Come on, nobody look stunned.

I have always been a vocal minority trying to dissuade people from using artificial sweeteners at the rate at which they are consumed in our society. Now I cannot make any claim that I have ate any cancer before, but I would suspect that cancer would taste like a tall refreshing nutrasweet addled soda. Sweetness isn't supposed to have a flavor that makes you taste like you were drinking out of a test tube.

It's amazing to me that if there were proper and extensive studies on these chemicals prior to being shoved down our throats, that now... what about 15 years after it hit the market extensively (since 1983 limited approval) there is continued evidence that it causes cancer in lab animals. Meanwhile a natural noncaloric substitute (the active chemical discovered by modern man in the 30s, likely used by ancient man, and widely used in japan since 1977) has had a hard time being approved for use as a sweetener stateside with much less conclusive evidence accrediting its harmfulness. This is a chemical that tastes a lot better than sucralose, saccharin, and aspartame and also seems to have other medical uses.

I wonder if a certain subset of corporate america might have made it's approval difficult, far be it from me to insinuate that the FDA cares more about the profit of lobbyists rather than the well being of the American public.

"The War Prayer"

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

-- Mark Twain

So you want to be a webserver?

So you want to host and serve web pages from your own pc but spending your evenings configuring web and database servers isn't exactly your cup of tea? Xampp is for you!

While I thoroughly enjoy an evening of configuration, researching and testing, you may prefer to have your local development environment setup in less time than it would take to consume that caffeinated beverage you'd need to stay up and actually setup Apache webserver, MySQL Database Sever, PHP and Pearl. XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start. Xampp is available for Linux, windows, os x and solaris. It includes an array of utilities to assist with other net tasks such as file transfer and messaging. Best of all, Xampp is FREE.

The philosophy behind XAMPP is to build an easy to install distribution to get netizens into the world of Apache. It is put out by Apache Friends, an organization founded in 2002 to promote Apache, its ease and use, documentation and community.

To make it convenient for users XAMPP is configured with all features turned on. The default configuration is not good from a securtiy point of view and it's not secure enough for a production environment - please don't use XAMPP in such environment. XAMPP can be configured securely by simply running an included script

More information available at http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Political Wednesday

Nick showed me this video the other day, it's long for something you'd watch on your computer (45m). It's called "A history of Oil", performed by comedian/political activist Robert Newman of England. I'm starting to see a converging set of information leading towards this idea, admittedly most recently egged on by mr. Voidstar Runner.

We watched this piece by Newman, that touched on subjects brought up by this (very long, and pretty tedious to follow) documentary called the Money Masters (I must point out i've only made it through the first half). This evening right on the front page of Digg.com is a video of Ron Paul making a speech, if you will, about similar topics.

The reoccurring theme you might ask? The federal reserve bank (yea that's right... lower case suck it, vampires) and the likelihood of a failing of the United States 'greenback' currency. The Ron Paul video is 5 minutes long, Money Masters is about 4 hours, and Robert Newman is 45 minutes, please watch some part of some of this. I won't lie, this will not make you happy (the Robert Newman will give you guilty spats of laughter), but I thought it was intriguing to me how little this information stuck when I first learned it (or were we taught this????).

Running gmail securely

Bobu just laid this amazing tidbit on me (amazing if you're a paranoid uber geek, like me). You can log into gmail thru https:// . Which runs the whole thing through SSL, making it as secure as pretty much possible as far as standards on the web go. Apparently his boss has been doing it that way for the longest time, and just now found it interesting to tell him.

Also the shortcut keys on gmail are pretty fucking neat. It's worth turning them on even if you're not a keyboard junkie (like me). The option is the 3rd one down in your general settings tab, under settings when logged into gmail.

Online Grafitti??

I'm perplexed by this whole thing, it's a big ball of community driven pixel art? It's pretty neat but it's getting hammered by digg.com, causing me to lose connection both times I tried to add to the pink floyd prism. Check it out sometime in the next few days when the web traffic slows down.

food(water) for thought

Well it's about time I make my bi-monthly post (I need to post more, I probably think of (or read) three post worthy things a day but don't think to jump on here and post them. Somebody needs to get on my case about it!)

I swapped the blog over to blogger (at Google), and now It has these neat labels on the bottom.

Anyway this is pretty intriguing stuff here, makes you wonder how much is wasted on a global scale from the relatively new advent of bottled water. I found this while perusing www.treehugger.com, which by the way has the most annoying layout. Makes me want to rake out my eyes! Check back soooooooon, maybe I'll make this a bi-weekly blog :P

Stop stealing the social security and pretending its a failing system

This is scary scary for us americans. Maybe we should probably like, I dunno stop wasting money we don't really have on effed up wars??

Mixed Message

Just when you thought you couldn't get any more annoyed by the ass-backwards airport security screening system, here's further evidence that TSA has absolutely no idea what they're doing at America's airports:

Read the whole article, but here's a SNIP:

Screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport failed 20 of 22 security tests conducted by undercover U.S. agents last week, missing an array of concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the hub's three terminals, federal security officials familiar with the results said.

The tests, conducted Oct. 19 by U.S. Transportation Security Administration "Red Team" agents, also revealed significant failures by screeners to follow standard operating procedures while checking passengers and their baggage for prohibited items, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is against TSA policy to release covert-test results.

"We can do better, and training is the path to improved performance," said Mark Hatfield Jr., Newark Airport's federal security director, declining to address specifics."Test results are not a grade or a scorecard; they are a road map to perpetual improvement; any other characterization is simply misleading. We have to challenge ourselves to do better every day and be relentless in that pursuit."

