Abstract Variable

We're Moved!

2008-05-31T17:06:00.002-05:00

If anyone can still see this I have migrated to a new URL and a new host. Please go to these URLs:

http://www.heathenz.com - an atheist-based weblog.
http://www.abstractvar.com - a personal weblog focused on professional side. (rarely updated)

Verizon Cannot Do Maths

2008-05-24T02:01:00.006-05:00

This is kind of an old story (2 years) but it's one that I somehow missed. I am just going to give a quick summary and provide you with a link to the blog where the stupidity of Verizon and the Verizon representatives are well documented to be completely stupid.

So if one was to call Verizon and ask what the cost per kilobyte of data usage is in Canada two years ago, you would get a firm answer ".002 Cents per kilobyte." Wow, that's not a bad deal. .002 Cents in dollars would be $.00002/kb. With that rate it would take 50 kilobytes to cost 1 cent. But when George Vaccaro received his bill after being quoted .002 cents he was being billed .002 DOLLARS/kb. That's a 100 fold difference from the rate that he was quoted. Now here's the story about how long and how painfully hard it was to explain the problem with Verizon representatives.

verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html

Atheist F.A.Q. for Non-Atheists

2008-05-23T13:34:00.002-05:00

Read carefully. This defines what is required to be an atheist.

The Official Atheist FAQ

Disqus: Community-focused Commenting

2008-05-23T12:33:00.009-05:00

I was listening to the Net@Night podcast that Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur put on and they talked about a new web 2.0 (saying that is almost a cliche now) web service that expands your dull blog comments into a new community called Disqus. It is just about the neatest thing I've seen when it comes to comment + community integration.

After listening to the show I went to go check it out and it turns out that it is very easy to integrate into your blog (whatever it may be). If you may not know I use Blogger as my blogging platform not because I don't know how to host my own wordpress blog, but because I'm too cheap to pay monthly hosting for the blog. I have found that integration between Disqus and Blogger was extremely simple. It took about 1 minute to fully set up my blog and integrate my blog comments into their commenting system. I'll now take a moment to explain what disqus will actually do for you.

Disqus allows you to have more interactive comments. It allows you to create a community for your blog as well as connect with other blog communities. You will be able to receive and reply to the discussion from email and cell phone. Commenters will be able to sustain a single identity throughout everyone using disqus, so if enough blogs start using this system then commenting will be a much more enhanced experience for commenters. Disqus uses a system to rate comments up and done just as Digg is using but your overall rating will be effected by the comment that you post and people will be able to see if you have a good karma when posting or if you're just an asshole who posts irrelevant, unincitefull comments. Disqus also has a lot more web 2.0-like AJAX that allows you to post and edit posts on the same page as your comments.

Disqus supports Blogger, Wordpress, Movable Type, Tumblr and Typepad.

Lack of Posting/Change of Pace

2008-05-18T11:33:00.004-05:00

Sorry I haven't been posting anything for a long time. (almost 2 months) but I was busy with finals and I just got back from a week-long vacation and I realized how much I have neglected this poor little blog. But I also realized that I want to make this blog aimed more at programming than my atheist views simply because I'm bored of talking about it. I'll so include random updates about other articles that I find interesting.

In case anyone was wondering, I currently know Java, PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, C, and assemby (ugh). I think I need to expand my code base by personally developing random projects but I don't know what to make so if anyone has any suggestions leave a comment. Whatever I make I think I will make my code open as a resource for other coders who are looking for an outline of what other people have done to solve whatever problem I had to solve. My primary platform of choice is currently Java so expect some small Java projects.

I Love April 1st

2008-04-01T14:33:00.003-05:00

April 1st is an amazing day. It's a day where you can refine your skeptical senses.. How do you determine what's real and what is fake? What do you base those views on? Why? April fools day is a day where the reliable become tricky and the unreliable... well, they stay that way.

Some people just reveal how much of an asshat they are. An example is Ray Comfort claiming that today should be National Atheist Day. Is he kidding? Probably. But I don't really care because so much of what he's said in previous posts reflect the same kind of ignorance of an atheist viewpoint.

