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A really weird date

Oh man, I just remembered the weirdest date I ever had.  There was this smoking hot chick who was in one of my college classes.  I had a huge crush on her.  I finally got the courage to ask her out and she actually said yes.

I went to her house to take her out, a movie or something, I can’t remember.  However, while I was waiting in her parents’ living room for her to get ready, I lit up a cigarette (filter-less, because I’m a badass).  I couldn’t find an ashtray, but I found this little old trunk in the next room so I brought it out into the living room to put my ashes in, big mistake.  Little did I know that the chick’s grandfather was an archaeologist and he stole the trunk from the Nazis.  It turned out to be the Ark of the Covenant. Upon opening it the forces of Yahweh were released.  It didn’t go medieval on everyone’s ass, it went biblical.  Everyone in the house had their souls sucked out of their eyes.  Except for me.  Being a soulless atheist, I was left alone.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  After everyone was killed and had their souls sucked to hell, the entity separated into God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  They had nothing to do, so we all went to a local bar and got blasted together.  God can really fucking drink.  And Jesus can really make some good wine.  (Although the owner was pissed we were drinking for free.  That bastard starting charging us for the water to make the wine.)  The Holy Spirit was just freaky.  It’s just an ethereal cloudish type thing.  If you look right at it, you can’t see it. You only sort of feel its presence when you glance at it out of the corner of your eye.  I don’t know for sure, but I swear every time I went to the bathroom it’d come in and watch.  Freaky.

At first it was fucking awesome hanging out with the creator of the universe.  He had the best fucking stories. Like, I bet you didn’t know that dinosaurs farted helium!  God thought that if farts were lighter than air, they’d float away and we’d never have to smell them.  Awesome, right?  But after a while God started talking about how he loves “fucking with the jews.” “I enslaved them in Egypt, I got them lost in the desert, I gave them fucked up dietary laws, I killed 6 million of them, and I never even gave their belief system a heaven, but they still pray to me.  Suckers.”

It got kinda weird after that, so I tried to bring Jesus into the conversation and asked him why there is always so much suffering in Africa. God interrupted Jesus and loudly said, “Oh, I just fucking hate niggers. Worst fucking mistake I ever made.” He then stood up and thew a heavy glass pitcher of beer at a waitress killing her instantly.  He yelled out, “I gave you life and I can take it away, bee-atch.”  He tried to give me a high-five, but I pretended like I didn’t see his hand up.  He sat back down and glared at me.  If I had a soul, I would have been so dead right then.

I looked over at Jesus.  I could tell he was really bothered by his dad.  He sat there with his head bowed down sobbing a little bit into his hands.  I asked him if he wanted to get out of there.  We went to a restaurant I knew about.  We were sitting in the back and just shooting the shit.  Talking about his life and some really cool stuff.  But finally he got real quiet and starting crying.  He finally looked up at me told me that God sent his mom to hell. 

I asked, “I thought she gave birth to you without sin?”  He replied, “Oh she lived without sin, but she died without being baptized.  I tried to talk dad out of sending her to hell, but he said, ‘rules are rules.’  So she’s in hell now and every day she’s forced to drink lava until she horribly melts away. I try not to think about it.  It’s just horrible to watch.”

Jesus kept talking, “The reason why there’s so much suffering in the world is because my dad’s a first class ass.  You know why the dinosaurs died off?  Because he wanted to watch ‘em die.  He thought it would “funny,’ his exact word.”  Jesus then asked if he could crash at my place because he wanted to get away from his dad for a while.  Of course I said yes.  He stayed about a month before going to back to heaven.

While he was living with me he taught me some pretty cool guitar licks, although I’ve long since forgotten most of them.  (I really should have recorded them.)  However, one sounded almost exactly like Stairway to Heaven, but it was played in a different key.  He was really proud of it, so I didn’t say anything about him ripping off Jimmy Page.  He also made me a dog out of clay.  It only lived a few months, though.  I still have the clay packed away in the attic.  I wasn’t sure if I should have buried it or not.  It seemed kind of weird burying clay.

