Social Media and all that Hype
Jumping onto the social media bandwagon, I proceeded to Twitter – only to find that I have nothing to say on it. One could argue that I simply did not embrace Twitter for its use – letting people who apparently care about your daily dealings know just what those dealings are – but I would say that I prefer a more personal mode of interaction for my “status updates”. I have also found that, of my initial ~20 contacts, at least three of them are Serial Twits (because Twitterers or Tweeters both sound ridiculous, and neither is as demeaning), who post about every little thing, and sometimes four or five times about the same thing. Whether it be a sports match, a gaming convention, or the influx of illegals into your backyard, I don’t care. Luckily twitter allows me to forever remove these spammers from my feed, thereby ending my friendship with them. Somewhat like breaking up over facebook – society in my eyes is hitting a new low. So now I use twitter for FDA recalls, NSF and NASA updates, and to see when Download Squad or RolePlay Gateway have something new to report.
Which brings me to something useful: Google. Having given up on Firefox due to a Google Gears + Integrated Gmail crash, I am now using Google Chrome for my internet, with Gmail for my email, and Google Reader for my RSS feeds. I Google Maps my public transportation, I Google Search for my search, and the only other sites I seem to frequent are Wikipedia and IMDB. If Google were to absorb those too (as per its blobular trend), and maybe make a Linux based Google OS, and take over Meebo for its multi-protocol instant messaging, then I really would bow down to that Blue Red Yellow Blue Green Red Skynet and consider myself saved by the Technorevolution. They did after all come out with the Android, and if naming is any indication of function…
So I’ve recently narrowed down my list of non-google sites that I actually use. They are Ficly, Photobucket, and WordPress. For some reason, I feel that Google Wave might help to centralize everything that I do online.
On an unrelated note, two of my professors were walking the stairways and hallways in a very solemn manner – slow, careful steps, hung head, stooped posture – until I alerted them to my presence, whereupon each of them in their respective incidents livened up and help a perfectly normal conversation with me. Then returned to their zombie walk as I made some distance.
But for those of you who do use twitter, I highly recommend TwitterFeed, Su.pr by Stumble Upon, and TweetPsych. I have decided that a Tweet should either have a witty joke/comment, or a link in it to be of any use to anyone. “Mowing lawn, back in ah hour” does not qualify.
ChristWire: 404/502 (You’re doing it wrong!)
I am opposed to any sort of theism, but I do not hate particular people whom I meet who happen to be theists. I am sure that I am friends with many of them, so I keep my views in check when discussing religion with them. Often times I am regarded as negatively for being an atheist as I regard them for being theists, but when the topic is not religion we usually get along great.
And I know that when it comes to organized anything, including religion, people are bound to blog, make web communities, start organizations. Atheists have certainly done so, just like marine biologists, nuclear physicists, poets, etc. But when someone comes out with a message along the lines of
404 Server Error – Page or Article Not Found
Our holy servers are currently experiencing miraculous amounts of high traffic and atheistic evils.
I have to stop because my otherwise boring day has just been interrupted by an uproarious fit of laughter. My coworkers are looking at me like I’ve just been shot (or had a violent seizure). And its not even done! They redund the message a little lower on the page:
404 Error Page Not Found
Refresh to find the article you wanted, and if that doesn’t work please keep praying for an hour and then check back.
Which isn’t quite as funny, but wasting an hour to make a page not found error resolve is just nonsensical. (If the page doesn’t exist, you prayers will do nothing to make it happen. One of the webmasters needs to actually upload that page.) There’s more! They took the time to (incorrectly) explain why 404s occur.
Why do 404 error messages occur?
Evil Democrat
The 404 Error message was created by an unholy menagerie of vile atheists, Democrats, liberals and Godless Soviets in the Year of our Lord 1992. We’re told through electronic pathogens and demonic incantation rituals, they managed to create ways to electronically limit the amount of lost souls and seekers of truth that ‘web servers’ could process in a given minute.Though their machinations are evil and everlasting, through hope, prayer and clicking refresh you can eventually overcome these wicked limits during times when tens of thousands of people flock to ChristWire per hour to discover the works of True Christians.
Yes, that is indeed taken from ChristWire wherein any non-existent page will (hopefully) redirect you to that compendium of knowledge.
