but only twice), there is no limit. This means that I can listen to this CD pretty much as much as I want whenever I want, and it's perfectly legal, even though I didn't pay to borrow it, the library doesn't pay anyone each time I borrow it, and I didn't pay to get the library card in the first place.
Here's the kicker — when I borrowed the CD, I ripped it to MP3s. It's now on my iPod. This means that I can still listen to it as much as I want whenever I want, just I could before, but I don't have the inconvenience of having to go to the library to get it out or return it. The record company is still not getting any money, nor is the artist, but they wouldn't have anyway. Was ripping this CD wrong, and if so, why? Who loses when I do this?
So there will be pro indoor lacrosse this winter. As I mentioned before, the CBA expired during the off-season, and the league set a deadline date of October 15, by which time a new CBA would have to be reached in order to avoid complete cancellation of the season. The players called the owners' bluff, and it turned out that it was no bluff, and the season was officially cancelled. That's when the players union collectively said "oh shit, they weren't kidding", and the real negotiations started. A week later, the league announced that they had reached agreement with the PLPA on a new seven-year contract, and that the season was saved. Good thing too — I'm not sure the league could have survived a complete year-long shutdown.
After the original cancellation, the press asked NLL commissioner Jim Jennings if the season could be salvaged if an agreement was reached, and he said no. He said that the arena dates had been released, and he actually used the word "impossibility". Apparently the Boston Blazers' management took him seriously, because shortly before the agreement was reached, they told the league that they would not be playing in 2008 even if a deal was reached. There's been no official announcement on this yet, but it's been mentioned in a couple of interviews with people in the know. I'm not entirely sure what Boston could have done in the week between the cancellation and the agreement that couldn't be undone — the season doesn't start for another two months — but in so doing, the Blazers will lose all the players they drafted in the dispersal and expansion drafts, and will have to start again from scratch next year, if the team doesn't fold completely.
When the season was reinstated, my first thoughts were words to the effect of "Woo hoo!". Right after that, I started to wonder how we can ever trust Mr. Jennings again, after he said it was impossible to restart the season, and yet he did a week later. Jennings is known for missing his own deadlines for announcements; the league will say that there will be an announcement on league expansion (usually a team moving or an expansion franchise being awarded) on whatever date, and a few days or even weeks will go by before the announcement is made, with no explanation for the delay. Given that history, plus the season cancellation / reinstatement thing, my respect for Jennings started to drop. But then Jennings did something very few people in leadership positions generally do — he said he was wrong. He said the cancellation of the season wasn't a negotiation ploy, he really believed the season was done, and that he's happy to have been wrong. Perhaps it was a ploy and perhaps it wasn't (though if it was a ploy, he probably should have notified the Blazers of that), but it took stones for him to admit he was wrong. Jennings has done great things for the NLL, and this admission increased my respect for him.
My respect for the PLPA, however, didn't fare so well. It's not because the players were asking for outrageous salaries — I don't know the details of the CBA well enough to have an opinion on that. I know they don't make a ton of money compared to the other pro sports — the highest salaries in the league are about $25k/year — and that they weren't asking for huge increases. But after years of telling people "lacrosse players aren't in it for the money, they truly play for the love of the game", having the season cancelled because of a labour dispute (the third such dispute in the last four years) made me feel like a liar. If they were truly playing for the love of the game, there would be no need for the PLPA at all. I don't like unions at the best of times, so maybe my judgement is a little clouded here. Note that I have no problems with the players themselves, it's just the union I don't like.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that there will be lacrosse this year, and so, dear reader, you can look forward to game highlights and lacrosse commentary from yours truly throughout the season, which will begin in late December or early January. If you're not into lacrosse but are looking for something just as insightful as my commentary will likely be, here you go.
Aside: Yes, the title of this post is a small Halloween reference.
After watching the last out of the World Series, I thought "So Boston won the World Series... again", and then realized that nobody has been able to say those words for almost ninety years. On the radio this morning, Damien Cox said that this should be great news for all Leafs fans, because the Red Sox were under the thumb of greedy and/or stupid ownership for a long time, and have now won two championships in four years, so Leafs fans can be reassured that their time may come as well. All we need to do is wait forty or fifty more years...
