Don’t be a hater
Well, here's my first controversial post, I hope you're ready.
Let me begin by explaining that I'm NOT forcing my views on anyone. I don't expect to change your mind. I just want to start by reaching middle ground. That being said, let's talk about vaccines.
I pass the most awesome billboard on my way to work everyday. It was put up a week or two ago with a pretty simple but awesome message.
sorry for the tree in the way
The billboard says:
Vaccines Save Lives!
Vaccination Reduced Measles 99%
GET VACCINATED!
I want to hug the person that put up that sign.
Now, I'm not saying we need to mandate everyone to get vaccinated (yet), I just want to simply point out how absurd it is to actively campaign against getting vaccinated.
There are certain facts that you have to look at when talking about getting vaccinated, and most of them were pointed out on that billboard:
- vaccines save lives
- vaccines work (do you even know what polio is? It's not a type of shirt)
Frankly, that's all I need to know. I'm sold. But what about the downsides, and does the science back up those claims?
- vaccines are untested
- vaccines can get people sick or kill them
- vaccines are a gov't plot to control the population, man
Vaccines kind of have to be untested, or minimally so. The things that get us sick are constantly changing to avoid getting caught by our bodies so they can wreak havoc on our systems. Vaccines are like the virus definitions for your computer's anti-virus; they show your body what the bad cells look like so your body can recognize it and learn how to fight it. To know if a vaccine is working, you have to see the effects over time of what it does to your body, but in the interim, that disease is out there possibly killing people. Do you wait to do clinical studies while people die, or do you put it out as soon as possible to try to save lives? Not a tough choice in my book.
Vaccines don't get people sick. Yes, there can be complications from getting any medical procedure, but vaccines don't cause autism and the viruses they contain are either dead or engineered in a way that they can't hurt you. Can you get sick from other things in a vaccine? Yeah, sure, whatever. The point of getting vaccinated means not getting a terrible disease, and if I have to suffer some inconveniences to not die, I'll do it. Now, hypothetically (THIS IS NOT TRUE) vaccines hurt or kill a percentage of the population. Clearly, it's a very small percentage (AGAIN, THIS IS HYPOTHETICAL I DON'T KNOW THE NUMBERS). Isn't it still worth that risk to know that millions of people aren't dying from smallpox? I'd rather take the chance of getting sick from a vaccine rather than knowing I'll die from polio. I got swine flu last year, and it was the worst sickness I've ever had. I couldn't walk, I couldn't eat, and I ended up in the emergency room and had to spend $2000.
Still in good spirits
This is because I DID NOT get vaccinated. I didn't get vaccinated and I got sick. I'd give anything to go back in time and get vaccinated (I didn't get the vaccine because I hate needles, I thought I'd never get sick and I didn't have time, not because I didn't think it would work). I'm only one data point, but I didn't get vaccinated and I got sick. I'd venture a guess that the vast majority of people who got the swine flu didn't get vaccinated against it. I'd also guess (and I'm sure you'd agree) that, if any, a very small percentage of the people who got vaccinated got the swine flu. These are odds I'd bet on!
As far as the vaccines and autism link is concerned (VACCINES DON'T CAUSE AUTISM) if vaccines did cause autism in a small percentage of children, I'd rather have an autistic child than a dead one. Most people don't realize that measles, polio, and diphtheria are real diseases that can kill people because no one gets them anymore. We get vaccinated against them and then we don't get them.
Now here's what I'm saying. Don't actively campaign against getting vaccinated. That's wrong. Get vaccinated or don't, get your kids vaccinated or don't, that's your choice (I'd prefer if you did so we can reach the necessary thresholds for herd immunity). But don't tell other people what to do, that makes you a hypocrite. To use a tired analogy, seatbelts save lives but can also hurt people in rare cases, and no one actively campaigns against them. They save lives, they work so many more times than not that it's not even a question that you should wear a seatbelt. In fact, there are laws saying you HAVE to wear a seatbelt because they save so many lives. As far as the risks, I'd rather have a neck injury from whiplash due to a seatbelt than be dead for not wearing one. Same thing goes for vaccines.
Update: This morning I called my county's Department of Health that put up that sign and personally thanked some operator on the other end. I hope it made her day as much as seeing that sign made mine.
Welcome to 1996!
I found a button on the internet that makes pages much better! Try it with the site you're looking out now through this link! To make your own go to this link! Sadly enough, my first website looked just like that, but it was on tripod which was much better. (Found the button on Boing Boing)
PS Today is the FIRST OF MAY (Not Safe For Work!)