Christians: how can you take that? Do you wholeheartedly agree with ChristWire’s message? Or are you appalled at this blatant defamation of your faith via ignorance and hatred? If you find that this portrayal of your faith hurts Christians everywhere, send ChristWire a message via The Holy Mailbox.
By the way, as per Webopedia, the error that they incorrectly describe as a 404 is actually a 502 Service Temporarily Overloaded – Server congestion; too many connections; high traffic. Keep trying until the page loads. Though I’m in doubt as to whether that has ever actually happened.
Flying Spaghetti Monster vs God
I read the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and just now read some hate mail they received (and was compelled to comment). I’ve echoed my comments below. Normally, I put up with people who I know are theists (more so now than I had before, thanks to the influence of Hemant Mehta who was kind enough to visit us at CMU last Friday, where much pasta was had). The letter below is nonsensical idiocy, complete with irrelevant references to the Holy Babble which I have attempted to rectify. Maybe it is okay to base your faith on personal beliefs, but how is citing a book, written by people two thousand years ago, with no requirement for not exaggerating and no knowledge of science (and an eye for spotting coincidences and ignoring non-coincident incidents) at all acceptable? This only reinforces my skepticism, and caused me to find the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible (which surely does not help ANY Christians get their apparently convoluted point across).
Anyway, onwards with the aggravating hate-mail:
How can you know that God is a F.S.M. if he is invisible? If he is invisible how can you see him?
If something is invisible, then those wavelengths of light that we perceive are not emitted by the object at hand. However, just because you cannot see it does not you cannot feel His Noodly Appendage.
What is said on this website, in your books and amongst yourselves doesn’t change what the Bible and the real word of God says. Gods word is like gravity, just because people don’t believe in it doesn’t mean it’s not true and doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to jumping off of a cliff. Someone can easily say “I don’t believe in gravity because I can’t see it, etc..because it’s an old belief….” but that doesn’t change the fact that it is there. This is like Gods laws for all of humanity.
His Noodliness allowed for heretics to create the fake book so titled the Bible, for it amused His Meatballs. Additionally, the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not speak; consequently, whatever word you think is His is surely the lies of some B.C. fiction writer(s) out of a job (goat herding).
Have any of you ever seen your own brain? Does that mean that it isn’t there? Have any of you ever seen your heart? Does that mean that it isn’t inside your body still beating? Have any of you ever seen your soul? Does that meen that it isn’t there?
I cannot claim to have seen my brain, but if you volunteer, I will check that yours is indeed in your head. The same goes for your heart, though I’m sure a CT or an MRI would suffice. And have you ever seen the FSM? I have. In fact, there is an IMAGE of His Noodliness on my bumper sticker (and apparently, on t-shirts, sidewalks, potted plants, clouds, and other locations worldwide).
The fact is that we do have souls and I heard it put this way “If God did not exist than man would create one” and this is what has been done with the F.S.M. group. You have created a God and the Bible calls this idol worship. Often times groups in the Bible would create an idol to worship because they couldn’t see or hear or touch God.
No you! (OMG BEST COMEBACK EVER) I remind you that writing that your fake sky-daddy’s book is the word of sky-daddy does not actually make it an actual book of sky-daddy’s words. Even the unemployed goat-herders failed to get their stories to agree while wandering all about Israel as hobos.
God’s fingerprints are on all of creation and more and more scientists and peole are recognizing this alike. Antony Flew, one of the worlds most famous atheists has recently said that there is a God and one who is intelligent. The Bible does say clearly that man was created in his image (Genisis 1:27) so we know that God is not a flying spaghetti monster.
Actually, DNA (of humans and otherwise) is full of USELESS CRAP that was only necessary back before viruses mutated and in the direction of Archeans. It’d be pretty cool if we were at all efficient, but apparently there were a lot of mistakes along the way. Your sky-daddy figured it’d be fun for people to doubt his awesomeness, so he dropped those in. You know, for fun, since people on the whole are egotistical, inefficient, uncooperative, corruptible, and physically frail (at least, compared to Rhinos!). Your sky-daddy doesn’t sound like much, if we are made in his image. Also, She would also be a sky-mommy. FSM solves this problem by having Two Meatballs, many Noodles, and no sex. And clearly created a delicious Italian dish, if we are speaking of image.
