I am Jack's Smirking Revenge

Synology Diskstation File copy speed: solution

2012-01-21T03:01:00.001-08:00

I noticed there were a lot of people hoping to figure out why their file copy speeds were 10mb/sec or slower... I had exactly the same issue initially.

I found the solution buried away in the support forums. It bears repeating, and it's unfortunate this is not in the manual somewhere.

The short answer is to plug the Diskstation's network cable directly into your computer.

Doing this assumes a few things:

- You have finished setting up your Diskstation. It should already have an IP address on your network, a disk installed and formatted, etc.

- You need to have a gigabit NIC in your computer, and your computer needs to have an IP address on the same network the Diskstation is connected to.

Unplug your Diskstation from your networking hardware, and plug its network cable directly into your computer's NIC.

Don't worry, you can't break anything by doing this. The gigabit specifications are *supposed to* include the capability to do this- that is, plug directly into another gigabit device and talk to that device without a piece of networking hardware or special crossover cable. Whether your specific NIC was actually constructed to this specification I have no way of knowing, but in theory it is possible your NIC, though gigabit, is not capable (in which case this solution would not work.)

You should be able to access the Diskstation from this computer just like you were, previously, accessing it across the network.

File copy speed varies by what you are copying, and I don't know exactly what the difference is, large files seem to go more quickly. I have seen transfer rates peak as high as 64mb/sec. I have seen consistent speeds of 45mb/sec, and I have also seen it drop way, way down to 10mb/sec or slower. I have also seen Windows 7 completely lie about time remaining, so, I would ignore that. I copied across about 600GB, it consistently reported "About one day remaining", and about six hours in, it suddenly dropped down to "About an hour"... etc.

I also saw pretty decent file copy speeds when copying items off of a USB Western Digital My Passport drive, through my PC, and over to the Diskstation.

As a backup solution, the less-than-rocket speeds really aren't the end of the world. I just need to get a copy of my data over there so it's backed up, and then it can be accessed from other computers on the network and remotely- but I am not going to be moving gigabytes back and forth from it on a regular basis. It's an excellent solution for me in this respect. So far it is working well.

VOIP phone nirvana is achieved

2011-10-16T23:40:00.000-07:00

Well, what do you know?

There is a simple path to making voip calls from a cell phone that has wifi only.

For my iPhone, I installed google voice, and then a free app called Talkatone.

Talkatone interfaces with google voice.

When someone calls your google voice number, talkatone makes it ring just like it normally would.

When you call out through talkatone, it rings on the other end as coming from your google voice number.

VICTORY!

Well, mostly. The Talkatone iPhone app is a bit buggy, crashes from time to time, and the call quality is not very good even when you are right next to a wifi access point. I tried making a couple of calls while standing right next to my wireless router. There was a 1-second or so delay, and the call quality was tinny and static-y. I would also say that the GUI in the app is a bit poorly thought out.

All those negatives- but I still call it a victory. A wifi enabled cell phone with no phone contract/phone service can be used to make phone calls. Awesome!

I can only assume this capability will either continue to grow, or, be randomly stamped out by The Man anytime it becomes too popular.

Thanks Talkatone! You guys are great!

Not all voip created equal

2011-08-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

Well, Fring does not offer DID, or direct inward dialing, so that's a fail for my objective, which is to emulate as closely as possible the capability I had with fancy pay service. If I can only call out, this is no good.

Onward on my search.

VoipLife post 1: devices and voip apps

2011-08-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

So, with hopes of using some device with voip in the near future, I have accepted the fact that iPhone may not be my platform of choice in the near future as I will have to hack it in order to make voip over wifi work.

Where I am now:

- iPhone probably won't work as Google Talk and Skype sucking it, going to try Fring

- may have to buy android device, kind of want to anyway as Bubonic Plague preferable to using iTunes

Updates soon on Fring.

My new schtick: voip on a smartphone, with no contract

2011-08-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hello.

Moving forward I will be posting blog entries here illustrating my adventures in "no carrier" land. That is, I want to abandon the cell phone service/providers and see how hard it is to get by on just a portable device with some kind of voip product on it.

What I have figured out so far:

1. The google "talk" app for my iPhone will not work without functioning phone service (the explanation is long and dumb, feel free to go look it up, but once you are out of cell service, wifi does not kick in and save the day, therefore: fail)

2. Skype's newly released "Skype wifi" will only work over Skype-approved wifi connections, so the idea that you can make calls from your home wifi network or one at a local coffee shop are probably nix.

I am not surprised that cell providers and mobile apps are coming loaded with these snags- it does not make sense for them to allow their users to obviate use of their toll services.

I strongly suspect that "All of this, and more, can be yours for the small fee of: hacking your device", but I'd like to avoid that path if possible, as most regular users are not going to be too keen on all that.

My goal is to discover a way to use my iPhone with no service contract, and load a voip client on it, and, in a fairly wifi-connected city, see how much of a hassle this is. And tell you about it here.

"Founder's Vacancy" issue

2010-08-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

The "Founder's Vacancy" issue addresses human behavior as it applies to establishments.

Essentially, if someone builds a company and infuses it with thier beliefs and behaviors, when that person leaves the company, sells the company, wills the company to their heirs- the next people to come in and run the place are most likely to ditch the founder's ideals and ways as they are too costly and too much work.

In many cases, you would suspect this action would negatively impact the establishment, or at least their reputation.

We're all aware of this kind of behavior- companies are bought out all the time, typically to the detriment of the product quality and customer service.

My question is, why do we always do this?

Has someone mapped all of the bad behavior of humans and created a flow chart, so that we can always know how something will turn out?

Take the constitution of the United States, for example.

Is it useful? Is it still serving its citizens fully?

Rule: Work to Food Ratio

2010-08-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

Have you been eating foods that make you unhappy? Perhaps you are a victim of the work-to-food ratio rule.

This rule is self-explanatory. If you have to work too hard to eat something, it violates the work-to-food ratio.

Enjoyment of food is a positive number. The work required to eat food is negative enjoyment, that is , a negative number. We need to factor in a baseline of expected work in order to eat a hypothetical "average food item" (also a negative number), then:

[enjoyment of food] + [baseline] + [negative enjoyment beyond baseline] = [total enjoyment]

If our total is a negative number, then the food item is not worth eating as it will generate negative enjoyment, or "unenjoyment".

Obviously with the popularity of "wings"-related establishments, some people clearly enjoy laboring over their 1/10th of a mouthful of food.

I tend to believe those people actually just like the sauce on the wings, not unlike a child using a french fry as an improvised spoon for ketchup.

Foods which violate the rule could be; pomegranites, cornish game hens, ribs, pistachios, chicken wings... and many others.

Obama's Credit Card Debt Relief Program : Scam

2010-03-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

If you are googling "Obama's Credit Card Debt Relief Program" because you wanted to find out about a program that would help you out if you had over $10k in credit card debt, you are being misled by people who know you aren't going to look very hard.

Obama signed a credit card reform act in May 2009, but it has nothing to do with giving people free money, and there is no new legislation coming which will do so.

Stop dreaming, start thinking rationally. Good luck with that.

Baby Got Back

2010-02-23T16:51:00.000-08:00

The short version of the story: a while ago, at a different job, there was a prominently-placed but unused mark and wipe board, which one day became the home of

"magnae clunes mihi placent."

... a translation I had just found online.

The goal then became to fill the board with more translations of the same sentence.

We ended up with quite a few over a few weeks, and strangely nobody we knew spoke it, so the very last one was Spanish.

The day after posting it, we came in to find someone (the cleaning staff) had written "good for you" in Spanish right next to it.

So ended that little game.

Perhaps I can recover all the sentences from back then.

"I like big butts" can't be that hard to say. Check the comments for more translations as I discover them. Here's Japanese-

大きいおしり好きです、

Save as: BMP

2009-08-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Microsoft:

Kiss my butt.

Yes, there is probably a fix or workaround for the stupid old "save as BMP" issue that plagues all of the products you make.

Up yours for not fixing it by now, it's 2009, and I still have to deal with this.

NOBODY USES THIS DUMB FORMAT, QUIT SUPPORTING IT, DUH.

Thanks, just had to say that.

The Concept of Ownership

2009-08-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

Recently I came upon a little puzzle of an idea.

When you buy something, it's yours, right?

People buy animals, materials, products, food, buildings, even land.

But at what point does this idea that "if it can be purchased it is yours" run out?

Let's see if this example highlights a hard-to-pin-down idea...

Suppose that rather than the top 1% of our world population possessing most of the wealth in our little world- instead there was only 1 person.

And one day, that very rich person bought everything on the planet.

Every object, every piece of land, every last bit of food- everything.

So far, it's not a big deal aside from being scary.

But now, that person decides to throw away everything they own. Destroy it. This is where it gets ridiculous as somehow destroying everything is nearly impossible.

The point here is that 1 person has thrown away the things the rest of the world population needs to exist- food, shelter, land, etc.

So, how do we now justify our concept of ownership?

This person bought everything that existed, with their own money, and then threw it out.

According to the standard USA definition of ownership, that was their right.

Isn't it?

Whaaaaat?

2009-07-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

So, I am listening to last FM, and the song is a weird ambient track with the recorded 911 calls from a flight attendant on flight 11 mixed into it. Totally creepy.

I google it, and the wikipedia entry for flight 11 says:

"Investigators retrieved Mohamed Atta's luggage that was not loaded onto the flight. In Atta's luggage they found al-Omari's passport and driver's license, a videocassette for a Boeing 757 flight simulator, a folding knife, and pepper spray."

Umm... guy who was planning to hijack a plane packed in the bag he was taking with him: a video tape on how to fly a plane, identification, and weapons...

all things he'd never be able to get at once the plane took off,

all things he'd never need again if the plan went as expected,

and all things, had he been properly searched, which would have endangered the mission.

Does that sound likely? Nah, me neither.

Sounds like a classic "Orgy of Evidence".

My Review of this Dixie cup

2009-07-12T00:50:00.000-07:00

Hi, I just got this Dixie cup, and I wanted to give you all my review of it.

I noticed it was quite cheap, so I decided to try it.

At first, I had a great time drinking out of it, but over time, I noticed I could not pour an entire can of beer into it. And it's kind of poorly made, really- made out of paper. It was cheap, but I am having a hard time giving it five stars. I mean, I can't even fit a can of beer in it.

Also, I later realized that it didn't come with instructions on how to mix a Long Island Iced Tea. I want to drink this drink, and I am sure I should be able to drink it with this Dixie cup. I don't see why they don't tell you how to make that drink somewhere on the box the cup came in. Jeez.

Another downside is this Dixie cup did not fare well when I ran it through the dishwasher. It fell apart, and I had to get a new one out of the box. I was hoping to stretch this box out a while, and I have already used one cup up completely. Not so good in the longevity department.

Pros: lightweight, inexpensive, holds liquid

Cons: doesn't hold much liquid, doesn't come with drink mixing instructions, cheaply made out of paper instead of glass or metal

Other: Just in case you think I am off my rocker, I am not. I have been reading product reviews, and people are fucking idiots. "I bought X, and it would be great if it did Y, but it doesn't, so, the product isn't good because of that."

Uh, if it was *supposed* to to something and then didn't, that's one thing. But if the product clearly isn't supposed to do something, and then it in fact does not do that thing, that is not a negative aspect of the product, that's you being disappointed. ALSO, the manual is not supposed to tell you how to do every possible thing with your product. That's what the internet is for: if you can think of doing it, probably someone else has thought it too, and documented it, and posted it on the internet somewhere. For crying out loud. So many reviews read like a complaint list of all the things the person had to actually learn in order to set up whatever it was that they had bought.

And yes, I am clearly complaining about people not being able to properly describe the actual functionality of a product as opposed unintentionally highlighting the thickness of their skulls. Which is to say, I am complaining about a product we already know is faulty- human beings- and highlighting my own thick-skulled disappointment in them rather than illustrate their actual usefulness. My bad.

However, when someone is trying to ascertain the actual quality of functionality of some product, the "I am an idiot who can't or won't read the manual" is a detail that largely does not have anything to do with the product's performance.

[sigh]

Ok, back to clicking.

Internet Explorer 7: Microsoft doesn't care about usability

2009-06-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Just a general rant:

The top menu bar of IE 6 is completely configurable. You can add or remove buttons and change the appearance and generally make it just how you'd like.

Good luck trying that with IE 7.

In typical Microsoft form, some idiot decided that you didn't need to be able to reduce the size of the menu bar area.

Here's IE 6 with the top menu customized to be very small,

http://www.clickthebunny.com/ie6menu.JPG

and here's what you get in IE 7

http://www.clickthebunny.com/ie7menu.JPG

Webstalking is fun!

2009-06-14T22:59:00.000-07:00

Hello!

I am your frienly neighborhood webstalker.

How am I different than a creepy webstalker?

Well, a creepy webstalker is someone who has some unsavory intent, right?

A lot of people online are blissfully ignorant of the concept of at least attempting to obscure their identity.

When I first started on bulletin boards back in the mid 80's, most of the online world then was quiet and safe, and you could get access on a BBS without any contact information or anything- completely anonymously. That sentiment has rolled forward with me for many years, and while I have let my guard down a bit, it's only now in this day and age when there are literally billions of people online. I am not rich, famous, or keeping the secret to eternal life. It's likely nobody reads my blog except for a few friends, and if someone decided to webstalk me, well, I am just one of many: white, 5 foot 9, brown hair- someone stalking me would be spooky only in that it seems so unlikely.

Anyway, back to the blissfully unaware. If you put your actual name in your e-mail address... that's a bad idea, unless it is a common name, like Lisa Smith or Richard Davis or something. If your name is uncommon, you are exceedinly easy to webstalk, and as such, ought to make sure not to use your real name if you wish to ensure some level of privacy. Hint: websites like myspace and facebook do not protect your real name.

I seem to be going off on a tangent here... that's ok.

My point is: if I am webstalking you, it's because you're an old friend of mine that I want to talk to- or, in a rare case, I will webstalk someone to show them that they are being foolish with their personal information. An example of that- I bought something on craigslist a while back, and the seller replied to me from their personal address which was their uncommon last name. When I picked the item up, I mentioned to them then, in person, the 'danger' of doing that kind of thing. I told them "In many cases, a person can google all kinds of things about you just by knowing your name and roughly where you live.", not "I did google all kinds of things about you, just to see if I could."

I feel like I am providing a public service announcement for online safety.

Everyone should have a spare e-mail address for doing business which does not have any google-able content associated with it. Two bonuses to this- when it gets overrun with spam you can just delete it, and also, you do not mix up business correspondence with personal.

It may seem like a deviant thing to do- webstalking people- but I think you should assume that everyone does it, and that any information you put online is susceptible to a nosy websurfer, and post/not post it accordingly.

MyLife : wants to be myspace, but misses the point

2009-06-12T23:58:00.001-07:00

If you have been trying to find friends online, you may have stumbled onto this site, "MyLife".

The idea with a social networking site like myspace is that it's free, and at least relatively easy to connect with your friends. Since it is free and 'easy', if you are lucky, your social networking site will succeed, and many people will find their long lost pals on your site. Hooray.

Enter the wanna-be, for-pay site.

"We want you to feel like that person you are googling is here, and after you invest time and effort into setting up your profile, we're hoping you pay for access, because after you dink around here long enough, you're going to figure out that you can't see anybody's profile without paying" is one version, and then there's the possibility that the site is exclusively a ripoff site (not sure whether this not-very-clever ruse actually exists), where the extent of the person's information you get after you pay may very well be what you already have: their name.

But this pattern violates rule one of the myspace model. Free.

Another thing- superbly annoying, high-pressure interface. "Fill in your profile!", "Add everyone from your e-mail address book!", "Pay for access!"... and the creepy icing on the cake- the site sucks your facebook profile image in automatically, and won't let you delete it.

Maybe back in the mid-nineteen ninetys people in general were unwary enough to be taken by this kind of nonsense. Let's see: site I have never heard of claims to have a shred of information about an old friend I can't dig up anywhere else online... hmm. So, I am to believe that this person, who is not surfacing in google, not in myspace, not in facebook, not in a white-pages search... this nearly not-online-at-all person chose your crummy for-pay site as their jumping-off point into the internet?

Not highly likely.

Screw you people and your sucky business model. Hope you feel really good making money off of the few old people who don't know any better- not that their money will be enough to keep you in business. Please make sure to keep your mylife credientials on your linkedin profile so I can make sure I never have to work with you.

PS: a quick google of mylife and ripoff came up with plenty of peeved people. might want to give these guys a miss.

How to network a usb hard drive using administrative share

2009-05-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

So, for some reason, in some cases, you cannot use an administrative share to reach a usb driv on another computer.

This explanation assumes you have windows xp, administrative rights on your computer, an NTFS file system, and a wee bit of technical ability. This ought to work with windows 2003, possibly 2000, and I have no idea about vista or windows 7- YRMV.

First let's cover the concept of "administrative share"- this is a built-in service for administrators using windows. It allows an administrator to remotely access any hard drive of a computer they are an administrator of.

If you have a networked computer named "piggy" with a c:\ drive, you can access the C:\ drive with the administrative share remotely. If you add a usb hard drive, though, you can't always access the contents of the usb drive across your local network. Not sure why that is.

To use the administrative share, go to another computer on your network, open file explorer, and in the address bar, type

\\piggy\c$

...and press enter.

As long as your username and password are the same on both machines and you are an administrator on both machines, what will list in the file explorer window is the contents of the c:\ drive on piggy.

If this will not work for your usb hard drive... there is a handy workaround.

Search for "junction windows" in google. This will return the link for downloading the junction tool from the microsoft website. Get it and put it in ..\windows\system32\ , and after you do that, open a command prompt and type 'junction' then press enter. This will pop up the EULA for junction, which you will only see once.

