The crafter… ISTP

Posted on 2012-01-24 by Evolving Squid

I started a management course today, paid for by my employer and held at Carleton University.  It was an interesting day for sure… we started on a unit about persuasion, but in order to frame all that, all the students were asked to complete a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Now, I’ve done these before, informally.  This time it was the real thing and the results were taken up by an actual psychologist.  Interestingly, I did not end up where I thought I would… Any time I’ve done these on-line or informally I tended to come up ISTJ or ESTJ.

Unbridled by preconceived notions, apparently, my results were analyzed and I came up solidly ISTP (another description here).  Helping with the unbridling, was the healthy dose of percocet resulting from the oral surgery mentioned in the previous blog entry.  The result quite surprised me, although when I read the description, it really seemed to be a better fit than ISTJ or ESTJ – neither of which I’d been really comfortable with in the past.

There were a number of iconic images that capture the essence of ISTP, and after looking at as many as I could find in order to place one here, I settled on these:

Posted in Crazy Talk, Cuddly and Fuzzy, Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Geekdom, Humour, Just plain weird, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Yay, wisdom teeth

Posted on 2012-01-20 by Evolving Squid

Today was/is the big day… After a bit of suffering for the last while, I have had my oral surgery today, shedding 2 wisdom teeth and 2 other teeth.

The experience thus far has been much less unpleasant than I was expecting. I had 4 adult teeth pulled when I was 9. That was done with needles and pliers. It is a memory that is well-burned into my brain.

This time I was sedated with IV drugs. I don’t really remember much. Obviously, I remember getting the original IV, and I have memory of actually getting needles in the mouth. I have a memory of the dentist working on the front-most tooth that needed to be pulled.

But mostly, I was chatting with the nurse after the IV was started, then I was awake with a frozen face and she took me to the recovery room. An hour later, I am home and writing this.

So, of course, I am expecting the real pain to begin in a couple of hours when the freezing wears off. For that, I have a bottle of Percocet. My mouth is also full of gauze at the moment, which is quite uncomfortable. Oh well.

I get to spend the weekend whacked out on Percocet too. Fun fun fun. Right now I am in my comfy chair, blogging this on my iPad. Ah, the wonders of technology.

Posted in Bitching and Moaning, Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Karzai doesn’t like the marines?

Posted on 2012-01-12 by Evolving Squid

An unconfirmed (i.e. oopsie, leaked by accident) video has been released that shows what appears to be US Marines acting like slope-forehead goons, pissing on some Taliban corpses.

According to CBC, the Afghan president considers this treatment to be “inhumane”.

Now, I can’t speak for anyone else but myself, but in the great scale of inhumanity, pissing on a dead body rates about a 0.5, maybe a solid 1 on a scale of 1 to 10.  It’s assholish to be sure, and the people doing it would be charged with whatever the UCMJ equivalent of “Conduct Unbecoming a Soldier” is if I was their boss.  It’s not cool, and it’s even more stupid that some idiot was filming it.  They should be punished.  Is it really an inhumanity that requires a response from a head of a government, though?  I’m not so sure.

However, beheadings of live kidnapped prisoners for shits and giggles (that link just goes to a search page… don’t click the links if you don’t want to be sick) rates about 34 on a scale of 1 to 10, and I don’t see Karzai bitching and moaning about that.   I guess it’s OK to cut heads off, but don’t offer a minor indignity to the body if you’re Karzai.  If a bit of urine is an inhumanity, why isn’t the Afghan government hunting down the beheaders inside it’s own borders.

Oh yeah, it’s only inhuman if Muslims suffer it.  I wonder if Karzai would have as much to say if it was a vid of Hamas peeing on Israeli corpses?  Heh, no I don’t.  I know what he’d do.

Posted in Bitching and Moaning, Crazy Talk, Current Affairs, Douchebaggery, Just plain weird, Mythology (Religion), Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Why are you helping the spammers, telemarketers, and other marketing cretins?

Posted on 2012-01-10 by Evolving Squid

Just did a run of application blocking on Facebook.  I was noticing that some of the applications make it pretty hard to block them… when you hit their “page” where Facebook lets you block them, their page coding shuffles you away rapidly to some other web site where the block link no longer appears.  This is just another frustrating shot in the war to get personal information.

And that’s what Facebook applications are about – getting your personal information.  They’re not written for the good of your health.  They’re not written because someone feels you need to be entertained.  They’re written so that the authors can make money by obtaining and using (read: selling) your personal information.