What is google reader and how do I use it?
I'm so glad you asked. You see, blogs are interesting things. You can go to them hourly to check to see if anything new updated or if they have an RSS feed, you can just add it to google reader! This RSS reader is free to use (you just need an e-mail address and if you already have one through gmail, it's even easier!) and it collects all of your favorite blogs and only tells you what updates! That way you can check google reader hourly instead of every site you want to visit, saving you a ton of time. So how do you subscribe to a blog in google reader? Easy! If you're using Firefox, most pages have an rss button in the address bar and you just click on that. It will redirect you to google reader and you can click subscribe. You can also search for blogs once you're in the reader. So, why did I tell you this? SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG IN GOOGLE READER BIZNATCHES! There's even a handy button at the top right of this page that says subscribe. DO IT! DO IT NOW!
The End of Wednesday Roundup… The start of Blog Review for 04/28/2010
Well kids, it's over, kind of. I'm moving to a different format for the roundups. Instead of posting a whole bunch one day of the week, I'm going to post sporadically throughout the week. There will be a whole page of roundup items that will be you can find at link. Please stay tuned here because I'll still go through and feature a blog each week and in three weeks I should be going full steam on the podcast (school's almost out for summer, and almost forever as well). So until then, here's the featured blog of the week!
LIFEHACKER! Do you have a life? Is it inefficient and boring? You need LIFEHACKER! This blog features many great ways to improve mental dexterity, organizational skills, and just plain awesomeness. It will often link to instructables on how to make things (like this coffee cup plaster shield for ceiling drilling, look at the link it will make sense). Plus, if you work with internets, they have plenty of little "hacks" to help you with productivity. Here's a Firefox extension that let's you add secret messages to one recipient in a mass e-mail or a Chrome extension to tell you to check google reader. Work in an office? Here's when not to use PowerPoint. Like Make Online, they also have a lot of real world hacks to use products in an unintended way, such as vinyl lettering to pimp out a garbage can. Now, how useful is this site? All the links I provided in this little roundup piece were posted TODAY! That's right, they post very frequently with great items each day, it's definitely a blog worth checking out.
Want to get your blog mentioned in the Blog Review? E-mail me at patthews(at)gmail with Blog Review in the subject line.
Alright kids, that's all for now, I'll see you next Wednesday with another blog review.
A chart regarding beard styles
If you ever wondered whom to trust, this facial hair style guide should help.
Wednesday? Roundup for 04/21/2010
Hey, site's been down due to some webmaster (patthews) installing a messed up comment plugin to wordpress. The podcast is still being produced but not yet finished, and we're waiting until classes are over for the semester, but until then we're going to try to keep bringing you the Wednesday Roundups. This week's roundup features fonts, 3d printers, iPads and a rant on copyright.
This week's featured blog is McSweeney's. I'm not sure what they do, but they're everything I could have hoped to be. Crazy posts that seem to be exercises in creative writing with no real agenda and no common theme, but they have segments that repeat, like lists or mnemonics. This week's features posts are:
- Book club discussion questions for your tax return documents.
- A letter to that yoga teacher who uses too many metaphors.
- A prom accidentally themed for 1908 due to a typo.
- A list of quotes; are they from death metal or William Blake?
From Dudecraft:
From LifeHacker:
- What font should you use? This flowchart should help.
From BoingBoing:
- Apparently George Washington owed a lot of money in overdue library fines.
- I love things that acknowledge their place in the universe. This paper knows it's impaled in a binder.
- iPads are so intuitive that even a cat can use it!
- Commenters are actually referencing a real animal when they talk ALOT.
- The way to caption ever New Yorker cartoon that we featured last week also works for EVERY COMIC EVER!
- This video (game) hits way too close to home with how true it is. I really like how this guy uses his second life.
- If you didn't get enough longcat before, here's your fix.
- A time traveler in a picture from the 40's? Nope, all the facts check out, but he still looks weird if you ask me.
- A video on copyright. Please watch this. I can't agree enough on this point. <rant>I will someday produce music and I wish I could give digital copies away. For hard copies, obviously monies need to change hands, but for ones and zeroes it's just copying. If I ever become a famous musician I will still have a day job to make money because entertainment is art and recreation. Pay for tickets to shows, pay for physical copies of media, but for digital media I don't believe people should pay. If I can use my phone to go on youtube and listen to any song ever (especially on channels made by the artist) how is it different to have the song directly on my phone? That's a form of copying. If you watch TV at a friends house and they have TiVo so you can skip commercials, then the stations broadcasting the shows get NO MONEY from you and no ad revenue since you didn't watch the commercials, and that's the same as stealing the content. </rant>
From Make Online:
- I wish I had a 3d printer to print this mecanum wheel. Not only are 3d printers awesome, but look into this wheel, it's pretty amazing (here's a link to videos of the wheel in action on youtube).