What does junction do? It creates a connection between one drive and another (conceptually, a bit like creating a shortcut for a file), and the operating system can't tell the difference. There are plenty of uses for this, but it suits us fine in this case.

If your usb drive is the f:\ drive, make a folder on c:\ and name it something you'll remember- say, c:\MyDrive\

Now, in the command window on piggy (where you installed junction), type this and press enter-

junction c:\MyDrive f:\

Once you do this, windows will think that the folder "MyDrive" on c:\ contains the contents of the usb drive. All done!

Now you can go to \\piggy\c$ from a remote computer, look in the MyDrive folder, and you will see the contents of the F:\ drive.

This may not work with a usb drive not NTFS formatted, but you are welcome to try.

Hollywood Video: lame!

2009-05-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

The return of the grump.

So, Hollywood video has introduced new-fangled membership plans!

And they suck.

Previously, for a monthly fee, you could check out one, two, or three videos per month with no due date. Pretty simple subscription plans.

Their new plans do not work like this, and they are not, apparently, monthly subscriptions.

If you had one of their old plans? They just dumped you off of them, because as of May 6th 2009, those old plans ceased to exist.

After going and spending 15 minutes picking out some movies yesterday, I was informed that I'd have to pay for two of them. I was not entirely convinced that the clerk knew what he was talking about, as oftentimes they do not. In this case, however, he was correct.

Thanks for several years of a decent service, Hollywood, but this latest scheme of yours isn't very good, and I'll take my money elsewhere.

Humanity as Idea Virus

2009-05-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

There are very few cases of humans who somehow made it to adulthood completely without human contact, but the few we have highlight a very important aspect of human beings.

Examples of such are Caspar Hauser, the random 'wolf child' legend, and more recently, a poor child here in the USA whose mother severely neglected her. This poor creature, left with minimal human contact, was found severely malnourished, lying alone in a room egregiously filthy and in disrepair. She had no reaction to human input, nearly non-existent motor skills, and a look in her eye not unlike a simple farm animal. Even if we only have her as the example to draw from, the implications of failing to be raised by humans is devastating- I do not have further data that declares her perfectly normal, so, the following is conjecture, but I wouldn't suggest otherwise even if the child were certainly physiologically "normal".

We are well aware that a human infant is an extremely complex learning machine, and that there are distinct stages in human development where certain types of learning flourish.

I would run further with this line of thinking, perhaps off the map and into the darkness, and suggest that there are interactions between child and parent- involved, critical, and absolutely essential interactions and lessons- which take a human animal and, over time, mold it into a functioning member of society. Maybe you can think of these subtle things as the breath between words in a song- the paper the words of the song are written on, etc.

On an assembly line, a bare vehicle frame rolls out, and this is the beginning. It glides along its path, and at each stop essential parts are added. Without these properly constructed and attached parts, at the end of the process, we do not have a complete vehicle.

If the car example were a human child- there is no complete list of required "parts" in human development, so we can't say for sure what part is missing when a child is "at the end of the process".

My feeling is this- humanity is an idea virus your parents give you, and if they are not around you enough to properly transmit it to you, your copy is incomplete and you end up with some trouble or other, or perhaps you luck out and have no problems at all.

If your parents don't have a complete copy of the virus, you won't get it no matter what they do. So you spend years trying to figure stuff out on your own, while other people waltz through life as if they knew what to do at each step along the way.

This leaves a lot of fun things to think about- and so I will. More later, perhaps.

Gandhi's Seven Things

2009-05-04T13:36:00.001-07:00

I just stumbled onto this, hadn't heard of it before...

Gandhi made this list of "Seven Blunders" that lead to passive violence and gave it to his grandson shortly before his assassination. His grandson added the eighth item.

1. Wealth Without Work
2. Pleasure Without Conscience
3. Knowledge Without Character
4. Commerce Without Morality
5. Science Without Humanity
6. Worship Without Sacrifice
7. Politics Without Principles
8. Rights Without Responsibilities

This will fuel some interesting thinking in the next few days and weeks. I am not entirely sure I will make much of #6, but the others look promising.

Whiny End User

2009-04-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

Man.

There seems to be a plague out there in the world, a horrible affliction which once contracted is terminal for the host. A pitiful, ignominious fate for those so unlucky to contract it.

I am speaking, of course, of affiliation with Microsoft.

But first, this side note.

Software development is a curious beast. A company gets an idea to make a product: people decide what the user wants from this product, other people write meticulous documents which are revised and re-revised that describe all aspects of the functionality of the product, yet further people create the product, another team tests the product, and all the while, someone who may or may not have their head up their ass is overseeing the whole project.

Often what happens along the way in this process is that the developers and testers- the very first people to ever use the product- come up with additions and elaborations to the product which are very useful. What ends up happening to these good ideas is that the product ships without any of them.

So, because they weren't in the original budget, and it would cost too much to pay for them to be officially added to the software...

spec writers add the new bits to the spec,
coders make sure they're coded to spec,
testers test them to make sure they do what the spec says,
tech writers write up the section for them in the manual and online help,
ad people add the new bit to the advertisements and box label,
et cetera

And all despite the fact that in a lot of cases the developers add them anyway for their own benefit, so they are already IN the product, just unofficially.

The very system 'designed' by the comapny to generate the product can end up being the enemy of a "very useful end result".

And it appears that as a software company grows larger, there is simply more and more of this nonsense, such that at some point the products the company generates have no discernible positive traits.

...and now back to Microsoft.

Fallout 3 and Grand Theft Auto 4 are colossal, complex games which, had they been entirely Microsoft's responsibility, would never have made it to store shelves.

Apparently, though, at some point in their path from idea to end result, these two already spectacularly popular products fell on such hard times that they needed to be paired up with Mircosoft's sucky content delivery system, a tiresome hunk of garbage that allows the game player to buy crap to expand the game. Without getting too deep into the mechanics of it all, it's a bit like putting a garage-door opener in your bathroom to put the toilet seat up for you.

What makes me so angry about this? Well, I'd love to play the add-on for Fallout 3, but it's only available via Microsoft's customer annoyance system. And GTA 4? It's so fantastically buggy I think I am going to uninstall it. The last four times I have played it (out of about seven times, total) I have spent around 30 minutes starting the game, killing it in task manager, restarting the game, restarting the PC, just to try to get the game to start. And 30 minutes is no exaggeration at all.

There have been frustrating aspects of Microsoft products for years now, but in most cases it was manageable suffering we endured. When MS takes an already flourishing game franchise and so thoroughly mangles it like this, well, it's really very sad.

Latest Idea

2009-04-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

So, my latest thing to consider has been a model of a person where the thinking part of the person is a rider on a horse, and the animal part of a person is the horse.

It is certainly true that the line between thought and instinct is a very difficult one to draw, but this idea doesn't need to be so very precise in order to be useful.

I like to think of the model as a motivational tool.

For example, I love donuts. The thinking part of me knows I shouldn't eat so many, and the animal part of me is stubbornly intent on eating as many donuts as possible. This becomes a great motivational tool when you pit your thinking brain against that dumb animal inside of you- who's better here? Thinking me or dumb me?

Well, the unfortunate truth is the rider is at the mercy of the dumb animal most of the time in most situations, but that's no fun to think about.

Another interesting aspect of this is to consider those around you... are they riding their horses, or being dragged along by them, or are they just horses riding horses?

Ghosting Issues

2009-04-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

So, I have been tinkering with my system recently, and I didn't come up with much in the way of related info on this out there in the intarwebs, so, here's the deal.

I have an ASUS M2N-SLI mobo and all-SATA drives. I was adding a hot-swap drive bay in the front so I could easily swap out the main drive. I added it, ghosted the OS drive (entire drive), and then shut down, swapped in a new blank drive, and ghosted the image onto it.

All was peachy at this point.

Then I rebooted.

Plonk.

The system was locking up almost immediately at the post screen. No drive detection, no nothing. Well, after pulling almost everything internally, and then putting it all back, I realized one thing I hadn't tried: The usb hub.

Ding.

The usb hub will now lock up the boot sequence if it is plugged in- or if you plug it in while it is booting- all the way up until the point the login box for winxp shows up.

I may have reset relevant BIOS settings in the what-did-I-break adventure, but I did disable the 'boot from usb'- so that's not it. Anyway, it's locking at the initial post screen, so, I doubt it's related.

I suppose I could poke through the devices on the hub, too... nah.

Today I will get a new hub and see if this continues. Hope not.

Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton: MORON

2009-03-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/oklahoma-legislature-inve_b_177473.html

Recently, Richard Dawkins delivered a speech at the University of Oklahoma.

In an effort to waste taxpayer's money, Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton is looking deeply into the how and why of Darkins' speaking event.

This is essentially an effort to discourage speakers like Dawkins from being invited as speakers.

Way to drag the world back towards the dark ages, Oklahoma, and residents thereof.

Please get back to watching Wheel of Fortune and let the thinking people take care of the world for you, you're not up to the job.

Our list of Songs We Need Never Hear Again

2009-03-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here is the result of a survey among my friends- "Your top five songs that never need to be heard again"...

----------------

Grand Total:

* What's up? * Four Non Blondes
* What's up? * Four Non Blondes
* stairway to heaven * Led zeppelin
* Stairway to Heaven * Led Zeppelin
* I Will Always Love You * Whitney Houston
* I will always love you * Whitney Houston

* Bohemian Rhapsody * Queen
* We Will Rock You / We Are The Champions * Queen
* You Shook me All night long * AC/DC *
* I Saw the Sign * Ace of Base *
* Dude (Looks Like a Lady) * Aerosmith *
* Respect * Aretha Franklin *
* Who let the Dogs out * Baha Men (or anyone who sings it at all) *
* We Didn't Start the Fire * Billy Joel *
* Achy Breaky Heart * Billy Ray Cyrus *
* No Woman, No cry * bob marley *
* Livin' on a Prayer * Bon Jovi *
* Oops I did it again * Brittany Spears *
* Taking care of Business * BTO *
* down on the corner * CCR *
* My heart will go on * Celine Deon *
* Lady Marmalade * Christina Aguilera's *
* Do You Have to Let it Linger * Cranberries *
* Heart of Rock and Roll * Huey Lewis *
* What a Wonderful World * Louis Armstrong *
* Working For the Weekend * Loverboy *
* U Can't Touch This * M.C. Hammer *
* Spirit in the Sky * Norman Greenbaum *
* Wonderwall * Oasis *
* When a Man Loves a Woman * Percy Sledge *
* Another Brick in the Wall * Pink Floyd *
* Neutron Dance * Pointer Sisters *
* Shiny Happy People * R.E.M. *
* Creep * Radiohead *
* Keep on Lovin' you * REO Speedwagon *
* Abraxis * Santana *
* Soak Up the Sun * Sheryl Crow *
* Top of the Pops * Smithereens *
* People Get Ready * Sonny & Brownie *
* If You wanna be my lover * Spice Girls *
* We Built This City * Starship *
* Born To Be Wild * Steppenwolf *
* Incense and Peppermints * strawberry alarmclock *
* Macarena * that one band that did the macarena *
* Zombie * The Cranberries *
* hotel california * the eagles *
* mickey * toni basil *
* Ice Ice Baby * vanilla ice *

By Submitter:

Will--

stairway to heaven Led zeppelin
down on the corner CCR
hotel california the eagles
mickey toni basil
Wonderwall Oasis

Matt --

Creep Radiohead

Steve --

Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin
Another Brick in the Wall Pink Floyd
Dude (Looks Like a Lady) Aerosmith
Livin' on a Prayer Bon Jovi
U Can't Touch This M.C. Hammer
Bohemian Rhapsody Queen
We Will Rock You / We Are The Champions Queen
Born To Be Wild Steppenwolf

Julian --

"What's Going On" Four Non Blondes
"I Saw the Sign" Ace of Base
"Zombie" The Cranberries
"Do You Have to Let it Linger" Cranberries
"Lady Marmalade" Christina Aguilera's

Michael Ream

What a Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
When a Man Loves a Woman Percy Sledge
People Get Ready Sonny & Brownie
Abraxis Santana
Respect Aretha Franklin
Incense and Peppermints strawberry alarmclock

Allen --

Working For the Weekend Loverboy
Heart of Rock and Roll Huey Lewis
We Built This City Starship
We Didn't Start the Fire Billy Joel
Shiny Happy People R.E.M.

Kristi--

Spirit in the Sky Norman Greenbaum
I Will Always Love You Whitney Houston
Achy Breaky Heart Billy Ray Cyrus
Soak Up the Sun Sheryl Crow
Neutron Dance Pointer Sisters

Pam --

Ice Ice Baby vanilla ice
No Woman, No cry bob marley
You Shook me All night long AC/DC

Bianka --

Oops I did it again Brittany Spears
If You wanna be my lover Spice Girls
Who let the Dogs out Baha Men (or anyone who sings it at all)

Mike --

Macarena that one band that did the macarena

Gary --

Top of the Pops Smithereens

Katie--

What's Going on? Concrete Blonde
I will always love you Whitney Houston
My heart will go on Celine Deon
Taking care of Business BTO

Fallout 3: Oh, come on Microsoft

2009-03-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

So, Bethesdasoft makes this great game: Fallout 3.

It's very fun, and has lots of interesting details. And of course, once you have played through them all, there is the hope that add-on packs will come out so you can play more.

Traditionally, this has either been via a slightly-cheaper pack you'd get at the store, or maybe pay for and download.

So, Microsoft is unfortunately involved in this product.

Their involvement? "Games for Windows", an obnoxious and unnecessary product to do what the internet and your web browser will already do.

In the fine, fine microsoft tradition, no process that works well already can't be improved upon to ensure that you are completely annoyed by it.

In this case, the Fallout 3 add-on can be acquired after you get and install (yes, that's right, the product is delivered by another product) the "Microsoft Windows Live Game Manager Doohickey and End User Annoyance Increaser".

Well, let me rewind.

First, you have to figure out that you want the Fallout 3 'downloadable content'.

Then you have to figure out how to get it, which, since I am a PC user, means I have to rummage around until I find some link that tells me to go set up a microsoft live ID by going to gamesforwindows.com/live/completeCrap ...

Then you have to make sure that you aren't kicked over to the XBOX site after you login.

Ok. So now we've: singed up for a service, downloaded and installed 30mb of bloatware ad-delivery bullshit, and gone online to purchase the add-on. With real money? No, with "microsoft points", the equivalent of game tokens which are worthless except in this arcade, in their machines.

This add-on happens to cost 800 points... and guess what? I can't seem to find a place which will sell me 800 points.

Yep.

So I bailed. I am not touching any more F3 stuff until I can just buy the disc in the store or get it through... some other means.

Up yours, Microsoft, and thanks a lot, Bethesda, you idiots.

Airfare Taxes

2009-03-09T14:28:00.001-07:00

So, in looking at airfare, I see this "tax" or "charge" included in the explanation section on just about every website I have looked at:

"U. S. or International Departure and Arrival Charges. This charge is required and collected by the carriers. This charge may be as high as $400, depending on where you're going."

The strange thing is, when you buy a ticket, they don't tell you whose charge it is, or any of that.

WHAT THE !@#@%$!@#?!?!?

I will look into this more. This is not at all funny.

Logitech jumps on the "support? screw you." bandwagon

2009-02-12T01:50:00.001-08:00

aka: the return of complainey smurf.

I am a fan, in general, of Logitech's products. Just now, in researching a web cam for a project, I decided to pop over to logitech's website to see what the minimum specs required to run the cam were.

The camera, a "Logitech Quickcam Ultra Vision Special", released back in 2006, is still available here and there online for right around $100.

You'd think with a fairly recent product, the manuals, general info, etc, would be available on the website.

Nope.

Nothing but a driver download link.

Well, then, you can contact support, right?

Sure, just fill in five or six completely irrelevant fields (serial number, etc), fill in the one useful "what's wrong?" field, and then hit submit.

Nope again.

Now you get to sign up for a support account with logitech and fill in about ten other completely irrelevant fields. I just need a question answered, not a five course meal and a subscription to Vibe.

I used to work in support, and back then, around 2002, the worst nightmare in the world was to have to go to compaq or HP's website and find a driver for something. It was filed away, if it was even there at all, by a dyslexic, myopic, narcoleptic, 1/3 time employee who hadn't quite mastered English as a second language.

this kind of 'support' is a great step in that direction. Even HP has gotten much, much better. And now logitech takes... a couple of big steps backwards.

Thanks again. Oh, and thanks for discontinuing my trackball. If I ever need to replace it I will have to buy one on ebay for roughly twice what they retailed for in 1998.

Liberty Tax / E Smart Tax: BAD

2009-02-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

Last year after having such a terrible go at H&R Block, I went and found a little startup site called Liberty Tax.

Their forms were a little rough, and it felt a bit like using the Chinese knock-off version of some electronic device, but they got my return submitted and I got my refund quickly.

This year it's a different story. They've re-branded, and their site is quite different, and sorry to say, it doesn't work very well.

Having spent a few years now in software development, this reeks of 'under'-development. That is, imagine your strange uncle who thinks computers are magic and wonders why they can't just make a program that will do everything. Now imagine him as a high-level manager on an e-commerce project. "Make us a real nice website, go on, I trust you can do it. For about, oh, $4,000?"

That example is true, in varying shades and flavors, all too often.

Anyway, their site has some major failings.

1. My return was rejected because "my spouse AIG information was wrong." ...well, if I had a spouse, or had filled in any of that information... yeah. Furthermore, I received an e-mail informing me the return had been rejected- not by the IRS, but by esmarttax's own internal systems. Then I received another such message. And another. And finally a form telling me I could now go and fix my return and re-submit it, by clicking the "edit" link. Except the "edit" link was not there, and even if I had, there was no spouse AIG information on my form to fix.