TEST RESULTS ARE NOT A GRADE OR A SCORECARD? What are they then? In every other walk of life, tests determine if you get into that college, get that job. Tests tell us if we're sick or if our air is clean. But when it comes to government bureaucracies, test results "are a road map to perpetual improvement."

What we've learned, and what we already knew, is that TSA sucks. Their screening sucks, their results suck, and their training sucks. Perpetual improvement? More like a perpetual nuisance. If we want our air travel to be more secure, maybe we should more closely screen the cargo that goes underneath the plane. Maybe the federal bureaucracies should stop fighting and share their lists with each other so airport screeners know who to look for and when to look for them.

All of these people need to be slapped in the face.

Google to Buy Youtube?

James: nice…they would prolly make it better, but i like that there is at least two websites for that

Adam: yeah but the whole copyright thing is huge…esp. with google video

James: ok u know how everyone is thinking mpaa is gonna take youtube to court for that stuff... and nobody should buy it…what if google is goading them to take them to court… they have the money to go through with the courtcase... honestly the mpaa wont win the case.

Adam: yeah i agree 100%...its still a huge issue…because even if the court case goes through and MPAA loses…..then they will start asking a lot of questions about DRM and why it isnt working…which could be bad

James: but what would u expect the outcome of the them asking about drm

Adam: haha i dont know….how can they be any more tightwad than they already are

James: the reason it doesnt work, is because people don't like the idea of buying crippled products... maybe mpaa will realize that, they need to be a better provider of goods…they will sell more….for instance…i’m an emusic user…i love it… and i’d pay an extra 5 dollars, if i could get bigname labels too…they are trying to protect an amount of revenue, that they should have never been used to. the business of making and selling art should not be so profitable, its not supposed to be for the money

Adam: preach on!

James: lol…u know me…. =)

Trashpickers

This conversation took place a few minutes ago between 2 of this blog's contributors and is completely unedited. Enjoy.

Adam: last week i was walking home from the bus and i saw a mangled plastic bottle on the ground… it took me 2 seconds to pick it up and throw it in the garbage (and about 10 seconds to wash my hands when i got home)… yet while i was doing it, i thought to myself "people around me probably think i'm nuts, just picking up trash off the street"…literally i didnt even have to break stride, the bottle was so close to the trash can…story of the world

James: totally…not only are people averse to doing hard work to help the world, they cant even do whats easy

Adam: its beyond that…people are afraid to do what i did…because of how they think others will perceive them…if i see someone throw trash on the ground in front of me, i have to say something to them…people need to be chided…our culture has been so anti-discipline for so long…like its wrong to spank kids and shit like that

James: "hey asshole go pick that fucking trash up and put it in the can'….haha

Adam: there have to be consequences. which is why the fall of the US mini-empire might be the best thing that ever happened to us

James: can u imagine that guy talking to his friends later…'i got in a fist fight over literring today'

Adam: "some crazy guy yelled at me for something! i can't remember what tho"

James: hahahaha…thats terrible…haha

eFF all that noise!

This is probably the most interesting wiki stub i've found in a long long time. Ok maybe i'm exaggerating. It's quite amazing how many of these movies i've seen though. I suppose i'm a huge fan of the word FUCK.

sexy sexy sexy adverts, for teh win!

I dunno about other people, but this worked quite well on me. Needless to say its quite suprising. The only problem is, WHERE THE FUCK DO I BUY THIS STUFF, I DON'T LIVE IN FRANCE!!! And apparently its uber costly. Anyway check it out, its badical to the maxx. *NOT WORK SAFE*

US gov: 100, US constitution: -10

"When you let people do whatever they want, you get Woodstock. When you let governments do whatever they want, you get Auschwitz."

I'm not sure who this guy is that wrote that essay, and what his background is. All I know, is that I thouroughly enjoyed reading it. As should all of my lovely readers. I found it pretty wild how breaking up that terrorist plot put us on higher security. If we caught them, why are we still so skiird?

So you want to be a photography expert??

This guy not only puts together really amazing photos, he really efFing knows how to put together tutorials on the work that goes into getting these results. This one goes out to those who recently were blessed with new cameras (jessigrass, =P)

So that's why It's so hard to get into MIT

They just continually pound out amazing research at MIT. This research brings us about 19 steps closer to having computers in our watches and monitors built into our aviator sunglasses. Shhh a boy can dream can't he? Link courtesy of 'rundropandglide', keep up the hawtlinking mayne!

Luther of 21st Century, well not quite

This really is an amazing list. Its 95 theses for geek activists, its really well done and thought out. As far as I'm concerned it should be regarded as, 95 theses for anyone living in the 21st century who wants to be part of the solution. Here's too the solution!!

Top-100 videos of all time, with a twist!

Ok its not a M. Night Shamalalalalon caliber twist, but the internet allows us to do some neat things. The list itself is pretty reasonable, but there are some things missing (TOOL? Are u kidding me?? No tool videos?) Some of the rank ordering doesn't seem the way that many people would handle it. Also the blurbs at times are downright pretentious. But the cool part is, for every video there is an onsite www.youtube.com link.

He'll crow. He'll fight. He'll fly. And then... he'll die.

Apparently crows are very smart, like unusually smart. I couldn't help but think of the crow's from disney's dumbo the whole time I read this.

The Green Fairy wasn't evil after all?

I love how as we learn more about pharmalogical sciences, it tends to turn out that campaigns against many things were likely just political razmatazz. Apparently when brewed properly (ie. like absinthe manufacturers from before the worldwide ban) absinthe is completely harmless and contains about .0005% toxin. And the best part is a native new orleaner has essentially unearthed those brewing practices, to bad its still illegal in the states. Yippie for misconceptions based on propaganda!