- As far as things to print on a 3d printer, how about a Rubik's Cube?
- Apparently you can print directly from the screen of an iPad.
- CLOCK ALERT! I love this idea for a clock, and now you can make it yourself. (Or make on for me, my birthday is coming up soon...)
- Speaking of birthday's, these foldable robut sculptures are pretty neat.
From How Stuff Works:
From There I Fixed It:
- A car fashioned into an X-wing. Need I say more?
From Cake Wrecks:
- This one's for you, Joe! Cakes that are wrecked and dedicated to teachers.
Now for the comic roundup!
- Questionable Content has a strip about dinosaurs pooping coffee.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has a strip about how to end war on earth, with ironic consequences (don't forget to mouse-over the red button for a bonus panel).
Well, that's all I have for now, please stay tuned for next week's roundup, and the podcast will definitely start soon, don't give up on me now! See you next Wednesday!
Wednesday Roundup for 04/14/10
LADIES AND GENTLEMAN! I GIVE TO YOU, THE AMAZING FETTUCINI BROTHERS, ALFREDO AND BILL! what? alfredo and bill are off tonight? WELL, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, INSTEAD, I GIVE TO YOU, THE WEDNESDAY ROUNDUP!
This week's featured blog is Graph Jam, a part of the Cheezburger network. It takes pop culture (such as song lyrics or movie plots) and translates them into graphical representations. To get a good feel for them, I recommend Queen, DMX, and Simon and Garfunkel for music, and Freaky Friday, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Star Wars for movies. But they're not just all music and movies. You also get a sampling of daily life occurrences such as depression from too much turkey. On to this week's highlights.
- I don't have cable, but I love the History Channel.
- Let the gays do what they want, it really won't affect you.
From LifeHacker:
- This one's for you, Chris. iPhone OS 4.0 updates that weren't hyped, including new calculator button!
- It really is time to clean your comp, here's a guide on how to do it right.
From Boing Boing:
- The original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland.
- Really simple bookends that look great.
- First there was lolcat, then ceiling cat, then long cat. Now, standing cat.
- Craigslist ad looking for a long term bromance.
From Make Online:
- Using a mechanical method to dim a florescent bulb.
- Crazy science photos, I especially love the candle in the fishbowl.
- Mythbusters made from legos!
- Frank Lloyd Wright in legos!
- I love living in the future where robuts can carve motorcycle helmets from a single piece of aluminum.
- Crazy alarm clock: put the legs back into the exploded piano, but match the colors, and if you take too long the colors change.
- This guy has way to much time on his hands, but I love this misbehaving shadow prank.
- Robuts made from spare parts, be sure to check out the whole set for this one.
- Glasses made from beer bottles, reblown to make a tumbler shape. I'd love to pour the original beer back into one of these bottles... (my birthday is coming up soon, hint hint)
From Skepchick:
- VERY NSFW! This is a hilarious explanation for the latest ICP song (be sure to read the real lyrics, they'll blow your mind!)
From The Onion:
- "U.S. Flag Recalled After Causing 143 Million Deaths."
- "Meat Industry Introduces New Easy-Tear Perforated Beef."
- This article is subtly not racist, I think...
- After years of research, studies find that pushing and yelling does make things go faster.
- As airline fees go up, everyone, even non-fliers, feel the pinch.
From DudeCraft:
- That weird thing where people were painted to look like paintings, I said I'd find more out about it, here's the artist's site.
From How Stuff Works:
- The Treadmill Bike, putting two more steps between you and walking.
From Insanewiches:
- The new KFC Double Down is insane! But it still doesn't go as far as the quadruple down!
- A scale made from bacon.
From Cake Wrecks:
- Not everything on Cake Wrecks is terrible. This post is actually some great looking cakes and some sad stories, so watch out.
From Comics I Don't Understand:
- Nothing to do with comics, but it's terrible and funny, and I totally think that little boy is a single lady if he wants to think that.
From Square Root of Minus Garfield:
- If you've read House of Leaves (READ IT) then Garfield of Leaves makes sense and is awesomely funny.
From BizzaroBlog:
- Check out this comic, this guy is really funny and I love when characters interact with the panel, like in this comic.
