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I'm a Christian. I respect the opinions of rational non-Christians and am open to the fact that not every intelligent person will agree with me. I don't try to force my religion on people who don't want to hear about it. But I don't like it when people bash Christianity without cause on slashdot. Everyone (rightly) derides politicians for the "Muslims are terrorists" slur but it seems like open season on Christianity sometimes around here. This post is titled "When Wealthy Christians and Crackpots Attack!" but he doesn't talk about Christians in his post at all! There's nothing really substantive or particularly insightful - just one statement as a few instances to support it. He talks about Scientology and Uri Gellar. The Church of Scientology are not Christians (they believe Christ is a delusion IIRC from reading about them). Uri Gellar is Jewish according to wikipedia. Stuart Privar seems to be a creationist, but there is nothing about Christianity in either article that I read. Furthermore, not all Christians are creationists either except in the broadest sense - not the common use of the term. Using such broad, imprecise language in his little post just seems like a potshot or trolling.

Got a little rant and a question for anyone reading. Again, a popular science article exaggerates the conclusions. A recent /. story mentioned Anti-Bacterial Soap No Better Than Plain Soap. Now most of the comments seem to sermonize against all antibacterial products. I don't completely disagree, but the article doesn't support extreme opinions. Of course, the story in question only concerned itself with one type of antibacterial soap and with one use of that soap: namely washing hands before eating food. Allison Aiello sums it up:

The soaps containing triclosan used in the community setting are no more effective than plain soap at preventing infectious illness symptoms, as well as reducing bacteria on the hands.

Now for my question. I practice Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a lot. I used to use a regular soap in the shower, but I caught some severe conjunctivitis three times in the same eye in the past six months despite trying to be clean. The pink eye was very bad, my eyelids swelled up, and the doctor needed a broad-based antibiotic to take care of them. That indicates to me that the infections were caused by bacteria - probably staph.

I am scared to death of MRSA. Now I use antibacterial Dial bar soap as well as some anti-dandruff shampoo to discourage colonies of fungi - with the intention of preventing ringworm (and dandruff I suppose). That seems to have been working better, but this article concerns me. The article didn't research body washes for athletes, but it does raise the question whether or not antibacterial soap is useful for cleaning up after practices. Which type of soap would be best for cleaning up after athletic activities and why - regular or antibacterial soap?

My /. fortune was:

(1) X=Y ; Given
(2) X^2=XY ; Multiply both sides by X
(3) X^2-Y^2=XY-Y^2 ; Subtract Y^2 from both sides
(4) (X+Y)(X-Y)=Y(X-Y) ; Factor
(5) X+Y=Y ; Cancel out (X-Y) term
(6) 2Y=Y ; Substitute X for Y, by equation 1
(7) 2=1 ; Divide both sides by Y
-- "Omni", proof that 2 equals 1

However, you can only cancel out the (X-Y) if X != Y because if they are equal then the expression is zero! Indeed, the rest of the steps can be left, so you end up with:

2(x-y) = (x-y)
0 = 0

Friends don't let friends divide by zero!

I competed in the Pennsylvania Open Judo Championships yesterday. It was a double elimination shiai (tournament) hosted at Master Eugene's school in Cranberry. This was the first time I participated in - and even witnessed - a judo competition.

I won a silver medal, and my record was 3-1. I entered the 175-151 senior men intermediate division. Here are videos of my matches:

1. I submitted J.R. DeFilippo (Kim) with okuri eri jime (sliding collar choke).
2. I pinned Rob Lynn (Joseki) with tate shiho gatame (high mount).
3. Mark deRouville (Brick) threw me with drop seoinage for gold.
4. I submitted Matt Fisher (Penn State) with koshi jime (clock choke) for silver.

Even though I ate a big pasta dinner last night and didn't even try to make weight for the tournament, I still weighed in at 152 pounds and weighed 151 after going to the bathroom before my matches. Therefore the guy who won (152 pounds) and I were the lighest judoka in the bracket.

Everyone had to wear a white or a blue belt - or a white or blue gi - during our matches. Even the black belts generally conformed to this rule; although, a lot of people just ignored it too. The competition ran late by over an hour, and I didn't feel like I had much energy while waiting. Somehow I had more than enough cardio, since I didn't really break much of a sweat or work that hard even during the one match I lost. Everyone else seemed exausted, so I guess I didn't work hard enough. I hope the reason is that I was just very efficient and/or had good cardio. Mentally I was drained by the end of the day, though.

I had fun during the judo shiai. JR trains at Kim's in Brendwood too. Rob Lynn invited me to train with him in Altoona, but that's a long drive unless I can get someone else to come with me. Matt Fisher trains at the Penn State Judo Team. I'm not too concerned about my loss to Mark deRouville, since he is the NJ State Champion and also placed in every skill division in his weight class. But I will learn from my mistakes and beat him next time. Good guys; it was an honor to meet them. I hope next time during the shiai I can relax more, and maybe win by ippon with a throw at least once. :)

I wrote my first Firefox 1.5 extension called "Personal Toolbar Button." Of course, it simply adds a toolbar button that toggles on/off the "Personal Toolbar" toolbar. This is where I keep all my bookmarks, but too many toolbars wastes useful screen real estate. Install it at extension's web site. (Thanks Mozilla.org!)

I was inspired by the web developer extension which uses the same trick to toggle its toolbar. I created a new GUID for the extension using an online UUID generator. This tutorial at Mozillazine provided the template for the extension. Roachfiend's tutorial filled in the gaps on how to package it as an installable XPI. Oh, and I used the DOM Inspector to figure out which CSS declarations/IDs to use.

The entire project took me about two hours because I kept making stupid mistakes. I originally wanted to write an extension for a programmable set of buttons for Firefox's toolbar, but I quickly realized that was too ambitious. Programming the extension was fun and a very practical use of my time - at least for me. All in all, I'm very pleased with the result. I hope someone else finds this project useful as well...