I jsut have to laugh at this - comments(24)
Sunday July 1, 2007 - 1:38AM EDT
What I am referring to is the recent "attack" by some idiots at Glasgow airport. I stress the word attack because they accomplished nothing besides setting themselves on fire and causing some temporary chaos. The reason it is funny to me is because of this. In the last year I have seen people do more damage with their cars by accident then these clowns did "trying" to wreak havoc. I am not talking about standard car accidents on the highway either. I talking about the couple odd reports where someone barreled into a gas station pump causing an explosion (that happened more than on one occasion). Also the few times some person drove into a freaking house and wound up killing some people. When you honestly look at this. It shouldn't cause any alarms or worry anybody more than you should be any other day. Frankly something like that could have happened by accident anyway (I'm not implying this one did however). I just want to go up to these terror clowns and tell them, "dude, are you serious, is that what you came up with, I get more anxious and afraid watching 'World Scariest Police Chases' or living in the valley." I just hope people don't use this to raise the fear level because that is really the only thing something like this can be used for. The cat is out of the bag as far as there are nutty people try to kill other people for no logical reason. So it is not like this is further proof of any big change in the world. When I first saw the headline I thought about the other recent incidents then I thought, wait a minute what assclown was smoking a cigarette and using the bug spray at the same time while driving and fucked up big time. Stranger things have happened.
Friday June 29, 2007 - 4:21PM EDT
I haven't been posting enough lately and frankly I've let things slip by that I shouldn't have. I read an article today with this headline.
US urges vigilance after London incident. First as an aside, I'm not ready to go up to the level of conspiracy theories about using such fearful incidents to gain control of a populace but I'll never put such ideas out of the realm of possibility. There are various comments in the article about making sure people keep an eye out for suspicious activity. Coming from the government that is such a sinister statement. That kind of idea works for smaller communities, maybe one's own neighborhood where to rankle the status quo of daily happenings would be very out of place. But such a comment from a large government only works to provoke irrational fear (Boston you deserve 1 million kicks in the groin for the shit you pulled a few months ago). Honestly what the fuck is suspicious activity. It just depends on your level of paranoia. People always talk about privacy and that Big Brother idea being bad things but what they don't talk about is how we ourselves turn into the very things we rally against. The government asking to report suspicious activities sounds like 50's red hunting. It sounds like every other authoritarian government out there using their own people to spy on their own people.
Besides the whole absurdity of keeping an eye out for suspicious activities I was thinking about the headline. I thought are they serious? I thought about the 125 plus murders in Philadelphia this year so far and how some kids walk to school in fear. Honestly, the last thing any american needs to be vigilante about is some terrorist plot. The list of what kills people in the United States is long and terrorism is probably still behind bathroom slip and falls. It is completely baffling and illogical how so much emphasis is put on terrorist acts in comparison to other more deadly things. It is just odd how the human mind works. Or doesn't work for that matter. Our natural fear response just doesn't have the capacity to resolve the complexity of real human society. Yet for the most part all of our pathetic excuses for leaders follow their crappy fear response.
All this keeps making me think intelligence is not a result of education. Intelligence has to be more related to the ability to resolve thought processes. I really despise the notion that going to a great school suddenly means you posses some kind of increased mental ability. All that idea does is serve a mental class division and line the pockets of those who tout themselves as the best. Such a thing didn't happen on purpose but I think it was an organic organizational tendency. Crap I am tired, I'll finish this later.
Thursday June 28, 2007 - 12:59PM EDT
Have I ever seen or experienced what I would consider a competent leader? Maybe my standards are too high but I don't think I have. When people look up to certain leaders with adoring reverence I am baffled. All I see with these "leaders" is some assclown who wanted to be at the head of something or was forced to be at the head. I just keep asking myself question, "are things really that terrible or are people really that stupid?"
I keep trying to figure out what the ultimate question is. Like in Hitchhikers Guide. What is the ultimate question. For humans sometimes I think it could just be survival. But there are so many answers to that. Then I just think seeking such a question is asinine and the product of a fool with a weak mind.
