Blog — May, 2007

I got approached today by an I.T. recruiter (John) at S.I. Systems, for a short-term MDX-related position.

I've worked a lot with SQL Server 2005, and solved some very difficult programming problems in it. But I haven't used the multi-dimensional (cube) database features in it (i.e., Analysis Services 2005). And I was quite open about that: As soon as I asked and found out that it was on the 2005 platform, I told the guy that I probably wasn't the right person for the job.

He persisted a little, so I ended up explaining to him, at a high level, that significant changes have been made to the way in which data cubes are built in SQL Server 2005 (where it's all drag-and-drop) vs. 2000 (where you had to actually write T-SQL, which is the only actual "fun" part of building cubes, and which I had done a lot of).

And then he suddenly says, "Can I call you back in ten minutes?" as if he's just got a call on the other line or something ... and hangs up before I can even say goodbye!

Of course, he never did call back, which is fine. But what I can't believe is that this guy didn't even have the decency to end the call with an actual "goodbye." He wastes my cell-phone time by leaving such a non-detailed initial message that I had to call him just to find out what the position entailed, and then he can't spare another five seconds for me.

It's kinda like the time I was walking home from Second City close to Halloween a number of years ago, and got propositioned by a cheap hooker.

Her: How're you doing?

Me: I'm good.

Her: I'll do you for twenty.

Me: [Silently weighing the financial, legal, moral, and viral consequences.]

Her: I'm not expensive. I won't go below fifteen.

Me: Thanks, but I'll have to have to pass.

... and she's off like a flash to the other side of the street, where the business is hopefully brisker.

Anyway, of all the technologies in my I.T. skillset that I'd like to keep current on or improve, the cube stuff is the least of it: The only reason to do that work is for the money; there's no joy/programming in it at all.

[I]t is now more likely than not that the tops of the pyramids are cast [from a mixture of limestone, lime, and diatomaceous earth], as it would have been increasingly difficult to drag the stones to the summit. (more)

Real science, as done by real scientists—no UFOs, no Higher Powers, no integral fairy tales. Gotta love it.

Steve Hassan at the Freedom of Mind Center has just posted an interview he did in 1995 with the Sai Baba critic and former head of the Indian Skeptics, Basava Premanand (books).

Found this very funny rant against Macs and Mac users today. From which:

Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC).

Um, except, you know, that Douglas Adams, who wrote for Doctor Who (it's where he first did the Krikkitmen thing) was ... yes, a Mac user. Wrote his own rudimentary word processor for it, if I recall correctly.

Well look at this: It seems that the same Lawrence Wollersheim who co-founded FACTNet is also Co-Executive Director of the (Wilberian) Integrative Spirituality group:

Since 1983 as a major part of his life's omni-denominational spiritual passion, Lawrence has been continuously studying, experiencing and being committed to the forwarding the healthy and effective aspects of personal direct spiritual experience of Divinity found within the world’s great eastern and western mystical traditions. In addition to his administrative duties, Lawrence ... performs all of the ministerial functions of our other spiritual facilitators.

For 13 years Lawrence was the managing director of FACTNet, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization that is the largest advocate and resource on the Internet for information that helps victims of destructive cults. Lawrence had the good fortune to be personally mentored by Dr. Margaret Singer (Professor Emeritus UC Berkeley) for over 20 years on the psychology, tactics and recovery from the abuses of mind control and destructive cults.

Too ironic: The man "escapes" from Scientology, winning a landmark financial settlement, and where does he wind up? Following the fairy-tale teachings of another (integral) fiction writer! (L. Ron Hubbard, for all his flaws, was at least a respected writer of science fiction before turning nefariously to spiritual fiction; Wilber [Boomeritis] can't even say that much.) And, he's performing ministerial functions in an integral group!

