Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Homeopathy is a lie, and other frustrations with modern idiocy.

I'ill just get the first part out of the way.

Homeopathy is a lie.  Homeopathic practitioners are liars, fools, and/or idiots.

Homeopathy presumes to work on "resonance", which is an unproven pseudoscientific idea (calling it a theorem or a hypothesis is too kind, it is neither of these) that chemicals maintain a "memory" of atoms they have bumped in to.  This is ludicrous, and completely unfounded.  If that was the case, then every drop of water we drink would have the resonant "memory" of dirt, shit, piss, blood of various species, diseases, salt, mercury, the various organic compounds that compose what we refer to as "oil", semen of various species, just an incomprehensible amount of chemicals which water has come in to contact with over the eons of geological history.  But it doesn't, of course, because the homeopathic "vibrations" concept is utter bullshit.

Following on that, one of the basic principles of homeopathy is that the more dilute a solution is, the stronger it is.  This is because to prepare a homeopathic "remedy", one puts a small amount of it in water, then shakes it, and then dilutes that further, then shakes it, then dilutes it further-- supposedly making it stronger each time.  This goes against every single basic concept of chemistry.  The reason one dilutes concentrated sulfuric acid is to WEAKEN its effect, not to strengthen it.  And we shake/stir/etc our goddamend H2NO3 quite well thank you very much, you fucking lying, thieving charlatans.

But even worse than that, they also try to claim that they can violate the laws of physics and statistics with their remedies.  Their "strongest" solutions are so dilute that they pass a crucial point in chemistry and physics-- Avagadro's Number.  This is roughly 6*10^23-- once a dilution gets past this point, there is only a chance of there being one single molecule of the substance in the mixture.  Some of the "strongest" medicines are so dilute that there is only a one in a million chance of there being only one molecule in the mixture.  This is equivalent to taking a grain of rice, grinding it in to a powder, and then mixing it in to a pool of water the size of the solar system, then adding the same amount of water a couple dozen times, and then taking a single sip out of that mass of water.

THAT... is fucking dilute.  The reason I rage so hard about this, aside from being professionally offended as a chemist who knows that every lie they spout confuses the scientifically illiterate, is that they're fooling people.  Stealing their money by selling miracle water and snake oil.  They're liars, they're cheats, they're worthless trash and scum, every single one of them, and yet they make millions and even billions off of ripping poor, unfortunate folk off, people who don't really understand the science (or lack thereof) behind this quack system of remedies.  They prey on fears, taking advantage of people who are afraid of anthrax attacks.  They prey on the unfortunate, selling miracle water to cancer patients and ripping them off as the cancer patient suffers and gets worse because of their lies.





There's plenty of this crap going around.  Faith healing, psychics, ghost whisperers, and other liars prey on the grieving, the unfortunate, the suffering.  These aren't merely hobbyists, no, if that were the case they'd be magicians/conjurers, doing it for entertainment value.  No, they're predators.

To a lesser extent, this sort of thing has involved itself in the political system of the US as well.  People believe what they want to believe-- damn the facts!  Obama is a jew-hating muslim who wants to sell us to the chinese!  Romney will force everyone to take multiple wives!  Bush is a backbiting hick who sold the country to private military contractors!  And so on and so forth.  People allow themselves to be distracted by the spectacle of it all, they get caught up in the emotional lies that are told to gain their support.

Doesn't matter which side you're on-- think for yourself, not for your party.  Skeptical thinking should be applied to people you disagree with, certainly, but even moreso it should be applied to those you agree with, because they're the ones that can fool you the easiest otherwise.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

DVD Burning is a pain in the ass.

Every single dvd burning software is full of bugs, bloatware, spyware, bugs and bloatware, bugs and spyware, or bugs and bloatware and spyware.  No exceptions.

They all require me to jump through hoops just to get their basic fucking functions to work-- just to burn data to a dvd so I can back up files and save space on my hard drive.

Every single time I try to burn a dvd something goes wrong and I have to spend hours fixing it-- and, inevitably, the customer service of every single one of these programs sucks more proverbial ass than a gay black hole with a scat fetish, telling you a few basic things you need to do, then ignoring you after you say you've done them (or just repeating them, which means they're probably actually forum bots rather than real human beings).  

ArcSoft, Nero, DeepBurner,  CDBurnerXP-- no exceptions.  They're all like this.  Why the hell can't someone create a simple, barebones dvd burner for backing up files that actually WORKS without having to reconfigure your computer a dozen times and restart it half another?