On another note, God’s word was written because He loves us and showed his unending love for us through his son Jesus Christs death on the cross and ultimatley, His resurrection from the grave. Romans 10:9 says that “If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Salvation comes through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone (John 14:6).
That’s cool. Letting your children die must be only of your sky-daddy’s virtues, according to precedent. But then, isn’t killing also uncool? So killing your own (or others’) children wouldn’t be right (since you’re against abortion), but maybe not having any children would do the trick, right? You know, emulate your sky-daddy and feel closer to him? I’d appreciate the lack of Your children, and I’m sure His Noodliness wouldn’t mind. He’s pro-choice, after all. Also, John and the Romans didn’t get the memo. Way to not read the Bible, John and Romans. Heretics!
I would recommend that anyone who is a follower of this group to read not only the Bible but a series of books from a former atheist called “The Case for Christ” and “the Case for Creator” and from there you can draw your own conclusions. If you are truly seeking for answers in life than I would encourage all of you to search for those answers and don’t just give up by creating your own religion/idol.
I’m going to guess that a lot of atheists have read the Bible, unlike yourself, who appear to be selective in reading only pro-sky-daddy books. And we think your literature is CRAP. (Plus, the writing style is horrendous! Who edits it? The Church?)
Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. That means you, me and everyone else in the entire world.
Romans are also the guys who killed Joshua (for real, it’s not Jesus). They also had some pretty awesome military tactics, as well as advanced forms of government, and even almost-modern plumbing. Plus, they would have orgies and were cool with homosexuality and ate a lot for fun before throwing it up on purpose, so really, I don’t think they cared much for your definition of sin. Also, sinfo.
Think about it, if all the people in the world were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and the ship was going down and there were no lifeboats, everyone would need a Savior no matter how hard they tried to save themselves. That savior is Jesus Christ. Every other religion in the world is saved through works and Christianity is the only one where we are saved by our faith alone. Once a person proclaims that Jeesus is Lord it is up to that person to live his/her life for Him.
Or, they could resign to their fate, and die like the people on the Titanic died. Joshua didn’t seem to help them with getting out alive, and so far as history shows, all the scientists, comedians, entertainers, and the majority of beautiful women wouldn’t get saved. I’d prefer to die with/like them, than with boring dudes who really like to pray. It’s not like living a boring sinless life will allow me to sin like a pro in the afterlife, will it?
I hope that this has been some help to all of you.
-CD
I hope that you go to your sky-daddy’s heaven and spend all of eternity BORED.
Justice, Integrity, and Objectivity
Objectivity is a rather uncanny concept. Every court case, every peer review, every time any issue of justice comes up, the call is to “be objective”. I would like to hypothesize that this doesn’t actually mean anything. We define objectivity as the best interests of the governing law system of the society in which the issue at hand has occurred, so really, we are just being socially subjective (assuming that the set of laws has been written to truly represent those best interest of that society). We can argue all we want, but I fell that I should describe a case that I presided over just today (without breaching confidentiality, of course).
I am Sergeant-at-Arms of Delta Beta Crescent Colony of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity at Carnegie Mellon University, a role that was assigned to me by a team of three (or four) consultants. Every chapter has it’s own organizational structure, but when colonies are formed is is simplest that the Sergeant-at-Arms serve in two roles: his own, and the Chairman of the Honor Board. The Sergeant-at-Arms writes the bylaws, and the HB Chairman enforces them. I am effectively Judge and Executioner, coupled with the Honor Board, which serves as Jury.
When first tasked with the above, I had intended to keep to the books, be wholly impartial, be wholly objective, and thereby act as a fair judge. This is the wrong way to go about it. The bylaws that I wrote are not simply my own: they are based on those of a well established chapter, and they have been reviewed by at least three alumni from other chapters a total of at least ten times. As well, the colony has been voting on these bylaws, article by article, making corrections where necessary, so as to ratify them.
The Accused at today’s hearing is a rather active Freshman, and has actually made the effort to offer corrections on my bylaws – the only one to do so without them coming up on screen at General Body meeting. So, the only one to offer suggestions of his own accord. Interestingly enough, I was morally opposed to almost every one of his many suggestions, and found the remainder to be worse than my original. We have not yet ratified everything, but what we have ratified is in agreement with me, and in direct disagreement with the accused.
