GuildCom

The Reverend Bishop has just finished taking a driving quiz at MSN.com.

Disclosure: The Reverend Bishop did not get a perfect score; the Reverend got 90% of the questions correct and does not know or care which ones he missed.

The Reverend scored almost 10 points above the average. Most states, according to the test, require a score of 80 or higher to get a license. With that in mind, here are some interesting points:

• The average male participant scored an 83
• The average female participant scored a 78
• Car insurance for men is more expensive, based on sound research
• Women are traditionally stereotyped as poorer drivers

What does this say to the Reverend Bishop’s congregation?

Well, first of all, women can’t drive. But you already knew that.

It’s a damn shame that the contemporary backlash against sexism, a very real problem in the United States and elsewhere in the world, has come so close to banishing very real and valuable differences between the sexes from all polite discourse.

I don’t know why women don’t know the rules of the road, but according to this (less-than-scientific) survey, they don’t. Given the self-selection criteria in this case, I would imagine that women taking this test scored higher than the average woman; they were technically savvy and interested enough to get to MSN.com and take the test, after all.

I can’t prove any of that, of course.

What I can prove is that men’s car insurance premiums are higher than women’s, and that this practice is actually based on sound research. Men know what they’re supposed to be doing, but they aren’t necessarily doing it. There could be any number of reasons for this, of course.

The Reverend submits to you a difference in something beyond temperament; aggressiveness and simple “showing off” do not account for all the differences between men and women in the driver’s seat. 

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9B05E3D61238F933A15756C0A964948260

Boys who have a severe deficiency of male hormones in the years of puberty grow up to have less ability in spatial reasoning than others who had normal hormone levels, according to a study in Thursday’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

How is it possible that a person who has inferior spatial reasoning ability could be a better driver than someone who doesn’t?

Well, let’s face it: I’m pretty certain I know where the front bumper of the ‘Stang is, so I don’t worry about whether or not I’m going to hit something when I’m parking/backing up/turning at an intersection/whatever, right? Of course, everyone makes mistakes sometimes. So is it possible that the less confident individual (who tries harder to avoid things because he or she isn’t necessarily certain that they aren’t, in fact, in the way) may be less apt to suffer the consequences of a mistake made when driving close to another object?

I wonder how much difference that makes.

Anyway, the Reverend Bishop has spoken! I don’t want to hear any more shit when I talk about “damn women drivers.”

Source:  Neowin, VNUNet

Oh.  My.  God.  This is almost too funny…turns out many Americans decided to ’stimulate’ themselves in a different manner than President Bush intended with their stimulus rebate checks.  Porn site membership is reported to be up 20-30% since mid-May, and sumemr is supposed to be a ’slow season’ for the porn industry.

Some stimulus plan, huh? 

Source:  Neowin

…Age of Conan players, that is.  Neowin reports that recently players logging into the game noticed their tits their character’s breasts were noticably smaller, thanks to a new bug introduced by a game patch (of all things).

You know, I remember when game patches were supposed to *fix*  things, not maul or modify our characters (not that I play AoC, mind you; I ain’t that stupid).  I remember a time when our characters were safe from being manhandled or modified (unless you did it yourself, you filthy, vile wretch! lol).  Shame on you, Conan!  Go sit in the corner and weep whilst you bow your head in shame, outcast.

Actually, since I don’t play AoC, I find this pretty funny…

This is on Snopes.com as a (debunked) David Letterman top ten list. It’s not from Letterman, but it’s still pretty funny.

10. Have to sit upright while driving.
9. Pistol won’t stay under front seat.
8. Engine drowns out rap music.
7. Pit crew can’t work and hold up pants at same time.
6. Keep trying to carjack Dale Jr.
5. Police cars on track interfere with race.
4. No passenger seat for ho.
3. No Cadillacs approved for competition.
2. Can’t wear helmet sideways.
1. When they crash their cars, they bail out and run!

