Culture

To find the perfect gift for those hopeless people in your life, go to Despair, Inc., a company that sells demotivational posters similar to the popular motivational posters found in most business settings. My favourite demotivators:

• Procrastination – “Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.”
• Apathy – “If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they’ll stop bugging us.” {I printed this out and put it in my cube.}
• Blame – “The secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failures.”

LOL. I might actually buy one of these someday…

Lawyer Wants To Bar Christmas as Federal Holiday: This grinch has been trying to steal Christmas for almost 3 years now, with the argument that having Christmas as a federal holiday is a violation of Church and state. “the Christmas holiday amounts to a government approval for a day of Christian religious origins marking the birth of Jesus Christ” This guy obviously doesn’t know much about the History of Christmas, which has its origins in pagan rituals that were later adopted by Christianity to celebrate the birth of Christ. In my opinion, Christmas is such a wonderous holiday because of its secular aspects, including holly, ivy, Mistletoe, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, snowmen, jingling bells and presents on Christmas morning (which have been repeatedly recognized by US Courts). Furthermore, this is a season who’s very message transcends any specific religion, ideology, or tradition to become an occasion for collective reflection on the values of what brings us together. Lets just hope the Courts stand firm…

This java applet attempts to implement the classic “Eliza” program. It pretends to be a Rogerian psychologist. It was groundbreaking in its time, but it is ultimately a lacking AI system (that or Rogerian psychologists are complete morons, which is probably not too far from the truth). Its pretty easy to take advantage of the system. As DyRE found out, Never Go to a Rogerian Psychologist When You’re On Fire.

Some recent headlines (no, they are not from the onion, but they probably should be):

• Chicken’s head found in fast food order
• Subway Cops Nab French-Fry Offender
• Robber gives up after waiting 20 minutes for service
• Slightly Off Center: Wierd news from USA Today
• FAA Clears Airline in Flying Pig Debacle

Some interesting happenings in the world of Exorcism. In a recent study that highlights the bendability of memory and perception, psychologists were able to convince normally skeptical people that they had experienced a possession at some point in their life. As if marking the occasion, the 1973 classic film, The Exorcist was recently re-released, and pyschologists expect a rash of new possessions. Also, it seems the old rite of exorcism is gaining new respect. I read the book by William Peter Blatty a while back, and was suprised at just how detailed the psychological aspect of the story was. By the end of the book, I still was unsure of whether or not the possession was caused by psychological influences or some supernatural power. In fact, the rite of exorcism was shown to be a very scientific method and I was duly impressed with the novel’s objective study. However, the book does not quite capture the pea-soup-projectile-vomit themes too well 🙂

I recently visited Eastern State Penitentiary’s haunted house, Terror Behind the Walls. It was a pretty good haunted house; my only complaint is that there were way too many people walking through with me (thus I saw many of the people in front of me get scared). The creepiest part, however, was simply walking down the dark corridors of the old, decaying site, looking into the cells and seeing only darkness. At the end of the tour, there was a small museum showing the far more interesting history of the old penitentiary.

Eastern State Penitentiary was built in the 1820s under the Quaker philosophy of reform through solitude and reflection, and has held the likes of Al Capone and Willie Sutton. Covering around 11 acres in Philadelphia, it has become a Historic Site. From the moment he arrived until the moment he left, the prisoner would see no one. The furniture of the 8×12 cell consisted of a mattress and a bible. “…Silence, solitude, the bible, never a moment of human contact, never a voice heard at a distance, the dead world of a living tomb…” In the end, the solitary confinement of Eastern State ended up driving most of its inmates insane, until 1903 when the idea of complete isolation was abandoned. By the time Eastern State was closed in 1971, it had become just another old, crowded prison with the usual share of brutality, riots, hunger strikes, escapes, suicides, and scandals. I think a regular guided tour and commentary would be scarier than the haunted house was…

Lets go Flyers! Hockey season doth rock, and the Flyers won their season opener 6-3. Young Justin Williams looked mighty impressive, but rookies have a way of starting strong and dropping off fast. The Flyers themselves looked ok, but they were still making a bunch of stupid mistakes that could have cost them the game. I predict that they will get clobbered by Boston on Saturday (by a score of 5-1).

Hold on to your crackpipes, kiddies, its time for a piece of classic web trash: Bert is Evil!. One of the funniest things I have ever seen on the web.