Quick news items for April 1, 2008:

There's a WOOT-OFF TODAY.
Atheist Experience is canceling due to all the atheists having a change in opinion..
Here's the Top 10 Creationist Accomplishments
A Flying Spaghetti Monster Statue is placed outside a Tennessee Courthouse

AdblockPlus: Ethical?

2008-03-25T14:47:00.005-05:00

AdblockPlus is a very cool, but very worrying add-on for Firefox. I think it's in the "right" legally because of the technical aspects. What AdblockPlus does is block ads that appear on web pages. Advertisements are typically a large portion of a website's profit so this brings up a very serious problem. Is AdblockPlus ethical to use? What effect will this have on internet advertising?

The simple version of way a browser works is as follows:

Client program (browser) requests web page data.
Server sends web page data.
Client program parses the data so that the user can view and interact with the web page.

Note: I know this isn't close to all the requests that the browser makes.

You can view any web page's source code in your browser. There are some ways that a web developer can 'hide' this information but usually this process includes javascript encryption and description. Not every browser can support javascript so it is in the best interest for the web developer to not use this method. If you want to view all the HTML, CSS, Javascript on this webpage all you have to do is (on firefox) click View > Page Source or push Ctrl + U.

Before (or after) the browser parses the information, another program or add-on can remove (or add) certain pieces of code. In this case, AdblockPlus removes advertisements.

The only way advertisers can prevent these types of programs is to control the way client side browser software parses the incoming HTML, javascript, ect. This is a highly unpopular action so I have no idea what advertisers are going to do if AdblockPlus becomes extremely popular.

Godtube Makes Me Smile Once Again

2008-03-18T16:09:00.005-05:00

... and no, it's not because a little kid has used his superior intellect to disprove all atheists. I did smile, however, because he literally parrots many of the points that The Way of the Master brings up. In case your wondering The Way of the Master is a TV series that Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort has made that tries to act as a way of spreading their apologetic hogwash across the world.

So go ahead and watch this video and I will comment on some of the arguments that he brings up and express my opinion on the video.

After watching the video I was a little ticked off. Not because I disagree with every single one of his points (which I do) but because he doesn't even know what an atheist is. He begins by quoting the bible. He apparently thinks it is a valid to claim to use the bible as proof for his argument... Well it isn't. You first have to prove that the bible is, in fact, the word of his god and to do that he has to prove that his god actually exists and then give some evidence that shows that his god created this book. Well he does not do any of that so I am going to disregard anything he says quoted from the bible.

Kid: "The basis of their belief is that there is no god"
No. Wrong. You lose. I don't have to base anything on my DISBELIEF in a god. Let's get this labeling thing clear. I am an atheist that lacks the belief in a god. Why? Because I see no evidence for it. None. And things that I do not see evidence for I don't believe. That is generally termed as Weak Atheism. A random person can walk up to me and say "I have a million bucks in my wallet" and I probably won't believe him, but there is a way that I can check. I can ask him to open up his wallet and show me. Now, assume a random person walks up to me and says "I have a million bucks in my wallet, but the wallet is invisible and no one has ever seen it or provided any evidence for its existence, including me." Are you likely to believe him? If you answered no, then that's generally the position I hold toward the concept of a god. The position he is talking about is Strong Atheism. Okay, so he is only talking about strong atheists. Let's continue.

The kid continues to parrot the Ray Comfort argument that to claim "there is no gold in China" is an absolute statement just as saying "there is no god" is an absolute statement and finding one small piece of gold would discredit the claim that there is no gold in china. He then quotes Thomas Edison (just like The Way of the Master) and claims that we know less than 1% of everything there is to know and that to say there is no God we'd have to know everything. But we only know 1%. My response to that: SHOW THE PROOF THEN. If there's nothing to justify believing in a god in the 1% of total knowledge that we do know, how is it reasonable to just assume there is evidence somewhere.. it's just unlikely that we'll find it. Sorry dude, but if that's your claim for your god then you'll become an atheist if you follow that to the logical conclusion, but I assume that is unlikely.

Kid: "Think about a building. How do we know that there was a builder?"
Because I've seen people make buildings. I, however, have never seen your god make anything. Next?

The Kid then quotes a lot of bible verses that supposedly hold scientific knowledge that they did not know about when the bible was written.
If I wrote down a lot of random stuff I'm sure that people in 2,000 years can misconstrued them to support their current scientific knowledge. What I want you to do is make a claim from the bible that currently is not supported by scientific evidence. If you can't do that, then god made a useless book that gives us a vast amount of knowledge that is only recognizable after the knowledge is already gained.