2. "Do you want to get your return quicker?" was a link in the closing steps of filing my return. Clicking on this link, I was forced to deduce on my own and after some confusion, was applying for an advance loan on my tax return. It walked me through several steps of seemingly unrelated information and I could not understand how any of it was connected to submitting a tax return. Finally, I decided to just go back to the beginning of the section and started over, and didn't click that link this time. This kind of poorly set-up and deceptive page-flow is not helpful for the end user. Whether intentional or not, the end result is the company misleading the customer.

3. Once my problem in #1 emerged, I contacted their support. They wrote back to me and said they had sent the issue on to their developers, and that they would get back to me. It wasn't a particularly polished response, but that's ok. I don't need to know they've handed it off to their developers, but knowing that was worrisome, because I know how long things can get stuck in the queue. In the time I wait for them to a.) get around to looking at the issue and b.) actually return a result to me, I could have filed my taxes elsewhere and been done with it. In effect, "wrong answer" from support. I wrote back and told them to delete my tax information, and that I would file elsewhere. Well, they deleted my entire account, and never notified me that they had done anything. And thus, this, their 'thank you' from me.

In closing, some hints for esmarttax:

When your customers have a problem, even if they are angry at you (and chances are they will be- confusing forms AND money are involved), you've got to keep it together and deliver them a useful, timely answer.

When you put together a website as complicated as this, you have to test it. Proper testing requires trained QA staff and it is time consuming, and very expensive (no, the developers should not be testing their own work). Myself, I wouldn't touch testing a tax-return website with a ten foot pole- waaay too many possible paths through the system and things you need to know about the ins-and-outs of the different forms to properly test such a website.

And last, you have to give a crap about your customer. The lack of a decent website shows you just cared about getting something out there and probably making some money off of it, and the lack of decent support is another way to show you don't care. Better luck next time around.

PS: to the poor person paid to scour the internet and post snappy replies to complainey blog posts, I would advise you have your ducks in a line before leaving a comment here. I will approve your post, and I will hastily dress you down for all the world to see. So, speak at your own risk. I am the customer, and I am always right. If you'd like, instead, to send me a check for the time, effort and frustration you have already caused me, that would be great. The consultation rate for the kind of work I do is around $120 an hour, so, that's an hour for filling my forms in, an hour dealing with support, and an hour writing this. $360, please.

PPS: Yes, I know I am using a free file website. If your free section is a piece of junk and support is poor, then it kind of follows that 'pay' part of your site is a piece of junk and the support there is also poor, no? So. If I ever was going to pay for something, your 'teaser' isn't particularly inviting, is it?

An Analogy

2009-01-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

I've been pondering something recently, and here's a little idea I have been mulling over.

Imagine a desert. You're in it. Aside from the clothes on your back, you have nothing. In the distance is a towering giant building. As far as you know, there isn't another building, and considering where you are, you have no option to go looking for one- it's get into that tower or die in the desert.

Upon arrival, the inhabitants look out at you and dismiss you quickly, closing the door in your face.

You manage to get out of them: they don't know you, so you can't come in.

You pester them, and after some effort, it is discovered that someone inside knows someone you know. However, it is again concluded that you can't come in.

You have nothing to offer them.

After further pestering, it is established that yes, it is likely that you have some skills which might be of use, but which are not pressingly needed. And you still can't come in.

You do not believe in what they believe in.

Standing at the gates of the tower, you are finally able to convince the people inside that while your beliefs differ, you're both in support of, generally, the same goals in life. Their worries are lessened. However...

You still cannot come in.

At long last, though, and after many days at the gate discussing things with the people inside, enough of them get to know you that they do you a favor and let you in.

And, as you might suspect, even though you have been let in, you're still not 'in' with many of the people inside.

The only thing that got you in was the exposure to and familiarity with you, and the calming of their animal instinct which was finally able to decide that your different-ness was not so bad.

This is an illustration of basic human nature. Mistrust of strangers, exclusion of 'out-group' people, these aren't a surprise. They have served people well enough over time, and as such are commonly employed and simply overlooked or ignored when people stop ponder themselves good or bad beings.

This analogy can be used to illustrate any outsider's view. Any situation where "everyone already does/knows/is A", but you're B.

People from country A disagree with and distrust people from country B. City A, City B. Part of Town A, Part of Town B. This side of the street, that side of the street.

People of race A, race B. Cultural background A, B. Religious belief A, belief B.

Company, School, Team, Tribe, Accent, etc.

This applies to all human behavior in all situations. At face value, it's an obvious, given statement to say that people mistrust strangers. Mistrust strange and new things and ways. All the different ways this piece of human nature can emerge is boggling.

"I can't believe everyone is insensitive to my likings, my background, my culture, my beliefs, my ways."

To the person on the inside, the reaction is "Quit your whining."

To the person on the outside, the reaction is "Screw you."

The truth is, it wouldn't matter to the people on the outside if the people on the inside didn't have something they wanted.

Acceptance. A job. Freedom? Money, food, shelter. Some kind of advantage.

The only solution is to either change so you don't want that thing anymore, or to give in and humor them.

"You have something I want, and I insist that you change such that you will decide to give it to me."

...probably not.

Obviously, if you stop and think about it, you can deal with this any time you encounter adversity. However, most people won't or don't stop to think about it. And thus my analogy.

I don't mean to endorse any side here. It seems there is no other way to represent this.

If you, for example, showed up at the tower and it was full of ignorant idiots who also had the only food and water available, it would behoove you to learn to act like an idiot so you do not starve. Would it not?

If there's another way to look at this, I'd like to know about it.

Stalker Clear Sky : Read Before Patching

2008-12-15T23:27:00.000-08:00

If you've bought Stalker Clear Sky and played it some, then by all means, do not update it with any patches from GSC / Deep Silver.

Unlike other major software releases, Stalker CS has a major flaw very early on in the game, and the fix for it makes you have to start over from the beginning by failing to account for fixing your save game files.

So, if you have the store bought version and have played it up until the point where the guide fails to take you to Cordon, you can fix it, but you get to start over completely from scratch.

I like the game, but this is a stretch.

System Volume Information? Server 2003?

2008-11-26T11:16:00.000-08:00

So, I manage several VMs which I inherited from other QA department staff. They've been handed down from employee to employee for years, and as such, a lot of them have C:\ partitions which are too small. 6GB is just enough space to get a day or two of testing in before...

"your C drive is running out of space!"

And who do you suppose is the culprit?

The System Volume Information folder. Word around the internet is if you turn off system restore, that will fix it. But Windows Server 2003 does not use system restore.

So what is in that folder?

Raymond Chen over at Old New Thing

This guy covers it pretty well. Thanks man!

Now, if you're just trying to clear up some space, and aren't afraid to wreck things, well, you can go into the indexing service and delete the 'System' catalog.

Right-click on 'my computer', 'manage'. Under 'services and applications' is 'indexing service'.

Click on the name 'indexing service', and stop the entire service. Then, in the right-hand pane, click on the name 'System' (if it is indeed hogging a bunch of drive space, you'll see a rather large number after it), and delete it. I'm not an admin, so I will assure you: I have NO idea what this will do to your server. So if you need to know before you let that rip, well, perhaps you can research that out yourself.

I was told 'nothing should happen', but, just keep in mind that I am a QA guy and not an MCSE.

Affect and Effect

2008-11-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

I always screw these up, so I am making a cheat sheet.

The two you want are in bold - the verb "affect", to create change, and the noun "effect", the result of an action.

a-FFECT: verb, "have influence on"
Number One breaking down did not affect Number Two's performance.

a-FFECT: verb, "to make a display of or deliberately cultivate"
she affected a silly french accent.

AFF-ect: noun, special use- psychology, "mood or emotion"
The child displayed a happy affect.

effect: noun, "result of an action"
When I left the stove on, the effect was that the house filled with smoke.

effect: verb, "create change"
He wants to effect a change in the system.

effect: noun, "personal belongings"
His effects were sold at acution.

effect: noun, special effects
what's in a movie

(I stole much of this from other pages, but I thought they were too verbose, so, I make-a my own.)

Dear Mr. Obama

2008-11-07T13:53:00.001-08:00

on the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of the EPA:

Hello.

Religious people hold enough power in this country already. We've entrusted you with our country not just because you "weren't McCain", but because you have inspired us that change is coming. Real change.

People with a proven track record of promoting pseudoscience do not belong anywhere near the EPA.

Please keep such people away from any control of our environment, education and sciences- and don't politicize these realms. They suffer for it, and it's no way to demonstrate that this administration is working for change.

Thank you,

-Will

McCain Voters: Sorry. You're Wrong. You Lose. Ha Ha.

2008-10-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

The United States of America welcomes its new President, Barack Obama.

The "minority" of the USA who voted for McCain now knows who the majority of the USA defines as able, fit, and American enough to be president (as upposed to un-American).

Thanks for playing!

The Final Straw will be: President McCain

2008-10-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

What is ignorance? Truly, what is it?

We are all ignorant, obviously, as no person alive actually knows about everything. But beyond that, imagine someone who can complete a grammatically correct sentence, tie their own shoes, and otherwise get by in the world without other people avoiding sitting near them on the bus-- what qualifies them as ignorant?

It seems an ugly and unfair title. Most people are nice, or can be when they want to. What makes it ok to call them ignorant?

Looking back, historically, in any great debate there were the sides which disagreed, and the one which eventually brought forth what we now consider to be right. The colonies' revolutionary war and the end of tyranny in what is now the USA. The civil war and the end of slavery. Women's suffrage and the right to vote. The equal rights movement and at least a recognition that people of different colors ought to be treated the same.

This far past these events you'd have to be a lunatic to suggest to someone in conversation that these events were wrong or shouldn't have happened. The people who were fighting over it back in the day, however, had no nationwide solidarity considering these issues, and so some people fought and died for what they believed- on both sides, the ones we now know to be right and wrong.

Undoubtedly in the distant future the folly of even today will be a shrug and a grunt from the average Joe reading about how the declining US of A voted to shoot itself in the foot again in 2008. and to dig further into debt. By electing the loudmouthed spoiled brat John McCain into the highest rank of power in the country. And then when he dropped dead, and a different kind of Dan Quayle took office.

So we have historical precedents, not just major ones like abolishing slavery and equal rights, but hundreds of other ones which are there for someone willing to look. Someone willing to investigate what they should consider extremely important- the history of politics, the nature of man, and the actual behaviors of the people they are dealing with.

Ignorance is the conscious decision not to investigate. It is the act if thinking you know something because you FEEL it. Sure, there are moments when thinking you know something because you feel it can save your life- that's not typically how governments and elections work, though. The feelings which do us well in every day life are not feelings that have any meaning in the context of global politics, the economy, etc.

When you're sure one man on the screen is clearly right, and you feel like the other man on the screen is clearly wrong, this is when a little voice inside should be warning you: you should be investigating. You don't actually know a thing about these people aside from their past actions.

Do you trust other people to do the investigating for you? You shouldn't. There is no piece of information anywhere not biased, except possibly for the actual legislation and records of votes stored as official government documents for access by whoever wants to read them.

So why am I ranting at myself at 11:43pm?

When you are ignorant you are easily controlled. When you are ignorant you are a pawn in someone else's hand. When you are ignorant you are the enemy of the educated amongst you.

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy...You have to understand most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured- so hopelessly dependent on the system- that they will fight to protect it". - Morpheus

To paraphrase, the ignorant can be counted on to vote against their own best interests over and over again because a few powerful people are filling their heads with fear and lies- information which they have chosen not to investigate.

Bush junior being elected president in 2000 was without a doubt one of the worst things that has ever happened to this country. It comes in above Pearl Harbor. Above 9/11. And the ignorant are about to try to hand power to someone who is so very much like bush junior I honestly do fear for the world if they win.

Perhaps there is a nice village in Iceland that could use some tech support.

The October Surprise: What Will it Be?

2008-09-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

The October Surprise... or will it be in November?

A series of complete guesses:

Quite possible: Some event concerning the current wall street debacle will occur which will cause president bush to create some kind of interruption of the normal election procedures, to McCain's advantage.

Also possible: A major event in the "Iraq war" will cause president bush to create some kind of interruption of the normal election, to McCain's advantage.

Not as likely: A terrorist event will happen within the United States, and it will cause president bush to create some kind of interruption of the normal election, to McCain's advantage.

Most likely? Some kind of completely made-up (but generally convincing) nonsense surfaces in the news that makes Obama look bad, and close enough to the election day that there will not be enough time to properly recover.

Who Will McCain Pick to Replace Palin?

2008-09-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Obviously, McCain is going to have to drop Palin.

I don't know what excuse he will come up with to do so, but when he does, who will he replace her with?

Mitt Romney?

Condi Rice?

Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Big Bird?

McCain is a pussy!

2008-09-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Trying to skip out on the debates!

Weenie!

Loser!

Lukewarm corpse!

Today's Kanji Revision: Odoroku

2008-09-21T00:34:00.000-07:00

The Japanese character used in the word "surprise", 'odoroku', contains the character for 'horse'.

Here are the two, side by side, surprise on the left, horse on the right:

Now, you can see that horse is the bottom half of surprise. You can also see that it's a heck of a lot of work to write 'surprise'- 22 different strokes of the pen, to be precise, and that's simply too much work.

If you look at horse, it appears to have four legs on the bottom, just like a real horse does.

Today's work-saving revision is simple. We'll get rid of the old character for 'surprise', and replace it with a modified 'horse'- and we'll just write two legs underneath it...

wouldn't you be surprised by a horse with two legs?

Something like this:

WAAA! ...IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE!

2008-09-05T15:40:00.001-07:00

Stupid Thug Cops

2008-09-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

Our country's fine tradition of tolerating the right-wing bullshit we see on television all the time is really getting old.

Every time the 'republicans' decide to have an event, they also decide to hire our police force to abuse anyone who disagrees and gets anywhere near their little events.

Well, I'd just like to send out a big "Fuck You" to all the police in my country who allow themselves to be used in this fashion, especially to the ones who appear to like having an opportunity to spray mace in the face of a girl holding a flower.

You're disgusting, clearly require years of counseling and very likely a strict regimen of some kind of mood-stabilizing drugs.

I'm not foolish enough to believe the police exist to protect the citizens of the USA. If that ever was their job, it stopped being their job many years ago.

I am idealistic enough, however, to be very angry at the police for being there to abuse the citizenry for the benefit of politicians.

Just in case I wasn't clear enough:

Cops, fuck you.

Cops who abuse their power, fuck you.

Cops who tolerate the 'direction' to 'control' the 'noisy liberals', fuck you.

Cops who play along with the lies propping up what they are doing, fuck you.

Cops who allow their fellow cops to behave this way, fuck you.

Cops who recognize psychotic behavior and unhealthy controlling behavior in their ranks and do nothing, fuck you.

Cops who, as the only representatives for regular people in trouble, throw their hands in the air at the bureaucracy holding them back and give up, fuck you too.

the great pop-sci book project: my list

2008-08-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

1. *Micrographia, Robert Hooke
2. *The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
3. Never at Rest, Richard Westfall
4. *Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman
5. Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney
6. The Devil's Doctor, Philip Ball
7. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
8. Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Dennis Overbye
9. *Physics for Entertainment, Yakov Perelman
10. 1-2-3 Infinity, George Gamow
11. The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene
12. Warmth Disperses, Time Passes, Hans Christian von Bayer
13. Alice in Quantumland, Robert Gilmore
14. Where Does the Weirdness Go? David Lindley
15. *A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
16. A Force of Nature, Richard Rhodes
17. Black Holes and Time Warps, Kip Thorne
18. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
19. Universal Foam, Sidney Perkowitz
20. Vermeer's Camera, Philip Steadman
21. The Code Book, Simon Singh
22. The Elements of Murder, John Emsley
23. Soul Made Flesh, Carl Zimmer
24. Time's Arrow, Martin Amis
25. The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, George Johnson
26. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
27. Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
28. *The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, Lisa Jardine
29. A Matter of Degrees, Gino Segre
30. The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss
31. E=mc<2>, David Bodanis
32. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife
33. Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold, Tom Shachtman
34. A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin
35. Warped Passages, Lisa Randall
36. Apollo's Fire, Michael Sims
37. Flatland, Edward Abbott
38. *Fermat's Last Theorem, Amir Aczel
39. Stiff, Mary Roach
40. Astroturf, M.G. Lord
41. The Periodic Table, Primo Levi
42. Longitude, Dava Sobel
43. The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg
44. The Mummy Congress, Heather Pringle
45. The Accelerating Universe, Mario Livio
46. Math and the Mona Lisa, Bulent Atalay
47. This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin
48. The Executioner's Current, Richard Moran
49. Krakatoa, Simon Winchester
50. Pythagorus' Trousers, Margaret Wertheim
51. Neuromancer, William Gibson
52. The Physics of Superheroes, James Kakalios
53. The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump, Sandra Hempel
54. Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Katrina Firlik
55. Einstein's Clocks and Poincare's Maps, Peter Galison
56. *The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
57. *The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
58. The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker
59. An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
60. Consilience, E.O. Wilson
61. Wonderful Life, Stephen J. Gould
62. Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard
63. Fire in the Brain, Ronald K. Siegel
64. The Life of a Cell, Lewis Thomas
65. Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris
66. Storm World, Chris Mooney
67. The Carbon Age, Eric Roston
68. The Black Hole Wars, Leonard Susskind
69. Copenhagen, Michael Frayn
70. From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne
71. Gut Symmetries, Jeanette Winterson
72. *Chaos, James Gleick
73. Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos
74. The Physics of NASCAR, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky
75. Subtle is the Lord, Abraham Pais

I would add to the list:

Paradigms Lost, John L. Casti

Here's a link back to the original post for this item-

http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2008/08/the-great-pop-s.html

Comcast customer service chat

2008-08-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a fairly laughable example of 'service' from Comcast.

