«Now I Too, Have a Flag of Anonymous»

Way back over a year ago, I asked if there was anywhere I could get a Flag of Anonymous. Well, I finally have one.

Click image to view full

I bought it on eBay. Yes, this is the item I was talking about Sunday that I'd reveal. hotscubagreg2 from the US Virgin Islands was the seller. He's got tons of these flags. I've linked his name here to the items he's selling on eBay. He's legit, and a very fast shipper.

The flag is your standard sized 3x5 foot flag. After I took the picture of the flag above, I tweaked the coloring a bit in the picture to show the true color of the flag. The camera didn't pick up the green color very true to life.

Now all I need is a Guy Fawkes mask and a cult to protest.

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«Motivational Monday: Christian Dark Ages»

Of course, there's also the distinct possibility we could have destroyed ourselves in a technological war by now as well.

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«Hopelessly Bidding on Cards»

A few days ago I was bored and decided to bid on a bunch of Magic The Gathering cards on eBay. At one point I had 21 items I was bidding on.

I knew I wouldn't win many of them, however. I was bidding on things like dual lands and fetch lands (MTG players will know what those are). The minimum bids started at $0.99, and I put in a maximum bid of $1.07; no higher. Of course, dual lands go for at least $20-$30 each, and some of the auctions were for 4 cards.

Most of the auctions I was bidding on have already ended or are about to. Most of them ended upwards of $70+, well above my maximum of $1.07. I never intended to win the items, it was just something to do. I wasn't too worried, and in the off-chance that I actually won the bid I'd be happy to pay $1.07 +shipping to get the cards. There was only a couple of bids that I actually planned on winning. I've already received 2 out of 4 of them. Actually, the first one I revived wasn't even cards. I'll reveal on Tuesday what that item was.

I also bought 27 cards from KardKastle. Those cards were cheap enough that it wasn't worth the shipping to buy them separately on eBay. Once I get all my cards I ordered, I'll finally be able to build a deck I've wanted to build for years. It'll be quite a unique deck; perhaps not real competitive, but should be fun.

Once I build the deck and playtest it a little, I may post a decklist here like I have with 2 of my other decks so far: Draconic Shadows and Pitiful Elves. Unless a certain someone gives it away (you know who you are), the deck will remain a secret until then.

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«Caturday: Homework Trapper Kill»

It's never really the dog... Dogs aren't sneaky enough.

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«Captain Sanders»

Take a look at the Kentucky Fried Chicken logo, the one of Colonel Sanders. If you turn it upside down you can see the face of Captain Sanders.

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Captain Sanders of course, is a super hero that fights world hunger for minorities.

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«Magic Deck: Pitiful Elves»

(To my regular readers: If you know what I'm talking about, then read on. Otherwise just skip over this.)

I haven't played Magic: the Gathering for so long... Ever since the local game shop closed, there's nowhere to go to play. At least nowhere that I'm aware of. If you're in Ketchikan, Alaska and know of a place, please tell me.

I really should rename this deck. When I first built it, I didn't even have any Llanowar Elves. What's an elf deck without Llanowar Elves? Pitiful; that's what. So I made sure its name reflected that.

Like most of my better decks, it has dramatically changed from what originally I intended it to be. It started out as your average elf deck: basically, build up a horde of elves and attack with them. However, it somehow morphed into a fast combo deck. It uses the common Staff of Domination + Priest of Titania combo, but it also combos with Cloudstone Curio + Aluren + Elvish Visionary. There are many other minor combos and synergies. Basically it's just a matter of time before something combos off; and usually it just takes a few turns. It's even possible for a turn 2 win, but it's highly unlikely.

You'll also notice the insanely low amount of land in the deck at a whopping 9. All I need is one forest or a Land Grant. From there on my elves can produce all the mana I need.

