Rosio Pavoris

Alright, yeah.
For the record, there are some beliefs I don’t have a problem with. Here are a few of them:

Strong atheism. Obviously. This isn’t a religious belief, it’s just common sense and rationalism.

Weak atheism. The religious equivalent of “dunno, lol”. I don’t have a problem with this, because it doesn’t motivate anything either way.

Agnosticism. Not the one where you go “maybe there is, maybe there isn’t”. That’s weak atheism. The one where you say that a god-type figure is inherently unknowable. I like this, because it essentially says belief in a god is bullshit, and/or the question is irrelevant.

Some forms of pantheism. Namely, the ones that define God as the sum total of life. Because at that point, you might as well be non-religious.

I think that’s pretty much it.

I’ll assume my beliefs are common knowledge by now (strong atheism lol), so instead of reiterating the specifics of why I think religion is a cancer, here are some things people have viewed as relevant rebuttals in the past, and my reply to them:

Believing in something bigger than yourself isn’t a crime!
No, it’s paranoid schizophrenia.
In itself, that wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that imaginary friends tend to make unreasonable suggestions. Suggestions like “the world was created in seven days” and “I should sacrifice my son on that mountaintop thar”.
Believing in something bigger than yourself when there is no evidence suggesting that it exists is, at best, irrational, and more often just harmful.

I don’t particularly care about the beliefs, I just like the ceremony of it all.
Well, fine. Join a book club or something.
I can understand this, really. AFAIK, everyone in family married in a church, even though almost none of them are at all religious. That’s understandable, because churches tend to be pretty and imposing, and they’re conveniently large enough to offer seats to the entire family.
At some level, though, encouraging insane beliefs just to satisfy your sense of theatrics is just stupid.

You should be tolerant of other people’s beliefs!
Fuck that. If my beliefs were as ridiculous as most of the religious ones are, I’d expect to be publicly mocked, and honestly, if my friends didn’t point them out just to spare my sensibilities, they aren’t people I’d want to be friends with in the first place.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t go into churches or whatever and yell at people for being idiots. I don’t even stand on streetcorners handing out pamphlets or asking people if they’d like to come to their senses now (and yes, we even have those people here, in areligious Europe). But I will not avoid any and all mention of my beliefs in private conversation just because you think it’s intolerant.

But people need religion for moral guidance! Without God, what’s stopping you from stealing, killing, raping, &c.?
If the only thing that’s stopping you from stealing, killing, raping, &c. is your belief that a cosmic policeman is looking over your shoulder, you have much, much bigger problems than people making fun of your beliefs.
Seriously, who is more moral: the person who doesn’t do any of those things because Big Brother is watching, or the person who doesn’t because he realises other people are people too?

Can’t we just coexist? I won’t try to convert you, and you won’t try to convert me.
Sure, we could, if people would stop letting their religious beliefs influence important parts of my life. To wit, the abortion thing, the creationism thing, most types of terrorism, stories like this, &c.
And if you consider atheism to be a religious belief in the same way christianity or whatever is, you haven’t been paying attention at all. Lurk moar.

So yeah.
I’m perfectly happy to let people believe whatever they want to, but their beliefs are breeding grounds for extremism, and extremism likes to interfere with my day-to-day life.

Skatje’s dad is an intelligent man.
It’s also interesting to note how what would be considered a moderate believer in the US would be a dangerous fanatic here. It’s frightening how the most backward civilised country on the planet also has the largest military force, and is led by insane fundamentalists. I’m a lot less worried about Iran’s nuclear program than I am about the nuclear weapons the US stores in Belgium itself.

And yes, I know I talk about atheism a lot. People insist on being religious all the time, and that should bother you a lot more than my repetitiveness. O\__/O

Discover Your Sins - Click Here

lolwhut? Sloth being medium is extremely unlikely. So’s Gluttony and Envy being high. >.>

Stolen from Skadhi. If you get over 45 you’re considered a “bad kid.”
Not sure you’re supposed to indicate which you did, but I will anyway. >.>