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

So, I've been reading Left Behind

... I honestly don't know if I've ever read a more abhorrent book, that goes so contrary against Christian beliefs.  Even satanist books offer more for the soul than this tripe-- because even most satanist books don't pray for the end times to come so that all non-believers (and most believers who aren't part of their specific denomination) can burn in hell for eternity.

Yes indeed, that's exactly what this book prays for.  It's not an uplifting book.  It is a veritable "take that" at anyone who doesn't believe in the author's skewed and hypocritical version of so-called Christianity.  And this book is an American best seller.

For those that don't know yet (IE those outside of the US and those with little exposure to evangelistic movements), Left Behind is a series of atrociously written books about a skewed and inaccurate, and often hypocritical, view of "rapture" and the end times-- oftentimes pulled from sources other than the bible.

It follows two misogynistic, homophobic, occasioanlly racist, and even biased against left-handers (What.) "heroes", a sociopathic (and occasionally psychopathic)  pilot who constantly uses and strings along women, emotionally cheating on his wife despite his constant assertions that it's okay cause his pants never came off, and a "greatest reporter of all time", who never actually does any real reporting, and conveniently ignores all of the death and destruction around, to instead go hunt Jews.

And before you forget, these are supposed to be their GOOD side.  For reference, another supposedly good character is a doctor that helps stop the pilot's head from bleeding.  Sounds nice?  But wait, there's more.  He sat there complaining about BOREDOM, while outside the window of the airport were dozens of wrecked planes, the bodies not yet pulled from their flaming carcasses, the wounded not yet cared for.  The so-called heroes are more concerned with the fact that all of this death and destruction is slowing down their travel than they are about the fact that all of the world's children vanished at once, including their own.


And this is exactly how the author says you should act.  These are not Christian books.    These are ugly, hateful, spiteful books, books that in their poor writing don't offer a hand of salvation but instead waggle a finger of "oh, just wait for the end times, because THEN you'll be sorry!".  The emotions it extols from its readers are not the Christian emotions of love, acceptance, and joy-- but instead of vindication, wrath, and juvenile jealousy and hate.

These are the kinds of books the supposed anti-Christ would write, except at least said mythological (and not necessarily biblical) anti-Christ would write a more competent and interesting book than this.

And they sell them at bookstores in colleges around the nation.

I'm scared, hold me.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Duke Nukem Forever

Pardon the shortness of this entry, I'm using a keyboard with a broken space bar, it's tiring to type too much right now.

So a lot of people are really hating on this-- and I honestly can't figure out why.   The game is great fun, it has a sense of humor, it's well paced, has good variety... it's certainly no game of the decade, but it's still hella better than games such as the CoD/MoH/BF series as far as single player goes.

The driving sections which I normally despise, are short enough with enough breaks in them to stay acceptable, the shrink ray sections I wish were more frequent (not necessarily longer, but in more places) but they're still excellently done and played with quite well, the normal FPS gameplay is superbly done, etc etc etc.  The only real problem I had with it was the alien hive, which was just... too dark.  Not metaphorically dark (no, that art fits in quite well), but literally too dark, too... colorless.  Sure the Nevada desert areas are a bit drab, but at least they have an old west appeal going for them, and they aren't quite as monochrome and visually dark and... well, boring.  The casino/duke's hotel was excellent, and I enjoyed the water battles at the end as well.

The weapons are nicely varied, with only the M1911A1 being taken from the real world (though the shotgun is at least feasibly an RL shotgun), the sounds are excellently composed, and the storyline works as well as any Duke storyline has, which is to say, it's an excuse to kick ass.  Hearing duke actually pissed of (and not just dryly saying he's pissed off like normal) was an excellent touch for this duke nukem fan.

All in all... I've spent ~50 bucks on far worse than this.  Certainly I have no regrets, unlike my purchases of BFBC2 and CoD:BO.

Friday, March 4, 2011

As predicted....

...I forgot about this blog.

But then, given the name of the blog, that's probably expected!   Recently, I received Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 and R.U.S.E. for my birthday, and purchased DoW2: Retribution and Homefront for myself with my own money.  So I have had a lot to play over Feb and continue to have tons to play over Mar, to say the least.

R6V2 is a wonderful procedural shooter, although not as complex a shooter as SWAT 4 it makes up for it by not being as brain-bustingly hard and yet still retains replayability.  Its character customization is awesome, and I really regret not getting this game in its prime.  But to be fair, I have the first Rainbow 6, and it sucked more than a black hole crackwhore on a money run, so I had good reason to shy away from everything Tom Clancy.  That said, the gameplay well above adequate and the storyline continues from the first Rainbow 6 to a very good twist at the end, which I won't spoil for you (but then if you're interested in the game you probably already have it anyway).