Pitiful Elves, 60 cards:

Creatures (30)
4x Birchlore Rangers
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Lys Alana Huntmaster
4x Priest of Titania
4x Quirion Ranger
1x Timberwatch Elf
3x Wirewood Symbiote

Enchantments (4)
2x Aluren
2x Concordant Crossroads

Instants (4)
2x Naturalize
2x Wirewood Pride

Sorceries (8)
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Land Grant

Land (9)
8x Forest
1x Pendelhaven

Other Spells (5)
3x Cloudstone Curio
2x Staff of Domination

If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment.

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«Finally Decided: There Is No God»

On 4chan, certain things are inexplicably "word filtered" to other things. In this example, the number 7 gets changed to "over 9000". Now obviously the intention here was to list the numbers 0-9, thus giving no chance that the last numeral in the post (No. 123668657) would be anything but what he listed¹. However, he forgot about the word filter and through a strange twist of fate, the post ended in a 7. Against nearly impossible odds, the truth that there is no God still came out.

Now that's poetic justice.

^1: Since there are literally hundreds of posts every minute (or even second at times), it is impossible to actually know what number your post is going to end with. It's essentially random.

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«I Got My Sea-Monkey Card»

My Sea-Monkey debit card just arrived in the mail. Like I said before, I would have preferred the FSM card design. (That's a popular post of mine, at 2,173 views so far.)

If you're planning on submitting a custom card design with Wells Fargo, I suggest you increase the contrast before submitting it. The picture included in this post is the preview, not the actual card. The actual card seems to be a little washed-out and is a bit more yellow than the picture I submitted. Even seems a little blurry. But, I'm still happy with it. Like I keep saying, it's better than the default stagecoach picture.

As a side-note, I just noticed I've been blessed by the Prophet Bobby Henderson himself. He edited the FSM Bank Card post over at the Official FSM Church website to include the comment I made there. I feel so special now...

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«Motivational Monday: Gashunk»

You really don't want to know how a shark is able to kick down a door to begin with. Just roll with it...

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«Scientology Revealed»

It took over a year since the Anonymous protests started, but the media is starting to investigate the cult of Scientology itself, instead of just the protests.

KESQ: Jeff Hawkins on Scientology


There might be hope yet.

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«Caturday: Catnarok»

The epic battle between Longcat and his arch-nemesis: Tacgnol. Probably will happen on the winter solstice of 2012.

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«Grox Spaceship Fleet»

In the game Spore, this is my spaceship fleet with the Vort empire (my main save).

Click image to view full

That's down on their home planet. One of the ships is from the actual Grox empire. The other 4 are from other saved games of mine. My in-game sporepedia downloaded a Grox ship clone, so I'm using that as my ship on my other saved games. Then it's just as simple as allying with my own saved games.

What's more fearsome than the flagship of the Vort empire with 5 Grox ships in tow?

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«Let's Walk»

This guy decided to jump out of his boat and walk on water like Jesus.

Click image to view full

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«Flaw With an Old Riddle»

One door leads to safety, the other leads to certain death. Once a door is opened the other becomes locked; so you have to go through the one you choose. There are 2 people standing in front of you. You know that one always tells the truth, and one always lies, but you don't know which person is which. Both people know which door leads to safety and which one to certain death. You are allowed to ask only one of them one question. What is your question?

The riddle is old enough and has been around long enough that you probably remember the answer from the last time you saw it. Of course, the "correct" answer is "If I asked the other person, which door would they say leads to safety?"

There is a flaw in that answer. The idea is if you're talking to the liar, he knows the other one would tell you the correct door, so the liar tells you the wrong door. If you're talking to the truth teller, he knows the other guy would lie, so the truth teller also tells you the wrong door. So you take the opposite door, no matter which person you asked.

Here's the major flaw in the logic of that solution: let's say the liar replies "I don't know." Clearly he is lying, because he does in fact know. If you ask your question of the truth teller, he'd also have to truthfully tell you that the other guy would answer "I don't know." Well, you're screwed now...

There is no way with one single question to determine which door leads to safety if they don't answer like you expected. It comes down to 50/50 whether you ask a question or not.

Don't you just hate it when you over-think a riddle?

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«Still Better Than Stagecoaches»

Well, my Flying Spaghetti Monster design was denied, but my second submission was accepted.