1) smoked
2) consumed alcohol
3) slept in the same bed with someone of the opposite sex
4) slept in the same bed with someone of the same sex My dad, actually. That hotel sucked.
5) kissed someone of the same sex
6) had sex
7) had someone in your room of the opposite sex
watched porn
9) bought porn
10) done drugs
11) taken pain killers
12) taken someone else’s prescription medicine
13) lied to your parents
14) lied to a friend
15) snuck out of the house
16) done something illegal
17) cut yourself
18) hurt someone
19) wished someone to die
20) seen someone die Seeing someone die is bad kid behavior now?
21) missed curfew I wasn’t aiming for it anyway.
22) stayed out all night
23) eaten a carton of ice cream by yourself
24) been to a therapist
25) been to rehab
26) dyed your hair
27) received a ticket
28) been in an accident I didn’t cause it. Was passenger.
29) been to a club
30) been to a bar
31) been to a wild party
32) seen the Mardi Gras
34) had a spring break in Florida
35) sniffed anything Not sure what this is supposed to mean.
36) wore black nail polish
37) wore arm bands
38) wore t-shirts with band names
39) listened to rap Not by choice. O\__/O
40) own 50 cent cd
41) dressed gothic Or so I’ve been told. By my 54-year-old aunt.
42) dressed prep
43) dressed punk
44) dressed grunge
45) stole something
46) been too drunk to remember anything Apparently not. \o/
47) blacked out
48) fainted
49) had a crush on your neighbor
50) had someone sneak into your room
51) snuck into some one else’s room
52) had a crush on your best friend’s sig. other
53) been to a concert
54) dry humped someone
55) been called a slut
56) called someone a slut
57) installed speakers in your car
58) broke a mirror
59) showered at someone of the opposites sex’s house
60) brushed your teeth with someone elses toothbrush
61) consider ludacris your favorite rapper
62) seen an R rated movie in theaters
63) cruised the mall We have a Mall?
64) skipped school
65) had an eating disorder
66) had an injury Uh. There are people who haven’t?
67) gone to court
68) walked out of a restaraunt without paying
69) caught something on fire
70) lied about your age
71) owned an apartment ;__;
72) cheated on your boyfriend/girlfriend
73) cheated with someone
74) got in trouble with the police
75) talked to a stranger Didn’t give me any candy. ;__;
76) hugged a stranger
77) kissed a stranger
78) rode in the car with a stranger
79) been sexually harrassed
80) been verbally harrassed
81) met face to face with someone you met online
82) stayed online for 12 hours straight Every day.
83) talked on the phone for more than 4 hours straight
84) watched tv for 12 hours straight
85) been to a fair
86) been called a bad influence I deny everything.
87) cursed
88) prank called someone
89) laid in the bed with someone of the opposite sex
90) cheated on a test
91) cheated on homework
92) held hands with someone of the same sex
93) been pushed into a pool
94) played pool
95) watched 5 hours of mtv straight
96) had a crush on someone 8 years older than you
97) had a crush on someone younger than you
98) wore eyeliner
99) skinny dipped
100) laughed at a retarded person in a wheelchair Just being polite. I didn’t think his jokes were all that funny, to be honest.

48 total, I think. *shrug*

Not a lot has been going on, as usual, but I haven’t updated properly in months, so the not a lot adds up to a fair bit. Let’s see.

My grandfather’s still in the hospital. Haven’t seen him in ages, but I hear he’s doing well. I guess he just likes it there.

Both my sister and my mom are done with exams now, so I expect a lot less peace and quiet from now on.
My sister already almost managed to throttle our bandwidth by going half a gig over the download limit, but I changed our internet provider plan thing to be less restrictive. I like knowing my parents’ passwords.
They didn’t freak out about when I told them, which vaguely surprised me. Maybe they didn’t know what I was talking about. Either way, monthly fees are the same.

Climate-wise, temperatures are more sane. Still vaguely too hot, but nothing pantslessness won’t solve.

Online drama-wise, I stopped going to #radio-kol because it’s gone to shit and complaints have pretty much been dismissed with “I don’t have a problem with it, therefore there is no problem; suck it up and deal, because clearly you’re just being childish”. Maintaining that the problem isn’t worth addressing when two people who have been regulars for, what, a year and a half now, think it’s serious enough to just leave entirely is a bit retarded. Just a tiny bit.
But yeah, that discussion is essentially over anyway.

Muffins is still up, though I haven’t updated in ages. Despite a fairly huge flood of new registrations a while ago, multi abuse is next to non-existant, which is good.
I guess I really should work on new content. I’m perfectly happy working on code, but thinking of, drawing, and writing new adventures and puzzles and whatnot is meh. The northlands have been on the verge of rolling out for a while now. They mostly need more adventures.

KoL-wise, I’m finishing up my HCO runs before NS 13. Just one more after this. Dunno if I’ll make it, but meh. Moving slowly, but not as slow as all that, really.
Also playing Cawd’s account for a few runs. Doing a lot better than I was on my own at that point. Technically the current run is the last one I’m supposed to do on his account, but I’m not sure he’ll be willing to pick it up again afterwards. I don’t mind either way.

Education-wise, I’m still trying to decide what to do next year. It looks like I’ll be sticking with the KUL, and doing something Computer Sciencey. A lot of the things that bothered me about the PHL don’t exist at the KUL (most importantly the fact that the PHL isn’t within walking distance of a train station, and the amateuristic approach to technology (”WI-FI means the antenna is built in.”), and the near uselessness of the diploma), but the KUL curriculum has some problems of its own (mainly the math bit — I like math in the “solve general problems using your extensive knowledge base and pure logic” sense, not so much in the “know these theorems by heart and be able to recite them hopping on one foot while writing with the pen shoved up your nose” one; granted, I have no idea what college-level math looks like).
Right now, the choice is basically between the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineering. Engineering has less math but more bullshit.
I’ll probably end up flipping a coin for it, but right now, I’m leaning towards Science.

