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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Dan Ruffolo's LiveJournal:
| Friday, April 27th, 2007 | |||
| 6:56 am | One of my biggest pet peeves: People who, when a discussion is going on about some subject try to assert that "Because you aren't on the "inside" of whatever topic is being discussed, your opinions are invalid." It's funny, we'll allow non-musicians to have opinions about music, and we'll allow non-artists to have opinions about art, but as soon as you get onto a "touchy" subject, suddenly your thoughts on gay rights are worthless if you're straight, your thughts on affirmative action are worthless if you are white, and non-christians aren't allowed to say word one about the validity of the bible. It's also funny, though, that this particular card only seems to get pulled if you are against the stance of the person using it (who are usually "inside" the issue at hand) or b) This seems like pretty desperate argumentative technique, to try and tell someone that they aren't -allowed- to have an opinion on the situation. Man...if only all of human existance were dictated by that policy. We couldn't make anything transparent, or that can fly, or is made of wood because "We aren't part of it" It's better when the thing you aren't a part of is something completely nebulous and arbitrary. I was involved in a discussion with several others about affirmative action, and when the topic moved on, one of the people decided to contact me privately to continue. We even both agreed that affirmative action as a policy causes nearly as many problems as it fixes, but as soon as I extended my belief to the claim that the entire concept perpetuates the treating of races as being different and of unequal value, I was told by the other person that they "hate discussing affirmative action with people who are not of colour" What the hell does "Of colour" mean? I'd really like for someone to define it for me. The -ONLY- possible definition is the obvious one: skin tone, but skin tone is an irellevancy. You can have lived in canada for ten generations, have every advantage, be well educated, rich, and still have skin as black as your 11th generation ancestors who emigrated from africa, and you can be a 2nd generation canadian, whose parent emigrated from africa, met and married a white person, and you got their skin tone. Where is the line? Ancestry? (Dave Matthews is white as a ghost and was -born- in africa to a family that had lived there for generations) What counts? a parent? a grand-parent? any distant ancestor ever? We -all- count then. I got rather off-topic there, but it happens, I apologise. The only thing that irks me more than people trying to argue using ill-defined, and arbitrary terms that have no intrinsic meaning is people who insist that because I don't fit their imaginary, made up criteria, my opinion doesn't matter. Current Mood:  aggravated | ||
| Thursday, April 26th, 2007 | |||
| 9:08 pm | Well, all the other kids are doing it | ||
| Sunday, April 15th, 2007 | |||
| 4:16 am | Literature So, out of curiosity, I'm going to ask for a bunch of lists of favourite stuffs from folk. So by all means comment with your own lists. Bearing in mind that when I say "top 5" I just mean "top 5" not "top 5 ranked in order" Further, if something fits into more than one category (Like favourite series -and- favourite single novel, just include it in the "largest" category [So if mentioned as the series, don't count it as a single book late]) 1/ Top 5 Series (A Series is a continuous storyline longer than 3 books) Robert Jordan: Wheel of Time Roger Zelazny: Book of Amber Margret Weis and Tracey Hickman: Deathgate Cycle Orson Scott Card: The Ender Saga Various Forgotten Realms Authors: Stormweather 2/ Top 5 Trilogies (A trilogy is a continuous storyline exactly 3 books long) Neal Stephenson: The Baroque cycle Mercedes Lackey: The Last Herald-Mage J Gregory Keyes: The Age of Unreason Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman: The Legends Guy Gavriel Kay: Fionavar Tapestry 3/ Top 5 worlds (A contigious world in which multiple unconnected books have been written) Discworld (Terry Pratchett) Forgotten Realms (Various) Ravenloft (Various) Valdemar (Mercedes Lackey) Star Trek (Very hit and miss, but there's such a large volume that you can find good stuff) 4/ Top 5 authors you bet few others have heard of but whom you think are must-reads (Include one book by them you think anyone starting in should read) (And genre) Spider Robinson (Lady Slings the Booze) (Comedic sci-fi) C.C. Humphreys (The French Executioner) (Historical Fiction) Christopher Moore (Practical Demonkeeping) (Modern fantasy/comedy) Tanya Huff (Valor's Choice/Sing the four quarters) (Sci-fi/Fantasy) Edward Rutherford (The Forest) (Historical Fiction) | ||