Presenting the Sea-Monkey Wells Fargo card¹:

You may recognize the picture from my recent post about my Sea-Monkey food order. I would of course have preferred the FSM, but at least this way I have something unique. I get to carry around a picture of my sea-monkeys. And like the title says, it's better than the default stagecoaches.

I like what one of the comments said on the FSM card post:

While such a card would be, to say the least, a thing of beauty, it's kind of good it was rejected, if it was rejected for the reason you suppose. In that case, this is just more public acceptance of pastafarianism as a religion.

- Anonymous

If something as crazy as Scientology gets to be an official religion, then Pastafarianism should have no trouble. Seriously, I think I'd convert if Pastafarianism were an official religion (at least for the purpose of census polls.)

^1: Sample version only. Not an actual card; not a valid card number or name.

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«Motivational Monday: Math Jokes»

I do get the joke... Pi is what's known as an irrational number because it doesn't end or repeat. i is a non-real number, the answer to sqrt(-1); a physical impossibility.

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«Miso»

I haven't been to RatherGood.com for a while... I see Joel Veitch has been busy lately. The video below might be a little NSFW if you've got the volume very high.

Miso

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«Caturday: A Slaying Gun»

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«Programming Communism»

Microsoft's opinion of open source programs and operating system. It's hard to compete with something that's free.


Have a lucky Friday the 13th.

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«Moonlit Reflection»

This photo was taken very early on the morning¹ of March 8th, from the deck at my dad's house.

Click image to view full

Really hard to get the camera to focus on anything. The screen and viewfinder were completely black, so I couldn't manual focus. That's one downside to that camera², the viewfinder is really just a smaller LCD screen; it's not an optical pass-through. Good camera otherwise. I just set the exposure time to 15 seconds and hoped for the best.

^1: 3:06 AM due to the hour lost for daylight savings time. Otherwise it would have been 2:06 AM. I hadn't gone to bed yet.

^2: The camera is an Olympus SP-570UZ.

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«Alter Ego's Alter Ego»

I finally got the Alter Ego's Alter Ego achievement. You can see for yourself on my achievement page.

There's 10 different archetypes one can become when they enter Space Stage of the game. Each one has its own achievement when you play as it (the various "Passion" achievements). You get the Alter Ego achievement for playing as them all across all of your saved games.

Each of the 10 archetypes also has a "Hero" archetype for when you max out your ranking in Space. You get the Alter Ego's Alter Ego achievement when you have all 10 "Hero" achievements. It takes a long time...

According to the stats on the official Spore site, only 387 people out of over 1.3 million have the achievement. I'm one of them now.

Here's a list of the 10 archetypes in Spore:

• Bard (Philosophy of Chance)
• Diplomat (Philosophy of Order)
• Ecologist (Philosophy of Life)
• Knight (Philosophy of Force)
• Scientist (Philosophy of Science)
• Shaman (Philosophy of Harmony)
• Trader (Philosophy of Prosperity)
• Wanderer (Philosophy of Order)
• Warrior (Philosophy of Force)
• Zealot (Philosophy of Faith)

That's not a mistake that Force and Order appear twice on that list. You can't find NPC empires that are Knights or Wanderers. And if you go visit your saved games from a different save, your Knights will appear to be Warriors and your Wanderers will appear to be Diplomats. I'm not sure if that's by design or something they overlooked when making the game.

For information on how to get each archetype, the Spore Wiki has a great page on archetypes.

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«Human Pixels»

Holy bitch... That took some coordination.

Human Pixels Perform Huge Real

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«Motivational Monday: Limitations»

Truer words were never spoken...

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«Name Node 3 Xenu»

Quick Note: For those of you in regions that observe daylight savings time, it's time to bump your clocks forward an hour.

The head of the Galactic Confederation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet -- 178 billion on average) by mass implanting.

He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H Bomb on the principal volcanoes (Incident 2) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic Area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged."

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants. When through with his crime Loyal Officers (to the people) captured him after 6 years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is.

"They" are gone. The place (Confed.) has since been a desert.