Kid: "People say I used circular reasoning to prove the bible. In this instance, the circular reasoning argument is absurd. That's like saying I can't look into the white house to prove that the president lives in it"
... You don't understand what circular reasoning is. Using circular reasoning to prove the bible is like saying I can't look into the white house that we don't know exists and have no evidence that it exists to prove that the president, who we don't know exists, lives in there and wrote a book that no one saw him write... 2000-3000 years ago.

I hope this kid realizes that all he is doing is parroting Ray Comfort. The same person who appeared to a debate claiming that he could prove the existence of his god without refering to the bible or any other religious texts. Guess what? He failed. Miserably. Watch that here. Be careful, it's pathetic.

Please comment on the video or my critique. I could have put more effect into this but I was a little uneasy about putting more effort into this post than the kid put into his video.

Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

2008-03-11T23:32:00.003-05:00

I watched a very interesting debate today. It included Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and was moderated by Dr. Neil Gillman. This was all done at New York's 92nd Street Y on January 30, 2008.

Hitchens began by reciting the refutations of the most common justifications for the need for a good. Deism was the first to go because a creator would need another creator and would regress infinitely. He continues his argument by refuting the idea of a personal god.

Now, Rabbi Boteach then starts to argue about complexity and how it's incredibly unlikely that we were not designed. Yeah, the same old argument. At least he doesn't go so far as wave a banana at the camera and decree that "God wins" like Ray Comfort seems to like to do. The rabbi continues to argue and, when doing so, slips into preach mode. He later tries to attack evolution which, to me, has nothing at all to do with the existence of god. If evolution is completely wrong and completely falsified then that would still not be evidence for the existence of a god.

I'm not going to summarize it all, but I think it's a very interesting debate that I think it was semi-informative not for the existence of a god but for the arguments that theist use for the existence of a god. If you have 90 minutes free then I'd suggest watching this. Like most debates with Hitchens, I laughed several times. I have gained respect for Hitchens after this video and lost a little (if possible) to theism.

Link to video

Jesus Loves the Little Zygotes

2008-03-10T20:14:00.002-05:00

I thought this poem was brilliant. It was read on the episode 7.3 of the Non-Prophets radio show. The actual creator of the poem is Frank Zindler, a part of Dial-an-Atheist Ohio.

Jesus loves the little zygotes
all the zygotes of the world.
Jesus loves them until they're born
then abandons them forlorn.
Jesus loves the little zygotes 'til they're born.

Jesus loves the little children
all the children of the world.
Jesus gives them heart defects
measles, mumps, and ringwormed necks.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Jesus lets their parents beat them,
bruise their bodies black and blue.
Jesus gives them birth defects,
scurvy, ticks, and palette clefts.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Jesus gives the children cancer.
Earaches, lice, and scabies too.
Bowel obstructions, altered lips,
blighted brains and twisted hips.
Extra chromosomes to help them when they pray.

Hallelujah.

Jesus gives the children acne.
AIDS and leprosy galore.
Germs and worms of every kind.
Things to make the children blind.
But he cannot give them smallpox anymore.

Scientists and unbelievers
wiped the pox right off the earth.
Jesus still gives gifts to kids,
broken nose and burnt eyelids.
But he cannot give them smallpox anymore.

Truth: Is There Whether Current Dogma Says So or Not

2008-03-07T20:31:00.009-06:00

Here is a collection of funny and revealing Atheist-based motivational poster images. Enjoy.

Quotes From FSTDT.com

2008-03-04T17:12:00.004-06:00

FSTDT.com Fundies Say the Darnest Things is an archive of the most hilarious, bizarre, ignorant, bigoted, and terrifying quotes from fundies all over the internet! Here is a couple of quotes that I thought were so completely outrageous that I needed to share them here:

----------------------------------------------------------

No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims.

Trinidad and Tobago

One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

awesomestnerd

There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don't know that much about it does not bother me in the least.