He has been a problem from the start – both with his bad reputation on campus (which I still cannot fathom how he attained before even the conclusion of his Freshman year), and with his inability to function in a social setting without saying something stupid. His libertarian views apparently give him leave to have rude outbursts against the governing authority of just about every organization (unless he is the one leading it). So far as I understand, he is also a liar (or, more likely, he is in too much of a haze to actually remember the events that happen, what order they happen in, and when they haven’t actually happened).
As a result, when the Colony finally decided that yes, he should be brought to Honor Board, no one stepped up. So I took the flag, and was right to do so. Who better to protect the laws, then the man who wrote them? Those bylaws define our organization, determine what makes us us, separate us from other fraternities, and separate each member from non-members. I did my research on this guy, as biased as I was, and only became more biased as the evidence grew stronger. I would think that, finding more and more evidence against the accused’s Delthood, my bias against him was making me only more objective! In fact, the case that I built was structured only on the basis of the national bylaws. Objectivity was no longer defined in social terms, but in the terms of the Fraternity. No, not even so broad: in the terms of our thirty man colony. Objectivity does NOT scale.
I was chosen to serve as the Sergeant-at-Arms because I had first applied to be Risk Manager, and was transparent about my view for the organization from the very start. Well, following a decisive (and wholly unsurprising) Honor Board Hearing (which admittedly lasted an extra hour because I was nice about letting him say what he wanted to say), he proceeded to complain to the Vice President and President that I did not make a good Honor Board Chairman, because I was too biased. I say that, so long as I am biased in the best interests of the organization (which I defined, and the organization has apparently agreed with), I am just about the best Honor Board Chairman that the organization can currently have. And no, this isn’t power grubbing: I’ll be a senior next year, and so shall be ineligible for Executive positions.
My situation is so uniquely empowering, that it makes me cringe at the future, if it so happens that someone who does not share my views becomes Honor Board President, that the Colony amends the bylaws, and that the direction in which I have helped point the organization changes. Of course, we are human, so perhaps my direction isn’t the right one, but instead I am influential enough to have turned everyone toward it, so far.
Or maybe I’m being influenced by someone else, and just don’t know it yet. Regardless, I have a newfound appreciation for Thomas Jefferson and for all committed policy makers, and a disdain for those other policy makers who clearly don’t deserve their positions.
RIASEC, Science, Permeating Irrationality
Our Delta Beta Crescent Colony of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity just had a “Dream Job” presentation based on the RIASEC theory. Our President and Vice President were both Enterprising, meaning that once they graduate the colony will have to fall into a period of stagnation until someone else who is Enterprising is recruited. I happened to be Investigative, with close seconds in Social and Conventional. To adapt myself to the prescribed stereotypes, I agree. I love Physics, which is Science, which uses the Scientific Method, so Investigative makes quite a bit of sense. One of my (many) flaws is my steadfastness in my current assumptions. To be fair, given decisive evidence I will drop my beliefs in a heartbeat, but until then I stand by them (for example, religion is a nuisance and bad influence on society, and is no better than hard drugs). However, what this flaw does do is make me an enabler: if I agree with someone, I will echo their thoughts, reinforce them, and do my best to help them realize their intentions. Hence, Social. And, based on my (not always successful) runs as forum administrator and my recent spike in campus involvement (Safewalk, Safezone, SAA, 1in4) and my executive officer position in the Fraternity, well, it would seem that I at least try to be an organizer. Wikipedia tells me that this makes me Conventional.
As to what I’m not: Realistic, Artistic, Enterprising. I will enable (being Social), but will not get my hands dirty (hence not Realistic). I will organize or even reorganize (being Conventional) but I will not innovate (hence not Artistic). I will think (being Investigative), but I will not hope (hence not Enterprising). As far as this relates to science, RIASEC tells me that I should be a theorist rather than an experimentalist. Not because I can’t (In fact, I am enjoying Modern Physics Laboratory very much and doing quite well in it) but because the best experimentalists are innovative and hands on, and are able to convince the big wigs with the money that the LHC is a necessity, and that one quarter of the experimental space should be theirs. So they are Artistic, Realistic, and Enterprising. I’m not. Damn.
