Have you ever had one of those moments where you’re just sitting there doing something that’s more physical than mental and then your mind starts to wander and think about other things entirely and then you stumble across a truth that really changes things for you? I think I’ve had a Toilet Epiphany of this nature.

Often, when bored out of my mind (like having read all the available items in my porcelain library), I’ll ask myself a question in my mind and force myself to elaborate on it. It helps to keep me thinking, in general, and it usually makes for some interesting discussion … with myself … in my head. You have to work with that you’ve got. So I asked myself today: “What is love?” Initially, it was for no more reason than to see what semi-poetic answer I could come up with that wasn’t playing off of someone else’s quote or what-have-you (Victor Hugo: “Life is a flower for which love is the honey.”; Franklin Jones: “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love makes the ride worthwhile.”).

After I went a few rounds and came up with nothing either useful nor quite poetic, I then asked myself: “Well, that was an attempt at the emotional answer, what’s the logical answer?” Fairly quickly I said to myself: “Well, it’s fear.” Specifically, it’s a fear of losing someone. Love could be described as a nebulous attachment that animals make to one another, or it could be described in more concrete terms as saying that you love someone when you fear that someone being removed from your life.

It makes perfect sense as a survival instinct, given that fear itself evolved that way. The natural size of a group of humans has been said to be around 150 people (this is known as Dunbar’s Number).

Is it really wrong if you take software another part of your company makes, hack it to do what you want, and then share it amongst yourselves?

We make some software that only works on one product. Someone figured out how to get around this, and now we're passing around the modified program like candy to play with it. It's not for work, but it's very fun.

Yet, when our division VP came by to visit today he mentioned he was trying to get it working on his system and couldn't, so I gave a few pointers and let it be. Later he came to my cube with a flash disk and said, very hushed, that he couldn't get it working and if I could give him a copy...

bq.. In its Saturday morning, October 29, 2005, weekly news commentary, NPR recounted the history of events leading to the indictment of I. Lewis Libby in the Valerie Plame spy-outing case.  Among other things, NPR described the sensationalist, anti-Bush charges made by Joseph Wilson, Plame’s husband, as if they were verified truth. 

NPR failed to mention either that Mr. Wilson was a paid flack for Senator Kerry’s presidential campaign, or that the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in July, 2004, refuted all of his major assertions.

" The View From 1776 ":http://www.thomasbrewton.com/index.php/weblog/npr_still_organ_grinding_for_the_left/

p. I listen to NPR every day, for some reason, but I've always noticed this. Back when Israel and Palestinians were throwing explosions at each other, NPR always managed to twist the reporting as so:

• "Palestinian freedom fighters successfully attacked an Israeli target today..." [insert sound bite of Palestinians cheering]
• "Israeli military forces destroyed a civilian neighborhood today, searching for a Palestinian freedom fighter that few believe lived in the neighborhood..." [insert unfortunate interview that explains that the Israeli army had one misguided tank shot that hit the middle of the street, injuring three]

And so on. They've always done this. NPR is the liberal media, and it's disgusting.

bq.. But that wasn’t the silliest storm coverage. “Today” turned its big gun loose on Wilma: weatherman Al Roker. “Today” has already earned a reputation for the biggest hurricane disaster on TV, thanks to Michelle Kosinski, a reporter who covered one poststorm flood from a canoe. The water was just too deep, she said, to do it any other way. Unfortunately for Kosinski’s reputation, while she was on the air, two men walked into the frame in front of her—yes, walking, because the water was only about ankle deep. Ooops.

"Wind. Rain. More Wind. More Rain. - Arts Extra - Newsweek - MSNBC.com":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9842443/site/newsweek/

I keep forgetting how much I hate people. I know that I hate people, but for some reason things kind of, I don't know, slow down now and again and people stop being flesh fodder and become human for a while. Then I manage to find myself in a large group of people again and realize how shitty the human race is, in general.

I went to see Serenity today, which was a damn good movie and I'll write more on it later. I decided to go a little early so the wife and I could get good seats. It kind of worked. Sadly, the best seats were in a row where there sat a gaggle of geeks to my left. No matter, I'll get three seats away, my right is clear, and we're all good.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A federal judge has declared it unconstitutional to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.

What?!  The public school system is very quickly becoming a cross between a day-care center and the public prison system.

Might as well get them ready for the real world, right?