SoylentNews

One in Three People Globally Think Gay Marriage Should Be Legal

Only 19 percent of respondents in Africa and 26 percent in Asia said they approved of same-sex marriage, against 35 percent in the Americas, 41 percent in Europe and 56 percent in Oceania the online survey found.

These divisions reflect that rights advocates in Africa and Asia have focused on more pressing issues, such as fighting discrimination against gays rather than promoting acceptance of same-sex marriage, said study co-author Aengus Carroll.

"This is so far off the agenda for Africa and Asia," Carroll told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

I was looking for more information on the emdrive, which is getting hyped to hell due to a patent application for the second generation (basically Harry Potter levels of magic) device, as well as the upcoming peer-reviewed paper in December, and I came across this fun story:

UFO ‘expert’ found ‘vomiting black liquid,’ sent warning to mom before his death
Mother of British UFO expert found dead in mysterious circumstances in Poland says she fears he was SACRIFICED by Satanists
UFO hunter texted 'If anything happens to me, investigate' before he died
Max Spiers: UK refuses to investigate 'suspicious' death of British conspiracy theorist
UK conspiracy theorist's mother fears he was murdered in Poland

Republican office in North Carolina hit with flammable material: authorities

Someone also spray-painted graffiti including a swastika and the words "Nazi Republicans leave town or else" on an adjacent building, the town of Hillsborough said on its website.

Orange County Republican Party Headquarters Vandalized

“This highly disturbing act goes far beyond vandalizing property; it willfully threatens our community’s safety via fire, and its hateful message undermines decency, respect and integrity in civic participation,” Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens said. “I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of people who make Hillsborough their home: Acts like this have no place in our community. Our law enforcement officials are responding quickly and thoroughly to investigate this reprehensible act and prosecute the perpetrators.”

Podesta email: Would have been better if San Bernardino shooter was named Christopher Hayes

"Better if a guy named Sayeed Farouk was reporting that a guy named Christopher Hayes was the shooter," Podesta wrote in a Dec. 2, 2015, email to Karen Finney, a Clinton campaign spokeswoman.

Podesta was referring to MSNBC host Christopher Hayes, who had tweeted at the time that a U.S. citizen named "Sayeed Farouk" was believed to be one of the people involved in the shooting.

The next time somebody tells me that if we all block ads the web will cease to exist, I think I'll mention that if that really happens, we could always go back to reading books. There's a lot of great ones that have already been written.

How Howard Stern Owned Donald Trump

Lol.

Also, I can't keep up with all the new groping/sexual assault allegations against Trump. Was it two on Thursday and two on Friday (legit question, no joke)?

The perfect defense: Trump belittles accusers as unattractive, as more come forward
US election 2016: Presidential race goes down the drain
Physically Attacked by Donald Trump – a PEOPLE Writer’s Own Harrowing Story

I responded to a spam message from my credit union, asking to be removed from their mailing list for things not directly related to my current account status using my standard Live.com email which has for at least 10 years now contained a footer labeled for the NSA which contains dozens of keywords sure to get you scanned. Well it finally worked... 2 days later the Yuma PD responded to my door and questioned me regarding the text of the footer which was reported to them by my credit union as a terrorist bomb threat. 2 Yuma PD marked cars and an unmarked vehicle containing a 'detective' arrived, rang the door bell and asked to speak to me, they wanted in the house badly but I chose to speak to them on the front porch. They had a copy of the email and were as they termed it just following up on a complaint lodged by the AEA credit union. The detective asked some rather pointed questions and tried real hard to get me to admit that the footer was really a threat but seemed rather embarrassed at his presence and went away after apparently I turned out to have valid ID and wasn't brown. The patrol officers openly laughed with me at the over reaction and accepted a bottle of water on their way out. I am debating wearing a turban to the credit union to close my account out and demanding cash in lieu of a cashiers check, but given the state I am in and the gun carry laws that might be too much. I'll report back if I don't end up in Gitmo.

