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Tonight’s American Idol was fairly unremarkable. Bo Bice was only moderate, Constantine picked another horrible song, and Mario was probably the best of a mediocre group. Scott sucked and should be gone. Even the person the judges said was best, Anwar, was terribly pitchy.

The truly interesting thing was in the voting. I have a Verizon phone, and we all know Idol is a Cingular (formerly AT&T Wireless) gig. For a full 45 minutes, I was unable to vote – not because the lines were busy, as usual, but because the phone number was actually declared out of service. I get the friendly Verizon Darth Vader operator telling me that the number I dialed, which was correct, did not exist. This happened for any contestant I tried voting for, and didn’t stop for at least 45 minutes. At this point I could get in two votes, but the line was quickly out of service again for the full voting period. Not a circuit busy, please try again, nor a busy signal, but a bad number.

Is it possible that Verizon was, in fact, blocking these calls? On one hand, they could fight Cingular by shutting off intercommunication. On the other hand, they’re degrading their own network and making people wish they had the service that worked.

I still wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was intentional. AT&T + Cingular is a pretty imposing beast, and “In” is just not succeeding like they hoped (how about you hire good marketers for a change? and dump the “good” guy, FFS).

I was driving home from work today, passing through the wonderful part of town with constant police surveillance, when I saw a house. Not just any house. It was fairly run down, and had signs all over it – ones stating “Stay Away”, “No Trespassing”, and my favorite:

Keep Out – NO DRUGS

I think it’s pretty sad that they need to be so specific.

On a happier note, I had plenty of time to work on Span today, and got the basics for network play in. It’s more work than I expected, but it’s fun, and it’s worthy of a 0.2 release when it’s polished.

No, I’m not going to say “just register on the site, send me $8.95, and your firstborn, and you’ll get a gmail invite!” We’ve all seen that one. (Though if you do still need one, just email me or check isnoop.)

I’m just curious about how many invites people have given away. Ever since Google has been giving 50 invites a day to most people, I’ve sent out a full batch of 48 (I save two, for safety) to isnoop’s gmail account spooler# gmail ^@^ isnoop.net # just about every day. This has totalled to…

rummages through his gmail account

…720 gmail invites I’ve sent as of February 16. As far as I know, they’ve all been accepted, as I get the acceptance emails constantly. Can anyone beat that? Isnoop currently has 251,916 invites available, so I have to assume other people are doing the same as me. Remember the days when people paid cold hard cash for an invite? Or one to orkut? Ahh, memories.

[update] 1056!

[update] Gmail Beta is almost over, meaning the end of invites is nigh – and I’m up to 1969! Who can beat that?

[update] Before isnoop shut down and Gmail stopped giving me invites, I passed out ~3000.

This nation contains a multitude of religious and moral beliefs, and in order to serve the public without trampling on anyone’s beliefs or morals, it’s often best to take the most conservative route. I’m speaking specifically of sex ed in public schools. What I’m concerned about, though, is the abstinence-only propaganda that’s being passed off as sex ed in many high schools. According to a report I recently found (see link below), many of the curricula currently approved for federal funding as encouraging abstinence have numerous scientific errors. Some claim that condoms are not effective as a contraceptive (when used correctly, they are, and they also prevent the spread of most STDs when used correctly), and some include gender stereotypes presented as scientific facts.

I am not in favor of teens having sex. However, as a realist, I recognize that many will be sexually active despite the wishes of adults. To prevent unwanted pregnancies and to prevent the spread of STDs, isn’t it best to let students know that there are a few contraceptive methods available that are effective? I’m not saying each school district should hand out condoms to each student, or that students should prove they can use a condom before being allowed into high school — I’m just suggesting that federally funded sex ed programs should not lie to teenagers about life and death facts. Telling kids that condoms are useless can only increase the prevalence of unprotected sex among teenagers, which can only increase the spread of disease and the number of unwanted pregnancies. And if the federal government is so committed to supporting “a culture of life,” as the President said in his State of the Union address, why can’t they support telling students the truth about safe practices that could save their lives and prevent abortions?

While watching American Idol, I observed this one young girl who couldn’t sing but looked and sounded somewhat like a porn star. Then inspiration struck me. Porn Idol! It’s the logical evolution of reality TV. Something more bleeped-up and inappropriate. It could be on at 9:30 initially, out of sensitivity to children. Only the 12 and up crowd would be awake at that time anyway, so I’m sure they’d be safe. I mean you have all these girls desperate to prove themselves to anyone and acheive stardom, and pornstardom can be had in a day! It can be acheived in two hours! One hour to film the movie, and one for people to watch it. Bam, she’s a star! All these annoying “I have talent” aimless girls — instant porn stars.

But then inspiration struck again. Candid Soulless Fucked-Up Camera. The premise is that you take a camera around a city and find people to tell horrible lies or do horrible things to and film them weeping uncontrollably. Then laugh and hand them a dollar if they were good sports about it, somewhat like the MTV reality show where they give you money for not cursing or losing your temper.

So for my first show, I would go into an executive’s office and show him a videotape of his wife duct-taped and crying and then show me shooting her in the face and her dying. It’d be faked, of course. Then I’d show him his son. I’d demand money, and after I got the money I’d show the rest of the tape, where I kill his son. I’d wait until he’s just about to lose it and kill me or himself and then laugh and tell him it’s all a joke and bring in his wife and kid. Then I’d give him a dollar and he’d chuckle and everything would be fine. Then I’d go to a hospital and dress in a doctor’s coat and tell some woman who just gave birth that her child is dead. I’d make something up like we hired a mentally handicapped young man to work in the maternity ward and he dropped the kid and tripped over it and baby brains were all over his pants. We cooked the remains and ate them and I brought her her kid’s liver in a hot dog bun. I was considerate and brought ketchup. Oh, and her husband was being kind of a dick about the whole killed-your-baby thing so I shot him in the face. Then when she tried committing suicide I’d say, “Gotcha!” and we’d all laugh and it’d be great.

So who would watch?

So another massive security hole in Internet Explorer was found today, not that it’s too surprising. Even with SP2 and all the recent updates, just going to a website can modify or delete any file on your computer. Trash it. And if the past is any guide, it won’t be fixed for months. Secunia’s solution?

Solution:
Use another product.

I couldn’t agree more.

Continue Reading »

Why is vi(m) superior to Emacs? Many reasons, the two chief ones being:

1. modes
2. chicks.   —>

Standard disclaimer: I have used both editors for significant amounts of time.

Continue Reading »

The trouble with everyone worrying about terrorism is that they forget they can change the world around them:

“People underestimate the power of statistics.

The odds of there being a bomb on a plane are very small. The odds of there being two bombs on a plane are astronomically small. Ergo, pack a bomb with you and you can fly feeling safe and secure.”

I sign all outgoing email (except to my parents; they have a hard time with remotes). If you’d like to verify a signature or encrypt mail to me (my username AT halffull dot org), please use the following key: Continue Reading »

I’ve been working on importing all the articles and comments from old halffull. Trust me… it’s a huge job. I could probably write a script to magic the SQL over, but it’s a one-time job and I wanted to fix up some of the text anyway. I may skip a few posts, so if anything important is missing let me know.

This is for hulk:

Die, they must die. The pandas must die! All endangered species leave endangered feces. If we kill them all, we can have more parking lots; we can have small couches made of little ocelots.

p.s. I’d like to apologize on behalf of nature to all of southeastern Asia.