a crank's progress

Not sure this is a great sample (will “cuil yourself” take over “googling yourself?”).

I have the third link from my name in Google (second if you allow that the second is an inside page at Beard Guitars). And yes, I own a couple, but I’m not in the same league the guy who makes ’em.

Daily Kos: The Wingnut Index, based on the Crackpot Index.

The Wingnut Index

5 points
Each use of “Democrat Party.”
Each use of “liberal elite.”
Each declaration that kos readers should “leave America.”

10 points
Each use of the phrase “hate site.”
Each mention of Nazis, Commies, Reds, brownshirts or stormtroopers.
Each blind repetition of phrases provided by your close pal Bill, Rush, or Sean.
For contending that liberals are aiding terrorists.
Each time the writer insists that the recipient is “going to burn in hell.”
Each physical threat to the recipient.

15 points
Including “San Francisco” in letters that have nothing to do with San Francisco.
Discussion of water / food additives and their feminizing effect on the men of America.
Insisting that liberals “want America to lose.”
Each alternate theory for the death of Vincent Foster.
Each alternate theory for the death of Ron Brown.
Each alternate theory posed to replace evolution.
Each explanation for why global warming is a hoax.

20 points
Each use of “DemocRAT Party.”
Each time the writer wishes the recipient would burn in hell.
Asserting the recipient belongs in Gitmo.
Each physical threat to the recipient’s family & pets.
Each use of the term “Darwinism.”
Each use of the term “algore.”

25 points
Wishing on the recipient death, cancer, a stray bullet, or a visit from Bill O’Reilly.
Each use of “clearly” or “obviously” appended to any of the above. (i.e. “Since you liberals clearly want America to be defeated by the terrorists, obviously you belong in Gitmo” makes for a 70 point sentence.)

30 points
Each loving description of the torture the author would love to inflict.
Letters written IN ALL CAPS.

50 point
Each serious, affirmative use of the term PUMA.
Sending a letter complaining about how kos is censoring you because you can’t post thirty seconds after registering.
Sending a letter complaining about how kos is censoring you, when you’ve been booted by the community for 101 crappy comments.
Sending a letter complaining about how kos is censoring you, when you haven’t bothered to register at the site.

100 points
Each use of the word “Bush” in association with “unrecognized genius.”

Special awards are given for creative use of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. (i.e. “u LIBURrrLLS, R D SuXeS!?!” hits none of the categories above, and yet, still has the toasty zing of nuttery.)

For those people still wondering how they might most curry favor with Bill O’Reilly by telling him about the mean, mean words they sent this way, don’t think of these scores as restrictions on your speech — think of them as a challenge.

Apple is in violation of the software’s licence for distributing these GPL applications through the App Store in the first place.

[From John Gruber doesn’t understand freedom // plasmasturm.org]

The title of that post is a little confrontational but “John Gruber doesn’t understand the FSF’s narrow definition of freedom as it applies the distribution of software” was too long.

Anyway, I’m curious what Apple or the developers have to do to resolve this, if they care to. Is the GPL enforceable? Would Apple face some penalty? If you distribute the source code but the development/deployment environment requires additional resources (a developer key or API access code), does that mean the GPL has been violated? So far, Google and WordPress have put wares in the App store. Are they the sinners, is it Apple, or all of them?

I had this conversation with the Learned Professors at The Worst Job I Ever Had and they thought the GPL’s provisions requiring source code were goofy, as they had no interest in hacking or building from source. But I argued at the time that just because they couldn’t didn’t mean no one else was interested.

Apparently, Classmates.com has a secret admirer.

Never heard of her. Why do I suspect she isn’t real?

Instead, I think[,] like most people, the[y]se developers are cursed with an agenda of selfishness. So long as they have an unrestricted ability to play in their little sandbox, they’re content. Start throwing up barriers, and they’ll elect or adopt any philosophy convenient to their case.

That it’s often libertarianism seems more a coincidence of convenience than anything else.

They also have the weird habit of saying “we” when they mean “me.”
.

Not like we haven’t see this before . . .

Man blows up apartment spraying for bugs?
| Oddly Enough
| Reuters

.

NEW YORK, July 21 – A New Jersey man trying to exterminate insects in his apartment blew it up instead, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.

Isias Vidal Maceda was unhurt in the incident, but 80 percent of his apartment was destroyed, Eatontown, New Jersey police told the newspaper.

The accident occurred as Maceda was spraying for pests in his kitchen. Somehow the bug spray ignited a blast that blew out the apartment’s front windows and triggered a fire that quickly spread, the newspaper said.

Police told the newspaper that the Saturday blaze also caused smoke damage to the apartment above.

Can you say, aerosol propellant and stove pilot light?

Saving rain: How much is too much?.

Harvesting rain water is illegal? I think I am missing something here. If I collect water and use it to water my crops (which then flows into the ground or evaporates off), where is the harm? It’s not like a dam, if you really want to bring up a resource diversion with serious impacts.

Crazy.

The story could have been better written: the central issue is that the law is archaic and doesn’t reflect today’s reality (who in 1917 could have predicted how we live now?). I have 5 water barrels at my place and am re-doing how they are filled and drained: I don’t expect to be arrested for that. In fact, I suspect if more people did harvest water in some kind of containment system, we would have less street flooding in winter. It all flows downstream eventually . . .