Did he do any more "due diligence" (such as Meyerhoff and I have done) before swallowing Wilber's legendary crapola than he did on his way into Scientology? Obviously not: Even with all of his vaunted "information that helps victims of destructive cults," he still buys into a set of ideas which are little more than lies, told by a manipulative, cult-leading Bald Idiot! (And, given that the integrativespirituality.org website is still online, with Wollersheim still performing ministerial duties for the group according to the site, it doesn't look like he's repudiated the integral/AQAL bullshit yet, either. If that is indeed the case: Khrist, talk about people who will not learn.)

(I am not suggesting that Wollersheim, et al., use the "second tier" notion as a means of feeling "saved" from the "persecuting" world to the same degree to which Wilber and his close followers explicitly do. But in general, if you think that you can separate the fabricated ideas from the twisted personality of the leader and "foremost theorist," here, you are sadly mistaken. That is, while one would expect theory in general to stand independent of the character flaws in the person creating the theory, such is not the case when those same flaws cause the leader to simply make things up. Plus, if you think that, given basic human psychology, Wilber's emphasis on second-tier salvation wasn't just a "pathology waiting to happen" ... well, we saw very clearly last summer where those tiers lead, when placed into the hands of leaders and followers whose most-cherished ideas will not stand up to even the most basic questioning. And I called it all from a mile away, on this blog: It was all so predictable.)

So, what have I been saying about "religion addicts"? These are ever people who are willingly fooled into thinking they have found the best way to salvation/enlightenment, integral or otherwise. Any actual coercive persuasion on top of that is largely overkill.

And yes, it was Wollersheim himself, on behalf of FACTNet, who was planning on featuring STG in their ezine and home page. Until, you know—I am guessing here, but what else could it be—discovering how much that book and my Wilber-debunking writings undercut his own "omni-denominational spiritual passion," and place way too much (for the liking of the people in the cult-studies field) uncomfortable responsibility for cult-involvement on the "addicted" followers themselves. Amazing.

Attack of the Giant Plush Microbes.

IntegrativeSpirituality.org. Founded in 2004, it's (according to Andrew Cohen's WIE) "largely inspired by Ken Wilber's integral philosophy."

Oh, joy. (Thankfully, right now they've only got 7 Guests visiting the website. I seriously had that much traffic to my blog before I even started writing anything critical about kw. So, at least they're not likely doing much damage in the world.)

And then this (from just before Wilber's "planned meltdown" last summer):

[T]he folks here at IS would like to honor you for being pioneers in integralism by inviting you to submit autobiographical accounts of your engagement in this work. We are looking for short pieces that, if you can rise to the challenge, will be due on June 12. You are the forerunners of a Second Enlightenment, if you will.

Oh, and this (from July of 2006, i.e., after the meltdown) may be old news to some, but it looks like Jennifer Aniston is (was?) set to play Treya in the film version of Grace and Grit.

Too bad they can't exhume Yul Brynner to play Old Baldy. It'd be classic. (I would cry if they got Patrick Stewart, though.)

Ah, and the thread on the KW Meetup Boards where (only a couple of months ago!) "Ken explains how he can synthesize so much information..." made me laugh out loud:

I don't take notes. [No shit, like that wasn't painfully obvious by now.] I don't have notebooks. I work on a computer and that's it.... I don't know why this is so, but it is almost like idiot savant.... I've read at least a Ph.D. level in 23 disciplines....

I also have an idiot savant level of pattern recognition.... Because I have that pattern recognition, if I would read like Jane Lo[e]vinger and then two years later read Eric Yance and years later read Robert Kegan or something, I would instantly see how they fit.

"Idiot savant"? Well, he's half right! The guy is truly beyond deluded.

What he's doing is simply forgetting all the details in the interim, and then finding false correspondences between the stuff he read years ago, and the books he's reading with equal carelessness now. D'uh! Any "idiot" (savant or not) can do that!

Honestly, the man doesn't work at even a competent undergraduate level in any discipline, and he thinks he's read to a Ph.D. level in nearly two dozen?! (Physics would of course be one of them, through which he provably bumbles like, in all seriousness, a complete incompetent.)

Anyway, I'll tell you how the Bald Wonder can "synthesize so much information": When the real data doesn't fit his "synthesis," he simply makes shit up!

Introverts of the World, Unite!

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