AV1611VET

I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie

JohnR7

----------------------------------------------------------

Although a lot of these quotes are funny, a lot of them are just sad or outright terrifying. The fact that so much ignorance and pure stupidity exists is a bit saddening. I lost a little faith in humanity after browsing through FSTDT.com.

Godtube: Yay for God.

2008-02-26T20:20:00.007-06:00

Godtube is so strange to me. When I've been on the website I would pick a random video to watch and I'm always disappointed. I find none of them helpful at all and. I find a LOT of the evolution videos insanely ignorant of evolution. If you're against something it is a good idea to know what that something is before you make a video about it. Otherwise, your just proclaiming your ignorance.

I find a ton of prayers for some reason. I don't know why broadcasting prayers helps at all. I thought praying was between the person that is doing the praying and god. Apparently posting them on the internet helps because between surfing the vast amount of bestiality porn, god decides to look through a couple of the prayers. Yeah, yeah, that was probably out of line but oh well. Another thing that I noticed in several atheist videos is an incredible depiction of what I'm supposed to be. I don't choose to be an atheist. I don't believe every single god, spiritual being and deity as you, except one. The Friendly Atheist blog has a nice list of who a christian and an atheist don't believe in.

Anyway, I find it amazing how many straw men they make and bash down. This is a good example. I could critique video to death but I'd probably spend more time doing that then they did making the video. Plus it's been done. I may be wrong, but I think this is done because of ignorance of what atheism actually is or the creators of this video want to help mislead people and misrepresent atheists so more understanding and hatred will be aimed at atheists. Either way, it is unacceptable to me that people that I thought were "so kind to everyone" would be so hating toward a certain group. The sad thing is... I used to be part of that group. When my best friend told me he was an atheist I was confused and angry at him because I did not know what that was. Either way, thank you for hating me based on one belief that I happen to not have. I'm sure it's totally justifiable and not discrimination.

Abstract Wave

2008-02-25T20:06:00.002-06:00

Abstract Wave
Originally uploaded by fissionmage

This is a neat little image that I've created using GIMP when playing around. Hopefully I will get better but I think it's a good start. And in case you're wondering, I did make the banner at the top of the page. I hope I can make some cool snazzy images later on. If you like it, say so.. If you don't then... tell me I'm dumb. Either way, post a comment. ^_^

Random Quotes: Doug McLeod and Anonymous

2008-02-24T23:55:00.002-06:00

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.

- Anonymous

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence.

- Doug McLeod

Pong Clone

2008-02-22T20:04:00.011-06:00

Sorry that I haven't posted in four days. I've been really tied up with work and school.

For this post I'm going to post a project that I did for my computer science class last year. The project had many options but the thing that caught my attention the most was the games category. I've only done one major project in java before and I look back at it now and see that it was so badly done... So without further adu, here is my java-based clone of pong.

Pong Clone

New Desktop Machine!

2008-02-18T13:25:00.011-06:00

So I got a new computer I'll try to get some pictures up on here as soon as I can but for now you can just see the specs. Be aware that I bought this computer just to be a modest desktop PC. Hopefully it will last me a couple years before I get the itch to build a computer. For now, I don't have too much time. So here are the specs:

HP Pavilion Slimline s3300t PC

Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)

Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor E4500 (2.2GHz)

2GB DDR2-667MHz dual channel SDRAM (2x1024)

256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8500GT DVI-I, HDMI

500GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive

Blu-ray / HD DVD player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner

15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, headphone port

Integrated 5.1 Capable Sound w/ front audio ports

Dimensions: 16.28"(L) x 6.89"(W) x 15.24"(H)

Edit: I added the dimensions to the specs because this thing is TINY! In the picture (which isn't mine yet) you can see the little panel on the front. THAT is the size of the CD drive. Yes, the thing is that small.

And I heard that HP machines come with a lot of crappy trial software and I have to say it had a lot less than I expected. It came with a Norton trial version, Microsoft works and HP's little program for new computer owners who don't know what to do. I just had to uninstall 6 things in total. Not bad. I have seen initial setups with a lot more things. One thing that helps with cleaning up your new system is a program called decrapifier. It's awesome.

Random Quote: Scott Adams

2008-02-16T08:22:00.002-06:00

"Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately."

- Scott Adams

If you need help with that router just give me a call.

You're Using Open Source RIGHT NOW!