- L. Ron Hubbard

In honor of the head of the Galactic Confederation, I propose that we join others in voting "Xenu" for the name of NASA's Node 3 for the International Space Station.

The link: Help NASA Name Node 3!

Over on the right side of the page, select "Suggest Your Own:"
In the text box type "Xenu" (without the quotes) and click Vote.

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«Caturday: Creates Flossing Forklift»

Just as plausible as God creating man. Actually more so because at least cats exist.

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«Sea-Monkey Order Arrived»

What is it about sea-monkeys? Whenever I mention them in a post, they seem to hijack the comments; it's all anyone ever talks about then. Not to mention one of my most popular posts (ever) is about sea-monkeys. I've noticed a similar thing on other blogs that have talked about sea-monkeys. Even if it's just a single short sentence, all the comments will be about sea-monkeys and totally ignore the rest of the post. The image to the right was taken just yesterday (March 5th), and is 2 of my adult male sea-monkeys. Click it to view full.

As some of you may remember from an old post, I've had sea-monkeys for a very long time, easily 11 years now. I started to run low on food, and instead of buying another starter kit again for just the food packet, I decided to order directly from Transcience Corporation.

I decided upon the Medicine Chest kit and a packet of Super Food. The Medicine Chest included 4 packets; Gro-Kwikly, Plasma III, Red Magic Vitamins, and Sea-Medic Medicine. I was most interested in the Red Magic Vitamins. It's suppose to turn the sea-monkeys red, so I thought maybe they will be easier to see.

Here's the fronts and backs of each of the 5 sea-monkey packets.

Click image to view full

All these different packets could just be a gimmick like my dad said. How I look at it is, I needed more food anyway, and these special packets cost just as much as a packet of regular food. So even if it is all the same stuff in the packets I'm not out anything. I'll keep an eye on my sea-monkeys and see if there's any change.

I mailed out my order on the night of 18th of January. It probably didn't get sent out until the 20th due to Martin Juther King, Jr's day on the 19th. It just arrived arrived on March 2nd. They say on their website to allow 28-35 days for delivery. Mine took 41-42 days (depending on how you want to calculate in the holiday).

One thing that was a bit upsetting is they didn't give it enough postage. I paid $4.00 shipping, the very least they could have did was put enough postage on the damn thing. I had to pay an extra $0.20 postage due because it was "non standard mail".

This is the envelope it came in, complete with "Postage Due" and "non standard mail" stamps.

Click image to view full

I also expected it to come in one of those bubble-wrap manila envelopes rather than just a standard envelope. It's really not too much to ask when you pay $4.00 shipping.

For more information about sea-monkeys themselves and how to care for them, check out my More About Sea-Monkeys post.

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«Time Traveler»

I think the correct question would have been "When do you come from?" Might have had a little more exciting answer.

Click image to view full

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«Ten [False] Reasons Why Atheists Are Wrong»

And now the flip-side of Sunday's Ten Signs list. I told you I'd seen the version of this that addresses atheists. I tell you what, if this is the best they can come up with, I don't know why there's still any argument about it...

I'll provide my answers to each one of these.

