Math

In last Friday's Dilbert, Dogbert says that a customer has 25 possible solutions to try for his broken computer, but they must be tried in every possible combination. The customer replies that this results in "625 things I'd have to try". I don't get it. I'm no mathematician, but should that be 2 to the 25th, or 33,554,432? Where's 625 come from?

Serenity!

Sunil tells me the super-exciting news: the Serenity trailer is out! If you haven't seen Firefly, there's still time to watch the series on DVD before September 30. River...

Show Plug

I'm performing this weekend and next weekend. Extreme rehearsals, plus conference presentations and term papers, are to blame for my recent non-blogging. But if you're in the area, and want to see me perform, then come see me as Jack Point in the MIT Gilbert & Sullivan Players production of Yeomen of the Guard. Time, reservations, and information are available at the above link. YEOMEN is one of the best and most serious of the Gilbert & Sullivan light operas, and my role, Jack Point, is considered by some to be the best role in the G&S canon. I've personally aspired to play it for many years now, so I am very excited.

Forces of Evil

I read this from EthicsDaily about James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family:

Near the end of the interview, Dobson quoted Justice Antonin Scalia as referring to his colleagues on the high court as “black-robed masters.” “Isn’t that incredible?” Dobson asked. “You know it is incredible,” Levin replied. “I’m starting to think just to knock them down a notch, Dr. Dobson, that they should be required to wear again those white powdered wigs.” Dobson then took the analogy a step further. “I heard a minister the other day talking about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that roamed the country in the South, and they did great wrong to civil rights and to morality,” he said. “And now we have black-robed men, and that’s what you’re talking about.”

You can hear the audio file here. Go to April 11, "Unmasking Judicial Tyranny". The fun stuff I quote starts at about 22:52.

Sex politics roundup

I only have a few minutes to blog right now, so here are just a few pointers to recent articles of interest:

• The New York Times opines against pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraceptives and birth control pills.
• Michigan voters legislatively defined marriage as a relation between men and women. It turns out, many of those voters didn't know they might've also been voting to strip same-sex couples of benefits they'd been receiving for years.

  In November, Michigan voters, along with those in 12 other states, approved legislation to define marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. On March 16, Michigan's attorney general, Mike Cox, took that one step further, ruling that passage of the constitutional amendment meant that gay and lesbian state workers should be ineligible for health benefits for their partners in future contracts. ... "I do not believe that the voters of Michigan would have passed this amendment if they knew that it would mean taking away health benefits from same-sex partners," said Kari Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which has filed suit against the governor in an effort to overturn the attorney general's interpretation. Advocates for gay rights have argued since the amendment's passage in Michigan that proponents operated a kind of bait-and-switch on voters, pretending that they wanted only to strengthen the traditional concept of marriage when they were actually intending to roll back the rights that gay Americans have won over the decades.

• Teens who pledge abstinence are just as likely to get STDs as teens who don't, and they're much more likely to have kinky deviate sex. Bill Maher says funny things in Salon.

  Yes, the "What do we tell the children?" crowd apparently decided not to tell them anything. Because people who talk about pee-pees are potty-mouths. And so armed with limited knowledge, and believing regular, vaginal intercourse to be either immaculate or filthy dirty, these kids did with their pledge what everybody does with contracts: they found loopholes. Two of them to be exact.

Lenore is cutting hair in a new location in Providence

I used to get my hair cut at Chez Lenore, at Thayer and Waterman in East Side Providence. Lenore has since moved up the street to 308 Thayer, next to the post office. Her phone number is the same as it was: 401.331.0303. She still is super-friendly and gives very good haircuts at reasonable rates. I was happy to find her again. I didn't have any luck finding her new location via Google, which is why I'm putting it up here. Maybe it will help other people find her.

Cost of war in Iraq

costofwar.com. As of right now, it's a little over one hundred sixty billion dollars. I know that many people agree with me, that the war is a terrible thing and not worthwhile, even if the financial cost were zero. For those who don't agree with me about that -- are the benefits of the war greater than one hundred sixty billion dollars, after factoring in human suffering and death?

I'm terrible at April Fools Jokes

I'm sometimes a pretty silly guy, and a good prank amuses me as much as the next guy. I'm also more creative than the average person, and reasonably clever. You'd think this would translate into lots of fun April Fool's Day stories, but for some reason it doesn't. I think it might have to do with the pressure and expectation -- how can you pull off a good prank when everyone is expecting it? Anyway, if I'd thought of it this morning, I would've written a post about how I've decided to abandon philosophy to try to make it as a professional actor/singer, but now it's already near the end of the day, and probably no one would have believed me anyway. Alright, back to work. It's been a listless day.

Effective political rhetoric

Ok, so it's merely funny political rhetoric. That has to count for something.

Reporting Illegal Online Activity

I just received an email soliciting me to buy people's online identities. I'd like to report it to an authority, but I don't know where to go. Advice is very welcome. The email was sent to nine @brown.edu addresses, arranged alphabetically and clustered; it looks like someone was just going down a long list and broke it into several emails. The text of the message I got, with contact information removed, follows.

Hello, During the battle with US Secret Service, we fucked all those LE bastards and now we are running a brand new, improved and the biggest carder' forum you ever seen. On our forum you can buy: * Credit cards with Change Of Billing (COBs) * Dumps of US and European credit cards (Platinum, Gold and Classic) * Active eBay accounts with as many positive feedbacks as you need * Active and wealthy PayPal accounts * Drops for carding, cashing and money laundering * Carded electronic and stuff for as low as 40 percent of market price * PINs for prepaided AT&T and Sprint phone cards * Carded Western Union accounts for safe and quick money transfers * Carded UPS and FedEx accounts for quick and free worldwide shipping of your stuff * Full info including Social Security Info, Driver Licence #, Mother' Maiden Name and much more * DDoS attack for any site you need, including monsters like Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay Come and register today and get a bonus by your choice: - One Citybank account with online access with 3k on board, or - 5 COB' cards with 5k credit line - 10 eBay active eBay accounts with 100+ positive feedbacks - 25 Credit Cards with PINs for online carding Be in first 10 who register today and get the very special bonus from Administration of Forum. Contact us if you want to open account to access forum at e-mail: xxx@xxx.xxx