I really felt bad for him, having such an ass for a father, but I was kind of glad he finally left.  You wouldn’t believe the trash he’d bring home to fuck.  The guy has no standards at all.  I still have nightmares about that last threesome he talked me into. 

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Book Dumb

A plaintiff in a case was accused of “screaming every name in the book” at an attorney during his deposition. Much later, at trial, the plaintiff was on the witness stand and the defense attorney (not the one who was screamed at) asked,

So did you scream every name in the book at attorney Soandso?

The highly educated plaintiff responded,

I certainly did not scream every name in the book at attorney Soandso. And, besides, you have not even told me what book we’re talking about.

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We’ve got to have faith

Yes, George Michael was right. We’ve got to have faith. In fact, our society would not be able to function without faith. The Bible defines faith as “evidence for things unseen.” So we’re all people of faith. Yes, even though I’m an atheist, I have faith. Just not in a deity.

I’ll give an example. Right now I have no empirical evidence that my truck is still in the parking lot. But I have a belief that it is still there. That belief is faith, as it is not supported by any empirical evidence. So it’s quite apparent that having faith is not a bad thing. We would be unable to function without it. However, it can be a bad thing when it’s taken to an extreme.

There are two possible extremes. The first is a complete skeptic who believes in nothing, contrary despite evidence. The second is a dogmatist who believes in something, despite contrary evidence.

There are two types of complete skeptics. The first would be someone who never believes anything without empirical evidence. That would be someone who parks his car and immediately stops believing in it when he can no longer see it. I personally don’t know anyone like this. And I’m actually skeptical that such a person could function outside of a mental institution.

Another type of complete skeptic would be what I’ll call a philosophic skeptic. That’d be a person who doesn’t believe in anything even if he does have empirical evidence. He’d refuse to believe in the existence of his own vehicle even if he saw it first hand. He’d argue that the mere fact that he can see it is of no consequence because he can see objects in his dreams or in hallucinations that do not exist. Such a person could also not function in our society outside of a mental institution or a philosophy department at an Ivy League university.

The other extreme is the dogmatist who continues having faith despite empirical evidence to the contrary. These people exist all around us.

Imagine visiting a friend. You pull into his empty driveway and park your car. You go into his house and start talking to him. He starts talking about his new muscle car parked in his driveway. You tell him, “There is no muscle car in the driveway, Other than my car, it’s empty.” He argues that it must be there because he received a letter from the dealer saying it would be delivered by then. He refuses to investigate the missing muscle car himself as he relies completely on his faith in the dealer’s letter that it’s there.

Since he refuses to go outside with you, you go out and take a picture of his driveway. You show it to him and he says, “That’s not an entire picture of my driveway, my muscle car could be parked behind you.”

So you go out again and take a picture of the entire driveway. You show it to him and he says, “My muscle car could be behind your car.”

So you go out, move your car, and take a picture of his completely empty driveway. You show it to him and he might say, “That’s a pretty good photoshop of my driveway, but my muscle car is still there. My faith in my dealer’s letter is unwavering.” Or he could get even crazier and say, “Wow, your evidence is so amazing. Your evidence proves that my new muscle car is invisible! Thanks a lot!”

However, as I’ll show, that “crazier” response is more common than you would think.

Ask yourself; wouldn’t that visit with your friend be sort of frustrating? If you didn’t just give up and leave, you’d at least stop talking about his muscle car to avoid any further nonsense. Now you know why it is considered impolite to have real discussions about religion with believers. It’s pure nonsense. Now you also know what it’s like for an atheist to debate with a Christian or any other theist over dogma or the existence of god. It’s very fucking frustrating.

A Christian will say, “How else can you explain how we got here? Clearly the only answer is that God created and put us here.” A scientist could answer that question and show the empirical evidence supporting evolution to that Christian, but it won’t matter. The Christian will either dogmatically refuse to believe the evidence or will completely accept the evidence and say something “crazier” such as, “Evolution is how God operates to create our world. Thanks for proving the existence of God for me.” The atheist would be pulling out his hair and screaming, “You asked for a system in which we could exist without a God, I provided evidence of such a system, but yet you turn it around as proof that there is a God?! How does that make any fucking sense?!”