A-Rod has opted out of his contract with the Yankees, who have also lost Joe Torre. I have hated the Yankees all my life, especially during the last 10 years when they've been a juggernaut, but I have nothing but respect for Joe Torre. Without those two, the Yankees are instantly a worse team, and it's possible they'll also lose Pettitte and Posada, and Roger Clemens might finally retire for good. This brings the Yankees back down to Earth, and thereby gives the Jays a better chance. Now all they need to do is make sure Vernon Wells and Troy Glaus remember how to hit.
They mentioned during the game last night that Curt Schilling probably would not be back in the Boston lineup next year. Don't know if he's retiring or just moving on, but that leaves the Red Sox with a starting rotation of Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz (who threw a no-hitter this past season), and possibly Tim Wakefield. That's one powerful rotation, and with Okajima, Timlin (who might retire), Gagne (who will probably not suck so much next year), and Papelbon in the bullpen, <WARNING: Extreme Understatement Alert> I think the Sox will be OK next year, even without Schilling.
I'm sitting in the family room watching game 4 of the World Series; lovin' that wireless internet. We had a bit of a busy weekend; Gail and Nicholas were at a Beaver camp on Saturday, so Ryan and I had a day to ourselves. We checked out the brand new Canadian Tire store that just opened in Waterdown; that'll take some getting used to. It's not set up like other Canadian Tire stores, all the car stuff is to the right while everything else is off to the left, and there's a big Mark's Work Wearhouse right in the middle of the store. I was kind of expecting one of those huge "superstores", like the one in Waterloo, but it's not nearly that big. Anyway, we bought Ryan and me each a new pair of skates and I got some new windshield wipers for the car. We then started painting a bookshelf that I've been building for Nicholas for about three years. Just before we started that, I got a big ego boost when a friend of Ryan's from down the street came to ask if Ryan wanted to come out and play. I told him it was entirely up to him and after thinking for a minute, he told the kid that he was going to stay in and paint with me.
After painting we had lunch, then went grocery shopping, played on the Wii for a while, played some game that Ryan learned at school called "fumble", which involved throwing a tennis ball against a wall, and then went out for dinner. After dinner, we came back and I continued reading Harry Potter to him (we're into Goblet of Fire now) until bedtime. We had an amazing day.
Today, the boys had swimming lessons in the morning, then we all went out to Dyment's Farm, where we froze had lots of fun. The boys played in an inflatable train, a big ball pit, a straw fort, and on a trike track (though Ryan was a little too big for the trikes), we went on a wagon ride around the farm and right along the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, and enjoyed a nice lunch of very expensive hamburgers, a hot dog for Nicky, and some really good fries. All in all, we had a good time, though it was pretty expensive. It cost about $25 for all of us to get in, and lunch was pretty pricey as well (three burgers and a large fries was $17.50, and a small cup of apple cider was $1.50). The pumpkins were only $2 each, and were pretty small, though we've been told that because of the dry summer we had, the pumpkins are small everywhere this year. We usually go to Parkside Farms in Waterdown each year for our pumpkins, but decided to give Dyment's a try this year. Parkside is smaller, but just as much fun, no entrance fee, and cheaper food, so I think we'll be heading back there next year.
I have a presentation to give on security in SQL Anywhere tomorrow morning, so I should probably not stay up too late. However, the Red Sox are an inning away from winning their second World Series in four years (and as one of the commentators said, also its second World Series in eighty-nine years), so I think I'll stay up just a little longer and watch the end of baseball for another year. Despite the fact that they're in the same division as the Jays, the Red Sox have become my second favourite baseball team. I think that happened when they came back from three games down to beat the hated Yankees in the ALCS three years ago. I also spent a lot of time in Boston during my three-year stint at my previous company, so that's probably part of it as well. Plus, you can't help but like David Ortiz. Manny Ramirez, not so much, but hey.
I'd like to write some stuff about the NLL season being cancelled (bad) and then reinstated (good), but I'm too tired tonight.