From ChannelAte:
- I only hope that I can do this when I have kids someday.
From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:
- You just need to subscribe to this guy, all his comics are funny, always a gem a week, don't forget to mouse over the red dot for the extra panel. This week's topic, LOBSTERS!
From Real Life Comics:
- I know this guy just does cliches, but it hurts so much when they're true. I am this pathetic as well.
Well kids, it's been a swell roundup, hopefully next week we'll actually get this out on Wednesday. Until then, keep checking back here for your weekly doses of something or other!
Also, follow me on twitter @NotOftenDotCom
Placeholder text here
To save confusion (and because I've been busy this week, plus no one checks this site anyway) this week's Wednesday roundup will be posted no later than Friday. That is all, please go about your business.
The Four Types of Gamers Who Fill Me With Rage
As a developer, and avid gamer, I tend to have strong opinions about the industry. Most people who would describe themselves as "gamers" are great people who I can connect with. Then there are some, a minority if you will, who fill my vision with thoughts of maiming them. These things are not only the dregs of society, they are a crime against nature. Here in no particular order in a completely non exclusive list are the four types of gamers who fill me with rage:
1: Wannabe tournament players who go to free play sessions.
Every time I go down to an open play session for some fun semi- competitive play one of these douches enters the room. You can spot one from a mile away. He’s the guy with his own controller, smirking at a bunch of his bored looking friends he dragged out here to revel in his glory. There is an aura of contempt surrounding these man-children that makes me wish controllers still had cords so I could choke him out.
Nobody cares that we aren't playing “Halo” one on one, we aren’t competing for money. I swear to god I will show the back of my hand to the next person who complains about “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” because it’s not the original, and the original is so much better. Get over yourself; this is supposed to be a fun experience. Just because you can't pass the first round of a real tournament doesn’t mean you can shit on my good time. Go complain on a forum, or cry to your YouTube friends, I don't have time for trolls in real life.
The problem:
2: Shooter players with anger management problems.
If you are completely emotionally incapable of handling defeat you should not be playing shooters online. If this is you I have an alternative: it’s called single player. There, I promise you, the developers created an experience where you can be the hero, save the day, get the girl, be top of the leader boards.
I just want to sit down and play some multiplayer online. I can ignore the racist 14 year olds, obnoxious music spammers, and even the griefers. It’s the people who call cheats, or worse who actually cheat, when someone is skilled at the game. I will admit that most of the time I land somewhere in the middle of the score board. Do I take it as attack on my character? do I get hurt inside because my parents never loved me and I find solace in bullying strangers online? Absolutely not!
As a final note on emotionally unstable players: If you happen to be over 20 and are still continuing this behavior kindly remove yourself from humanity. You provide no value to society, and are a burden on our species.
This is the apex of his life.
3: Fanboys
I cannot fathom what it takes to instill brand loyalty into someone at the same level as sport. At least at the heart of a sports team is players not a commercial product, even though it might be hard to tell these days. Fanboys of consoles, franchises, PC hardware, etc. are the furries of the video game industry. They blindly buy and defend things regardless of their worth.
There are fanboys in every industry, but the ones in games have the time and the means to clog the internet with their garbage. Not only do fanboys keep franchises alive that should be left for dead (sonic anyone?), they impede progress. By having an extremely vocal minority shouting praise down the throats of creators they block the actual criticism from reaching the source. Without that vitial critism nothing will change, or get better, and we will end up with the “Werehog.”
The main argument against evolution.
4: People who play "Final Fantasy" for the story
Clearly the solution to a lack of any sort of tangible plot is to add more belts:
NOT ENOUGH BELTS
So there you have it. Again, this list is not complete; it's just what I could think of off the top of my head. Feel free to comment if you disagree. Fair warning: if you think I am wrong you must be in one of the four categories, and I hate you.
Wednesday Roundup for 04/07/2010
Well kids, I give up. We're moving this bit to Wednesdays. Tuesday is my day off, so I'll be able to "round up" every thing and start a post about it, but it won't be updated until Wednesday, so I figure we'll just call it what it is, the Wednesday Roundup. Let's get this party started right!
This week's featured blog is Make: Online. They post articles practically every hour with informative hacks, how to take things apart and put them back together, programming, robuts, and all sorts of great related nonsense. I've bookmarked so many articles from their site to build later when I have time (a boy can dream, though...) and lots of great ideas and concepts that make me say "Why didn't I think of that?" They also have a shop where you can purchase certain items they highlight and they have a print magazine with articles and explanations on how to... well... make. They also feature weekend projects complete with video instructions. This week's offerings from Make are:
- First up, a stop at the Makers Market for some interesting bird feeders made from stoplight lenses. It looks to me like that second one might discourage squirrel from eating the seeds.