Yes, you are reading that correctly: "Currently 209 in the queue"

At 10:09am on a Sunday.

As I type this sentence, it is 10:29am, and I am now down to 96 in the queue.

At this rate, I may receive excellent customer service before I am due to retire and move to Florida. But I may not. I'm already dreaming of the shuffleboard games and frothy glasses of metamucil.

To the RIAA, a Follow Up

2008-08-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

About a year and a month ago, I decided to stop buying music which would give any of their profits to the RIAA. That meant either buying music used or buying artists whose labels were not members of the RIAA.

Well, in the last year I have purchased about 25 CDs from stores, and about as many online. Here's the list of what I bought online:

Agonised By Love
Daniel Johnston
Data-Bank-A
Eisbrecher
Flogging Molly
Gabriela Benackova
Gogol Bordello (3)
Henry Phillips
Johnny Pearson And His London Orchestra
Kudu
MC 900 Ft Jesus
Mocean Worker
Northern Cree
Opium Jukebox (3)
Prague Symphony Orchestra
Soundgarden
Spoon
The Brian Setzer Orchestra
The Cramps (2)
The Decemberists
The Lovemakers
The Pinker Tones
Various
Various Artists

... one album each, unless followed by a number (2) in parentheses. So, that's roughly 50 albums, and a good portion of them were used. I'm sorry to deprive the artists of a profit just because they've hooked up with an RIAA label, I've even considered just sending $5 in an envelope to some of my favorites, but so far I haven't gotten around to it.

My original point was- the RIAA is throwing money and lawyers at internet radio, and to the detriment of internet radio, and by doing that, they're ticking off me, the end user.

Well let's look at the above list- if it were not for internet radio, I would not have known of eight of the above musicians and would never have purchased their music... eight bands out of twenty, or 1/3. That's about right for the rest of my purchases, so, that's no small amount of money. The RIAA hears when it's about money. Let's see if they notice my missing $147.08.

"Would you like a toolbar with that?"

2008-07-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

For some reason, major software makers have picked up a nasty habit of rolling some internet browser toolbar application into the install file for their products.

Several applications I use, both free and for pay, have a little screen in their setup where, if you are not careful, you will end up with a search toolbar installed.

I'd just like to take a quick moment to say KNOCK THAT OFF, and DON'T DO IT AGAIN.

I purchased your software, and it shouldn't be trying to sneak anything in during the install process- and what I mean by that is I should be able to install your application with default settings just by clicking "next" until I see "finished". Having to wonder when you might slip in some nonsense like the Yahoo toolbar, google toolbar, ask toolbar, etc, is not cool.

When I want a toolbar, I'll go find it myself.

Also, Nero, thanks for the useless crapware which does not show up under "custom install", so that it can be removed- "Nero Scout". It's nice that I have to worry about THAT, too.

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

2008-07-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

What a dick.

The human entity we refer to as the President of the United States of America has just qualified, again, as the world's biggest vacuous boob.

This sound bite brought to you by Karl Rove and the jerks who are probably mining an orphan farm for oil while the world is busy being pissed about this comment- not that anyone's trying to hide the wholesale criminal behavior of the white house.

Pathetic.

NVidia, SVideo Out, Netflix and DRM

2008-07-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to watch a streaming video on netflix, and I started to get DRM issues- and then I had to re-install the little add-on to make it work. It still didn't work. It popped up some kind of microsoft error web page which told me next to nothing.

If you have Netflix, an Nvidia video card, and are trying to use the S-Video out to watch netflix movies on your television, the bad news is that Nvidia goofed and you can't.

If you've called Netflix, their solution is to hook up a second monitor, blah blah blah. Nobody wants a second monitor in their living room.

If you don't use the pc for much more than just watching Netflix movies on your TV, there is a simple solution: uninstall the Nvidia drivers. They are what allows the DRM to "function", that is, block you from watching what you've paid to watch.

Restart your pc. Windows will start up with its native drivers, attempt to search for something better, and if you direct it correctly, it will fail and now you're done- you want it stuck with the 'generic' windows drivers because they don't support the built-in DRM on the Nvidia card.

Watch all the Netflix you want, and hopefully someday Nvidia will fix their dumb old driver issue.

John Yoo: Yoo Weenie

2008-07-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

An excellent example of our worthless government: John Yoo and his evasion when questioned by John Conyers. Yoo wouldn't be doing this if he knew he'd actually get in trouble for it.

As a law professor at a university now, Yoo is no longer bound to kiss the hineys of the bosses from previous job and toe their line, but he still does, most likely because they'll be the ones saving him from his evasion.

It's really no wonder people just shrug and turn their heads away when faced with the issues our country's government has- it's a vacationland for scoundrels, crooks, liars, and people who don't want to step on toes and lose their jobs because of it.

"Get paid a lot to smile for the camera and pretend you're actually changing the world your supporters live in."

[insert standard misanthropic close here]

The Little Sandwich Shop

2008-07-01T00:39:00.000-07:00

There was a little sandwich place on Hawthorne in Southeast Portland which was one of those hidden-away gems that you hope to find when you move somewhere. They baked lots of different snacky items as well as the bread they made their sandwiches with. I went there a lot when I lived right up the street.

Well, after many years of business, Bower's Bakery has retired from business. I don't live over there any more, so I wasn't there to notice they'd closed up shop at the end of April.

It felt sad to see the place empty, with just a farewell note taped to the window.

The note said:

"After 23 years of baking, we have decided to hang up our aprons. Wednesday, April 30th will be our last day. Please join us this Saturday, April 26th, for an open house so we can thank you for being such great friends. Thanks again, Dave, Jessica, Steven, Natalie, Daniel."

So long, Bowers Bakery. We miss you.

T-Mobile: Not Clever

2008-06-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

So, if you were checking progress on something, what do you expect? A meter? A chart? Sure. These kinds of things are obvious- we see them so often we take for granted our familiarity with them and what they tell us.

When your gas tank is nearing empty, there's a little red bar, right? And the letter "E"?

As your install is finishing, the little blue bar fills the meter and it says "100%", right?

Well, what's the meter in this image telling you?

Which way is it going? After some scrutiny, we find, the "used" is the gray section, which grows toward the left. "remaining" is the pink, which gets smaller and smaller.

This is a perfect example of corporate idiocy. It seems that T-Mobile could care less whether you know how many minutes you have (very possible), or that some idiot somewhere decided to reinvent the wheel with this ill-conceived graph-type-thing.

Congrats, T-Mobile, you get this week's GWB award, given to those in positions of power who go ahead and do stupid things which screw over everyone else, and continue to do those things even after everyone complains.

I do take for granted that everyone else is confused by this graph- as, if I can notice that it is stupid, then a lot of other people can too, and if they can, then it's likely someone has complained about it before me. Therefore: I rule, and fix your website.

Bill Aftring is Offically Online

2008-06-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Bill Aftring is Offically Online.

See? Here he is.

How to use Comcast Rhapsody

2008-05-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Since comcast has such a busy annoying interface, and since >I< figured this out on my own, I figured I would supply this for the rest of the world who is likely curious as to how to do this.

If you have comcast high speed internet, you get a free rhapsody radio account with it. Most people who just pay for rhapsody would have to go to the rhapsody site and set up an account and all that- you don't with comcast.

Go to the comcast.net website and log in using your comcast credentials.

There will be a "music" link at the top of the page.

On the music page, click the "rhapsody radio" link.

This will sign your comcast account into rhapsody. Once comcast has initialized your account with rhapsody, you don't need to use this login method anymore.

You can now go to rhapsody.com and sign in using your comcast login info, and install their mini-player and now you don't have to go through comcast's site anymore.

Happy you.

And now I remember why

2008-05-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I am just in a mood. We'll see.

I've had no television in my home for about 10 years now. That is, I have not had one that would do anything besides play a DVD or video tape, or maybe a video game.

Well, now I have cable TV.

During election season.

Thankfully, I have not watched much aside from movies on the pay channel... yet.

I stuck my head out from under my self-imposed rock, and followed a link to a website discussing Obama's WWII quote. Or rather, I should say, contesting his quote.

People really have a way of inspiring you to not like them. Well, I should say, ignorant people do.

There has been an interesting result of shows like Jerry Springer and Judge Judy. It seems to have impressed upon our country the validity of ignorance. It has empowered morons.

The morons of our nation now stand up proudly to be counted, and have their voices heard. They get together online and pat each other on the back, and have a good ol' boy complaint festival.

And yep. They're entitled to their freedoms, their opinions. That doesn't make them any less unintelligent.

Dear State of California:

2008-05-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

I regret to inform you that every person who works for you, the State of California, has been failing to do their job.

They have failed to defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I have proof.

Not one California state worker has been arrested at the gates of the White House for attempting to capture the enemies of freedom, justice, and the American way who currently work there.

Nobody has left their post as mail carrier, teacher, or park ranger to travel to our nation's capitol and remove from power the most heinous threat to our constitution ever: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their associated gophers and cronies.

So, sorry, CA, you need to fire more than just those two teachers who refused to sign your stupid Loyalty Oath. You need to fire every last state employee right on up to the Governator.

Agent Smith for President

2008-04-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

Our future president is apparently a Matrix fan.

Morons.

2008-04-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Expelled

A kick to the crotch of the morons. That will teach you to be uppity.

Giant Bicycles Part III

2008-02-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

Previously on 'Giant Bicycles', we found that a not-very-used $1000 bicycle had broken, but that it was under warranty. Then we found that the warranty fix cost would come to more than the cost of a new bike.

The happy ending follows.

Bike 'n' Hike, here in Portland, OR, have been most excellent in their efforts to help me out with this.

I show up with a bike which they are not actually required to give me any warranty service on (because I bought it in Japan), and, after some investigation, the regional Giant rep gives Bike 'n' Hike the go-ahead to replace the broken frame or offer me a nice discount on a new bike in the shop.

Well, after much hemming and hawing over my lost $1000 (see entry part 2 for details), I finally decide to just replace the bike.

I ended up with the new Giant Yukon FX- a decent full-suspension bike with an aluminum frame and disc brakes.

Applause to Giant and Bike 'n' Hike. These guys know what service is, and they have a new loyal customer. Thanks guys!

Wikipedia 911 page: huh?

2008-02-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

So, in going to the wikipedia "911 conspiracy theories" page, I find a real piece of crap of an article.

What I'd like to know is: who wrote this, and why is it so bad?

For many of the examples provided, there are quick and easily verifiable points available to post. For example, the melting point of steel, or, even, the melting point of the same kind of steel used in the towers framework. Furthermore, the environment and energy needed to achieve this melting point. Or, the free-fall speed of an object falling 1368 feet. Or, perhaps, the destructive force of a 9-ton jet engine travling at 400+ miles per hour.

There are no such examples provided in this crummy article. There's a distinct lack of anything useful or convincing.

Without going very far away from regular old science, it is easy to demonstrate that at bare minimum, a case of fantastic negligence occurred on this day.

Going a wee bit further, it becomes apparent: the 'official story' ignores, lies about or distorts the real story in order to achieve is official verdict on what happened that day.

As usual, plausible deniability is what was planned for, and it was achieved. I don't mean to say I know what happened or how it happened, just that the end result is the people in charge are all shrugging and ignoring, and eventually the problem will just go away.

So what is wikipedia doing posting such a bland and crappy version of 'the 911 conspiracy'? Way to be a bunch of pussies, wikipedia. That article reads like some reader's digest fluff piece. I expect far better than that from wikipedia.

Dear Gmail

2008-01-21T04:01:00.000-08:00

I recently received a message in gmail which opens:

subject: "Gmail Confirmation - Send Mail as [your address]@gmail.com"

"You have requested to add [my address]@gmail.com to your Gmail account.
Confirmation code: xxxxxxx

Before you can send mail from [my address]@gmail.com using your Gmail account
([someone else's address]@gmail.com), please click the link below to confirm your request:"

Maybe you got one of these too and don't know what it is? You can delete it.

This is actually a legitimate gmail system message. It is sent when attempting to add an extra "from" account to your gmail account.

However, in this case, it is not a legitimate request- I did not make this request, someone else was erroneously adding my account to theirs, or attempting to hijack my 'from' name. None of this is too surprising or confusing, once you know what is going on.

The problem here is that the wording in the body of the message is a bit confusing, and I suspect that a lot of users will panic and rather than read the message (which goes on at length to explain what is going on and also includes a help link), they will click the link to add their account to someone else's because they have the idea that they are not going to be able to send mail from their own account unless the do so.

Very bad wording, Gmail. It's like when the coders also type up the body text for the application. It always turns out bad.

Dear Gmail, please change that to something more like:

"A request has been made by [other address] to add this account [your address] ... {more info}

If you did not send this request or do not know what it is, do NOT click on any of these links."

FBI: Can't Pay Their Own Bills

2008-01-18T14:10:00.000-08:00

Hahaha.

I just love this.

I mean, it's great that the FBI catches the bad guys. For sure. They work hard to protect us from people who pirate music, and videos, and they try very hard to not actually go after real criminals, such as the ones who crashed planes into some buildings a while back.

Well, lately it seems that they have had some wiretaps going, and they didn't bother to pay their bills, so the phone companies have disconnected their wiretaps!

HA HA HA HA!

Harsh reality for the FBI, and, while I am sure they like do actually do something useful once in a while, I really like it when big dumb powerful systems get kicked in the crotch.

Systems that can be used to go after people and ruin their lives for other people's political gain- they are a cancer.

With all the illegal crap the Bush administration has been up to, whether the FBI was part of it or not, this is a nice pie in the face of a government that no longer exists by the people for the people.

Ow. Looks like I'm a Commie.

2008-01-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

So I was checking out www.politicalcompass.org , and just look what happened.

I'm a pinko. Sorry mom.

Universal Combat

2008-01-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

As long as I am reviewing games, I also downloaded the 5-level demo for "Universal Combat", which sounds intriguing in concept- according to its publisher, "Universal Combat is a game of incomprehensible scale that allows gamers to choose any aspect of combat they wish."

Well, if the game meant to simulate those goats that pass out when you scare them, it did a great job.

Other than that, I don't think I noticed much simulation.

But seriously. I see potential for the concept, but I barely see the concept represented in this game demo- and the demo is supposed to sell me on the real game.

I tried two of the levels, one in a ship, and one on foot on a planet. The game reminded me a lot of the fan missions made for the original Thief. Poorly planned and laid out, hard to figure out, and ugly as sin. Add to that essentially incomprehensible menus, no keymapping screen in the control options, and no way to escape out to those menus once playing... all these make for an early beta, not a release, and certainly nothing anyone should have to pay for.

Which, I suppose, is why the entire single-player game was released for free recently. I guess that's an upside.

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men Can't Jump

2008-01-09T23:47:00.000-08:00

So, I download this game demo. I'm fond of game demos, as you get to kick the tires before finding out the game was tuned for a button mashing 13-year old.

Anyway, this nearly painless download (608mb, as opposed to most new games which are upwards of a gig... just for the demo) turns out to have a fatal flaw.

The wizards at Eidos and IO Interactive have managed to ship their game demo out without mapping the jump key. Ten seconds of gameplay and then...? You're stuck at a knee-high ledge you're supposed to continue past, but... to no avail. Jump does not exist in the key mapping menu.

Your 608mb will not be much fun until that gets fixed, Kane and Lynch... even though I do suspect this one to be a game my 13-year-old friend would appreciate more than me.

Attention Level Index

2007-12-28T14:30:00.001-08:00

I've just come up with this idea. I mean, gave it a name, mostly. It's been floating around my head for a while now, and since I didn't get any google hits on it as an already widely used term, I hereby plant my flag in it and define it.

Obviously this concerns one's ability to pay attention, but how it would be measured is quite beyond my ability to define. I will try to outline.

Take, for example, the subject of evolution.

There appears to be a distinct line which most people who disagree with evolution will not cross in researching it. That is, the actual research part. There is, at some point, either a unwillingness to try, or an inability to see the necessity for a further degree resolution on the subject which leads to this lack of try.

At this point our investigator has achieved the peak of their own personal Attention Level Index. It is presumed that this ALI will apply to the other aspects of their life- that they have set their own internal acceptable level of detail, set in place systems of denial to handle any input which disagrees with this level, and coasted through life with the ability to look at five shades of red and call them all 'red'.

Now, enough fun making. Although this is a cartoony example, it suffices to illustrate the idea in rough- that at some point when you are looking into the further details of a subject, there comes a point at which those knowledgeable on this subject seem to be splitting hairs and not talking about anything which holds your attention any more.

Another example, perhaps, is a little parallel between computer languages and different jobs. High-level languages are made to be simple to work with, that is, easy to use so that more people can understand and employ them. Low-level languages, such as machine language (the lowest?), are extremely difficult to understand, and very few people would really want to try to do anything at that level.

There is a direct correlation between languages and jobs here. Most jobs in the world translate to high-level programming languages- they are more common, easier to learn, etc. The further down you go towards the low-level languages, the fewer and fewer people who can do the jobs there are- and the fewer people who actually want to, for that matter- there are. This is, to me, somewhat illustrative of my idea of the ALI. Certainly a person who has a common job need not have a low ALI.

What would the use for an ALI be? Well, a funny thing to say in conversation, I suppose. Until someone quantifies how such an index could be formulated, I don't suppose there will be a real ALI.

"What? Have I read 'The origin of the Species'? No, that exceeds my Attention Level Index."

Creative! Live! Motion! Webcam! Sucks!

2007-11-11T22:49:00.000-08:00

Just a shout out to Creative and any person with the wherewithall to google this product before they purchase it: "the Creative WebCam Live! Motion" might be a great piece of hardware, but the 'supporting' software is so bad the fancy 'motion' functionality the camera is supposed to have might as well not exist.