The entire universe was turned inside out and upside down and completely backwards today, and I must have been the only one to see it. It all started with an innocent looking email.

        I get a lot of emails like this one, except that the note’s subject line looked like a headline from the National Enquirer, or maybe The Onion. It read “Archaeologists Find Twenty Five Million Year Old iPhone.” Misaddressed, maybe? But it was a press release for an art exhibit.

        A few minutes after I set the mail aside is when it hit me; the fellow who sent the email had mentioned that he’d seen my work before and knew I’d written about art and wanted me to see his exhibit. I had written a story, one story, ten years earlier, and the paper hadn’t published it.

        I printed it out and went to see Frank, my boss.

        “What’s up, Stan?” he asked.

        “I just got the strangest email” I said, handing him the printout. He read it.

        “So what’s so weird, Stan? You must get these every day!”

        “What’s weird is that yeah, I’m working on that story about the city museum, but I haven’t even finished researching it and barely have an outline, and I only wrote one other art thing, and it was never published!”

        “Huh, that is weird. Why don’t you go down and check the place out?”

        “You know, Frank, I think I will. Maybe I’ll get a fun story out of it.”

        It was here in town, 568 Broadway, up in the eleventh floor. It was only about a fifteen minutes ride on the subway, and I rode the elevator up.

        It looked like an Apple store, only it was as weird as the email. For instance, it had strange iPhone accessories, like a case with a built-in hourglass. It was like an Apple store in some twisted alternate dimension.

        I had expected to see Evan Yee, the artist behind the installation, but nobody was there at all. Also weird. I took a few photos and left, disappointed that I had gotten no story out of it.

        I went to the elevator, and there was no elevator. Instead, there was a door leading outside, at street level. I wondered if I was going crazy, and remembered the time my mother said she had a “senior moment”. Maybe I was just getting old, but I was only forty five.

        I reached for my phone as I walked outside, thinking that maybe I’d get some sort of inspiration from the pictures, but it was gone. Damn, that phone cost six hundred dollars! I was glad I’d noticed so soon, and turned around to go in – and it was an Apple store. Between losing my phone and my disorientation when I left the exhibit, I hadn’t noticed that there hadn’t been anyone outside.

        By now I was sure I was going crazy. I went in anyway, and there was my phone, laying on one of the counters. I picked it up, looked around, and the place looked nothing like it had before I’d left, although it still looked like a weird, twisted, dystopian Apple store.

        I left again, and the street and sidewalk were bright green. I just stood there a minute, kind of dazed, I guess. By then I was pretty sure I’d gone stark raving mad. Maybe I was having a stroke? I reached in my pocket to call for an ambulance, and my phone was gone. I could have sworn I’d stuck it in my pocket.

        I went back in, and it wasn’t an Apple store any more, just an empty room with my phone laying on the floor. I picked it up and tried to call 911, but there was no signal. I went outside again to get a signal; lots of buildings suck for phones, and it was now night; it had been morning when I’d gone in.

        And there were two moons. Everything else was normal, but there were two moons in the sky and there were no people.

        And my phone was missing again! Next phone I buy is going to be a cheap one. I went back inside, and it was an Apple store again, this time like any other Apple store. Again there was no one there, and again my phone was on the counter. And again, I could get no signal. I firmly gripped it in my fist and walked outside...

        And confronted a monster! A giant animal, really huge, bigger than an elephant with huge teeth and claws and feathers. I screamed and ran back inside... a cave.

        And I’d dropped my phone outside in my fright. Not that it seemed to work any more, anyway. Or that it mattered, since I had clearly gone insane.

        But I couldn’t just sit in the cave. I waited a long time to make sure the monster was gone, then peeked outside. No monsters, and no phone. I went back in, I don’t know why, and there was my phone laying on a large rock. I put it in my pocket, and noticed the cave had changed. It was huge before, now little more than an indentation in the rock face.

        I went back out, and it looked like New York in the early twentieth century, except there were no people. I hadn’t seen a soul since I’d started this ordeal, except for the monster.