This has happened in the past. The Bible specifically states that there is a firmament, i.e., a physical wall, separating earth from Heaven. However, there is no firmament in the sky and there is no physical evidence for Heaven. But there was a time when it was considered heretical to say that.

However, nowadays hardly any Christian believes there is a firmament. And because science has disproved any notion of a physical Heaven, Christians now believe that Heaven is not a physical place in the sky, but is an ethereal “place” which could never be proved or disproved by empirical evidence. These Christians are exactly like the guy above who thinks his new muscle car is invisible. “Thanks for proving to me there is no firmament. That proves my point exactly, that Heaven is not a mere physical place, but is a magical wonderland which could only be created or understood by God.”

If you’re a Christian of strong faith, that’s fine with me. I have no problem with your faith at all. But you might want to ask yourself if you really want to be that hypothetical muscle car owner from above. Especially like that crazy guy who believes his muscle car is invisible.

Update – April 10, 2012:

A great comment to a Dear Margo advice column. A woman wrote in with, I’ll admit, a petty complaint. Her friend was finally able to conceive three children because of medical science. The woman was annoyed that the friend was not giving credit to science, but was calling it a “miracle.”

Now certainly it was not a miracle. An event which occurred as planned cannot be considered miraculous if the term is to retain any meaning.

But Christians don’t care about such things. Someone left a comment saying, “You object to her saying that it was a miracle! Well, it was. Thank God for modern science.”

I’m sorry, but that is idiotic. If God wanted the woman to have children, he could have allowed her to have children through his pure will. The only reason she was allowed to have children was because of medical science. Thus, it deserves the thanks, not God.

People used to pray for future events to occur in a favorable way. Some people realized that prayers weren’t working. So they set out to fix their own problems. Some of it was BS, e.g., alchemy. But, some of it actually worked. Through trial and error, which eventually developed into the scientific method, infertile women can now give birth to children.

Praising God for the results of this hard work demeans the scientists and medical professionals who made it possible. As well as the original egg donor.

If the woman wants to delude herself into thinking God did it. That’s fine. But she should give thanks and credit to the men and women who made it possible.

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No sympathy for the greedy devil

An old man was ripped off by a real estate scam. He lost his life savings of $50,000. However, I don’t fee sorry for him at all.

He’s suing the person and company that ripped him off and in his complaint he makes the following statement:

“Under the guise of legitimate investment opportunity, Defendants procure funds from unwitting investors by promising, among other things, exorbitant returns.”

There’s an old expression that’s highly appropriate here. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

This old fart completely admits that the deal offered by the scammer was exorbitant, aka, unreasonably high, excessive, inordinate, extravagant, and undue, but despite the clear warning, he took the deal anyway. Think about it, this guy you’ve never met has discovered a trick to make an unreasonably high, excessive, inordinate, extravagant, and undue amount of money, but yet he’s going to share it with you, a complete fricken stranger?!

If the scammer would have broken into the old man’s house and took his $50,000, I’d feel some sympathy. But when you operate on greed, you reap what you sow.

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Why Hybrid Tube/Solid State Guitar Amps Aren’t The Worst of Both Worlds

I’ve recently written about the differences between tube and solid state amps.

On a related topic, many guitar amp manufacturers are now selling hybrid tube/solid state amplifiers. Most guitarists look down at those with thinly veiled contempt. Basically, such amps are said to be the worst of both worlds.

I have to disagree. There are two types of such hybrid amps and both kind are perfectly suited for particular purposes.

The first is a tube pre-amp/solid state power amp. These are perfect for general purpose blues, rock, pop, country, jazz, etc. People who play such music want the gentle and subtle clipping offered from real tube preamps. Such a hybrid amp would give players the natural sound they want, with a lot of volume, at a much lower cost than a pure tube amp.

The second is a solid state preamp/tube power amp hybrid. These are perfect for hard rock players and metal heads. Such players don’t care about the subtle clipping offered by over-driven tube preamps. They get their clipping from distortion pedals. But they do want the mmph which can only be delivered by a 100 watt tube powered head. A 100 watt tube driven amp/half stack/full stack is loud to the extent that it actually pushes air. (Maybe that’s why metal heads usually wear so much hair spray?)