R.U.S.E. is a very well done RTS game, with a somewhat simplistic approach to units and control, but it's made up for by the use of intelligence and the titular ruses.  Things like switching units on the radar so infantry appears like tanks and tanks appear like infantry in a sector, or putting camo netting on buildings for a sector, a fake (and completely free) tank assault force in which to distract the enemy by making them think you're massing in a certain sector or simply to hide actual tank units in.  Despite its apparent simplicity, it has complexity through its ruses and intelligence scheme.   It does have its issues though, the factions don't appear at all balanced, but that might just be me.  I haven't gone to the forums since the beta to see what the overall opinion on balance is, so I'm not gonna dwell too much on that.

Dawn of War 2: Retribution is the second expansion to the second installment of Relic's 40k license for RTS games, and it improves on the series even more than Chaos Rising (the first expansion) did.  With the addition of the Imperial Guard, the game actually feels semi-complete as far as forces go (the four remaining factions being somewhat niche, despite the fact that I like most of them at least in concept).  The Guard are done extremely well, and truly feel different from the other factions with their weak and cheap shooty units, supported by excellent vehicles and auxiliary units such as Ogryns.  The campaign picks up ten years after Chaos Rising's campaign, with the Ordo Malleus (Order of the Hammer-- the daemon hunters) arm of the Inquisition deciding they've had just about enough of the daemonic/heretic infestation in the sector after well over ten years of constant uprising and daemonic infestations, and so they're just going to destroy every habitable world in the sector, and your faction is, for whatever reasons, attempting to stop it.

Homefront hasn't come out yet, but I will try to remember to write a review of it when I get it on the fifteenth.

Good day to y'all :)

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

So, World of Tanks!

I must say, I greatly enjoyed this.  But it had a bit of trouble holding my attention.  Though it isn't purely a sim (having a cross between being sim and MMO), it still is one at heart-- and I don't particularly like sims.  I don't play games for realism, I play games to ESCAPE reality, because reality sucks. 

That said,  it is certainly a great game. The controls are relatively smooth, with aiming being a breeze as it's done via mouse (or by turning, if your tank doesn't have a turret), movement is with the usual WASD keys, and it's great fun blasting away at tanks with a tank destroyer.

The balance could be a bit better though.  American tanks feel so weak and limited-- there's no tank destroyers for them either.  The game is basically all about the Russian and German tanks.  A pity you can't play a Wolvering tank hunter, or one of the other American tank hunters.  Or heck, even one of the British tanks.  They're adding in French tanks, but I really wonder what exactly they plan on doing there what with there being basically no France to produce tanks for much of WWII in the first place.

Still, on the basis of gameplay alone, it's a very enjoyable game.  There's no real story, there's no single player, there's just you, fourteen buddies, and a bunch of enemy tanks to shoot at.  It's simple and fun, and if you're into tank battles I whole-heartedly recommend it.  While I am not myself a huge fan of vehicular combat (preferring to play infantrymen/women), I still greatly enjoyed this game.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

I normally don't discuss religion...

... but this has come up so many times recently, what with all of the hateful protests by Christians in my neck of the woods (Texas), against homosexuality, against other religions, or... well... pretty much anything they can attempt to use religion to justify.  Sometimes even violent opposition..

My response to it is thus:  Jesus states that the two most important laws are to love god, and to love thy neighbor.  All other laws are subservient to these two.  No other law is more important than these two.  The god of Christianity desires, above all else, love.  Those who preach hate... are the furthest from their god.  They do not know the laws of their own religion, they do not know the true meaning behind the laws.  They deserve both your pity and prayer.

I don't really intend to go further on this topic.  The hate disgusts me and makes me angry beyond belief-- which is my own failing.  Even still, however, I hope someday that they come to understand their faith and come to know how to love those they disagree with, just as they love those who agree with them.



edit:

To give a citation:  Any [u]real[/u] Christian should know these and take them to heart.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (NIV, Mark 12:28-31).

And this:
 
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise." (NIV, Luke 10:25-37 )


With two men or two women so divinely blessed with God's greatest gift of love between eachother, how can you hate them. or dislike them, or wish to do them harm, or wish to disrupt their joy between eachother when it has no effect on you? The command given by God and affirmed as the greatest commandment by Jesus was to love them. Cherish their love between eachother, just as you would cherish the love between yourself and your own spouse, and cherish them as good neighbors and friends. If you can't do that, you've failed the most important commandment in God's law-- and you not only hurt them, but also yourself, because through your hate you distance yourself from God.