The market for this kind of device- a webcam which can pan, tilt and zoom (that is, aim itself in different directions, zoom in and out)- has been growing as the parts become cheaper and the demand grows. The demand isn't very high yet, though. Even Fry's down the road only has two or three PTZ.

This particular model was the cheapest at $130, and it has been a doorstop atop my monitor since I bought it.

If Creative had an office nearby, I'd drive by and throw a brick though their window.

Amazon lists the 'first released date' for this webcam as 6/2005, and the last update on the 'face tracking' software was 1/2006. I would have to say that the functionality of this 'face tracking' is something along the lines of watching a piece of equipment slowly short-circuit. So apparently this still-in-production device is dead in the eyes of Creative.

For those interested, smilecam out of Korea make a similar product (larger but not much), and it works very well. It has Pan and tilt as well as motion tracking capability, and it's very nice. The people who make the smilecam care about their product and whether their end users have a functional webcam and not merely a pretty whirring doodad with blue lights. Creative might as well glue on some fur and googly-eyes, and market their Live! Motion! Webcams! as Spastic! Furby! Tribbles!

DEAR USPS

2007-10-31T15:55:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to our hard-working and much-valued United States Postal Service.

Start putting the face value of all your stamps ON THE stamp, eh?

If the treasury started issuing money with no value printed on it, nobody would stand for it.

SO KNOCK IT OFF.

Cuba

2007-10-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

Hello Cuba!

I'm up here in the USA.

Our government seems to be pretty down on your government.

Sorry about that! I don't like these people who pretend to be running the country, and saying what they think are useful words on television- but they're not going away as I'd hoped.

I just wanted to say: most of us regular people don't care what your country's government does. We hope you're happy and having a nice day.

So ignore the dumb puppets on television and smile. Your USA neighbors like you.

A Meaningless Facade

2007-10-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

The next election.

Analyze the dynamics? Fret over the amazing array of possible candidates? forget about the highly questionable electronic voting machines?

We have a black man and a woman going up against whatever dumb puppet the republicans pick.

However far out of favor they might be, the republicans have one thing in their favor- there are still people so brainwashed and ignorant that they will vote republican simply because the other choice is a black man or a woman. And others who will vote republican again just because they hope the NEXT republican will not pull what Bush,inc. did.

The splintered left will determinedly display their individuality, with a good chunk of them voting for some nobody underdog, and some voting for one of the two high-profile possibilities- again, a black man and a woman.

Lest you think I am down on them, I'd be glad to see either as president. It's not that >I< question their abilities, it's that a good number of people simply would never vote for them.

Which, when you stop and think about it, is the same as the democrats conceding the election before it has even happened. They'll pretend and fret and pick one or the other (I have no idea what's going on with all that, I am speculating, the news is not worth my time), and in the end, they'll do two things which completely invalidate their purported attempts to win:

1. run a black man or a woman against a polished old-school white guy
2. do nothing about the electronic voting machines

The democrats are essentially republicans. I don't see them doing anything which truly represents a real fight in the next election, nor do I see the election process being tidied.

What a joke.

Some thoughts on Islam

2007-09-24T13:11:00.001-07:00

I did not write this, but I find it important insight for people like me.

//////////

Rants and Raves

Saturday, September 09, 2006
Observations on Arabs

Journalist Jill Carroll is back home now, and detailing her
experiences as a captive of the jihadists in Iraq in the Christian
Science Monitor.
( http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0814/p01s01-woiq.html ) I'm sure the
details will prove fascinating, but the upshot of what she has learned
is that the Islamists are - gasp! - different from us! Furthermore, I
believe that she's beginning to suspect that they are really not very
nice people. Oh whatever will this poor old world be FORCED to endure
next?

Since the beginning of the Iraq phase of this conflict of
civilizations, I've experienced the teeth-grinding frustration of
watching both pro- and anti- Iraq sides make the exact same mistake -
that of supposing that these people are bascially Americans in funny
costumes. In this respect, George Bush and Michael Moore are equally
clueless, as was Jill Carroll apparently.

I went to live and work in Saudi Arabia in 1998, and I "made my year"
as expats there put it. That phrase means that I actually stuck out
the whole year, instead of "running" from my contract, an occurrence
so common that you only have to say "he did a runner" to explain why
someone isn't showing up for work anymore. And while my experience
wasn't nearly as unpleasant as Jill Carroll's, I could have told her a
thing or two before she went to Iraq armed with her overflowing good
will.

In Eastern Europe and the South Balkans, whenever I have gone to live
in a place which I had formed opinions about, the actual experience of
living there has always radically changed those opinions, sometimes
into a completely contradictory ones. Most often, my academic research
led me to form a beautifully coherent model which experience turned
into a semi-coherent collection of observations and tentative
conclusions.

In the case of the Kingdom, I went there with a certain sympathy for
Arab grievances, a belief that America had earned a lot of hostility
from "blowback" from our ham-handed interventionist foreign policy and
support for Israel etc.

I came back with the gloomy opinion that over the long run we are
going to have to hammer these people hard to get them to quit messing
with Western Civilization. And by the way, among "rational,
fair-minded" non-interventionist libertarians, not a damn one of them
has asked me, "What in your experience caused you to change your
mind?" Instead what I get are gratuitous insults followed by
insufferably condescending lectures about how wrong I am.

So, with the caveat that one of the first things I learned was that
the term "Arab" covers a lot of territory, here are some observations
and some tentative conclusions about Arabs, more specifically about
Arabs from the oil states about why we have misunderstood each other
to the point that we are fighting a war with some of them and are
pissing off the rest of them. I suspect that many of these also apply
to Iranian Islamists, but I have never been there and note that
Iranians are not Arabs and have a different cultural history.

1) They don't think the same way we do.

No, I mean THEY REALLY DON'T THINK THE SAME WAY WE DO. Yes, yes, I
know we are all human and share the same human nature (perhaps the
most disastrous mistake of Marxism was the denial of this elementary
fact). But within the scope of that shared human nature, there are a
lot of different ways to be human. We Americans have a basically open
attitude to our fellow human beings and sometimes forget this.
Combined with the fact that most Americans are linguistic idiots, we
tend to assume that anyone who learns to speak English learns to think
like us.

2) When you meet them in just the right circumstances, they are a very
likable people.

Arabs are often easy to like, but difficult to respect - as opposed to
Israelis, who are often difficult to like but impossible not to
respect. From their nomadic heritage they have a tradition of
generosity and hospitality to guests that warms the heart. Arab
shopkeepers have a talent for making you feel guilty that you didn't
buy anything (once you get past a dislike of having them lay hands on
you). Haggling is a social grace with them and when you ask the price,
and agree to the first one quoted, they will often come down on the
price just out of pity for your social ineptness. This does not in the
least affect the fact that no friendship with you is ever going to
remotely equal the obligations they have for their family, tribe or
the community of the Believers.

3) Their values are fundamentally different from ours, their
self-esteem is derived from a different source.

And you know what? Theirs is PHONY. Yes I know, I'm making a cultural
value judgment, the cardinal sin when I was a grad student in
Anthropology. With us, the most important sources of self-esteem are
useful work and the love of a good woman. Being good at something that
requires skill (even a hobby) and being of primary importance to
somebody just because you are who you are. Work for them, is something
to be avoided. The basic forms of work: making stuff, growing stuff
and moving stuff around, is taken care of by a class of indentured
servants, usually non-Arab Muslims from the Third World, and even
today, by outright slaves. The Kingdom is a modern country, they
abolished slavery in 1967, but old expats have reported seeing slave
auctions as late as 1981.

On one occasion a student of mine asked me, "Teacher, what do you call
a man who can be sold?" (Excellent use of the passive voice, I was
proud of him.) I explained, "He is called a slave, the condition is
called slavery, the verb is to enslave." Later I had occasion to ask
them about the headsman, the fellow who cuts heads and hands off in
chop-chop square in front of the mosque on Fridays. The reason I asked
was that from my studies I knew that in tribal societies converting
from a tribal or feudal system into a system of common laws, a man
condemned to death by a court of law must often be executed by a
member of his own tribe, or a complete outsider so that the execution
does not spark a blood feud. In the Kingdom the headsman is usually a
Sudanese. My students explained, "Yes teacher, he's a slave." i.e.
he's a person of no importance and therefore outside the web of
obligations of vengeance.

The point being, in a slave society, work is not honorable (as De
Tocqueville pointed out) and cannot be a source of self-worth.

In Tunisia I saw a population doing their own work and I have worked
with a fair number of Jordanians engaged in skilled labor and the
professions. Note that neither is an oil state and I believe their
contribution to the ranks of terrorists is far less than the oil-rich
countries. It is difficult to argue that poverty is the driving cause
of terrorism.

"Of conjugal love they know nothing." (Thomas Jefferson on the French
aristocracy.) In a land of arranged marriages, where the whole society
is geared towards a strict segregation of the sexes and women are at
least semi-chattels, romantic love is rare – and greatly desired. In
the Kingdom I found a few students with a consuming interest in
romantic poetry, whom I had to teach very discretely. Most of them
were just obsessed with sex however. And interestingly, when visiting
the West or the fleshpots of Bahrain, they are said to have a tendency
to fall in love with the prostitutes they patronize.

Without honorable work, romantic love or any accomplishments not
overshadowed by those the West, their sense of self-worth comes from
being the possessors of the One True Religion. And Allah doesn't seem
to be delivering on his promises of being exalted above the
unbelievers these days.

On the plus side, they are willing to spare you and absorb you into
their community as a respected member if you convert to the One True
Religion. The Brotherhood of Believers is a reality in the lands of
Islam, and while it sometimes falls short of the ideal (as does our
democratic ideal) it is a reality, and in its way admirable.

4) Not only can they not build the infrastructure of a modern society,
they can't maintain it either.

The very concept of "maintenance" is foreign to them. This is what
drives the foreign instructors in the Gulf absolutely mad. The per
capita richest countries in the world resemble Eastern Europe or Latin
America in the tackiness and run-down appearance of the buildings and
streets. An electronics technician new to the Kingdom once told me how
his first job was to inspect a junction box in the desert. He had to
pry it open with a crowbar as it had evidently not been opened since
it had been installed several years earlier.

This is expressed in the inshallah philosophy, "If God wills it." A
Palestinian friend of mine explained to me that even the weather
forecaster will qualify his prediction, "It will rain tomorrow.
Inshallah." Or, "I will meet you tomorrow, inshallah." (But God
understands that I am a very unreliable person.)

I remember giving a pep talk to my students before a crucial exam,
"You are all going to pass the exam, right?" "Inshallah teacher." "No,
no!" I shouted, "No inshallah. Study!"

This was once also characteristic of the former communist countries.
Work was indifferently performed and maintenance was a real problem. A
factory owner in Poland told me that machines he bought from Sweden
lasted only half as long in Poland as they did in Sweden because of
poor maintenance. However as soon as people were assured that they
could keep a reasonable amount of what they worked for, people
reverted to their true cultural patterns, worked plenty hard and
started to take care of their tools and the public spaces.

5) They do not think of obligations as running both ways.

With us, contractual and moral obligations tend to be equal and
reciprocal. They don't see it that way. The obligations of the
superior to the inferior do not equal those of the inferior to the
superior. Obligations within a family or clan outweigh all others.
That is why we had to take care not to sit members of the same clan
near each other during exams. If one asks another for help, he has to
give it. In spite of promises to the school and even when the clansman
is a total stranger. Obligations to other believers outweigh all
obligations to unbelievers and especially when the believers are
fellow-Arabs. And in contracts with unbelievers, the obligations of
the Believer to the kaffir are not equal to the obligations of the
kaffir to the Believer.

Consider that Muslims in England have quite un-selfconsciously
demanded that a pub near a Mosque be shut down as offensive to their
religion – in spite of the fact that the pub had precedence by six
hundred years! Or that they demanded the right to broadcast the prayer
call on loudspeakers in London while it is illegal to have a church at
all in the Kingdom.

6) In warfare, we think they are sneaky cowards, they think we are hypocrites.

In our civilization, when two men get down, either seriously or just
"woofing", what do they say? Some variation of "I'm going to kick your
ass." Am I right? Here's what I heard in the Kingdom, "Hey, don't f**k
with me, or someday you get a knife in the back." I'm not saying that
wouldn't happen to you in the West, but most men would be ashamed to
make a threat of that nature. We don't understand that direct shock
battle is not necessarily the law of nature. When overwhelming force
is brought to bear on them, they become cringing and obsequious. To
put it bluntly, they lie their heads off to get you to turn your back
on them. Try to see it from their point of view – how else do you
expect them to act when you have the overwhelming force? You expect
them to meet you on equal terms when the situation is so unequal? What
other tactics are available but prevarication and delay followed by a
sneak attack?

Folks, what we call "terrorism" is quite close to the historically
normal way of warfare among these people.

7) In rhetoric, they don't mean to be taken seriously and they don't
understand when we do.

Thus an ultimatum is often not taken seriously and the reality comes
as a surprise. Remember the "Mother of all Battles"? Like many other
Mediterranean peoples, Arabs don't seem to mind making a scene in
public and have a high blown sense of drama. Paul Harvey once
described how he had spent the Suez Crisis hiding under the bed in his
hotel room because of the blood-curdling radio broadcasts, before he
learned that Arabs talk like that when they're arguing over a taxi.
"This is my taxi and I will defend it to the death!" "You lie, it's
mine and rivers of blood will flow in the street before I give up my
taxi!"

An Arab will scream at you, get into your personal space and sometimes
kick dirt on your shoe – and they react with utter surprise when an
American up and decks him. "What did I do?" To say the least, this
makes negotiations difficult.

8) They don't place the same value on an abstract conception of Truth
as we do, they routinely believe things of breathtaking absurdity.

I cannot begin to tell you of some of the things I've heard from Gulf
Arabs or read in the English language press in the Kingdom. "The Jews
want Medina back." (Medina was a Jewish city in the time of the
Prophet.) The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been turned into an
immensely popular miniseries on Egyptian TV. The Blood Libel (the
medieval myth that Jews need the blood of non-Jewish babies to
celebrate Passover) is widely reported in the Arab press, and widely
believed. Allah will replenish the oil beneath Arabia when it runs
out.

I've been assured, by well-educated and otherwise sensible people that
Winston Churchill was Jewish and that Anthony Quinn had been
blacklisted and would never work again after making Lion of the Desert
(just before he made that turkey with Kevin Costner).

9) They do not have the same notion of cause and effect as we do.

This involves some seriously weird stuff about other people being
responsible for their misery because they ill-wished them. I've read
in the English-language press of the Kingdom serious admonitions
against using Black Magic to win an advantage in a dispute with a
neighbor. The columnist did not deny the efficacy of Black Magic, he
just said it's forbidden to use it. On one occasion I was trying to
explain the concept of "myth" to them and I used the example of the
djinn. I wasn't getting through to them at all and was concerned that
I had mangled the pronunciation of the word when it dawned on me that
the reason they didn't understand what I was getting at, was that they
had no doubt that the djinn were real.

10) We take for granted that we are a dominant civilization still on
the way up. They are acutely aware that they are a civilization on the
skids.

Anyone who looks at the surviving architecture of Moorish Spain can
tell that Islamic civilization has seen better days. There was a time
when cultural transmission between Islam and the West went
overwhelmingly from them to us. (Note the recent discoveries of Sufi
symbols engraved on the structural members of European cathedrals.)
Now the situation is reversed, and it is humiliating for them.

11) We think that everybody has a right to their own point of view,
they think that that idea is not only self-evidently absurd, but evil.

In the West, and America more than anyplace else, we have internalized
the notion that everyone has a right to their own opinion, and that
said opinion is perfectly valid for them. When we meet a people who
think that that idea is insane and evil, we are sometimes left in the
absurd position of defending their idea as "perfectly valid for them".
Doesn't work that way for them, God's Truth is laid out in some detail
in the Koran, and not to believe it is a sin. I know I know, in
America you can find lots of Christian Fundamentalists who believe
that God will cast you into hell for holding the wrong opinions about
Him, but even those who would make their religion into an established
church seldom desire the level of enforcement in such detail as the
Kingdom does or the Taliban did.

12) Our civilization is destroying theirs. We cannot share a world in
peace. They understand this; we have yet to learn it.

Another culturally-imposed blindness we have is the notion that
everybody can get along with enough good will. There is absolutely no
evidence to support this and a great deal to oppose it. Can the
subjugation of women coexist with Western Civilization with Western
media ubiquitous throughout the world? Can a pluralistic and tolerant
society be governed by Islamic law? Can a modern economy exist where
interest is forbidden and many forms of business risk-taking are
considered gambling, and thus forbidden? Can a society that educates
its young men by a process of rote recitation produce critically
thinking, technically educated men to build and operate a modern
economy? Can you even teach elementary concepts of maintenance to a
people who believe that anything that happens is inshalla (As God will
it)? To compete, or even just survive in the world they must become
more like us and less like themselves – and they know this.

Police State: Portland !

2007-09-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Is Portland, Oregon a test site for the Bush/Cheney/PNAC plan for a new world order?

I am not certain, but a few things seem clear. If you want to provoke the populace, you crack down on them until they react. Once they react, you label them 'terrorists' or 'threats' or 'criminals', regardless of the truth of the allegations, once this hits the news the person is ruined, the system is vindicated, and the rest of the populace decides maybe the expanded police presence isn't so bad if it's keeping these villains at bay.

What else is coming up soon? The Real ID act (bill? whatever?) goes into effect next year. So what? From then on, all state and federally issued identification will have RFID embedded in it- basically, an inert piece of circuitry containing your personal data which can be read remotely like a barcode using radio waves. Translation? A cop can know who you are before he even approaches you, and monitoring stations can be installed to track the motion and goings on of all citizens.

So what again?

Well, you're also supposedly required to carry the ID.

In order to collect any useful data, there would have to be hundreds of monitoring points. How would the government install such things without us knowing?