| Friday, April 6th, 2007 | |||
| 1:51 pm | bar/man+duk=1; rem man goes into bar w/duck bar$:trk=-trk; input=[ctrl-x]; rem 'Take that turkey and exit.' man:it=not(trk); it=(duk); rem 'It's not a turkey, it is a duck.' bar$:duk=add(bar$) rem 'I was addressing the duck.' | ||
| Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 | |||
| 8:30 pm | Swiped from Damienroc because this is definately a worthy cause: An associate of his is doing a research paper on the portrayal of women in comics. She's looking for responses, which can be anonymous. It asks for a name, but you can put anything, really. Edit: After submitting my own results, I went over to the LJ of the actual originator of the request for people to write the survey, and she had specified that for the purposes of her research, she wanted only females to take the test, so apologies to my male reader-folk, this one isn't for us. Back to your regularly scheduled entry. The test asks for you to rate how much you agree or disagree with statements relative to each other (it forces a bell curve). If you have a few minutes, it'd be great to go and answer it here: http://q.sortserve.com/qsort.php?task=p She'll stop taking responses on Monday or so. If you read comics, go and answer it, even if only to stop and think about how you respond to comics. | ||
| Sunday, April 1st, 2007 | |||
| 5:05 pm | Essays Newton...........................DONE Darwin............................0/8-10 pages Due Wednesday Nietzsche/Marx/Freud.....0/6-8 pages Due Wednesday Hearst.............................0/12-1 | ||
| 4:56 pm | Final Essays Well, it's term paper time, and this year is no different. Here's what's on the docket. Currently I have to: 1/ Assess the scientific career of Isaac Newton 2/ Describe the reaction of the British public to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species 3/ Account for William Randolph Hearst's rise to media power during the Spanish-American War 4/ Describe the extent to which religion and metaphysics influenced the writing of Neitzcshe, Marx and Freud 35 pages total, give or take so it's not too too bad. Most of them are x-y pages, but I've got some wordcount ones as well, so my progress update posts will look a little crappy, but hey, it's all good. | ||
| Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 | |||
| 2:33 pm | Man, I am such a geek So two idiots in Kingdom of Loathing chat have taken to logging in, and just sitting there going "prove it" to anyone who makes any kind of claim. Really annoying, but it resulted in one of my finer nerdy moments. Norrec508: prove it exacademic... Keypunch: It's rather contagious. Keypunch: I must say, it appeals to me, this superskeptic lifestyle Devonin: Descartes is rolling in his grave. He's all like (0,0),(0,-1),(1,-1),(1,0),(0,0) Man...I need a life. Current Mood:  nerdy | ||
| Thursday, March 8th, 2007 | |||
| 12:42 pm | Ninja Poetry There once was a ninja from Nantucket Who kept all his swords in a bucket He started to spin And exclaimed with a grin: When I let this thing go, you'd best duck it. Silent Hanging Asp Dropping Ouch Wathump! | ||
| Sunday, February 25th, 2007 | |||
| 4:36 am | I knew it!   | ||
| Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 | |||
| 5:03 am | Lousy 8th point. Every meme in the world is inherantly self-perpetuating, because they all require internally that you pass them along. Silly memes. Anyways... Comment and I will: 1) Tell you why I friended you. 2) Associate you with a song/film. 3) Tell a random fact about you. 4) Tell a first memory about you. 5) Associate you with a character/pairing. 6) Ask something I've always wanted to know about you. 7) Tell you my favorite user pic of yours. 8) In return, you must repost in your LJ. | ||
| Sunday, February 11th, 2007 | |||
| 1:04 am | Lecture Notes Some funny lines from the lecture notes of my 'Intellectual History' prof that struck me as particularly amusing. "you don’t know what ‘green’ is until you are referred to something in your senses. That is, a blind person can never really understand what ‘green’ is" "Kant was a strange, little guy, who lived in Konigsberg, Germany." "the world wasn’t just some rational ball of unintelligibility, rather, the world was full of magic, mystery, and adventure..." "According to Fichte, the insights of Kant were incomplete, in that Kant’s thought only pointed toward the truth of things...(this made Kant mad, by the way)..." "Is it just junk and noise and then death for no reason?..." "ie: symphony/opera is on the same level as sex or watching a football game or eating a pizza or whatever...)..." | ||