2008-02-15T20:20:00.008-06:00

Open source is a very interesting philosophy that has grown vastly in the tech industry. The reason I say tech instead of computer industry is because open source projects have long since grown to many of your tech gadgets including your cell phones, GPS devices, hand held gaming devices, traffic lights, multimedia centers and, of course, computers. SourceForge is an open source development website that supports over 100,000 projects. Did I mention that open source software is completely free?

You use open source software ALL THE TIME whether you know it or not. If you're browsing the web using firefox, visiting Google, Yahoo, or any website that uses mySQL, PHP, PostgreSQL, YUI, or Java. Most of the games on your cell phone run in Java and an increasing amount of phones are coming out running on linux. Linux, by the way is an open source operation system that has been used on servers for years but is now coming to mature as a desktop operating system. Some popular distributions are PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, openSUSE, Linux Mint, Fedora, and hundreds more. There are several distrobutions that can fit and run from a 50MB FLASH DRIVE. These flavors of linux offer updates, performance and reliablility that windows users could die for.

Google has always been an avid supporter of many open source projects because they rely on a lot of open source technologies. Dispite their support they havn't (to my recolection) released anything open source. Until recently. Google recently released their completely open mobile platform called Android. Hopefully cell phone manufacturers will create new phones with this platform so you'll no longer have to deal with terrible phone UI ever again.

Open Source. /bow

Happy Fake Holiday!

2008-02-14T10:34:00.004-06:00

Well, it's that time of the year. It's time to buy your special someone a box of chocolate, flowers and maybe some flowers, take her out on a nice evening at a fancy restaurant and then hope you get lucky later in the night. Sounds fun, right? Well, it would be if this whole scenario wasn't SET UP for you on a predetermined date. The amount of breakups on or around valentines day is staggering. It's funny that this "day of love" ends up being the "day that I'll never want to see you again."

Random Quote: Frank Lloyd Wright

2008-02-12T10:17:00.000-06:00

"TV is chewing gum for the eyes."

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 – 1959)

I saw the quote and I literally laughed because it is SO true. Frank Wright was a well known architect when he lived. So much so, that the American Institute of Architects deemed him as "the greatest American architect of all time."

Financial Planning Class

2008-02-10T23:15:00.000-06:00

/cough
...useless self help crap...
/cough

Random Quote: Carl Sagan

2008-02-10T20:46:00.000-06:00

"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."

- Carl Sagan

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

- Carl Sagan

"I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students."

- Carl Sagan

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?"

- Carl Sagan

"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense."

- Carl Sagan

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."

- Carl Sagan

My Atheism, Agnosticism and Skepticism

2008-02-10T14:46:00.002-06:00

I grew up being raised as a methodist but now consider myself a Skeptical Agnostic Atheist. If you think these terms cannot co-exist together, read on, because I think you may have a misunderstanding of the two terms.

I consider myself an Atheist because I do not believe there is a god. That does NOT mean the same thing as "I believe there is not a god." I have tried to believe there was a god and that he created all of what we see either directly or indirectly but there is no proof. None. If, at any moment, god presents himself (or herself... or itself?) to me and can provide sufficient proof that he is god, then I will believe. Instantly. The only proof that that I seem to get is the "modern miracle." Not good enough. It's not repeatable. It's, by definition, is not testable and there's no way to prove that it is not a fluke.

Agnosticism is NOT necessarily about the belief in a god. It's the philosophical view about the truth value of a claim. They argue that absolute knowledge in anything is not possible and that evidence in the contrary of a particular claim will lessen the possibility of the claim. That's all it is. In regards to anything, anything, anything supernatural I think the possibility is extremely low.

I consider myself a skeptic. I try to be skeptical about everything and anything that I hear. It is (or was) the best journalistic rule. Check your sources. How reliable are those sources? How reliable are the sources that your sources draw from? All I'm trying to say is that skepticism should not be viewed as a negative. If you know the most common logical fallacies that people use, you'll start hearing them EVERYWHERE. If you are to be given a claim, you need evidence for that claim and the more the claim is in conflict with your viewpoint, the more evidence is needed. I believed nothing before I knew anything.

Please leave comments. I'm interested in other viewpoints!

Handwriting Code Sucks

2008-02-09T11:13:00.000-06:00