The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Opinion

  • TinyURL and Social Media

    TinyURL, the service that takes a long string URL such as http://www.amazon.com/Storm-Front-Dresden-Files-Book/dp/0451457811 and turns it into http://tinyurl.com/2kfq6x is useful for plugging into emails or twitters or other programs that dislike exceptionally long strings. It’s a great service, yes?

    Maybe. From the TinyURL website comes a quote that illustrates my issues with it.

    Hide your affiliate URLs:
    Are you posting something that you don’t want people to know what the URL is because it might give away that it’s an affiliate link? Then you can enter a URL into TinyURL, and your affiliate link will be hidden from the visitor, only the tinyurl.com address and the ending address will be visible to your visitors.

    This is a great service in social media expansion, but I am often hesitant to click on a TinyURL because you can’t see its underlying link! The final destination is, as it’s stated above, hidden. How do I know I’m going to something legitimate? Of course, I acknowledge that any URL can be redirected to something unsavory or evil, even www.cutekittens.com (which is an evil marketing website if there ever was one) could be redirected without your consent to www.cuteAND_EVILkittens.com (which hasn’t been registered yet, darn it). There’s no more actual safety in clicking on a URL you can see, any more than one that is hidden behind the TinyURL masking. Still, it is comforting, therefore of utility, to be able to see that you’re being linked to a cnn.com portal or that the url says www.bigbigbigbigbigbigOHMYGODITSBIG.com. I’ll probably click on the first one from an untrusted source, but definitely not the second.

    I would suggest that TinyURL have an option to leave in the base domain and then cipher out the miscellaneous garbage at the end, which nobody reads anyway.

  • The Golden Compass = Antichristian?

    Phillip Pullman’s books and the movie based upon the first one, The Golden Compass, have been receiving a lot of hate-press recently due to their perceived anti-christian outlook. The gist is, “Pullman is an atheist [true], who is trying to turn our kids to the devil [only true from a certain perspective].”

    I could discuss the pros and cons of these viewpoints, but I’d rather do an end-run. Question: Why didn’t these people come out of the woodwork for Battlestar Galactica? There’s a show where the good guys are polytheistic and the bad guys, bent on the destruction of the human race, are doing it because their sole God (obviously based on the Bible) is telling them to. BSG is much more blatant about it then Pullman ever is. Or what about The Lord of the Rings? Despite Peter Jackson’s pandering to the religious writers on his team, there is NO GOD in the Lord of the Rings. Nobody complained about that. And what about every horror/demon/antichrist film out there? Why do none of them get this sort of treatment?

    I think the truth is that the religious don’t think they’ll be able to sell their religions in the face of competing viewpoints. Also, given the control that christians have over this nation, they only fear what is perceived as anti-christian messages. No worries about the push to make “Jihad” a bad word (even though its actual definition doesn’t mean “kill everyone in God’s name”). Notice no complaints about all of the anti-muslim press that bandies about.

    The hypocrisy of some people just boggles my feet sometimes. I wish I could blame the media, but their motiviations are strictly monetary; they go where the stories are.

    In the interest of full disclosure, I think I should mention that I did not like The Golden Compass, but I’ll still see the film adaptation.

  • Beowulf

    We went to see Robert Zemekis’ Beowulf tonight. In 3D! It was good.

    Spoilers Ahoy. (more…)

  • Energy Policy

    I think that one of the most significant problems we (humanity) will face in the next 200 years is that of energy production, distribution, and consumption. I have a multitude of opinions, even the odd posting coming soon, but this particular post is about Iraq.

    Go to this link to compare the cost of Iraq with governement expenditures on alternative energy (“alternative” meaning non-oil). It’s a fascinating graph.

    I don’t see how the world is going to get out of the mess it’s in without significant investment in nuclear energy. More on that to follow at a later date, but feel free to tell me I’m wrong.

  • Praying for Rain

    Our noble born-again Georgia Governor held a prayer vigil yesterday at the capitol to pray for rain. If you’re not aware, Georgia is in an historic drought at this time.

    Weather today? Unseasonably warm, 20% chance of showers.

    My question: If it rains tonight, will this be seen as “the answer”? Of course, if it does shower tonight, the forecast is for very little of it. I would think this could be interpreted as a tease. Would Governor Perdue’s god be deemed a terrible prankster; giving us just a taste of what is needed?

    I find this sort of thing a ridiculous political sop to the GOP’s right-leaning religious base. This sort of crap causes me to want to be a Pastafarian. We might as well hit up the homeopathic remedy producers to walk around spitting on the sidewalk (because we know that less is more in homeopathy).

  • Escape Pod

    I’ve plugged the science-fiction short story podcast Escape Pod before, but this week’s episode was particularly good, in my opinion.

  • Midwest Teen Sex Show

    If you are not aware of the phenomenon that is the Midwest Teen Sex Show, you should go check it out at Midwestteensexshow.com. It is a fantastically entertaining videocast focused on issues of teen sexuality and sex education. Even if you are not the intended audience, I guarantee you will be entertained, or your money back.

    Seriously, it’s awesome. Go see it.

  • Modern Art

    With the advent of TiVo, marketeers are forced to expand their lexicon to get people to see their ads. This week, watching “Life” on NBC, we were annoyingly bombarded with product placement advertisements that ate up a good 5 to 6 minutes of the show.

    Some people see commercials as a necessary evil on television. Other’s see them as a horrible waste of time, which thankfully DVR’s have eliminated. I see them as a sort of micro-story and, if done with skill and panache, can be worth watching for their own sake, despite whatever they are selling. How many people do you know who only watch the Superbowl for the commercials? Are commercials just chewing gum on our feet, or are they a slick expression of our modern artisitic desires?

    I was thinking recently about a Nike advertisement that had an unfortunate debut during a girls gymnastic competition. It was pulled from the air almost immediately afterward. It remains one of the more amusing and clever commercials I’ve seen in recent years. Check it out on Youtube and tell me what you think.

  • God Hates Fred Phelps

    If you aren’t familiar with the actions of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, go look it up in wikipedia. I won’t link here. To summarize, they feel that America is too tolerant of homosexuality, and everything bad that has happened in the past twenty years is the punishment of god for that tolerance: 9-11; the Columbia; Katrina; dead US soldiers; they are all being punished for our sins.

    One of their more recent practices is to bring their protests to the funerals of our Iraqi war dead. They picket outside with signs like “God Hates America” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” This caused some counter-protests, such as the group of motorcycle riders who would go to the funerals that were being picketed and rev their bikes so no one could hear the WBC sing their hateful songs.

    Now, a Maryland father has won a lawsuit and been awarded $11 million against Fred Phelps and his “church” for “intent to inflict emotional distress” amongst other things.

    This couldn’t happen to a better church. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will do any good. Even if the award is upheld after appeals, I’m sure the church will declare bankruptcy, and other fundies will come out of the woodwork to support their trips around the country. It’s a good first step, though.

    I support the first amendment, and I support Fred Phelps’ right to say stupid, hateful things. There are more appropriate places for protected speech than during private funerals, though. This is probably hypocritical on my part, but I cheer the lawsuit, and its result.

  • If You Liked First Season Heroes…

    …you might find this review of Heroes’ second season amusing. For the record, I agree in principle with everything that is stated, yet I still watch. I’m a slave.