I use mybloglog.com, which gives me stats on how people find my blog, i.e. of all the people who find my blog, where do they come from? Some of the searches that people have done to lead here are kind of interesting:
Google Search: eric lindros uncircumcised
Google Search: weird thing about linkin park
http://search.sweetim.com/search.asp?ln=en&q=OLD FILM TALKS ABOUT TWO PERSONS HAVE CANCER ONE OF THEM PLAY SKI
Google Search: which arm did anakin lose to darth tyrannus
Google Search: there is a song i heard on q107 making fun out of bryan mccabe who sings that song 2007
Google Search: 2 player can 7up vs diet coke football game
I'm frightened to ask why someone cares whether Eric Lindros is circumcised.
Incidentally, the vast majority are from Google searches. I see the occasional Yahoo search and other searches (sweetim.com I've never heard of), but easily 95% are from Google.
This video is making the rounds on the internet. It's called "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See", but that's a bit strong. It's about global climate change (GCC) and what, if anything, we need to do about it. It's strange in that the author doesn't try to convince you that GCC is actually occurring, but that we need to do something about it anyway.
The logic is hardly groundbreaking — either GCC is occurring or it isn't, and either we do something about it or we don't. If it is occurring and we take action, we're good, and if it is not occurring and we do nothing, we're good. The two risks are the crux of the argument, and he describes the two extreme cases. If GCC is occurring and we don't take action, ocean levels will rise, wiping out entire cities or possibly countries, millions of people will die and millions more will be homeless, there's worldwide economic, political, and social chaos, and life generally will suck. If it is not occurring and we do take action, we could be spending billions of dollars solving a problem that doesn't exist and we cause a worldwide economic depression. The latter is certainly the lesser of the two evils, so we need to take action against GCC, "just in case". I have no real problem with that logic, and am happy to do my share to help.
Am I going to become a vegan or vegetarian because the more meat we eat, the more cows there are, and the more cows there are, the more gas they release, thereby contributing to global warming? No, because I don't think that cow farts are really that big of a problem. I have actually seen this reasoning in defence of veganism, by the way.
Anyway, the logic he used reminded me of religion. I think a large number of people believe in God "just in case". They figure that if God exists and I don't believe, then I get to sleep in on Sundays, but I'm going to hell. If God does not exist, and I do believe, then I've wasted** my Sunday mornings and not much else. Going to hell is obviously worse, so I'll go to church. I know that there are a much larger number of faithful church-goers who believe wholeheartedly in God, and this is not something they think about — God not existing is not an option in their mind. But I think the number of "just-in-case"ers is not insignificant.
Personally, I am as "devout" an atheist as the aforementioned "faithful" are devout Christians (or Jews or Muslims or...), so the option of "God exists but I don't believe so I'm going to hell" doesn't exist in my mind. In fact, I used to be a just-in-case'er myself, back before I "came out" as an atheist. It seems that some consider "atheist" one of the worst insults you could use, like "anti-American" (or its equivalent, "terrorist") seems to be these days. Once I decided that the word "atheist" was not an insult and accurately described me, I dropped the whole "just-in-case" thing.
But the just-in-case'ers seem to be missing one crucial point. If God does exist, then he knows you're a just-in-case'er, that you don't really believe with all your heart, so you're going to hell anyway. In that case, you've wasted your Sunday mornings and you're going to hell. Worst of both worlds.
** - I also realize that people do more at church than simply pray. They learn valuable life lessons during sermons, meet people and make friends, perhaps get advice or counselling, etc. I talked with someone once who said that her mother was "the biggest atheist around", but still went to church on Sundays because she simply enjoyed it. I'm sure a lot of the just-in-case'ers really enjoy their church-going time, and from that point of view it's certainly not "wasted time". But you know what I mean.
We're heading north this weekend for my sister's birthday. We thought maybe we'd stop at Swiss Chalet on the way up for dinner, so I went to my dear friend the Internet to find a restaurant in Mississauga. I went to swisschalet.ca and found their restaurant locator. I selected Ontario from the pulldown, then selected "Mississauga" from the list of cities, and it gave me a list of locations. Each one had a "map" link, which linked to a separate page containing a little mapquest map of that location. Not too painful, and fairly quick. However, I then had to go through each restaurant listed and figure out where it is, and if it's near to where I'm going to be driving. I'm fairly familiar with Mississauga, but it took me a minute to figure out how far out of my way "Burnhamthorpe and Creditview" is. And there are nine restaurants listed.