Now I’ll admit, in a perfect world, someone who wants a tube sound would be better off with a pure tube amp. However, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where we’re occasionally forced to make compromises. And a tube/solid state guitar amp is not a bad compromise to make if your funds are low and you get the one that suits your needs.

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Using Copyright to Encourage More Infringement

There are law firms out there which are basically extorting money from victims. Their M.O. is to get IP addresses for an entire swarm of people downloading porn via bittorrent and then sending out “settlement” offers via the ISP.

For those who don’t settle the firm files a lawsuit against the IP addresses and requests subpenas from the courts to force the ISPs to turn over the customers names and addresses.

Then more “settlement” offers are made. And if those are rejected, the remaining swarm are added to the lawsuit by name.

Of course the threat of having your name publicly attached to a lawsuit about porn infringement embarrasses enough people to just settle.

What’s odd is that the files they’re suing over are almost always porn parodies. In looking through their cases on Westlaw we have the following: XXX Avengers, Supergirl XXX An Extreme Comixxx Parody, Big Bang Theory: A XXX Parody, The Office: A XXX Parody, My Little Panties #2, and Batman XXX: A Porn Parody.

As others have commented on, it seems odd to rely on parodies for copyright infringement lawsuits because there’s the whole additional layer of whether or not the producer of the porn even has a valid copyright on it. You certainly have a fair use right to make a parody Batman, but you probably don’t have the right to take the copyrighted Batman character and stick him into your parody.

But, upon thinking about it, relying on porn parodies makes sense because these firms are intentionally trying to maximize the pool of infringers so they can force more settlements. If the file was merely entitled “blonde.takes.it.all.avi,” who would find it? maybe a few. Maybe it’d get a hundred downloads.

But if you name it after a popular TV show or movie, suddenly it’s showing up in hundreds of thousands of search results. What fan of the Big Bang Theory wouldn’t think, “Oh my god, a porn parody of my favorite show, I’ve got to check it out.”

This is how desperate these firms are for money. They don’t want to stop infringement. They’re not trying to protect copyrights. No. They want to encourage infringement. Even by trying to trick people who would never typically download porn into downloading porn.

Typically such behavior is called extortion. But in the crazy world of copyrights, it’s a perfectly legal business model.

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Why Do Tube Amps Sound Louder Than Solid State Amps?

It’s a common belief among guitarists that tube amps are louder than solid state amps. I’ve seen little 30 watt tube amps blow away ginormous 100 watt solid state amps. This is not a myth, it’s a fact. Here’s why.

First, it must be pointed out that watts are watts. Tube wattage is not different from solid state wattage. It’s simply ohm’s law.

W = I2 x R

By any objective measure, 50 watts from a tube amp is identical to 50 watts from a solid state.

So why do tube amps sound louder?

It comes down to two things. How the wattage of amps are rated and how tube amps clip/distort differently from solid state amps.

An amplifier’s wattage rating is not a measurement of its maximum output. The wattage of an amplifier is rated at its highest output without clipping.*

Here’s a picture to show what clipping is:

As the wattage is increased, the amplifier reaches a threshold where the highest outputs are clipped off. This clipping causes distortion. In a PA system, it would suck. In a bass amp this would suck. But guitar players use this clipping to modify and add to their sound.

The next part of the puzzle is this: tube amps clip different than solid state amps.

Tube amps clip gradually as the wattage is increased while solid state amps remain clean until they’re suddenly very clipped/distorted.

The gradual clipping of a tube amp adds to the flavor of a guitar. A guitar player using a tube amp can play harder to get more clipping and play softer to play smoother. These subtle nuances add character to a player’s sound. The sudden massive clipping of a solid state simply sounds like shit. There are no subtle clipping nuances with a solid state amp, it’s either not clipped or fully clipped.

Based on the foregoing, manufacturers of solid state amps set their volume knobs to nearly 10 before the clipping starts. So to get a 50 watt solid state to full wattage, you have to turn it up nearly all the way.