Yeah, it’s racist, but every now and then we should take advantage of free speech, right? Cuz it’s also hilarious. Here’s a real NASCAR list from the Letterman show:

10. Winning a race, then getting passed on the way home by some dork in a Hyundai.
9. You’re eight laps down, and the only advice your pit crew comes across with is “Go faster.”
8. Kids in the back keep asking, “Are we at Lap 236 yet?”
7. Right in the middle of the race, your N’Sync tape gets chewed up.
6. You’re doing 200, and Letterman still passes you.
5. After a fill-up, your pit crew doesn’t give you a free NFL drinking glass.
4. Guys who think they have a lot in common with you because they once did 70 on the Interstate.
3. I won the Winston Cup, but did they send me any free smokes? Hell no.
2. Tell crew chief you need to use the restroom, and he says, “Well, you should have thought of that before you left the house, mister.”
1. Guys who drive only 160 in the left-hand lane.

…ok, probably funnier.

My mother tends to send me several forwarded E-mails a month.  Some of them I find rather entertaining and pass along, though its not totally uncommon to delete them outright (Chain letters are immediately fed to the Guild’s pet Wookie).  But this one was too good to let die, and is actually (gasp!) post-worthy.  I don’t know who originally wrote this piece, but here I present the true condensed history of Man.

A Condensed Version of History

For those that don’t know about history…… here is a condensed version.

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were:
 1. The invention of beer
 2. The invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.

These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
  1. Liberals
  2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on Earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today’s lesson in world history….

It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to piss them off….

There you have it, folks. Gee….kinda explains the Clintons, doesn’t it?

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/10/what-2-500-buys-in-india-tata-nano-unveiled/

…but I think I’d hit it anyway. I mean, to the extent you can “hit” a car. Come on, how often do you get to drive an automobile with an MSRP of $2500 dollars? I’ve seen bicycles that hit harder than that at the checkout. How would you like to trick one of these babies out for the quarter mile, or maybe rig it up with a four wheel drive system and see if you can go mudding in it?

If you say you aren’t interested, you’re a lying bastard.

You know what else this means? It means we’re gonna have commercials like…

“Do you have a job? Do you have $2499? Do you want a new car? Then you, too, can cause global warming!”

Yes, some U.N. scientist has been quoted as having “nightmares” about this cheap-ass car. You’d think a green prick like that would be happy about an automobile that gets 54 miles to the gallon and seems to do everything possible to discourage the physical act of driving.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22299201/ from MSNBC Space

“Galaxy blasts neighbor with deadly jet.  ‘Death Star Galaxy’ could obliterate the atmospheres of other planets.”

Basically, its a case of cosmic-scale ass raping.  Just remember, whenever you think you have it bad, someone else has it worse.  Also, this is an example of real global warming. 

[Originally posted as a comment on Scorpio's last post. Copied here for those of you too lazy to read comments, since it's so brilliant.]

My man, if you’re going to flip a coin to decide between the quad core and dual core processors, you may as well do it right. Realize that the function coinflip() only returns either a zero or nonzero boolean sort of value that can ONLY be used to answer YES/NO questions.

Translation? The coin can no more answer a question like, “Which processor should I get?” than it can answer, “What is the true meaning of life?”

I do realize that some people attempt to circumvent the coin’s built-in limitations by defining variables based on the coin’s 0/1 answers, but this actually does not work. Saying that HEADS = X and TAILS = Y gets you nowhere in the real world, as the coin terminates the input string far too soon.

Example: “Which processor should I get? [INITIAL QUERY] The QX6600 or the E6600? Heads is the QX6600! [DEFINING VARIABLES].”

Now, in point of fact, all the coin actually has enough memory to crunch is the initial question: “Which processor should I get?” But, of course, that isn’t a 1/0 YES/NO question, is it?

Try an experiment at home. Pick up a coin. Any coin. Ask it this question: “What sort of answer would you give for an open ended question?” Of course, no computer works with 100%, absolutely perfect precision, so toss it into the air a few times to be sure. Keep going.

Eventually you’ll come to realize that the coin answers with a 1 (heads) approximately 50% of the time and a 0 (tails) approximately 50% of the time. That’s because the coin has no fucking clue what you’re asking.

Now, ask the coin, “Will you answer a yes or no question?”

…if the coin lands on Tails, shoot yourself.

The Reverend has spoken.

–Bishop, RGc1 CenCom

Bishop found this and sent it to me.  Seeing as he’s too lazy to post it (he claims he’s “working”), I decided to do the honors.  This is freakin’ funny…and true.  Take that, Apple-heads!

http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/

-2Cold Scorpio, RGc1 EastCom