Then I went to to maps.google.com, clicked "Find businesses", then entered "Swiss Chalet" in the first box and "Mississauga, Ontario" in the second. I was immediately given a map of Mississauga with every Swiss Chalet restaurant flagged. Faster and way more useful. I can plan out my route and instantly see where the restaurants are near the roads I'll be on.
As my buddy Kurt frequently says, if there's a better use for the internet, I don't know what it is.
Here we go again. For the third time since 2004, the NLL is trying to negotiate a new CBA with its players. The first time, talks broke down but they decided to extend the existing contract by a year. The next year, just before the 2005 season, the league gave a deadline of October 1 and said that if an agreement wasn't reached by then, the season would be cancelled. They reached an agreement on a new 3-year contract a few hours after the deadline passed, and the season went on.
That contract expired at the end of last season, and now we're down to the wire yet again, with today being the deadline. According to the NLL website, talks broke off early this morning with no more scheduled.
I know that the owners have offered about a 3% pay increase, and the players want more, but I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that. I don't know any more details, so I don't have enough information to have an opinion on which side is right or wrong. But I think the players are in a tough bargaining position here. Many of the NLL franchise owners also own NHL teams, and they lost an entire season a couple of years ago. The NLL has even said that those owners would "not think twice about losing a lacrosse season". If they're that willing to lose a season, the players have no strength. What can they threaten the owners with?
At the same time, the owners have got to know that losing an NLL season likely means the end of the league, and whatever investment they've made would be gone. Lacrosse is still too much of a fringe sport at this point, and the NLL simply cannot afford to lose an entire season. If it vanished because of a labour dispute, many people would leave and not bother coming back. MLB is still recovering from the baseball strike, and that was thirteen years ago. Blue Jays attendance isn't anywhere near what it was before the strike, though the team won the two World Series immediately before the strike, and has been mediocre at best since then, so I'm sure that's part of it. Sure there are the die-hard lacrosse fans, but a lot of the fans enjoy watching the games, but if the league vanished, they'd just think "Oh well, that was fun while it lasted" and move on, more than likely not looking back.
Knowing the NLL's tendency to completely ignore deadlines (especially the ones they set themselves), it wouldn't surprise me for the deadline to come and go, and the season not get cancelled, or even get cancelled and then get "un-cancelled" a couple of days later, once an agreement is reached. If it really does get cancelled though, bye bye NLL.
Update: According to both Sportsnet and TSN, the season has officially been cancelled. No word from nll.com.
Another update: It's official.
We went to the RBG in Hamilton yesterday for a "Geo-Quest", which was a mini-course on geocaching — what it is, how to use the GPS, stuff like that. They set up a treasure box somewhere on the RBG grounds, and then gave us co-ordinates for three signs around the grounds, and we had to find the signs, get some clues from the signs, and the clues gave us the co-ordinates of the treasure box. Each of the four of us got a GPS unit to use, so the boys had fun watching how close they were getting and what direction to walk and stuff like that. Nicholas, however, seemed to have missed something that the instructor pointed out: "The GPS doesn't tell you things like 'There's a tree in your way', so you need to keep your eyes open!". More than once, Nicky would be staring so intently at the GPS to make sure he was going in the right direction that he walked into a tree or bush or person.
The boys each did a week of summer camp at the RBG this past summer, and told us about "feeding the chickadees", which they did every day at camp. After the course, we each grabbed a handful of birdseed from the desk and walked down a path a little ways to try that. I had assumed that the boys meant that they spread some birdseed on the ground and the chickadees came up to them to grab it, but it was much better than that. We held our hands out in front of us, and the chickadees were so tame that they would actually land on our hands and eat the seeds (or grab them to take back to their nests). There were also some blue jays and nuthatches around, but the blue jays never came near us, and the nuthatches wouldn't land on you, they'd just take the seeds that dropped on the ground. Standing there with a little chickadee sitting on your hand eating was just the coolest thing.