        And my phone was gone again. I turned around, and the Apple store’s sign read “Bell Telephone”. I went inside and there was a bank of antique switchboards, all unmanned. My phone was laying on one.

        I put it back in my pocket and walked back out. I don’t think I’ve ever been as worried and scared in my life, especially when I’d seen the huge, weird looking animal. This time the streets and signs of civilization were gone, and a group of wigwams was there where New York City had been before.

        I was shaking. I sat down on a log, put my face in my hands and cried like a baby. I felt like one, lost like no lost child had ever been lost before.

        Cried out, I sat and tried to think of a way out of the mess I’d somehow gotten myself into. The only thing I could think of was going back into the wigwam.

        There was a room filled with some very strange looking machinery, machinery I’d never seen before and had an idea that no one else had either. And there were people there this time! Two women, a blonde and a brunette, both wearing extremely strange looking clothing, intently poring over a complex-looking gizmo that looked like it was from some science fiction movie, and didn’t notice my entry. I stood there speechless.

        “We almost had him!” one of the women exclaimed. “In the right dimension and we almost had him in the right time. It would have taken only one more minute. If he’d just sat still a little longer!”

        “I can’t find when he is now. This thing is being extra finicky today,” the other woman remarked.

        “Excuse me,” I said, “But would someone please call 911? I think I’ve had a stroke or something.”

        They both whirled around at the same time. The blonde said “Oh, no, he’s now!”

        The brunette said “It will be all right, sir. Please, take your phone and wait in the hallway until it rings. There’s a comfortable chair out there.”

        “What’s going on?” I asked.

        The blonde said “I’m sorry, we can’t say anything more without fouling things up even worse than they already are. Please, your world will be normal in a few minutes, just listen for your phone.”

        “Uh, okay, I guess,” I said, and took my phone outside and sat down.

        Maybe fifteen minutes later I heard my ring tone, and it was coming from inside the office. I looked in my pocket and my phone was gone again.

        I wondered if someone at work could have spiked my coffee with some hallucinogen, but no... nobody at the office would have done such a thing. I sighed, wondering what strangeness I was going to see next, and went in.

        I was back at the art exhibit, and again, no one was there. I picked up the phone to answer it, but all that came out of it were some strange noises. I hung up, and I was getting a signal again! I called my boss.

        “Where have you been?” Frank asked.

        “I got lost. I may have had a stroke or something, I’m going to the doctor to get checked out. I’ll call when I’m done to let you know.”

        “Well, I hope you’re all right. I’ll talk to you later.”

        “Bye.”

        I walked hesitantly out into the hallway, and the chair and door to the outside the building were gone, with the elevators taking its place. I pushed the button, and when the car came I stepped in gingerly wondering what would happen when I got outside.

        Outside the building everything seemed normal again, with the throngs of people and noise of vehicular traffic. I hailed a cab and took the taxi to the hospital, where they took my vitals and did a brain scan and some psychological tests. The doctor said everything looked normal, but my blood pressure was a little high and I should make an appointment with my regular doctor.

        I took the subway back to the office. As I waited for the elevator, Doris, an editor, walked up—and she had red hair. Oh, no, I thought. “Your hair!” I said, scared again.

        “Like it?” she said. “I was tired of being a blonde so I dyed it last night.”

        I could have hugged her. We took the elevator up and I went to see Frank.

        “Frank, do you mind having someone else check out that exhibit? I don’t think I could give them a fair revue.”

        Frank said I looked really pale and should go home, so I went home early. I couldn’t get this weird day out of my mind, so I just wrote it down.

        Of course, I’m not putting this in the paper. Maybe I’ll send it to a science fiction magazine under an assumed name, because there’s no way anyone could believe it wasn’t fiction.

        But I’m getting a new phone tomorrow.