What does that mean?  Well, it means they troll through your account for interesting tidbits.  The more mundane things they look for might be location information so they can do statistical analyses of where people are for the purposes of general marketing campaigns.  The nastier ones will look for things like email addresses to send you spam mail, mobile phone numbers to send you spam texts, your contact lists so they can spam your friends, and addresses to which they can send their junk mail.

Every time you add a Facebook application, you’re helping them.

Here’s a list of what I have blocked currently… I consider this to be “a good start”:

  • event Causes
  • event Collect Hearts
  • event Geo Challenge
  • event Bowling Buddies
  • event Holiday Gifts
  • event Shots and Drinks!
  • event Top Friends
  • event Smiles
  • event Send Good Karma
  • event Snowball Fight!
  • event (Lil) Green Patch
  • event Street Race
  • event Water Gun Fight
  • event YoVille
  • event Café World
  • event Mobsters 2: Vendetta
  • event Mon arbre de Noël 2011
  • event Dragon Wars
  • event Mafia Wars
  • event マイカレンダー
  • event Santa Yourself
  • event Texas HoldEm Poker
  • event FARKLE
  • event Snowball Fight
  • event Friend Hug
  • event Fish Town
  • event Fish Isle
  • event @Hearts
  • event SPP Ranch!
  • event Halloween Costume
  • event Happy Island
  • event My City Life
  • event Islander
  • eventFerme Pays
  • event FishVille
  • event Safari Life
  • event PetVille
  • event FarmVille
  • event Country Life
  • event Treasure Isle
  • event Social Interview
  • event ˙·•●●★CADЄAUX D’AMITIЄ★●●•·˙
  • event CityVille
  • event FrontierVille
  • event Question Party
  • event My Friend Secrets
  • event Perfect Poker
  • event 21 questions
  • event MyCalendar – Birthdays
  • event CastleVille
  • event Holiday Cards by Davia ★
  • event We’re Related
  • event Birthday Cards
  • event Flixster
  • event Marketplace
  • event Family Tree
  • event Bejeweled Blitz
  • event LivingSocial
  • event Birthday Calendar
  • event Games on Mindjolt
  • event My Girls
  • event Dogbook
  • event weRead
  • event How Well Do You Know Me?
  • event Lexulous – Word Game
  • event Bumper Sticker
  • event Diamond Dash
  • event Solitaire Castle
  • event Maya Whiz
  • event Go Fishing
  • event 99 Bottles of Beer
  • event Rockstar Bikes
  • event Worlds of DOCTOR WHO Gifts – 50 Years in the Tardis
  • event Free Hug
  • event Poker Texas HoldEm – Pokerama
  • event PickaFlick – This one was a real pain in the arse to block.
  • event Treasure City
  • Bingo Bash

In general, to block an application, you go to the application’s “Page”.  You do this by typing the application name in the FB search bar.  That will either take you to the page or to the “Request for Permission” page:

Request for PermissionIf you get the RfP page, there will be a link where I’ve circled in red, that will take you to the application page.

At the Application Page, you should see something like this:

Block ApplicationIf you click on the “Block application” link (red arrow), you will banish that application from getting your personal info, and you won’t have your timeline filled up with notifications from friends who are using the app (and giving away your personal info).  Nor will you have to suffer further application invites from that app.

Now, some applications will, as mentioned, shunt you away from the FB page.  Watch for a tiny, fine-print link somewhere near the bottom of the page.  That will often go to the page where you can block.  Some just won’t let you block them at all.  I recommend hitting the “Report this app” link on those.

Banishing apps is one of the most fun things to do on Facebook!  Make it a game in and of itself… Gotta Block ‘em All.  Do this, and you’ll go far to keeping your personal information safe on Facebook.

Posted in Bitching and Moaning, Current Affairs, Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Geekdom, Media, Security | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Perihelion tonight!

Posted on 2012-01-04 by Evolving Squid

At around 8 PM Eastern time tonight, the planet will arrive at perihelion: it’s closest approach to the Sun, or the bottom of the orbit, depending on how you look at it.  If you live in Ottawa, you may not have noticed, in the -19 C chill this morning, that we were a few million kilometers closer to the Sun than we were back at aphelion in July.

And fasten your seatbelts… at perihelion the planet is ripping through space at its fastest speed: about 30 km/s (vice 29ish km/s at aphelion).  In the time it took you to read this far, you’ve moved about 650 km along the earth’s orbit.

If you live in the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of summer, so it probably really does FEEL like we’re closer to the Sun.

Posted in Astronomy, Current Affairs, Geekdom, Science, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment