Ah, the dice we roll when we post things online.
Sandra’s fifth Live Journal post, a nice piece about gardening, got anonymously trolled, drive-by style.
I, however, posted a “wee discourse” lamenting the corruption of religious principles, and the ensuing discussion of religion did NOT erupt in a flame-war. There was nary a troll to be seen ANYWHERE.
You’re all to be commended on your reasonable behavior. The anonymous troll, however… he does not get commended. He gets lampooned.
Going forward, know that I plan to keep religious and political stuff fairly low-key. While I do have strong right-leaning tendencies, I’m not especially evangelical about them. Mostly I prefer to talk about fun stuff.
The implications of finding or not finding WMDs in Iraq is NOT fun stuff. Building WMDs on the other hand… the physics, the chemistry, the biology… I can talk about that for hours.
My mouth should probably be re-classified as a munition.
Rule 1: Don’t troll the H-man’s territory, lest ye find out that his pens are locked and loaded.
🙂
Weapons-grade speech…Waitasec–I don’t think I want to go down that road. When you start classifying speech as dangerous…
*grin* Just kidding.
Please, no speech classifications. I already have to deal with my husband’s comments about my “Weapons-Grade cynicism” (he likes the TV show _Daria_ because she reminds him so strongly “of you [me] at that age”. Gah).
Remember, it’s not a *proper* intimidating weapon without that *ominous hum*.
What happens if you yourself, can emit an “ominous hum?”
You probably need to bathe more often then… [just kidding!]
It more tends to be an “Ominous Uhhum” [throat clearing noise that is.] with me.
Personally I actually have a weapons permit for “weapons-grade sarcastic and/or sardonic humor. “
I was at a con a few years ago, and the security heard some of my pithy comments. It was either pay-up for a permit, or keep my mouth shut for the duration [impossible with all those targets].
But then I’m English, and as such it’s practically genetic.
One of the things that initially turned me away from
planning a career in chemistry was the realization that the
best way to make money was to be a chemist for the DoD, but that
meant you’d have to go to work every day and try not to think
about how many future people you’ve killed by lunch. :/ Of course,
there’s always pharmaceutical chemistry, but that has its own
“people-before-lunch” calculations. And in all the fields, one
slip up in the lab and you get to look someone in the eye and
tell them that you’re the reason they don’t have a mommy and/or
daddy any more. Bummer.
Worst case at my current job[1], I fnork the blerm and somebody’s
TPS report doesn’t have a cover sheet. Then I get two guys
coming by my desk asking if I got the memo, but its not going
to kill anyone.
Of course, like any good chemistry major I learned the structures
for all the war gases out of curiosity. It’s simultaneously
awe-inspiring and saddening that something as chemically simple
as (say) Sarin is all it takes to end lives on a wholesale scale…
kind of brings home how fragile and wonderful life is.
[1] My title is … fluid. Basically I’m a (primarily Unix-based)
web programmer and unix systems admin for the tech/web arm of a
reasonably large advertising firm. What exactly that condenses
to on a business card seems to change about once a year.
Worst case at my current job[1], I fnork the blerm and somebody’s
TPS report doesn’t have a cover sheet. Then I get two guys
coming by my desk asking if I got the memo, but its not going
to kill anyone.
Only two? Lucky.
Nerve gases? Bah!
I stopped being impressed by the nerve gases when I realized how very NONtoxic they are.
Now, botulinum-A, THAT’S impressive. Roughly .001 micrograms for a lethal dose (i.e., 1 billionth of a gram).
Several other organic toxins are very nasty as well; the nerve gases, by comparison, are almost harmless!
The cartoon was good. But your essay dissecting the troll’s response was a true classic. Heeheehee! You’re a good husband, Mr. Tayler. 🙂
You know, that was the same thought that occurred to me. I approved! ]:-)
===|==============/ Level Head
LJ has a function you can check off to disallow anonymous posts, which stops most trolls at the gates, or at least forces them to log in and be responsible for their marauding.
Sandra has turned that on now.
For my Journal I’m leaving it off. My work is public, and if anything truly offensive or inappropriate gets posted by trolls, I’ll just delete it.
Building WMDs on the other hand… the physics, the chemistry, the biology… I can talk about that for hours.
Have YOU had your *BLAM!* today? 🙂
Speaking of WMDs, I assume everyone knows what a poor man’s nuke is, right?
I know what a poor-man’s slug is, but I’m not familiar with the term “poor-man’s nuke.”
A poor-man’s slug is a 12-gage #8 target round that has been cut around the middle in a ‘C’ shape so a very small piece of the shell casing remains un-cut. The result is that instead of a shot pattern you get a tumbling wad of shot in a pattern about the size of a golf-ball. Range is horrible, but the stopping power is much better than the target shot would have been.
Naturally, when you make poor-man’s slugs, you don’t get to save your casings for reloads when you’re done.
“Cool! Um… but why do you know that?”
I’ll have you know that I credit you, the History channel and little tales like this for the high quality criminal ambiance of the roleplaying games I run. On the rare occasion I get to run them.
It’s interesting to see how far a few well placed second-hand stories can go.
Though what’s more interesting is how keeping my sources secret makes my friends just a wee bit paranoid.
Heh heh heh…
Wait… that may not be a good thing.
Re: “Cool! Um… but why do you know that?”
How do I know how to make a poor-man’s slug? Or how do I know what it does?
Answer: A roommate and I went shotgun shooting regularly one year when I was in college, and he taught me the trick. We test-fired several kinds of rounds at a 50-gallon drum from a range of about 50 feet.
The #8 shot took some paint off.
The 00 buck punched little holes in it.
The true slug punched clear through — in and out.
The poor-man’s slug punched in, making a hole about 4 times the size of the slug hole, and pushed a dent into the back side. It was also the only round that actually rocked the barrel on impact.
In short, I gained that particular bit of knowledge from careful experimentation.
–Howard
Poor man’s nuke: Jar of mayonaise, a bit of that nasty food poisoning bacteria (botoulism? I can’t spell it), and a major city… Mayonaise happens to be a very good thing to breed bacteria in…