Well, the city of Portland did recently roll out their 'Free wifi' plan. I don't know the background on this, and I may be completely full of nonsense, but that would be a very convenient time for, say, a RFID station to be piggybacked on each free wifi node, all over Portland.

So, what does Portland have? Some of the most pugnacious asshole airport "TSA" security people in the country, recently expanded sidewalk partol rent-a-cops downtown who are flouting their own operating guidelines, and (possibly) a city-wide citizen monitoring system. Give this situation another year or so, and Portland, already a hotbed of liberal activity, may very well become the test location for the Bush/New World Order's little vision of the future: do as we say, plebeian, or we will shut down your town and imprison you.

There certainly is already an army of ignorant goons to do the bidding.

I don't see this as a particularly likely situation, but how many pieces have to be on the board before you decide to call it a chess game? I am not an alarmist, but I do find these attributes of me world to be... disturbing?

As usual, I recommend that each person who feels I am perhaps a bit too tightly wound to go and read the Project for a New American Century website. These people are evil and need to be stopped- and they are running our country right now.

Six Shameful Years

2007-09-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

Six years ago today, someone got away with something.

There is a popular story to explain what happened that day, and as I have stated before I find it an inexcusable shameful farce.

Every major news outlet has obediently parroted this story or something close to it ever since- except for the day of, before they had had the official story drilled ino their heads.

We often accept that there are aspects of some event which simply must be lied about because of politics. That is, we've allowed a certain amount of wiggle room for big events involving politicians, the media, and the ensuing lies.

However, the facts of the events of that day are readily available. There is no need to rely on the lying media to assemble your own opinion, should you decide to, and what you will find is that the official story is such a half-assed mess, it's obvious that the 'officials' who put it together knew. They knew there would be people who figured it out, and they knew those people would not be of any concern.

I have to ask: how many people do you need on your side before you will run out into the street to protest?

Your family?

Your block?

Your company?

Your whole town?

Most people would tend toward the whole town.

So- how would you know your whole town was as ticked off as you were... if the media never told you?

You wouldn't.

So, get back to work, slacker.

But let's say your whole town did run out into the street and protest. How would the next town find out if the media never made mention of it?

The people who died, the wars which were waged, the tax money stolen, the elections corrupted, the constitution debased, the foundations of a police state laid out...

...those aren't a big deal. That's just conspiracy theory.

DoJ, FCC, GWB: FUCK YOU

2007-09-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

From a post on Born at the Crest of the Empire:

"The Bush administration DoJ recommends to the FCC to side with big business on net neutrality."

I repeat again, Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission, George W. Bush: Fuck you and the stolen horse you rode in on.

The Law of Productivity

2007-08-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

We're all aware of the fact that as your expertise and payscale increase, the amount of actual work you have to do decreases. I might call this the "First Law of Productivity".

Therefore, at some point you are being paid a very lot and doing next to nothing.

But what happens after that?

How can you get paid any more? In order to follow the rule, you must do less, and you are already doing the least you could without expiring- although decomposing might count as an action.

I figured out how, today.

Once you are high enough up in your career, and making a fortune, the way that you can do even less is to, by proxy, do less through other people, by causing them to not be able to get their job done.

Interrupt them.

Micromanage them.

Give them the plans and instruction for their new project which is so backwards and retarded that they look at you like your head might be made entirely out of cheese.

Be a manager. You'll get so little done, there's no telling what you will prevent from happening!

Lookout replaced by "Windows Desktop Search"

2007-08-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has a fine tradition of buying up good ideas.

They have grabbed several cool things in the last few years, Lookout (an outlook search indexing tool) and pstools (a toolkit for administrators) being a couple of them.

Well, Lookout is no longer available on Microsoft's site. You have to go dig up the most recent version (1.3) off of other people's archives if you want it.

All that you can get from MS right now is "Windows Desktop Search", and if my initial use of it is any indication, it is not remotely based on Lookout.

Lookout was roughly 2.5mb installed, WDS had a 5mb executable install file (I uninstalled it, so I don't know how big it was installed, but you can bet it was larger than 5mb). File size means something because SMALLER means LESS JUNK. It may also mean less options, less power, etc. But if a 10k application can do the same thing a 1000k application can, you have to ask why.

Lookout installed in about 15 seconds, and began indexing my entire mailbox when I opened Outlook. WDS fuddled around on install and seemed hung, and then added a new, gigantic toolbar 'search' section to my desktop. It finished indexing pretty quickly, and was not able to locate a single item in my inbox.

Lookout found and displayed my results very quickly. WDS never worked (out-of-the-box is how all software should work) and so it's history.

Lookout may be a one-trick pony, but it does what it does well.

WDS is yet another pile of non-functional garbage from Microsoft.

Thanks for tanking a great app, Microsoft! I already have backups of all the pstools files, so, when you go and wreck them and replace them with gigantic, slow, poorly designed crap, I'll have them to fall back on.

The True Haters

2007-08-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

What is the worst thing we can do to each other in this world, this life?

Certainly rape, murder, kidnapping, slavery, torture- these are high crimes, and easily recognizable, easily punished (boctaoe).

What, beyond these obvious crimes, do people do to each other which is truly unforgivable?

Lies? We all lie. We lie every day, we lie in our actions, we lie in our intents, and we decide not to think about it. We go in to work and pretend we plan to stay when we know shortly we will quit. We look people in the eye and say "I'll be there," when we know we will not. We do these things because we are human.

Disloyalty? Just another kind of lie.

Theft? Most of the time, things do not change our lives. We change our lives. We may get angry or upset, but we are not ruined by theft.

Hate? I would have to suggest hate is our weakness. Our worst trait.

Why do we hate? Do we hate weakness? Difference? Likeness? Strength?

A hateful thieving cancer has grown and become resident in my wonderful country. It takes and takes and claims all the while it is a benevolent and righteous friend of all.

This disgusting entity is a conglomoration of gigantic multi-national corporations and our very own government. This includes the media.

If the every day doings of our government were reported by the media, it would not be long before even the most staunch supporters of the war and the administration would be looking for their torches and pitchforks.

But these things are not reported.

A crime is not being called a crime.

Our justice system is defunct.

Our congressmen, senators, representatives- they are all part of the game or they are all too pitiful to stick their heads out of the holes they are hiding in and say something.

The fine and noble leaders of our country are a bunch of pussies.

And they're sending us off to die.

And our hard earned dollars, given to this cancerous glob, are being spent several times over, such that many generations of United States citizens will be in debt for just this mere 8 years of global crime, mayhem, and profteering.

Were our politicians not pussies, were our courts not jokes, were the media useful and upright instead of tired and worthless- these criminals would be punished and sentenced to a quick hanging with no appeals.

Because that is what they deserve.

They deserve to receive the full brunt of the legal system and a quick and tidy execution brought upon them by the fully restored legal system, and they deserve to have their assets relinquished to try and cover the debts to our citizens they have created, and they deserve nothing more. No recognition. No mention of their lives. No consideration for human weakness.

There comes a point when your own human weaknesses matter not at all in comparison to the magnitude of the harm, suffering and death you have wrought. And we are well past the point of 'sorry' covering it now.

It takes people like me, willing to stick their neck out and rile the ugly moronic beast to come and harrass them for being uppity.

I hope there enough people like me out there, but sadly I fear there aren't many like me.

The true haters are out there, and there is no way to pin down who they are. They are beyond our reach. They are nebulous board members, politic-ers, deal makers, back-scratchers, and they will get away with it most of the time, or else we wouldn't be where we are now, with an illegal war and a globe all frowning in our direction.

I hate, and I am not happy about it. In most cases hate is something you can live with. Well. I hate the lying, theiving, murdering, disloyal people who have taken my fine country hostage and are slowly killing it off.

Oh, I think I hear the black helicopters now. See you all at Guantanamo.

Giant Bicycles part II

2007-08-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

My bicycle story is long and mostly uninteresting.

Previously on 'Giant Bicycles', we found that a not-very-used $1000 bicycle had broken, but that it was under warranty.

The saga continues.

Bike 'n' Hike, here in Portland, Oregon, has done a spectacular job of attempting to remedy the situation for me. They looked into my issue (bike bought in Japan, warranty not valid here), and in the end, they went the extra mile and got me a very good deal on a replacement frame for a bike of similar specifications- a good-will deal they were under no obligation to offer.

In the end, though, the frame arrived and rather than a couple hundred dollars worth of upgrade parts (to cover the ones from my old bike which would not fit on the new frame) the total was going to come to more like five hundred dollars.

So, in the eyes of the bike shop, that's $300 for the frame, $500 for the other parts = $800 for a bicycle which retails for around $1300... and that translates out to a great deal.

However, in the eyes of this here guy, that's $1000 for the bike which shouldn't have broken so easily... plus $800, or a grand total of $1800, which is MORE than a $1300 new bike.

At this point I am inclined to pitch myself on the floor and throw a fit. Possibly with hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing.

The bicycle dealer has really been five-star on this issue, but I just can't justify $800 for another damn bike which I hardly use.

However, there is one solution. I am going to Japan next year. I will take the bike with me and drop it off for repair, in person, and leave them the address to ship it home to.

Problem solved. Well, except for that 'no ridable bicycle until summer 08' part.

The Janitor

2007-08-19T23:38:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of jobs people do in the world which nobody would ever want to do.

Janitor is neither a noble title, nor a glamorous one. We're certainly all glad we >have< janitors, but pretty much anybody you meet is not particularly excited to be one.

The list is longer than 'Janitor', but I think this example will suffice for now.

I think there is a category which is similar but most people don't make the connection.

Work which SEEMS glamorous or noble, but which is truly neither.

Could that be?

What could make a job so awful? What if it was your job to purposely lie to people while claiming you were helping them? What if it was your job to undo the work of hundreds of other people such that you are hated by half the population?What if it was your job to steal from the many and give to the few?

Yes, what if you were a politician? You would have to make secret deals and somehow tie them to the 'greater good' in your head so you wouldn't hate yourself.

Can you imagine going to work, putting on a face, and doing horrible things to the regular Joes around you? Pushing through bills which strip tax money which eventually leads to bridges collapsing? Removing veterans benefits while they are still out fighting the war? Privatizing industries so huge pharmaceutical corporations can have their way? Living to create more legal diarrhea such that lawyers will have more to keep themselves busy with? Opening up forests and wildlife reserves so that some political friend you owe a favor to is happy?

I'd rather clean tolets with my bare hands.

Does a single 'good politician' exist? Possibly. I do not see how one could in this day and age. Does the media do a thing about it? No, not until it is quite clear they will not regret it. Does the population seem to notice any of this? It's damn hard to tell considering the only window we have into our fellow man is the television and newspaper, and all we see on there is Nascar, Jerry Springer, Jackass and the 700 club.

So, these loathsome creatures are doing us a favor by taking care of this non-glamorous, non-noble work for us. However, I think they're getting a bit carried away with themselves. Uppity, I might say.

When Diversity is Bad?

2007-08-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Diversity is usually a strength. I'm afraid it may be that there is one case where it is a weakness.

Population and its control.

Take, for example, a revolution.

When a united group of people finds out it is being taken advantage of, and the idea pops into a few people's heads: hey, let's do something about this- the result is a revolution. It is much easier to a.) care to incite your neighbors, b.) point out the global threat, and c.) know you're speaking to someone who cares about the same cause as you- when you're all part of the same cultural group.

The United States of America lacks that. We're too large, and with many diversities. Even within one 'race', there are all kinds of different people- and in most cases these people are spread from one coast to another, and not all living in the same neighborhood.

What does that mean?

Rome was an assimilation of people- when Rome conquered an area, it added the people there to its nation. I think perhaps the reason Rome fell was not people's lack of caring, but their lack of ability to unite and stop their government from being overrun by criminals. And even if that is not precisely the case, I think that is the reason our country is getting taken to the cleaners by corporations and criminal politicians.

Our diversity is keeping us just separate enough that we don't do anything about it. A good question is, though, if that is the case, how do we fix it?

Zug dot com

2007-07-31T23:57:00.000-07:00

So I was just clicking around on the intarweb, when I discover something fairly interesting on a favorite site of mine, cockeyed.com ...

The last Super Bowl followed shortly after the "terror" scare presented to the retarded city of Chicago by battery powered cartoon lite-bright images, and thus, the security was ramped up to ensure that no such lite bright bombs were smuggled in and made to threaten the populace with their awful, blinky cheeriness.

But that is just what someone did.

The time-honored tradition of the fans in the stands holding up cards to form an image would, this year, be replaced by fans being tricked into forming a secret message by wearing lights, which they were lead to believe spelled out "Prince"- he was the half time entertainment.

What these poor innocent civilians didn't know about was the cruel terrorist action which would soon have them glittering the letters "ZUG.COM" during halftime.

The people involved: had no permission.

The event was clearly well funded (probably by Al Qaeda).

The 100 boxes of lights were brought in the day of the game by people barely passing as event staff with fake credentials and they were not on any 'list' which would allow them to pull this prank. They logistically ran the gates and crashed the biggest stupid sports event of the year, duping several branches of security as well as rent-a-cops and concessions stand workers. Nobody figured out the prank...

And the major media never reported the story.

So you'll never know how all that flashy talk about 'increased security' at the super bowl was a crock of shit, and you'll never question whether this government is ever-present, ever-powerful, has your safety in mind, and is watching over you while you sleep.

Thanks, Zug.com, for showing us the truth (that the major media companies need to be taken around back of the barn and put out of their misery). Also, thanks for a mostly funny prank. I'd have made it spell out "cat poo" or something equally nonsensical and childish, to go right along with driving thousands of miles and paying thousands of dollars to watch grown men chase after a ball.

Here's the link to the full story: http://one.revver.com/watch/201296

When in Rome

2007-07-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, an Oregonian moved to Los Angeles.

The very first thing he noticed was how fast and agressive people were on the roads. They went far over the speed limit, they tailgated, honked at each other, got angry and shook their fists, shouted out their windows, among other things.

Conferring with a friend, he found he was excpected to learn to drive like an insane person, too.

"When in Rome," began the friend.

So the Oregonian sped up, and tailgated, and learned to honk and be a general asshole on the road. Soon the Californians couldn't tell he was from Oregon any more.

The moral of this story is not for the Oregonians. It is for the Californians, New Yorkers, and all other holier-than-thous who move here, to Oregon, and complain about how slow and stupid everyone drives.

Your tailgating, your horns, your speeding, your bad habits aren't welcome here.

When in Rome applies to you, too.

Now, start trying to act like an Oregonian, and slow down, disconnect your horn, and maybe just hit yourself in the head with a hammer a few times whenever you need to drive.

"Executive Order"

2007-07-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

Dear George W. Bush:

Kiss my ass.

Sincerely,

Will

ps: as if the government needs any more free license, GWB has granted himself even more power in his recent "Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq", announced 7/17/07.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html

How will he use it to further abuse and denigrate the citizens of this fine planet? We've yet to see.

Our New Century

2007-07-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

In my last post I spoke of the coming badness. It looks like the press is finally receiving their new batch of propaganda:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3336148

"Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror 'Spectacular' Planned"

Just like post-9/11, but this time with a new aim, and likely new material. They know we're peeved they scared us on purpose after 9/11, so this time they will probably make sure that something does happen.

Whoever you are, we don't like you. Go away.

Coming Soon: Martial Law

2007-06-29T18:27:00.001-07:00

I speculate that the "discovery" of two "car bombs" in central London is the beginning of a campaign of such "attacks" and "attempts" both in Europe and here, in the USA.

One of these "attempts" will actually succeed, that is, something will be blown up and people will be killed.

From there we are just a few short steps to the fascist police state sick bastards like Cheney and his fellow members of Project for a New American Century have been looking forward to.

That's right.

Dick Cheney is an evil man.

Everyone who works with him is evil.

We all know it and not one person we've elected is doing anything about it. That is, they're all either complete wimps, or they know there's nothing that can stop this overly and overtly criminal regime.

The magical event I was mentioning a few months back which will tip the scales and either assure victory for the election-stealing rethuglicans or allow them to simply cancel the election all together is in the making.

I'll speculate some more: bombs will probably be found in New York city, Los Angeles, and somewhere else important sounding, but then the one that goes off will be somewhere random and where no right-wing people can get hurt, such as downtown Portland Oregon.

All along we'll hear about how the government, who usually can't find their ass with a flashlight and both hands, has already got evidence that the bomb was associated with someone from Al Qaeda.

People, if you don't know propaganda when you see it, it's time to wake up.

The USA is headed for an ugly stretch of road, and not because of the supposed terrorists- it's the leadership, dummy.

To the RIAA

2007-06-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, first of all, with your litigious asshole behavior over the last 10 years, you're making about as many friends in this country as an Amway salesman makes on a crowded bus.

Second, in response to your idiotic actions against net radio, I am officially boycotting any piece of music associated with the RIAA for the next year. I will borrow the CDs from my friends, I will buy them used, but I will not pay for a new album, and thus neither you nor the artist involved will be receiving my money.

That includes all of the albums I had planned to buy since discovering them on the net radio stations I listen to. All those purchases are pushed out a year, and if you keep this crap up, I'll go another year.

That is to say, in order to make my point to you, RIAA, I will have to hurt the people whom I'd rather be supporting- the musicians who associate themselves with you- by not giving them my money. There are a number of albums I discovered through internet radio which I'd really like to just run out and pay way too much for, and I'm going to buy them used or not at all.

So screw you. And all your pig lawyer friends. And politician friends.

Up yours with something scratchy.

Giant Bicycles

2007-06-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

I have a Giant XTC2 mountain bike which I bought in Japan in March of 2000. It's an aluminum-frame, full-suspension bike which I paid around $1000 for.

Recently, I was riding my bicycle home from work and the rear wheel started to wobble around. It took me a minute to figure out what was wrong- the section very near the rear sprockets which the wheel connects to (the frame) had cracked quite badly and was on its way to coming completely apart.

