I've discovered that the reason such a large chunk of the people coming here
are looking for statics on homosexual promiscuity is that I'm magically the
number two Google result for "(gay OR homosexual) promiscuity statistics"—
maybe even number one after this gets indexed. I feel bad about all these
people wanting statistics who are just getting
my rant, so as
a public service I did a little bit of looking and found this
survey of papers
about promiscuity among gays and lesbians, which is far more worthy
of being a front-page Google result (but doesn't look as useful from the
blurb).
Disclaimer: the author is himself gay, so has a vested interest in his
interpretation of the papers. However, he is very explicit about places where
he is interpreting data instead of just quoting it, and he gives full references
for every study and paper he uses, so you can go get the data yourselves if you
don't trust him. That, and his presentation of studies that give bleaker
results than other studies rather than just glossing over them, makes me
inclined to trust him. If nothing else, it's a good list of papers.
If you are just looking for information proving that all homosexuals are
terrible people, you can do your own damned research—or just keep
misusing the same partial statistics from a few questionable studies like all
the other intolerant homophobes.
And there you have my unbiased effort to bring light to all sides of this
issue.
Category: Society
Writebacks (0)
As my job search progresses, I find myself more and more convinced that I know
exactly what I want to do, and that there is (or at least should be) a huge
market for it: making online job application systems that don't suck
unimaginably. Frankly, just about everyone seems to need one.
So far, all the job sites fit into one of three categories:
- Email a resume to: jobs@whereever.com—This is fine, except that these
places often have no searchable job list, so you don't know if they even have
any openings that you might potentially fill.
- Fill in some contact info, paste in a resume, and press submit—Good
except that they all really need a "preview" option, in case, say,
a stray invisible character that causes their database to choke and forget
everything after it somehow creeps it, and you don't notice until you use
another site that does have a preview, and then you have to go back
and resubmit your resume and worry that you'll look like an idiot who is
applying for a software development job, but who can't even use an HTML form
correctly.
- Use our handy-dandy resume builder—I will find the people who write
these, and cane them. The IBM resume builder took me over an hour to
complete, and I had a resume all ready! Granted, I was on dial up, but it was
still insane. Every page took literally 2-3 minutes to load (probably because
it was storing everything in hidden form fields, twice). All graduation and
job start/end dates included the day, and there was no
"present" option for jobs I'm still working at. You can't move between
pages except in order, so when I found a typo during the final preview, I had
to go all the way back to the beginning (the only function of the "edit"
button), click my way through every painfully loading page until I reached the
typo, fix the typo, then keep clicking until I reached the end.
So right now I'm in a fantastic position to know exactly what people want
out of a job application system, and I'm qualified to make one. It's ideal.
Interested parties can contact me by: (1) emailing me, (2) using the comment
submission form, or (3) building an entire blog from some kind of horrible
templating system, then using trackback.
Category: Life
Writebacks (0)
Lets talk for a minute about Apple's
iLife programs, and whiny babies. Up until last week's keynote, iTunes,
iPhoto, and iMovie were free, and only iDVD
required buying the iLife suite (unless it came with your computer, in which
case they were all free). Now it appears that the only way to get new versions
is to buy iLife, or buy a new Mac—although iTunes will, almost assuredly,
remain free, since it creates revenue by pushing the iTunes music store.
That, if you have the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old, is terribly,
terribly unfair, not to mention devious and underhanded. Of course, this being
the internet, most of the vocal people do have the emotional maturity
of small children. Some people are very up-front that they are simply spoiled
brats who feel they have some right to free upgrades (and boldly proclaim that
they will feel perfectly justified pirating the new iLife suite), but most try
to dress it up in rational-esque arguments or comparisons. If you are one of
those people, I offer you this simple guide to why you are wrong:
It's always been free before, so it should continue to be free.
You're an idiot (translation to your language: u R a 1d10t). Go home.
It's a bait-and-switch! It's just like what happened with the .Mac
fiasco!
No, no it's not. First, and most importantly, you still have all the
iApps, and they will all continue to work indefinitely. If you have
trouble with that concept, try reading the sentence a few more times. They
are not a service that will vanish, and you will not have to change your email
address if you don't pay for the new version. You will continue to have good,
free products; just not the absolute best.
Well, it's still devious, hooking people in like that.
Not really... it's not uncommon for people to give away beta software, then
charge for it when the final version is ready. The only difference is that often
the beta is set to expire, so you can't keep using it. So Apple is being much
more generous than most software companies.
Oh yeah, what about backward compatibility?
Huh? Compatibility with what exactly? Future digital cameras that
don't use jpeg? Not too likely. Future versions of Quicktime that don't play
current mpeg files? Not a chance. New DVD players that can't read current DVDs?
They would fail on the market if released in the foreseeable future.
Ok smarty-pants, but what about the next OS X release?
Well, first off, I think it's safe to say that 10.4 (or whatever) will run
10.3 applications. Second, it's not unlikely that it would come with the new
iApps anyways. Third... you're willing to shell out $130 for an OS upgrade every
year, but are too cheap to pay $50 for a really under-priced software suite?
I still think it's too much.
How nice for you. Use something else, and pipe down.
Shouldn't they sell iPhoto as a stand-alone?
Ok, yes, I think they should. I would imagine that there's a sizable market
for iPhoto in the $15-20 range, of people who don't have any need for iMovie,
iDVD, or Garage Band. Hopefully they'll agree, and sell it that way. Does that
make iLife any less of an awesome deal? Nope.
Are you just an Apple apologist?
No. Among other things, I think that the .Mac switch was devious,
underhanded, a bait-and-switch, and leaned way out over the border of false
advertising. Whoever was responsible for that mess should be smacked with a
ruler, repeatedly.
Category: Geek
Writebacks (0)
Long time no entries... holidays will do that I guess. Hawaii was fantastic,
the conference went well, and my holidays were very restful and enjoyable. Of
course, I missed more or less the coolest snow-storm ever back at home by a few
days, which is a shame. But hey, there's weird Cleveland pellet snow here, and
the mid-afternoon temperature is 21°F, feels like -5°F, so winter here
isn't all bad.
Oh wait, yes it is. The crappy weather was much better when I could end my
entries with the countdown to Hawaii, but now all I have to look forward to is
April, when it might get warm again.
Months until I move and never have to experience another Cleveland winter: 5
Category: Life
Writebacks (2)