Theorists live longer anyway, right? Then again, ISC does not likely make me a theorist (well, I helps, but S and C are stretch). Well, the contrapositive is that experimentalists don’t live longer, and I’ll just say “… than me” and be done with it. Speaking of living longer, Spock wished it on everyone, and he was a frequent flier. The worst segue of all time.
I took a flight last night on a De Havilland Dash 8 Q400. With 4 seats per row, and propellers rather than reactive engines, the real defining feature of the smallitude of the aircraft was that the stewardess, when pushing the beverage cart, was unable to give away cans of juice or soda because the cart was only large enough to hold at most three cans of each beverage (and in some cases only one can). As per some recent news stories I have begun to peruse PlaneCrashInfo.com.
How is that at all relevant to… anything? I will generalize to say that everyone has phobias. Some are so irrational and overwhelming, like claustro-, that I wont even delve in that direction. Fear of a plane crashing? Wholly idiotic, unless you have some method of stopping it. It is one thing to fear dying (or at least not want to die), but to fear death while already on the plane? Unless your plane is being hijacked, you have no control over your “fate”, if you will. Unless you’re in the cockpit, in which case there damn better be a good reason for that (like, you’re the pilot). The man next to me was freaking out. While we taxied to the runway, on take off, in the air, and during the bumpy landing. In case you read this, sir, let me just tell you that you will die young. Worrying leads to stress, and stress prevents your body from regenerating your blood cells at an appropriate rate. You’ll die of old age, at a young age. (To clarify, that was a Google search. Unlike Wikipedia, things on Google are NOT always true. As a matter of fact, I didn’t actually read the page I just linked.)
It is rational to worry about your choices, and to perhaps make your choices based on what you hear in the news (though they are likely just as irrational as you are, those reporters, newscasters, and editors, that you are better off waiting for statistics to appear on Wikipedia). For example, it might be prudent not to choose flights that use the Q400 series aircraft. The point is that once you have made this possibly poor decision, you should be resigned to your fate. Unless you want to be tazed, once the cabin door has been closed you will either make it to your destination, or you wont. So pick up a book, or whip out your laptop, and amuse yourself. If you are going to die, at least die happy :).
This guy will!
The moral of the story is that it is rational to have rational fears – so as to guide your current choices. It is irrational to have irrational fears – instead, one should make conclusions and mental notes to influence their future choices. If that doesn’t make sense, then I recommend therapy.
Strike that, Reverse it!
So much time, so little to do!
Delta Tau Delta has recolonized at Carnegie Mellon, and despite my initial reluctance I was drafted into the Delta Beta Crescent Colony. Despite my dislike for extra work, I was appointed by the consultants as Sergeant-at-Arms and Honor Board Chairman. I am now stuffing my nose into every committee as they are forming, involving myself in nearly every bit of colony business, working towards building the colony’s website, and writing the colony bylaws.
I also went through SafeZone training, which is GLBT awareness/sensitivity/Ally training, and I think falls in well with Sexual Assault Advisor training. Although unrelated, my binder of being a community resource is growing. Coupled with the experience I will gain from running the Honor Board, writing the bylaws, helping with the New Member Education committee, and my involvement in the Service/Philanthropy/Fundraising Committee and the Social Committee… Well, I believe I will have, in this one semester, introduced an extracurriculars section to my resume as well as gaining a wide assortment of skills.
Luckily, Thanksgiving is coming, and I will be giving thanks to the holiday break for giving me a chance to sit down and write those bylaws.
Moral of the story: I have no gods, and yet I am somehow moral enough to be appointed to a position of authority in a fraternal organization. I am ethical enough to have been selected to write the ethical code of this organization, and I apparently have enough integrity to have been chosen to conduct the honor board. I have no gods, and yet I now have a social network that connects me to thousands of people who share my values. What is the tenet of Delta Tau Delta? “Committed to Lives of Excellence”. Not “Committed to the Service of God”. If I can have all of these things without gods, what is the benefit of believing in gods at all? I have already discounted the promise of an afterlife, I have discounted the necessity of religion for morality, and just now I have discounted the necessity of religion for community. What are the other benefits of religion, if any? Perhaps “security”, or “hope”. I’ll have to think on how to discount the necessity or success of religion with regards to each of those.