- There's also a math feature (loved the bagel idea from one of the first posts) that updates Mondays with different math related projects. No two patterned hexagonal wooden structures are not on fire.
- I've always wanted to find a use for all those Lego levers, this giant Lego spider seems to be the perfect solution.
- "Papercraft Penguin Bomb." If that doesn't get you interested, I don't know what will. The army should definitely be using these, and I'd like to know how to make them (here's the switch that makes them go).
- Awesome coffee cup insulation idea.
- A biosphere project that went TWELVE TIMES longer than expected. Reminds me of NOTHING ELSE.
From The Onion:
- Large Earth Collider may cause some problems for Earth... Reminds me of the Super Monkey Collider.
- Studying freakonomics reminds me of abusing dimensional analysis when comparing statistics against constants.
From Boing Boing:
- This week's inspiring video on free speech. I'm an advocate for free speech and I hate copyrights (ALL OF THE MATERIAL PROVIDED BY NOTOFTEN.COM IS FREE FOR EVERYONE AND I CAN SAY ANYTHING I WANT HERE AND I CAN EVEN SAY IT IN ALL CAPS IF I WANTED TO!). I completely agree with Philip Pullman here, no one has to read this site and if you do, complain about it or make your own, but don't stop me from making this.
- Just so I can be relevant, here's some info on the iPad: Yes, it blends.
- Cthulhu, in snack form.
- I've seen this a few other places, but I think BB got it first: in the future, robots will do our bidding, and our laundry.
- Geeky edibles.
- Gyroscopes in space! Physics at its best!
- Awesome repurposing of a Hummer.
- I don't read The New Yorker often, but apparently there is a caption contest that is very easy to win. Reminds me of Nietzsche Family Circus (when I opened that link to post here, this was the first one up).
From Picture is Unrelated:
- I don't like their video player (embedded YouTube plzthxkbai!) but this scene is truly unrelated.
- BUSTACHE!
From This is Why You're Fat:
- EASTER EDITION! First up, dessert sushi made from peeps!
- Lollipops with "pink" velvet cake inside.
From Failblog:
- I hate when shutdown is preventing me from shutting down.
- This one made me CQTM (chuckle quietly to myself) because it's such a stupid pun.
- Everything's better with bacon.
- Again, another stupid embedded video, but really funny. Do they redraw the lotto if this happens?
From Nic Cage As Everyone:
- This is a relatively new blog, so I haven't found much to share from it yet. All the posts are mildly funny, but this one was the first one that really got a laugh out of me: Nic Cage as Maria Von Trapp.
From Cake Wrecks:
- April Fool's Day was last week, I love these cake related ideas to prank people.
From GraphJam:
- Dating is difficult, black people and white people are different, also airplane food is unacceptable. Men and women have irreconcilable differences as well.
From Dudecraft:
- Super heroes as religious icons.
- There's a party on my head and you're invited?
From Passion for Puzzles:
- A rubik's cube without the middles. I thought the middles were the most important part, where all the rotating happens. Just keep in mind that my birthday is coming up soon...
From Richard Wiseman's Blog:
- See if you can figure out how this line segment optical illusion works.
From Mighty Optical Illusions:
- A wiener dog based on the elephant with too many yet not enough legs or that tuning for with two or three tines depending on how you look at it. Bonus, this dog is animated.
From Bad Astronomy:
- Big news from last week was the moon of Saturn, Mimas, heats up unevenly in a very specific way.
From Skepchick:
- Even little kids can be skeptical, this is a very heartwarming story that makes me think that future generations can be critical thinkers.
- GET YOUR KIDS VACCINATED! SERIOUSLY! Man, I really wish I had gotten a flu shot last year so I wouldn't have gotten swine flu. I'm just glad I've been vaccinated for measles, mumps, rubella, etc.
From Real Life Comics:
- I try to be interesting, but sometimes I fail at it, just like this guy.
From XKCD:
- Make sure you read the mouseover text for this one, I think it really puts my problems into context.
Alright kids, that's it. We're done. Grab your protein shake and hit the sauna, we've made it through another roundup! I guess I'll see you next... Wednesday?
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- Don’t be a hater
- Welcome to 1996!
- What is google reader and how do I use it?
- The End of Wednesday Roundup… The start of Blog Review for 04/28/2010
- A chart regarding beard styles