Finally, you know how someone can make you explode with joy just by existing? I didn’t, but I do now.
And I don’t mean that as a euphemysm for ejaculation, though she does that too.

tl;dr, I know. Sorry.
I should update more often.

Though circumstances recently have meant I’ve had a lot of bitching to do, my life right now is actually considerably better than it probably has ever been.
I’ll have a more extensive general update at some point in the future.

I hate people who feel the need to identify themselves as geeks.
If you know pi to a few dozen decimal places just because, that’s winar. If you know pi to a few dozen decimal places because it scores you geek points, I hope you die in a car crash.

That is all.

Part 1 Part 2

Richard Dawkins talking about religion and atheism. Most of it is repetitive or stating the obvious, but if you have a hundred minutes to spend, there are worse ways to spend them. The second part is probably the most interesting, though the first shows more fundamentalists making asses out of themselves.
I’m not entirely sure what he’s hoping to accomplish with this, as it isn’t going to convince any religious people, and he probably isn’t going to be saying anything new to non-religious ones, but meh. Maybe I’m not giving religious people enough credit.

All in all, Dawkins is too nice, but the Penn & Teller Bullshit episode on the Bible apparently got taken down.

Today, I got a score of 389,440 on Tetris (for the original Gameboy).

Some people need to understand there’s a difference between anarchism and sociopathy.

While I don’t see anarchism as a valid political philosophy (mostly I think it’s childish and overly idealistic), complete morons attributing their ridiculous and antisocial ideas to it piss me off.

Post #164 is still true.

Also, it’s still too hot.

For serious.
I want one of those USB fans, but ThinkGeek sucks ass.

This was posted on /b/. Yais, copy pasta, &c., but it’s interesting.

Europe Leaves the U.S. Behind.

In the political realm, Europe utilizes full representation electoral systems that gives representation to voters across the political spectrum, public financing of elections that fosters debate, universal voter registration, voting on a weekend or on a holiday, and national electoral commissions that establish nationwide standards and practices. Women and third parties have far greater representation at all levels of government. In the U.S., we are still stuck with our 18th-century winner-take-all system, privately financed elections, poor voter participation, poll-tested sound bites aimed at undecided swing voters, voting on a busy work day, and haywire decentralized election administration left to over 3000 counties scattered across the country.

In the media realm, Europe boasts a robust public broadcasting sector (radio and TV) and subsidized daily newspapers, leading to more media pluralism, a better-informed citizenry, more people reading newspapers, and a higher level of what political scientist Henry Milner calls “civic literacy.” In the U.S., we are still stuck with corporate media gatekeepers, media monopolies, an astonishing loss of political ideas and a poorly informed citizenry.

In the economic realm, Europeans have developed practices such as ‘codetermination,’ which provides meaningful worker representation on corporate boards of directors, and powerful works councils in the workplaces. There is more of a balance of stockholder and stakeholder rights, forcing business leaders to confer more extensively with their workers and labor unions. There also are continent wide minimum labor and environmental standards, including more union-friendly laws.

Taken together, these fulcrum institutions work coherently to form the basis of a ‘European Way’ that is distinctly different from the ‘American Way.’ This provides a rough blueprint of where institutional development in the United States needs to go in the 21st century. Those who care about the future of our country should take their cues from Europe.

Does anyone have a source on this?
It’s biased, of course, but AFAICT, not as much as one would think.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, most of the replies included the words “communist” and “eurofag”. There was also a bit about muslims and/or Germany “bombing our ass”.)

Edit: Found it.

In case anyone was wondering why it’s very unlikely I’ll ever attend a US KoL meet…

Canadu, though, is much more likely.

Bandwidth use for May was more sane than April. Not that much more than March, even.

To compare, Muffins used 5.63 GB in March, and 8.13 GB in April.
The lack of new content is mostly responsible, I would guess. Personally, I’d have thought a lot fewer people would still be playing.

Anyway, as a side note, I’d like to know what people are using to read this blog. Are you just using a web browser and checking back every couple of days? Are you using the Livejournal syndication thing Haplo made? Are you using the WordPress RSS feed, and if you are, what program are you using to view it?

The thing about Muffins and new content there, I think, is partially that I lost the habit of working on the game every day after the nubflood, because I spent so much time going through transfer logs then, but also that because a lot more people are playing now, I hold new content to much higher standards.
I would say I want things to be as good as KoL, but between the Observatory and the new booze, I think my idea of KoL’s quality is way too idealised.

Anyway. I think I’m just going to care less about funny and more about game mechanics. I’ll add funny if I happen to come across something that works, but mostly I’m going to go for fun without trying too hard.
I’ve been saying Muffins is a spade’s game, but really, it’s a moron’s playground. Real spades would be, and have been, bored into quitting within days.