Bullshit Makes the World Go Round
I used to bullshit for the fun of it. Bullshit can be compared to compulsive lying: you start making something up based on what you know, and with enough resolve and confidence everyone in the immediate vicinity will take you for an expert. Bullshit gives people a sort of social high: the attention, the apparent expertise, a sense of accomplishment and a personal appreciation for one’s wit.
Well, as a student at Carnegie Mellon, I no longer bullshit for no reason. Not only has the deception lost its luster, but outwitting the bright, high in IQ, and up-to-date on the latest in science, politics, world news is damn near impossible. However, I study physics, and I find that I no longer “bullshit” so much as I correctly explain the world. I know enough and I have imbibed enough physics-oriented thinking that when I make something up, it is not far off from reality.
Theists fail to approach this standard of basing their explanations of the world on the world itself. If I see my friend making something up, I catch those nuances in his voice and those slight incongruities in his arguments: he is bullshitting, and I can call him out on it. It is a public service because his falsehoods don’t get passed on to others. In fact, catching him in the act makes him less likely to bullshit in the future, at least with me around, and might drive him to actually research the subject before speaking on it.
So why is antitheist and antireligious speech quenched so strongly by society? Why can’t I, when hearing people discuss God and the Bible and the Torah and Jesus and the Messiah, call them out on putting their beliefs into some books and some stories? Hell, when Wikipedia has an article about anything they have to cite sources, and those sources have to correlate to the material. Of the “sources” available for religion, there are the Holy Books. Unfortunately these books barely correlate among each other, let alone with the religious views of the people quoting them. What sort of close-minded decision allows Christians to believe in the New Testament while not acknowledging Dianetics as the Holy Word? How can any theist claim to be correct with all others wrong, when the sources for ALL the groups are merely imagination-augmented renditions of various moral codes?
I call bullshit when I see it, and I see a lot of it. Every time I hear theists discuss their personal religions I cringe. But what hurts the most is when they discuss atheists: oh, those non-believers are fine, so long as they don’t speak out against my beliefs, seeing as how they are my beliefs, not theirs.
Well, theists of all faiths: speaking authoritatively on a subject that you not only have not researched but can do no research in to anyone publicly is a violation of the no-bullshit policy. Bullshit is fun, yes, and it makes you feel good for having outwitted someone. But bullshit is unnecessary. Take some physics courses, if you really do wonder about the creation of the universe. But please, PLEASE don’t speak about your religious beliefs as though you are right. Every scientist, if they don’t want to get ridiculed, has to gather massive amounts of supporting evidence before their theories are even tested by the scientific community. As a theist, you KNOW that your beliefs cannot be tested and proven right. So yes, your beliefs are personal. Keep them inside.
Blagospherology, Status Quo, and the elusive Anton Liebowitz
I took a break from blogging because I realized that I wasn’t breaking ground: not only has the ground I’ve been hammering at been thoroughly tilled and reseeded, but… In fact, the metaphor I didn’t bother to come up with has likely been worn out many times over. My thoughts on politics are moot: the institution is corrupt, and any replacement institution will also be corrupt (or will fail). Or both. Most of society (at least, that part of society that maintains a profitable standard of living) survives thanks to that corruption, so I find it awkward to do either of 1) start or 2) join an anti-corrupt government crusade.
In similar news, my crusades against religion are no better than others’ crusades for religion. In fact, I can recommend nothing more than everyone reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins during or immediately after high school, and that parents not force religion onto any children who resist it.
However, I do have a new mission in life, which I am sure others will be more successful at: spread the science seed. In literal terms. Just because a person doesn’t understand your views (on science) doesn’t mean they are worthless. In fact, they are necessary for assimilation into the science sphere. If you have any interest in science, have many children, even with someone who doesn’t understand you. With any luck of genetics, your children will share your passion, at least to some degree. And, if your spouse happens to not particularly enjoy science, at least you have taken them out of the non-science mating pool.
A friend of mine, Emily Orthogonal, has always been active in the Mornington Crescent community. This win against Anton Liebowitz was a rather exciting game, and so I have resolved to perhaps once again peruse the rulebooks and get back into the scene.