I have had street tires on this bike from day one, and the roughest riding it has seen has been the occasional enthusiastic jump off of a curb.

The frame of a $1000 bike, broken.

I assumed I'd be able to order the part, and then remembered that I bought it in Japan.

After much poking around, I gathered that Giant had a lifetime warranty on all its frames, and all I needed to do was take it to a Giant dealer so they could see what the situation was.

Well, the Giant dealer here in Portland I dealt with was Bike n' Hike, and they were very helpful and friendly, but in the end the word came back from Giant- I would have to service the bike in Japan, since I bought it there.

An old friend was kind enough to help me out (Thanks Nozomi!), and located the bicycle shop I had long forgotten the name and location of in Gare mall, in the JR Osaka train station- "Cycle World". With a little fidgeting I got their number and spoke with them.

They were puzzled, and of course, much of the feedback was in polite Japanese, so I didn't catch a lot of it. I assumed the guy was looking into the issue for me and I would call back later to find out what he'd discovered. When I called back, the person I got on the phone did not know what I was asking about.

I re-explained all the story to this guy as well, with slightly broken Japanese at many turns, but he seemed to understand what I meant.

He told me the warranty was definitely expired.

I asked him if he knew whether the Giant warranty was lifetime in Japan or not.

He didn't know, but countered with the fact that I'd have to come up with proof of purchase in order to get any warranty anything anyway.

I told him I did not think I had that.

I asked if he could look into getting the part anyway.

He said if it was available, a Giant dealer in the USA would be able to tell me (the part is, in fact, not available to the dealer here.)

So. At present I have a $1000 paperweight. A greasy one.

I turns out I do have proof of purchase- my old habit of holding onto receipts may prove helpful here.

I understand that companies warranty items by country to prevent black/gray market transport and/or devaluation of their products, but these are $1000 mountain bikes pretty much wherever you purchase them- well, $1400 now. Anyway, the cost of getting a container of asian-market bikes to the states is going to void any possible profits...

I am going to pursue both Japan and USA Giant dealers and write a letter to the USA Giant office in Newbury Park, CA- since they have no online support whatsoever- and report back on how my $1000 paperweight is doing.

My instinct tells me this is a waste of time, and that Giant is going to blow me off and I will get nothing but a hassle. However, if they do, I will make sure anyone searching for their name will have my blog come up as a hit concerning their warranties and practices.

Here's a copy of my receipt- I think it has warranty info on it, too...

Wait a minute- it that Giant's phone number at the bottom? Ooooo...

Santa

2007-06-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

If I have to choose my myths to believe in, I'll take Santa.

He comes every year, if you've been good, and we all look forward to his visits.

He doesn't instigate himself into world politics, or tell you to wear funny hats (unless you want to dress like him, I guess.)

He's just a nice old man who likes to give kids presents.

If there is a more realistic role model for society, it's this one.

Eat whatever you want, be nice, and treat kids well- a little discipline, lots of love.

The world might not be so bad if people just emulated Santa a little more.

I guess the good thing is I can decide to believe in something which I know isn't true. Isn't that cool? And how do you incorporate "Santa" into swearing? Especially if you want any presents?

Astrology

2007-06-01T13:44:00.001-07:00

Now, people like to believe in Astrology, even just because it's amusing- never mind the people who take it seriously.

If there WERE a truth to it, could there be a rational hard-science reasoning behind it?

With this in mind a few years ago I set out to invent and explanation which did not go against science.

Here it is.

First, look at mammals as a whole. If you have trouble with picturing them, mammals are animals which have breasts. Dogs, cows, dolphins, mice, elephants, ferrets, gorillas, etc. In the big picture, MOST larger mammals breed once per year in order to properly be in tune with the seasons- we don't want a new baby in the middle of the snowy winter, or the drought season, etc.

So somewhere inside is a hard-coding for specific behaviors.

At some point in our evolution, humans were animals like this. It seems likely that we may have spent hundreds of thousands of years as such animals.

Now, I can't imagine that in a complicated creature such as a human that a behavior is just a switch, such as "you will dig a hole and live in it for three months now, because it's going to snow", but a suite of behaviors which support this need.

Adaptation and climate change may force such a behavior to fade, but perhaps the supporting activities aren't so completely removed. Such as, you don't need to dig the hole to live in anymore, but you still tend to go looking for nuts and feel like you need somewhere to store them, etc.

Now, back to the point.

If we were born at the same time of year for a very long period of time, then it's possible that the effect of this may still exist in our heads.

If there did exist a 'correct time' to be born, say in June, then you were supposed to be plunged into winter six months later. If you were instead born in December, then your body/subconcious is expecting snow at the wrong time- in June.

My idea is that being born at different grades away from this "original" birth time may cause similar personality traits in people. That is, the effect on your personality of thinking it's supposed to be snowy in June may differ from the effect on your personality of thinking it's supposed to be snowy in March.

Are the ideas pushed by astrology 'true'? No idea. Just fun with thinking.

US Army: Lunkheads

2007-05-29T13:29:00.000-07:00

"Denver Post is reporting that the US Army wants to use a major fossil site for bombing practice. The Picket Wire Canyonlands, in the Commanche National Grasslands, is included in a series of maps the Army has drawn up for increasing its ordinance ranges."

Thanks. You're right up there with the Taliban, destroying the giant statues of Buddha a while back.

The Mayan civilization recorded their knowledge in books of sorts, and all but a very few of these books were destroyed by christian religious fanatics from Spain. From the tiny remains of those books we know the Mayans to have been extremely intelligent and knowledgeable, and just the tiny window from those books into their world has been fantastic. The extent and depth of the whole knowledge of those books will never be known now, thanks to some short-sighted believers of mythical nonsense.

What's lying in the proposed bombing range/fossil site, and the proposed blowing up of the whole area will be the modern-day equivalent of the destruction of the Mayan libraries.

"Hey! We're the USA. -THE- first-world power everyone -used- to look up to as being so great. Now, though, we belligerently destroy ancient knowledge just because we're told not to! What fine standards we uphold!"

Ashamed

2007-04-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

While standing waiting for the bus this morning, I thought of a perfect analogy for my sense of shame concerning a certain subject.

Imagine if you made a foolish mistake, such as putting your underwear on over your pants whilst getting dressed this morning. Never mind how you manged to do this. Let's add to it something further, perhaps, you put on a stained shirt with 'moron' written on it. Again, let's just say for a minute that you weren't aware you'd done this.

And somehow you went out for the day, and spent the day thus adorned, and it was not until you came home and saw youself on the news you realized the mistake you'd made, and how dumb you'd looked all day, and how amazing it was that you hadn't noticed.

You'd probably be kind kind of ashamed with yourself for such a lapse.

But what if you did it the next day, too?

What if the exact same thing happened the next day?

You'd probably start to pay attention, especially because every day when you got home it was there on the news for you to see: You are a dumbass.

...now, what would you say if eight years passed, and for those eight years you made those same mistakes every day, and were on the television every day, and you had still failed to do anything to correct them?

You'd have to either conclude that you really were a moron, or that your daily mistakes were actually on purpose.

And that is what I have to conclude about my fellow MMerrikkkans.

We are either morons, or we mean for our president and his little crew of jack booted thugs to be trashing our country in every sense of the word. Trashing our constitution. Trashing our environment. Trashing our reputation in the world. Trashing our neighbors in the world. Trashing our people by sending them off to 'fight' an unwinnable quagmire in the name of bringing 'democracy' to the rest of the world while it diminishes here. Trashing the memory of those lost on September 11th, 2001. Trashing the efforts of millions of citizens across hundreds of years to make this the one place in the world that truly was one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I'm sorry you are morons, my fellow citizens. I know that higher education is evil and turns you into a communist, and you have every right to fear and loathe the concept of critical thought, as it would assuredly destroy your little reality.

And I am ashamed for what my country has become because of your stupidity and inaction. There is no longer any unexplored land to go to and re-make the paradise that was the USA. All the world is booked up with land that belongs to megacorporations, is occupied by their slave labor- or it's inhospitable, uninhablitable land. You're stuck here with me and I with you.

There will be no great relish in the "I told you so" coming down the pike on this one.

History does not make much of a big deal about the German citizens who did nothing to stop the Nazis- those regular folk who were just trying to keep living, hoping the bad thing would just go away eventually. Like them, we're realizing it's not going away on its own any time soon. I hope history may be so kind to me someday, as I am in the same shoes those regular folk were, and likely doomed to follow in their footsteps. I don't want to have to be the inactive 'useless' citizen who watched as his country was raped, but I don't see a lot of option when I am stuck with all these morons.

The most wicked evil ever put upon the world by a first world power since the Nazis had their time is currently emanating from those in charge of the government of the United States of America.

Without a people united firmly against this, it will not stop- and it doesn't seem likely 'the people' will ever get a clue.

The Poor Disillusioned Monkey

2007-04-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

We're in a permanent pickle, us people.

On the one hand, we want to enjoy existing. We want to eat good food, and rest well, and sing and laugh and get foot rubs and take hot showers... and the list of enjoyable things just goes on and on.

On the other, we can think. So it's not just a long day of these good things and no real regret for bashing someone's face in, stealing their food and wife, etc.

And then there's this third hand.

The third hand is that the vehicle delivering this 'thinking' is the same fallible pleasure-seeking entity which procrasitantes, convinently forgets, and lies to itself.

That is, the thinking part, even when it is being exceedingly clever, is not resting upon the most firm foundation.

These two irreconcilable opposites- our thinking side and our animal side- are the basis of our awareness. Our awareness defines our reality. Reality exists, for us, to the extent that our thinking animal selves are able to define it and recognize it.

And that's fantastically annoying, because if we can think, we can recognize this lapse.

And of all things, recognizing this lapse whilst trying to think through a difficult issue, one which requires your full attention, a notepad, and several hours thought... well, it can make you want to just set that all down and go watch cable television.

Another issue which seems to go right along with this- historically, the track record of the humans does not show much promise. We have repeated ourselves for millennia. Regardless of our technological standards, we are still one major natural disaster from being in utter chaos, and shortly after that, from living no different than the median human ever has.

So, is it that we just need the right path to follow? Is it possible that someone could show up and lead us all away from the same old mistakes? Make the world the best it could possibly be with us still in it?

Or is it that the way we always have been is the highest possible level we are capable of, and straying from that path with the hopes of advancement is what has caused so much suffering and trouble all along?

Altruism. A trait very few living things are capable of.

Lying, a behavior uniquely human.

If people were more altruistic, the world would be a better place.

But being altruistic takes work.

And we're ever so inclined to work as little as possible.

So.

A few bad apples would ruin that situation, and it would be a very short time before altruism dried up and people were made to fend for themselves- much like now.

As with most things, it is our base animal motivators which get us in the most trouble, and which also are condemned, by and large, by religion and society.

Most of us already know, we are our own worst enemy.

It's only when we are ALL threatened that we all unite, it's only when we are fearful that we can be kept in line. This explains religion fairly well.

It's funny, though.

The fruit of the tree of knowledge is what supposedly got us all in trouble, and what a perfect example we have to support it. The more you know, the heavier your burden is in life. It's no wonder that with age we grow bent and gnarled. The weight of the information in our heads pulls us back to the ground eventually more surely than gravity ever could.

I think I see now how people can age and gradually make peace with the world and slip off into that great unknown without howling in anger as it happens.

There are no objective answers to this pickle, and there never will be.

That won't stop us fretting over it, as if wanting it to be might work, kind of like when you really wanted it to snow as a child.

Cafeteria Food

2007-04-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

I once worked at the coffee cart at my college. This had me going back and forth through the cafeteria to get things from the back, and of course, there was the benefit of cheap/free lunchroom food.

On noticing the consistently bland and lame food served by the cafeteria and also the capability of the kitchen staff, I asked one of the cooks why the food was always so bland and lame.

He told me that despite the capability of the kitchen, the food had to be dumbed down to meet the needs a mythical, median cafeteria patron.

That is to say, the food couldn't be really good, because that would lessen the number of people that could appreciate it. People who normally would have been ok with their dinner because it was at least sufferable in their boxed-macaroni-and-cheese-world would buy and then be dissatisfied with the overly healthful and non-processed flavor they had received, and thus not be able to eat in the college cafeteria.

This brings to mind a similar story. A very good friend of mine once worked in a group home for mentally retarded adults. The premise of the job was that you went there and worked 3 days straight, sleeping there and everything, and you were paid for a full 40 hour week. Part of the job was feeding the 'clients', which often involved microwaving a hot dog or opening a pudding cup, as the extent of their palate was such items (except for that one guy with pika).

This friend would prepare the food for the 'clients' and then go on to cook for himself, and often create exquisite meals. He has honed his cooking skills to the point he is the best cook out of any of my friends, hands down.

So here we have two sides of the same coin.

On one side, we all suffer because of people who have bad taste. The people who didn't like that fancy cafeteria food could be the ones who were made to suffer, while the rest of us could go to the cafeteria and eat food that was just a little bit better, that seems fair to me.

The other side of the coin is that in some cases we would have less great cooks if there were not a plethora of dingdongs in the world. Can that be?

So, yes, I am being silly.

But in any case, I turn now to the subject of framing.

Framing essentially refers to taking your argument and tuning it so that if an idiot listens in, they will choose your side over the one they already like.

For example, given:

An ancient religious belief enforced by peers, elders and family

which disagrees with a modern scientific belief,

we now have the option of dumbing down and or lying about the science in order to make it more agreeable to someone who is unwilling or unable to let go of their belief in myth.

If you will, we have the option to sell science in the same drink-the-kool-aid fashion that religion is sold in. We can lie and control you, and essentially supplant one bad leader with another.

Framing, as far as I can tell, is the argument that in order to assure victory in any sense, we must pander to the stupid.

In politics, this is certainly true, as those willing to pretend to be upright and religious (the republicans) can control the ignorant, stupid, and irrational- and as they will always outnumber the brilliantly smart in any population, controlling their vote makes the country yours to waste ignorantly, no matter what the people who actually know better say.

In science, however, this kind of control concept goes beyond the 'framework' that most scientists would prefer to operate in. They want to find the data, interpret the data, and give it to the world for all to benefit from- controlling how the world benefits from it is not on their to-do list- unless they work for Monsanto or something.

The Truth, part 2

2007-03-31T05:06:00.000-07:00

On my last post, my good friend speecialpants left an interesting comment, which I have been pondering, and will attempt to run with.

"You should go further with this in terms of what you think the internet's role is in all this..."

The internet is replacing the traditional method that the writing of history has followed. Video, audio, scanned documents, e-mail are all regularly leaked to expose events- and once they are on the internet, by and large they are there ad aeternum. Nearly any event worthy of note that happens within range of a person with a blog gets documented there. If you want to find the information on something, you can. And the people who are not tuned into this idea- they are the older generations. We're raising children in an age where any information they might need to know is just a click away.

How is the internet then going to subvert religion and destroy us?

Well, simply, religion cannot survive analysis in the harsh light of a scientific lab, and, when the evidence reducing the matter to an issue of pure faith is viewed from a logical and rational perspective, a lot of less-than solid believers will be shaken.

What is an issue of pure faith? By that I mean, when it comes down to it, you should believe in your religion purely because you choose to and despite any evidence for or against it. If you are going to be swayed by some recently unearthed artifact, then just how faithful were you anyway?

"Meanwhile! I kept thinking of the issue of meaning when I read your post. Society endeavors to create meaning - "truth" is invested in power - they'r nearly synonymous..."

Ah, the 'meaning' conundrum.

As humans, we have the burden (should we so choose to recognize it) of dealing with the fact that we are thinking animals. Incorporated in that are a great deal of paradoxes- for example, the disdain for killing, but the need to kill to survive. One of the other more distrubing issues we deal with as thinking animals is the issue of reality/our own delusion. I see reality and meaning as the same thing explained in different ways. Some of the greatest philosophers have wrestled with 'meaning' and from their wrestlings I can conclude: when you get to that level of granularity, it's a lot like saying a word so many times it starts to sound nonsensical.

So, what is our own delusion?

Our delusion is that thing we generate to make it all OK. If you stop a person on the street and ask them to define a bunch of words, they will likely find they are unable to explain some words which they are completely comfortable using. Also, if you ask ten people at a crime scene what they saw, you get ten stories with varying contradictions. Just like the blind spot in our vision which is covered by our brains, just like many other less familiar instances of our brains filling in details which we take for granted... we do a good job of ignoring the gaps in instances where we have learned that: the end result seemed ok, so, noneed to pay attention to the gaps. Our delusion is that we don't have the gaps, that we aren't flawed in many ways.

We all hone our own delusions.

Now, I know you meant a different kind of 'meaning'- but I needed to go here first.

Society is an odd creature. It's a projection of that Jungian thing, the collective unconcious, but then again, it's also a bastard child of television, advertising, and many others. We can look up 'society' in books and read confidently what other people tell us it is. What is the society of the USA? Not one person can answer that condifently, or give an answer which is that same as someone else's- not an answer which isn't canned, anyway.

It would be a difficult thing to tear meaning away from society, but how I percieve them makes the connection less powerful.

Our powers of perception are tied to our needs. Our innate abilities of pattern recognition work constantly to amaze and also confuse us. See also: superstition. The word 'society' is used to describe a complex pattern, much like 'meteorology' is used to describe another complex pattern. Some very focused individuals can tell us fascinating facts about these complex systems, but in truth, nobody can tell for sure what they will do besides prance around within a certain range.

The meaning we see emanating from society is just a form of pattern recognition, but in any case, it's a no-win situation.

"Fact is that science and religion go hand in hand with the state and the truth-production you speak of. In terms of power one isn't necessarily better than other."