| Friday, January 26th, 2007 | |||
| 2:35 am | Is this really necessary? So I get a pop-up informing me that the latest version of Yahoo Messenger is ready for download if I like, and I decide to read the ToS just for fun, and under the list of things we promise -not- to do, I found: [You promise not to] use the Service to operate nuclear facilities, life support, or other mission critical application where human life or property may be at stake. You understand that the Service is not designed for such purposes and that its failure in such cases could lead to death, personal injury, or severe property or environmental damage for which Yahoo! is not responsible; Like...dude....wtf? A NUCLEAR FACILITY run through Yahoo Messenger? Normally these kinds of absurd additions to a ToS are the result of someone fucking up and using "You never said I coudln't" to explain it, but wow...you'd think we'd hear of a catastrophic failure of a nuclear facility that was the fault of them running it through a messenger program. | ||
| Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 | |||
| 3:50 am |
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| Thursday, November 30th, 2006 | |||
| 1:23 am | Man, Terry Pratchett Rocks "It is also important to appreciate that individual organisms do not compete in isolation, or against a fixed background. Billions of competitions go on all the time, and their outcomes may be affected by the results of other competitions. It's not like the Olympics, where the javelin-throwers politely wait for the marathon-runners to stream past. It's more like a version of the Olympics where the javelin-throwers try to spear as many marathon-runners as they can, while the steeplechasers are trying to steal the javelins to turn each hurdle into a miniature pole vault, and the marathon-runner's main aim in life is to drink the water-jump before the steeplechasers get to it and drink it first. This is the Evolympics, where everything happens at once." | ||
| Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 | |||
| 1:39 pm | I've got a Theory It could be witches Some evil witches Which is ridiculous 'cause witches they were Persecuted Wicca good and love the earth and Women power and I'll be over here | ||
| Monday, November 20th, 2006 | |||
| 4:08 pm | I'm such a nerd Felix Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature, An endothermic quadroped, carniverous by nature. Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses. I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations, A singular development of cat communications That obviates your basic hedonistic predelection For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection. A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents: You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance; And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion, It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion. Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array. And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend, I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend. -- Lt. Cmdr. Data, "An Ode to Spot" | ||
| Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 | |||
| 5:37 pm | To the butterflies Kill the spiders to save the butterflies. It's rational until you realise that by striving for it you become a spider yourself. | ||
| Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 | |||
| 3:18 pm | 1. Grab the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). 2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence (grab next nearest book if less than 7 sentences found). 4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions. 5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest. 6. Tag three people. From "The City of Splendors" Ed Greenwood & Elaine Cunningham Malark's eyes twinkled. "Am I to take it that both edgs of your tongue are as sharp as the weapon you refer to?" "You may take it elsewhere, my lord," Lark told the back of her hand airily. "I give you fair warning - I've been told betimes that my knee is as sharpand as swift as any weapon you might care to name." Ooh, witty repartee to be sure. Anywhoo, Tag! You're it! | ||
| Sunday, July 9th, 2006 | |||
| 6:13 pm | FORZA ITALIA!!!!! 2006 FIFA World Cup Champs!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Current Mood:  ecstatic | ||
