Category: Stupidity

Consumerist – Applying For A Job? Great, Give Us Your Google And Facebook Passwords

Have a look at this…

Consumerist – Applying For A Job? Great, Give Us Your Google And Facebook Passwords – Facebook

This redneck town thinks it is ok to invade a person’s privacy if they want a job. By this same logic, it would be ok to tap the person’s phone, open their mail, peek through their windows…

While I can understand the need to perform background checks, this is completely inappropriate.

Must love God to be CTO?

I just read a job ad for a CTO that listed the following as a requirement for the position:

“Must be committed to offering excellence to God in all you do”

I am not sure, but isn’t it illegal to discriminate based on religion when hiring?

What is wrong with registering and licensing guns?

I am reading this article Harper takes aim at gun registry. I realize that the gun registry has been unpopular, and seems to have been very poorly implemented. What does not make sense to me is the argument against the idea of registering guns, and licensing owners. The same people arguing against it have no problem with the rules which require us to register our cars, and have licenses to operate them. Why then does it not make sense to do the same for potentially lethal weapons?

Google throws weight behind antitrust case against Microsoft – what a load of crap

Reading the article Google throws weight behind antitrust case against Microsoft – what a load of crap (not the article, the subject of the article).

I am so sick of companies whining on the one hand about how they cannot compete with “big bad Microsoft”, and yet claiming everything MS does is crap. If their products are crap, build something better and knock them off. MS products too complex? Too expensive? Then build something simpler and cheaper and be disruptive.

But to hear a large company with the market share Google has whine about Microsoft is comical to the point of silliness. Why should a company not be allowed to bundle its own browser with its platform? How many Linux distributions bundle Firefox? I could see there being a complaint if MS tried to stop you from installing running another browser, but they do not. And many people do. If you want to displace the pre-installed IE browser, build a better browser, market it well, and knock MS out of first place.

But don’t waste the taxpayer’s money by trying to get the courts and government to do your job for you!

Words you STILL cannot say on television

I am watch a show on PBS – George Carlin being “honoured” at the Kennedy Center with the Mark Twain Prize. As I am watching this, they are showing a number of old clips, including the infamous “Seven words you can never say on television”.

Am I the only person who sees a great deal of irony in the fact that they can broadcast a show honouring a man like George Carlin, and bleep-out all of the “bad” words?

Fiddling while Rome burns Part 2…

Ok, I posted a while back on the political circus to the south. It is embarrassing now to watch the kids in Ottawa try very, very hard to out do them.

I am not going to go through the details of what is happening in Ottawa right now, since you can read about it on any Canadian news site. I do have a few points to make about it, however:

  • In reading various forum posts, blog posts, etc. it frightening to see how little Canadians know about their own political system. People ranting about the coalition being treason, a “coup”, etc. I am afraid not folks – this is the way our system is designed. What they are doing is perfectly legal (though not too bright, politically). Also, people going on that Stephen Harper has some kind of “mandate”. We do not elect a prime minister. We elect representatives. The majority in the house decides the leader. If the majority changes, the leader changes. This whole party leader=prime minister thing is just a side effect of this atrocity known as “party politics”, which is the biggest enemy of true democracy.
  • the conservatives are ranting about the coalition’s deal with the BQ. Funny how they forget about 2004, isn’t it? They are doing far more to harm national unity than the coalition is.
  • the Conservative party in its current form is only marginally more a “national” party than the BQ. Sure they have candidates in a broader geography, but thier actual support is nearly as narrow. And they are really only interested in keeping their power base out west happy.
  • the current situation has nothing to due with economics, financial crises, social programs, or anything of the sort. This is all about power, and playing political games to keep or get power. And all four party leaders are to blame (maybe not Duceppe – as much as I disapprove of the BQ, at least they are very clear, honest and open about their goals).

As far as I am concerned, there is only one credible way out of this mess now:

  1. Like it or not, we need to have another election. Harper should pre-emptively call an election (does he have that option right now? I am not sure). The Conservatives have lost the confidence of the current house, and probably cannot regain it. This would, however, stop the coalition from taking power – although the coalition is legal, it is bad for the country due to the division and instability it is creating.
  2. Mr. Harper needs to resign. He has demonstrated through 2 elections now that he is unable to achieve a majority. In addition, his judgement and credibility are somewhat questionable now.
  3. Mr. Dion should also resign. I do not think anyone in the country (his own party included) believes he has what it takes to lead the country.
  4. Mr. Layton should resign because his visible involvement in the coalition will severely harm his party’s future.

So, what would an election look like if none of the parties had leaders? Kind of like the last election, I guess.

I am so completely embarassed by and ashamed of our government right now. I do not know how any of them have the nerve to show their faces in public at the moment.

Conservative Fundamentalists Scare the Heck Out of Me!

Conservative fundamentalists (of any religion) scare me. Actually, any fundamentalists/extremests scare me. Check out this piece of mindless drivel: A Waste of Taxpayer Money by Rob Hood

By this logic, all scientific research should stop, because our 4 year olds already know the answers.

Where did life come from? God spoke it into existence.

What are the basic laws of science, chemistry, mathematics, etc? Who cares, God makes it work.

Why do people die of cancer, AIDS and other diseases? Because God wants them to (for one reason or another).

How will we survive global warming? No problem, God will fix it.

Maybe this guy is, on his own, proof that evolution is false – natural selection should have emptied his end of the gene pool long ago.

BTW – don’t get the idea that I am anti-religion, because I am not. I am against mindless application of dogma (religious or scientific).

Bad Astronomy Blog » Certifiably Christian

This (well, not this post, but the issue is describes) is just about as dumb as what I posted about some time back about author Philip Pullman being described in a major Canadian newspaper as “an admitted atheist”, like it was some kind of disorder.

Second Guessing Second Life: Branding Strategy Insider

Second Guessing Second Life: Branding Strategy Insider – it is nice to see that I am not the only person who is not terribly impressed with Second Life (see my previous post on the subject)

More stupidity – Soviet Microsoft: Stockholm Syndrome Among Unswitchable Windows User?

 

Soviet Microsoft: Stockholm Syndrome Among Unswitchable Windows Users

This crap is getting ridiculous. First Microsoft is the Soviet Union, and now anyone who does not agree with the “Microsoft is an evil empire” crowd and switch to inferior desktop environments such as Linux, or closed, over-priced systems like Mac (both of which I like in the right context, and both of which I have developed software on) is obviously mentally impaired and suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

People, get a freaking life. This is bloody software, nothing more. If you like it, buy it and use it. If you don’t like it, DON’T. Either way, stop playing amateur psychologist, political analyst, or whatever else you are playing, and please, please, please STFU.