On Bodies

I like watching volleyball. It's only minimally because I like the sport.

So, the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour plasters temporary tattoos of its corporate sponsors on the athletes' bodies. Shoes, energy drinks, sports medicine, fruit juice, rum, and hotel chains. I find this disturbing. I understand that volleyball players are more scantily-clad than most other athletes, and the lack of clothing offers less ad space. Putting your company name on a jersey you made or provided money to make is one thing. Branding athletes is another. I just feel like bodies should be off-limits.

Oh, and also, I was just informed I'm watching The "2009 AVP CROCS™ CUP CHAMPIONSHIP KENTUCKY GRILLED CHICKEN™ CHICAGO OPEN."

Why I hate the internet (and the world generally)

I will partially reproduce with comments this conversation below I happen to be in a similar situation currently:

1) Is is possible to run the Windows version of R across all four processors?

2) I was under the impression that R for Linux supported multi-threading by default. Am I correct in this assumption? If not, is it possible for Linux R to multi thread, and how do I go about configuring this?

It seems reasonable to be asking an R reading list questions about whether or not the R framework can work in parallel, but we get this response:

> 1) Is is possible to run the Windows version of R across all four
> processors?

No.

That's it. I'm not truncating here for the sake of proving a point. The guy just disregards the question entirely.

Continuing the response:

> 2) I was under the impression that R for Linux supported multi-threading by
> default. Am I correct in this assumption? If not, is it possible for Linux R
> to multi thread, and how do I go about configuring this?

Your impression/assumption is wrong.

Taking someone's obviously false misconception and ignoring the obviousness of the question but instead, INSTEAD, throwing it back in their face with an assault on their reasoning ability! BOOYAH!

A few emails later (after an interesting argument about how C works):

> Will snow be anyway useful for this, or multithreading must be made
> explicit (I don't know how) within the C code, or there is nothing we can
> do?

Please do your own homeork on what snow (etc) do, and how multithreaded
BLAS work (and the ones I am familiar with are C code and use pthreads --
OpenMP is another possibility).

I get it that he's British. I get that he's a stats prof. I get that he works at Oxford. But seriously, why does he insist on reading the R boards and then only respond with asinine remarks? If you're too busy to help people find information about this software package, maybe you shouldn't spend the time to get on and flame them. Seriously, that last email was basically "I'm emailing you to tell you I can't email you."

I hate trolls. Here's the closest thing I've come to understanding them:

Ridiculous

THATS A NEW ONE!

Murder in my neighborhood?

Now I have told one of you about the news from a few streets over. Just incase you don't get local news- THIS-is all anyone can talk about. In the news, it sounds like a guy killed his wife and hid the remains in the garbage, using bleach to clean up, and also reported his wife missing to make himself look innocent.

Here is my question, is this media bias towards sensationalism? Probably. Should friends and neighbors assume the wife is dead because she is missing, and remains ( thought not publicly proven to be hers have been found) Does suspicious evidence like bleach bottles mean that he used it to destroy evidence. As of last night, the man in question was not held on murder charges, but harming official business and the like. So should we read into what the news says and form our own opinion, or should we try to wait and see what the evidence shows. I keep thinking in my head, innocent till proven guilty. However I may try I am finding it very hard to hope this is not the way it looks. I keep hoping the wife will turn up, and everything will be fine. that area has one large cemetery near by and a smaller one. Who knows what may or may not have happened.

As if trying to hope of a good out come and believing the best in people is not enough, there is the chilling fact that this is just a few streets over, for those that know, on the other side of the park from me. My grandpa is buried in the cemetery down the street, I drive the street in question and pass that house at least once a week. Violence is common in our world. Murder rates are high in cities. And while i did not know these people personally, it is forcing me to realize just how much we can never know or guess about others and the human condition.