Leon Atkinson

A direct mail piece from the local YMCA arrived yesterday. Among the classes and activities they were advertising for kids this Summer was “Princesses and Pirates”. I googled the site to figure out what this was. It’s not a mixed class of princesses versus pirates or even princesses and pirates working together. There are two different classes, one for girls and one for boys presumably. It didn’t say that girls couldn’t go to pirate camp, but I can’t imagine most boys wanting to go to princess camp…not when they’re five anyway.

The description of Pirate Camp is as follows.

ARRR!!! Join us for a week of adventure on the high seas where we’ll transform ye landlubbers into truly fearsome pirates! Go treasure hunting, learn how to sword fight, and navigate the perilous seas by learning about mystical creatures of the deep and mutinous crews in this camp of swashbuckling fun!

First of all, I appreciate that playing pirates is the equivalent of playing princesses. There are other things to pretend to be, but pirates are pretty modern. Yeah, yeah, 16th century. The truth is that modern youth, more than ever, needs to develop the skills of the pirate: to be independent, unafraid to defy the law in order to follow your moral compass. Today’s world demands a privateer, perhaps serving the interest of a large organization but always serving his own interests first.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the myth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is associated with pirates and global warming. While the FSM fights the creationists with reductio ad absurdum, the pirates are doing the same against the first church of the warming globe. I just hope to hear my kids yelling, “I’m Captain Nemo!” and “I’m Ragnar Danesjold!”

I just figured out that after I updated Wordpress a couple of weeks ago, it broke permalinks for pages. Ugh. The fix was to go into Settings, switch to another format for permalinks and then switch it back.

I’ll be heading over the the City to check out the SF New Tech Belly Up tomorrow night, and hanging out with my buddy JJ Behrens.

It’s April Fool’s Day, and out come jokes from popular Web sites. Google usually does a few things. This year they have something called Custom Time, a feature for Gmail that allows you to send the email with a date in the past. It’s mildly amusing, and probably feasible to implement, actually. But one thing stuck out to me: the fake testimonials feature an honest philosopher and a dishonest investment banker.

What’s up with that? Isn’t it more likely that the philosophy professor would say something condescending and illogical, such as “Despite what your feeble mind might tell you, time travel must be real because we can imagine it.” The Investment banker should be saying, “In recognizing investments, timing is everything. With Custom Time, I can send that email to that Zuckerberg kid and tell him I will be helping him fund his silly dating site for college kids.”

All I’m saying is, it isn’t nice of Google to add yet another smear on businesspeople, perpetuating a false stereotype. It’s especially true since Google would not have been successful at all without the help of investment bankers. Epistemology Professors likely have had little or no impact on Google.