Manufactures of tube amps know that guitar players want clipping, so they take that into consideration when they set their volume knobs. So a tube amp reaches its maximum wattage at a much lower volume setting. Probably 3/4 of the way up. Sure it’s clipping past that point, but it’s a warm and good sounding clipping.

So if you turn up a solid state and a tube amp to 10, the solid state is pushing its full 50 watts, and probably sounds like shit because that bad clipping would be starting (unless its a very high quality solid state amp such as a Fender or a Roland**). while the tube amp would be pushing more than 50 watts. The tube amp would be clipping, but it would be that good sounding clipping.

And of course a 50 watt tube amp set to 5 is putting out more watts than a 50 watt solid state amp set to 5.

I should point out that I’m not arguing that tube amps are “better” than solid state amps. I’ve owned plenty of solid state amps in my life and only a few tube amps. And furthermore, objectively speaking, solid state amps are cleaner and are less prone to clipping. However, subjectively people like the sound and warmth of tube amps more, despite their objective faults. Well, that’s not right. People like the sound and warmth of tube amps more because of those faults.

*This is how the wattage of quality amplifiers are rated. Measuring the maximum output including clipping is one way how low-quality amplifier manufacturer’s cheat. Another way they cheat is by measuring the peak and not the average (RMS) wattage. Thus you can find 2000 watt amplifiers for only 77 bucks on Amazon. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

** Speaking of high quality solid state amplifiers, back in the early 90s I used a Fender Princeton Chorus. It was only 50 watts, but it rocked. Actually, it was even less than 50 watts. It was actually two 25 watt amplifiers in stereo. So basically I was playing through two 25 watt amps each into its own 10″ speaker.

But it was loud. Not as loud as the singer’s tube Fender Twin (which I think was rated at 25 watts), but plenty loud enough. I never had any problems at any show we played.

Generally speaking, the vast majority of tube amps are of a high quality. There simply is not a market for low quality tube amps.

However, the vast majority of solid state amps sold are of a lower quality. A 25 watt Crate solid state from the 80s would never have been loud enough to play in a band. I know because I used an 80′s built 75 watt Crate 2×12 combo in the early 90s and it was not loud enough. (Luckily some one gave it to me for free.)

So if two guitar players are in a room, one with a tube amp and one with a solid state amp, statistically speaking, the tube amp is going to be of a much higher quality than the solid state. As I explained above, that’s going make the differences in volume much more apparent.

However, if the solid state was a Fender or a Roland, there would be no discussion of, “Why is your little amp so much louder than mine?”

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Copyright Maximalists or Middlemen Protectionists?

Every so often a Copyright Maximalist gets caught violating copyright. For example, France’s President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was accused of violating copyright. SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith has been accused of infringing a photographer’s copyright.

People are outraged by this. They consider it hypocritical. How can someone demand stronger copyright laws, but then ignore the laws currently on the books?! It doesn’t seem to make any sense.

However, it does make sense. Copyright Maximalists don’t give a frick about protecting copyrights. A better term to describe them would be Middlemen Protectionists.

These people don’t give a frick about the rights of some photographer. But they are highly concerned if Viacom or Disney feels their profits are insufficient.

When a powerful status quo corporation, which derives all of its profits collecting government granted monopoly rents, wants government protection, the Middlemen Protectionist are the first to jump up to help. They’ll demand new draconian laws. They’ll gladly dump the first amendment and due process to give their middlemen buddies higher profits.

But if a photographer wants a bowl of gruel to compensate him for his work, the Middlemen Protectionist just lights up another cigar and laughs.

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Christmas on Venus and Mars

A woman wrote “Ask Amy” for advice concerning her husband. The wife complains that she does all the preparations for Christmas and her husband does nothing. She wants to quit and let her husband suffer the consequences.

I find it hilarious that men are supposed to know that men and women view things differently, but women expect men to view things the exact same way they do.

Let’s imagine if this woman carries out her threat. You know what will happen? Nothing.