Definitely. I do think one is better than the other, though. Science, while not always kind, is always altruistic. Of course, corporations can do science in the name of their own interests, but as a whole, the outcome of the contributions to scientific knowledge benefits all. Religion (organized) pretends to be altruistic, but in truth it is wholly selfish. "If you do not believe as we do, then you will not receive all the benefits of being part of our group. In fact, believe opposite of us and we will work against you." - wad all religions together, and this is their effective mission statement. Science is there for all to benefit from no matter what you believe, organized religion does PR work, but definitely isn't there for you regardless of your beliefs.

"Why not venture beyond the notion, the statement of "The Truth" and bring it down to the level of a supposition hamstringed by the interests of power through the way you talk. And do it on the internet, too!"

Ow. Yeah. This is usually where I go from talking about thoughts and ideas, the camera pans way out and I jump straight to the misanthropic conclusion. There is one way to assure that a perfectly planned and logical system will fail- let a human run it. We are feeble and delusionary, not very much in control of ourselves, and we are the ruling power on the planet, just below mother nature. There is not much we fear but death or torture, and that's certainly an excellent method of controlling us.

I may have to make a part three to this after I think on it some more.

The Truth: You Can't Handle The Truth

2007-03-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that The Truth, the internet, and our modern times, will be our own downfall.

That is, our need to find The Truth, coupled with our own desire put it on the internet, and the near permanence of things placed there will be detrimental to us, overall.

For example, take my favorite subject, religion.

Many people simply cannot accept the idea of a world where there wasn't a big powerful god and a cookie for being good at the end of the rainbow- their little worlds collapse when the burden of governing their own actions is left to them alone.

The Truth, in this case, is that by nature humans have an intense need to believe such things, and, in most cases, have the further risk when abandoning their beliefs- it would ostracize them from their families, friends, the whole town, etc.

And, again, The Truth is that there is not a single shred of proof that any religion's gods exist. None. Zero. Belief and books and relics are proof of nothing. There may or may not be a god out there somewhere, but there is no proof that they exist.

So. Proving this point to the world may have the effect of, over time, debasing the presence of religion in society. Religion is one of the few cohesive elements joining regular Joe in the world. While we'll finally get religion off of science and history's backs, our people will be more divided than ever before.

As if we weren't already easy enough prey for lawyers, advertisers, and loan sharks. Less cohesion is bad.

So do we accept that the for-show PR battle between science and religion is a fair price to pay for cohesion, or do we risk that something better will rise up and save us when we drift into that era?

Little Tiny Cars

2007-03-23T01:19:00.000-07:00

In Japan there is a class of vehicle called 'kei'- I don't think it has any relation to the Chrysler 'K' cars...

The Kei cars are a special, smaller, lighter, less expensive (to buy and also to license) kind of car. The specifications go something like this- no larger than a certain dimension, no heavier than a certain weight, and an engine no larger than a certain size- which seems to be about 660cc, or the same as a medium motorcycle.

At some point in the last few years sea-freight contianers of them began arriving here for sale.

For sale as off-road and non-street vehicles.

Hmm.

So, it turns out there are several obstacles between these cars and 'legal' streetworthiness here in the states.

1. 'safety' issues. apparently they are little more than tin cans with an engine. I can abide that they do not meet our 'car' safety requirements, but I think then they should be allowable as motorcycles. After all, if a motorcycle is street legal and has NO safety features, then these little cars should fall into that class.

2. emissions issues. I can't really address this, but I must say, if I can legally buy a vehicle which gets less than 5 MPG, then a tiny car which gets 50 but runs a little less clean still wins out in the long run emissions-wise. And after all, if it's a motorcycle, it's free from emissions, as there's no way to test them or regulate them.

3. some nonsense about title/paperwork. I guess the VIN is only 12 or so digits, where it needs to bew 15 or something. I am pretty sure there is a way around that, too.

Really, the only thing preventing these cars from being on the streets is the fear that they will actually get good mileage.

Again, if I can legally buy a 5MPG Hummer or Ferarri, then I think I should be able to buy a 55MPG tin can.

For a good overview of Kei cars, see also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car

Worthy of Note

2007-03-12T00:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.eff.org/

Mainpage.

"The REAL ID act"

Some politicians need to be spanked and have a time out.

Belkin Support: Lacking

2007-03-06T23:43:00.000-08:00

As I have pointed out previously, corporations often choose to address known issues by further wasting customers' time rather than actually helping them.

For example, take a device with a known issue and no known solution. In my situation, that would be a bluetooth adapter (model F8T003 version 2 ) which lacks certain security capabilities, and, which when installed, returns:

"Your bluetooth license does not include use with this bluetooth device.[6]"

If you google that phrase, you will find A LOT of people have a similar issue, even with the specific model of adapter I have.

Windows XP service pack 2 came with 'security upgrades' which prevent certain things. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they block this device from working properly- it works fine on my other service pack 1 computer.

So, to say this wasn't a known issue would be a stretch.

I contact Belkin directly addressing the issue, and they send me instructions.

The instructions don't work- I get the same error.

Back. And forth.

Zzz.

So, here's my transcript of 'support' from Belkin, which concludes with them telling me to call their 1-800 number, and me telling them they suck. That, I'd imagine, is where the discussion will end.

///////////////////

Customer Call Details Feb 23 2007 05:25
from Will
Downloaded most recent drivers. Software which is linked to the F8T003
on your website returns "Your bluetooth license does not include use
with this bluetooth device.[6]". I think this is because windows XP
SP2 has a security requirement for an embedded 'security code'- please
send me instructions for overriding that.
Belkin Response Feb 27 2007 00:12
Will,

Using Widcomm Bluetooth Software under Windows XP SP2

Windows XP Service Pack 2 includes its own Bluetooth stack software.
This does not actually conflict with Widcomm and both stacks can
co-exist on the same system. However, the Microsoft driver is
digitally signed while the Widcomm driver is not. Therefore, Windows
will pick the SP2 driver over the Widcomm driver, thus disabling
Widcomm.

/////////////
from Bryan:

The following are instructions for switching over to Widcomm:

1. If you have not already, install the Widcomm software.
2. Bring up the device manager (go to control panel, double-click
"System", click the "Hardware" tab and click "Device Manager").
3. Find an entry named "Bluetooth Radios" or "Bluetooth Devices" and
click the "+" next to it to show the sub-entries.
4. There should be a sub-entry named " Bluetooth Adapter"; Right-click
this and select "Update Driver" to bring up the Hardware Update
Wizard.
5. If you are asked if Windows can connect to Windows Update, select
"No, not this time" and click "Next".
6. Select "Install from a list or specific location" and click "Next".
7. Select "Don't search, I will choose the driver to install" and click "Next".
8. You should now see a list of two drivers, " Bluetooth Adapter"
(highlighted) and " Bluetooth Device". Select the "Device" (you will
see a warning that the driver is not signed) and click "Next".
9. You will now see a message that the Wizard has finished installing
the software; click "Finish" and then close the device manager, system
properties and control panel windows.

That specific Bluetooth dongle is now associated with Widcomm instead
of the Microsoft stack on this system. If you switch to a different
dongle (even of the same brand and model), the new dongle will
associate with Microsoft and you will need to repeat these steps to
re-associate the dongle. If for some reason, you wanted to use both
stacks simultaneously, you could attach two dongles and associate one
with each stack.

Bryan

////////////////

Customer Call Details Feb 27 2007 00:19
from Will
Ok, great. That`s useful info.

However, is the Widcomm file the `driver` file associated with my
bluetooth adapter on your website, or is it something I have to
download from somewhere else? You didn`t mention that part.

Thanks.

////////////////

Belkin Response Feb 27 2007 00:26
from Bryan

Will,

It is associated with the file.

Bryan

////////////

Customer Call Details Mar 2 2007 04:44
from Will

I did what you said, and I am still getting the same message I
mentioned before, that "Your bluetooth software license does not
include use with this bluetooth device." The widcomm files I installed
ARE the ones on the page for my device, and what I suspect is that
this device cannot be used under Windows XP SP2. How can I fix this,
or can you send me the "license.dat" file it is asking for?

//////////////

from bryan:

Will,

Please contact our technical support department directly so that we
may further troubleshoot the issue. Ultimately if it is defective we
can replace it under warranty.
Phone: (800) 223-5546 ext. 2263
Phone: (310) 898-1100 ext. 2263
Fax: (310) 604-2089
Business Hours:
Mon-Fri 6am-5:00pm
Pacific Standard Time

Bryan

//////////

from Will:

Bryan, I paid somewhere around $40 for this item, it works FINE on my
old XP SP1 machine, and I doubt it is still under warranty.

I can replace it for less then $40 now. My time is worth more to me
than the hassle and wait of dealing with someone on the phone.

I know this is a known issue with your hardware as, if you google
"Your bluetooth license does not include use
with this bluetooth device.[6]", you will find MANY entries for not
just bluetooth but Belkin and even this specific device.

If you DON'T know about this issue, then you should learn. Whether you
give me a useful answer or not, I'll be posting this entire discussion
in my blog soon for everyone else to see (as I had already tried all
of the help you've sent me so far and knew that was not the answer),
so you can begin to actually help me or you can become bad PR.

I want Belkin to spend their time on this, not me. It's a known issue.
Address it, escalate it to someone who can, or admit that your
hardware will not work under SP2. The time for run-around is over.

-Will

///////////
from Bryan

Will,

Thanks for contacting Belkin. Please contact our technical support
department directly so that we may further troubleshoot the issue.
Ultimately if it is defective we can replace it under warranty.
Phone: (800) 223-5546 ext. 2263
Phone: (310) 898-1100 ext. 2263
Fax: (310) 604-2089
Business Hours:
Mon-Fri 6am-5:00pm
Pacific Standard Time

Bryan

///////////

from Will:

NO. I will not call and waste my time with your phone support. I will
buy a replacement model by a different maker and avoid Belkin in the
future.

Phone support is going to waste my time just like you have- if you
can't send me an answer for 'will this device work in windows XP
service pack 2?', they won't be able to answer that, either. You
completely failed to address that question, which translates to: I am
ignoring your inquiry, and instead sending you this useless fix.

You failed to address any of my questions excpet for when I asked if
the file I needed was the one on the download page. I'm not going to
humor you with any more of my time- except to add this little bit to
my weblog. Thanks for next-to-nothing.

///update: a reply from the support system Belkin uses://///

iOpus Software Gmbh to me
show details 2:09 pm (9 hours ago)

will,
This message is regarding your Ticket ID ########. We are changing the status of this ticket to 'Closed' as we have not received a response from you in 96 hours.

Subject: [Support] will
Department: iMacros Tech Support
Priority: Medium
Status: Closed

If you have any further questions then do let us know.

Ha Ha! Open Source WINS!

2007-03-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

Well, after I complained again about Sony/Sonicstage, I decided to search some more and see if there was an alternative.

And viola, wikipedia's entry on sonicstage contains a link to an alternate sourceforge free project which does exactly what their 30 megabyte junk application does in a mere 246 kilobytes... a size difference of roughly 40 times. Oh yeah- and the app is a platform-independent .jar file which lives ON THE PLAYER- so you can plug it in and go, wherever you are.

But wait, there's more!

Sony/SonicStage has built in security, so you can't do things like copy music onto the player on one pc and copy it off the player on another- never mind whether you own both of them or not.

"NW-E00x Mp3 File Manager", as it is called on sourceforge, lets you do whatever you want with the $100 player you purchased.

S/Ss makes you manage your CD info through their partner site, a site you have to sign up for to use.

S/Ss 'gives' you 5 free downloads with your player, but in order to get them you have to sign up for an account and supply them with your billing information.

S/Ss makes you register your device with them online if you would like to have the honor of connecting to more than one computer and accessing files.

S/Ss, for the honor of giving them your money, has you sign a contract in your own blood and you also 'owe them one' in that mafioso kind of way. Ok, I made that part up.

The "NW-E00x Mp3 File Manager" just works. Here's the link to wikipedia (scroll to the bottom) and also to the sourceforge page.

I knew the little guy would win in the end.

SonicStage for Sony digital media players: SUCKS

2007-03-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks Sony.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the Sony MP3 player I purchased, the software that comes with it is a steaming pile of what corporations call 'software'. It is supposed to 'support' your device, but the truth is your device is worthless without this software (unless, in my case, you can use the FM radio, too), and by that I mean, there is no alternative to this software (yet).

SonicStage is a good example of moronic design.

First and foremost, most people ALREADY HAD their music in a folder heirarchy before they bought their player. Does sonicstage care? No. It reads the folders and indexes them for its own purposes, and pulls all your storage structure and 'sorts' it by what color the album art is, or by nose-hair length of the drummer, and your third alternative is to sort by number of syllables in the 'thank you' section of the liner notes.

IDIOTS!

So, perhaps, you say, this wouldn't be so bad to use. Maybe there's a way to find your music. It removes all your sorting and seems to sort it by how it thinks the music is identified... well... your options are:

View by:
Album/playlist
Album
Playlist
dynamic playlist
all tracks

Sort by:
artist
genre
album
date imported

and then, an extra detail in the menu,

icons (all categories)
icons (single category)
details (all categories)
details (single category)

And of course, rather than just keep the display simple and straighforward, it's all prettied up, which litreally translates as "lots of wasted space".

I would imagine that if you had compiled your entire MP3 library from scratch using their software, it might almost be bearable. Take a cue from winamp, Sony. The for-free, extremely popular MP3 player which has minimal and easy-to-understand interface.

Thanks for calling in Dilbert's boss to re-invent the wheel. We're all so glad to have to act retarded for 20 minutess in order to get our music onto your player. I drag my player around way longer than I normally would without changing it out because your software makes my blood boil.

Dorks.

For More, or For Less

2007-02-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

People, its seems, rationalize their behavior so that they don't feel too bad about living the lives they live. Whether you are a very bad person, or a very good person, there are things you do which you don't want to think about, and you find a way to define you life and actions such that you don't need to think about the downside of your behavior.

This is all perfectly natural, and really there's no problem with it.

The overall picture of us humans getting along on this planet can be expressed simply as: the way all of us generally get along either has a beneficial outcome for a majority of the people, or it has a negative impact on a majority of the people.

The latter, it seems, has always been the case.

So here we are, as we have always been, not getting along and not helping each other out. Par for the course, right?

Well.

It isn't our nature to be more interested in helping those we know and who are like us for no reason. Time has enforced upon us so many deep animal behaviors we can't possibly separate ourselves from them entirely, and thus we remain human and do not turn into creepy unfeeling beings.

This animal behavior has served us well for millenia, and it does yet- however, this nature is the same thing that modern society seeks to curb, tame, and contain.

Society has laws which tell us not to kill, steal, rape, and generally act like a wild monkey.

Religion has rules which tells us to marry, to procreate with those we married, not to steal, not to be an ill-tempered git, to be kind and giving and turn the other cheek.

These are all rules designed to make an animal into a person. They serve many purposes, but in general, they are beneficial.

It's odd, then, when supposedly educated people can be called upon to go against their religion, go against their social rules, and be convinced of something by how it makes them feel (afraid).

So, here we are with our fancy rules and large brains and history of still generally treating our fellow man like crap and supporting the general ill-ease of our fellow man.

How grand are we?

You can take the position that you really do mean well, but can't save the whole world, but truly, exactly whom do you suppose will believe you?

So here is where it gets ugly. The world has changed faster than previous generations have ever had to tolerate. There are now more new things to know than any man could possibly hope to master in 100 lifetimes. We have studied our world and ourselves so well we can now do things completely unimagined only a few years ago. People specialize in subjects so narrow and precise it's hard to imagine you can make a career out of it.

The system we live in has become our enemy. Corporations spend millions of dollars trying to figure out how to make you pay attention to something for a few seconds longer, in the hopes that you will maybe buy it. They spend millions of dollars lobbying to assure that they can continue to pollute they way they always have, so they can contiune to manufacture that item affordably- for you. They bribe and connive to keep that thing legal and prevent regualtion of it...

Through the interaction with the public, the legal system, and the economy, the corporation has evolved to be the equivalent of a sentient, evolving, social cancer.

Wherever you have a weakness, it is there to exploit it.

Wherever you have a doubt, it is there to assure you're just distracted by something else.

Wherever you have a fear, it is there to enforce it.

If there is anything poised to take over our country and ruin it, it is the horrible multinational corporation.

If there is anyone who stands to profit from the horrible global mayhem our war is currently generating, it is the horrible multinational corporation.

And lastly, if there is a thing more scary than terrorists, killer bees, storms, floods, aids, sars, and global warming, it is a horrible multinational corporation which owns all the television stations, newspapers, media outlets, major printing presses, and is also beyond the true punitive reach of any legal system and not bound to the laws of mortality, like we are.

The global cancer evolves, and very soon we may find how incurable and terminal it truly is.

So, more, or less?

Are we here to continue to act like animals because we are unable to escape our own physiology and psychology, or are we someday to push forward that extra inch in the world and assure that 50.000001% of the people have some kind of well-being?

The world's corporations will certainly be there to assure you that it's a bad idea. That the first few people who tried it suffered a horrible fate. That people of other races and nationalities took advantage of them and imprisoned them and sodomized them and sold them into the sodomized prisoner slave trade.

I do go on at length.

I suppose I should know better. You either already know this, or stopped reading a long time ago because I am full of crap.

Do we continue to just schlumpf along doing what we have always done just because that's what we're encourage to continue doing?

I guess I am just angry at the fearful and ignorant I have to share this world with.

You fearful and ignorant are ruining my day.

I am momentarily taken away to a little scenario where some dumb herd animals find themselves in a pinch, follow their herd instinct, and it fails them and they are butchered in a way that only a hollywood cinema can portray.

It's really no different, I guess, than the butchering delivered to the world by corporations. I am not a cow, but I am stuck in their sights because of all the slobbering lommoxes around me.

Thanks.