1. You vigorously deny the existence of God, yet you frequently blame Him for all the "evils" in the world, all the natural disasters, and everything else under the sun that is wrong in modern society.
2. You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when creationists say that people were created in the image and likeness of God, but you have no problem with the evolutionist claim that we all evolved from slime by a cosmic accident.
3. You criticize fundamental Christians who believe the Bible, and say that it can't possibly be true because it's just a book written by mere men, yet you never question any of Darwin's writings or Richard Dawkins' books.
4. You can't seem to understand the primary differences between fundamental Muslims and fundamental Christians (hint: strap-on TNT. Plus - Muhammad says, "kill innocent people and yourself if you love me." Jesus Christ said, "I'll die for you because I love you").
5. You say the Bible is full of fairytales and fables, yet you believe all life forms including plants, trees, insects, birds, fish, reptiles and mammals evolved from one species into another - As if evolution isn't the biggest fairytale of them all.
6. You laugh at the Supernatural, even though scientists have calculated the odds of life forming by natural processes to be estimated less than 1 chance in 10 to the 40,ooo power - But you find nothing wrong with believing that billions of years full of random mutations would result in the impossible.
7. You accuse fundamental Christians of being intolerant, judgmental and hateful, while you foam at the mouth calling them freaking lunatics, ignorant, weak-minded, stupid fundies, and hateful bigots.
8. You ignore scientific concepts like cause and effect, and you don't realize that a closed system can be defined however the observer wants, so you throw out technological phrases to try to ignore the implications of thermodynamics by saying the laws of physics are not set in stone.
9. While all evidence, logic and reasoning point to a Creator and absolute truth, you prefer to hide behind relativism and a theory of evolution which does not, in fact, describe the creation of the universe at all, or why concepts of good and evil or morality exist.
10. Atheism fails to adequately explain the existence of eternal, unchanging truths, for it rejects the existence of an eternal unchanging mind. Atheism cannot offer man any eternal significance whatsoever. Temporary meaning in life is insufficient, for our accomplishments die with the death of the universe -- there is no ultimate purpose in a universe void of God.

As it happens, I have an answer to each of them (more than the believers can say about their list). So, let's begin...

1. I never do blame God for anything. Or Satan, for that matter.
2. I don't really feel "dehumanized" by it at all. We are the product of billions of years of evolution. It's not like there was anyone around to make an accident. If life has variation, and if that life has heredity, and if there is a selector, then evolution must happen over time.
3. By no means do I claim that Darwin or Richard Dawkins are infallible. Let's get this out of the way right now: atheists do not have prophets or saviors.
4. And you don't seem to understand the difference between extremist Muslims and "normal" Muslims. You don't have to look very far back in history to see a time when extremist Christians were killing innocent people, either. All that aside however, what does the difference between Christians and Muslims have to do with atheism?
5. Explaining the complexity of life by postulating something even more complex just compounds the issue.
6. First off, Drake's Equation is worse than useless because none of the probabilities are known. We have only one example (Earth) to base it off of. Scientists don't have an estimate. Second, even with poor odds there are so many star systems in the universe that it's bound to happen somewhere (my bet is this isn't the only place). Why here? Because if it didn't, we wouldn't be here to debate the issue.
7. Both sides exhibit this behavior towards each other. We're all hypocrites.
8. So you throw out technological phrases like "thermodynamics" as well (see my number 7). FYI: increasing life complexity on Earth does not violate the 2nd law (entropy) because the system is driven by an external energy source: the Sun.
9. What evidence is there that points to a creator that can't be better explained elsewhere? As far as where the logic points to, look at my number 5. Evolution never was suppose to describe the creation of the universe, or morality. Or even the creation of life for that matter. It only explains why and how life changes over time.
10. Quite simply, there isn't. Why does there need to be an ultimate purpose? How would the existence of God change that? There still would be no ultimate purpose for anything – including God – to exist. However, here on this planet, we have carved out our own purpose. It doesn't serve anyone else but ourselves; it doesn't have to.

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«PSA: Hot When Heated»

[ ALERT! THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. ]

Danger! Objects may become hot when heated. It has been found by an independent panel of scientists and doctors that hot objects may cause injury in the form of burns if touched. Please exercise caution when handling objects that have been heated.

[ THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Master Marf. ]

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«Motivational Monday: Persistence»

Persistence, stubbornness... Call it what you will. The reward is a cookie.

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«Ten Signs You're an Unquestioning, Fundamentalist Christian»

Some or all of these may apply to you.

1. You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your God.
2. You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
3. You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Trinity God.
4. Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and animals.
5. You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
6. You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by prehistoric tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
7. You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs - though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend eternity in an infinite hell of suffering. Yet, you consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
8. While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
9. You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% failure was simply the will of God.
10. You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.¹

And yes, I've seen the modified version of this that addresses atheists as well.

^1: To give you credit Looney, this last one does not apply to you.

See the rest of “Ten Signs You're an Unquestioning, Fundamentalist Christian”»