The wife will complain that if she doesn’t do the baking, there will be no Christmas cookies and crumpets. However, if her husband really wanted Christmas baked goods, he’d simply buy some.

I’m sure the wife will complain that the Christmas cards wouldn’t get sent out if her husband was in charge. And she’s absolutely right. But the thing is, we don’t give a fuck about cards. If we want to wish someone holiday cheer, we’ll wish them that cheer when we see them, in a phone call, or a text, or whatever. We see no need to send out a bunch of cards.

And speaking of cards, I’m sure the wife will complain that the thank you cards wouldn’t be mailed out. Once again, she’d be right. But also once again, the husband wouldn’t give a fuck. You know who came up with the byzantine rules of etiquette such as sending thank you cards? Those rules were created back in the 1800s by wealthy women who didn’t work and had servants, so they spent their free time making up stupid rules.

If a man wants to thank someone for giving him a gift, he’ll say, “Thanks.” If it was mailed to him, the next time he sees or texts him he’ll say, “Thanks.”

And of course the wife will complain that unless she does it, the Christmas decorations will never be put up or taken down. Once again, she’s probably right. But men don’t care about the vast majority of stuff the woman put up. Other than the tree, men want their house just like it is the rest of the year. And we only want a tree if there are young kids in the house.

And saving the best for last, the wife will complain that without her, the presents will not get bought. Note to women. You’ve turned gift giving into a spectator sport. The act of buying gifts and creating a presentation with the gift is more important than the giving. If men want to buy someone something, “Oh, dad would really like this,” we’ll just buy it for him. We might pay to get it wrapped, if it’s for a chick, otherwise we’ll just give it unwrapped. It’s about giving someone you love something they’ll love. Not about outdoing what everyone else is doing.

And sure the gift list will be a lot smaller with the husband in charge, but ladies, we simply have no desire to buy presents just because. Especially for people we never see or don’t give a fuck about.

In a nutshell, the real reason the wife spends so much time preparing for Christmas is because she wants to. She likes looking for “just the right Christmas card.” Spending time looking for “just the right family picture” to include the the card. Spending time baking “just the right cookies” for the holidays. Spending time shopping to get “just the right gift” for someone she has not actually seen in years.

She’s deluding herself by thinking she’s doing it for her husband’s benefit. She’s doing it for herself. And if she no longer enjoys doing it, stop. It’s really that simple.

Sure we sit around a lot in the winter and watch a lot of football or basketball. But there’s a good reason for it, that’s what we like to do. As I said, you guys like going to shop. We like staying in and watching TV.

Furthermore, it’s not like men sit on their asses all winter. We’re the ones who shoveled the driveway, started up the wife’s car to get it warm, and scraped all the car’s windows so the wife could get her car out of the driveway to do her Christmas shopping. Of course we do have an ulterior motive other than keeping her safe: Keeping her out of our hair while we watch sports.

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“Crappy but Free” is not a business plan

A guy named Tyler Nichols has decided to stop offering a free “letter from Santa” service because, according to him, it’s not worth the effort.

I feel bad for his experience, however, in and of itself free is not a business plan. To put it another way, free only works as a part of larger plan. Free works for Google. Free works for Facebook. Free works for radio. Free works for over-the-air TV broadcasts.

I’m trying not to criticize Tyler, but in a nutshell he was offering a crappier version of his paid service and hoping and praying that it was crappy enough that people wouldn’t use it and would pay for the higher quality version instead.

That’s a not a plan. That’s nonsense. If the free service is good enough, he is not offering any real reason to pay. If that was his plan, it was bound to fail.

Furthermore, if the free service is crappy enough that people would chose not to use it, why would anyone be willing to pay for it? Once again, if that was his plan, it too was bound to fail.

Think of it this way, if your first experience with Coke was a fantastic free cola, why would you ever buy the next one? Or if your first experience was a crappy free cola, you’d probably be hesitant to pay for the next one.

In reading his blog post on the topic, you can tell he is genuinely frustrated and angered by his experience. But considering his plan was a logical failure to begin with, isn’t being caught between a rock and a hard place the very definition of frustration?

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