We went to the beach last week, and I drowned my phone. Ironically I didn't drop it in the ocean; I left it on my chair, came back, and my water bottle had turned over and leaked a puddle into my chair, so the phone was having a swim. Could have happened anywhere, but it happened mere yards from the Gulf of Mexico.

The thing about this phone is it's a good old dumb phone because I'm a dinosaur. I like my flip phone. I really, really like my flip phone. Circa 2004 an equivalent phone without a camera cost $250, and I think that was with my employee discount (Cingular Wireless back then). I bought one for me and my wife that year. Mine got laundered soon after that and I lived on old phones for awhile.

Circa 2012 we switched to Verizon prepaid phones that were sub-$15 from Wal-Mart. $15! Same basic phone plus a camera. I have steadfastly resisted the rise of smart phones. I want to be able to feel the buttons because I can text at crazy speeds with them. While carrying on an in-person conversation, which is kind of cool. And I've had everything just right on this phone for 4 years, I use it like a pocketwatch, like an alarm clock, etc. I know a tablet phone could do all that, but I want my cheapo phone.

My wife switched to an android phone at some point, then a used iphone. We put her $15 flip phone away so I could use it when mine died. So of course it was nowhere to be found when we got back from the trip where I drowned my phone! Even though I had just seen it the week before!

My phone was a Samsung Gusto 2. The Gusto 3 is the "current" model, but it is vanishing. Wal-Mart has empty slots for it with the price hanging there taunting me. I found out I could order one online for pickup at my local Wal-Mart, so I did. When I got there they apologized for not actually having the Gusto and offered me a free upgrade to a $40 android model. Kind of cool, so I took it, realizing it was a good deal and thinking I might end up with no other option. But when I got home I contemplated the $10 rise in monthly fees and the loss of my beloved physical phone buttons, and decided to order a used Gusto off of Amazon.

So of course, before that Gusto even arrived, the lost phone that used to belong to my wife showed up. Thank goodness I have a flip phone again, and one in reserve! That should keep me going as a dinosaur for another 8 years or so, maybe.

So, my network has done some strange things over the years. We're all familiar with Cat5 cabling. You plug the RJ45 connecter into two machines, and they are supposed to communicate. Way back, you had to have a crossover cable to make some couplings work, but that's pretty much ancient history now. The machines generally sense whether there is a crossover present now, and compensate.

But, recently, a laptop was plugged into the network with some random cable laying around. They all look pretty much the same, and no one can say where any particular cord came from. Most of those six foot yellow cables are relatively new, and come with almost any machine or card you buy nowadays. But, there are the putrid green ones, the gray ones, black, brown. Do the colors mean anything? Hell, I don't know. But, the laptop was plugged into my gigabyte network, and things just crawled.

So, I did some reading. Cat5 has been around for a long time. They predate any effort on my part to do any networking. The Cat5 specification has undergone changes several times now, because the old standards are just not fast enough.

Obviously, we are into the gigabyte range of speeds now. But, take an ancient ethernet cable, plut it into a typical hub, and the hub automatically changes the speed of ALL THE CONNECTIONS to that slower speed.

Thus, plugging the laptop into the hub with that ancient cable dragged my entire network down to less than 10/100 speeds. Files were transferring at about 4 M/s on my gigabyte network.

So, after some (minimal) research, I decided to just upgrade everything. Shopped around a little, and decided on Newegg's lower cost offerings. Ordered a dozen 6 footers, a couple 12, 25, 30, and 50 foot cables, thought a little more, and ordered a couple more. Got a big box of cables in last week, all of them purple.

One cable at a time, I replaced every single Cat5 cable in the house. And, there are some short cables lying near the router and the hub, awaiting the odd people who show up, and want to plug into the network. (of course only odd people show up at my house, what did you expect?)

Now - what to do with that mess of old cables?

I'm thinking about divvying them out among people that I don't like very much. Let one or more of them try to figure out why his/her network is suddenly crawling at less than ten meg. I can tell them that I only upgraded to Cat6 because the cables are a pretty purple color. They'll believe stupid stuff like that.