Recently saw some news about Egypt and discovery of a new mummy. Every time I hear about ancient peoples I am amazed. Especially the Egyptians. Their longevity is something the modern age hasn't even approached yet. It amazing to think that the modern age is not even half of recorded human history. I think about all the religions that exist today and make claims to being truth and having the most important history. When you actually look at what we know, the ancient Egyptians religion lasted far longer than anything we have today and could still retain that record when it is all said an done. Things like that give me pause when I think about human ideas. How they can last so long then vanish. How people of one era can think something to be real and another era does not. I remember my short stints in catholic school growing up. How they taught us about the bible as being the definitive source for knowledge and everything you need to know is in it. We'd watch cartoons about stories and what no. When I think about how and what they taught me then I feel completely deceived and robbed. These assclowns tried to indoctrine and single minded view of things because some other assclowns told them it was the way to go. It is the same way when I think about regular history that I have learned. American history and the things I learned in school. I got half-truths because.... Well I don't even know why. I think about it this way. People today are far more educated than 100 years ago. But humans physiologically have not changed so much in a hundred years as to have some profound effect on intelligence. Sure there have been societal changes but if today we can learn far more than we did 100 years ago why is there this artificial limit we impose upon ourselves now. Sometimes I think humans don't give themselves enough credit for how much potential they have to learn. This is most aparent in schooling. We lament the failure of some of our young people to barely be able read. I lament the failure of every single person on the planet not being able to speak 10 different languages at least. That is a real goal. I'm taking for granted the ability to read. But in that context reading to humans needs to be as simple as putting food in your mouth. Peoples expectations and goals are so low that it seems like such a monumental task to just improve our schools to the point where everyone can read. The task is great for sure, but not insurmountable. We think the effort we put into just getting our schools to read well is great. It is not. It is pathetic.
I wonder what the world would have been like if the ancient Egyptians had prospered and spread and survivied until today as a global soceity. The mysteries of the pyramids would not be mysteries at all but apart of well-known history. The middle east may be a different place. Instead of the center of competing beliefs and conflict it would be the center of all society and human stability. Of course the people's of ancient Egypt didn't disappear. They just changed, but their ancient ideas were lost. Although the past is unchangeable I can't for one second think it was predetermined or guided along a prescribed path. So I think would would the world be like if certain things had happened. What would the world have been like if the African slave traded of the colonial period had never happened? What if Chinese society had not been arrogant and closed itself off but spread out and dominated world culture? Could there have been a present where Africa was the most populous, prosperous and most advanced continent in the world? And if that was the case would Africa even be considered a continent. The continental designations were decided by Western society. What is the difference between Europe and Asia besides cultural boundaries, there is nothing physically separating them. Maybe what we know as the continent of Africa would be divided into 5 distinct continents.
Wednesday June 13, 2007 - 4:15PM EDT
Damn I haven't posted in a while. But there is really nothing new to post about. Same old garbage. Humans and their ridiculous practices, goings on and idiotic ideas still poison any chance we have to survive longer than the dinosaurs. Oh wait I forgot apparently some assclowns think we lived with the dinosaurs. At least I can count somewhat on the fact that at any time an asteroid can hit earth and erase the idea that we are something special. It will also erase everything else, but hey those are the breaks.
Sunday May 6, 2007 - 9:45PM EDT
Damn I am a loser. I need to start drinking so I have something to do the rest of my life, battle alcoholism. I just sit at home all day working on worthless ventures. I just need to get a real job and stop being a loser.
Friday April 27, 2007 - 9:26PM EDT
I've seen a rash of articles concerning guns since the VT thing happened. The most peculiar articles are the ones encouraging gun ownership as a means to prevent "additional deaths". That somehow the answer is allowing everyone to have guns so that "additional deaths" are prevented. The people who believe in this philosophy are really stupider than it sounds. What these ass clowns fail to recognize is that the clowns causing the "original deaths" are the people that need to be stopped. It is general gun ownership that needs to be controlled so that you just can't go buy a gun easily and shoot up a place. Putting more guns in the hands of people to stop the people already shooting is the MAD. I hope someone gets my MAD reference. The desire to uphold such free gun ownership is symbolistic of pure selfishness. Pure American selfishness like no other thing can symbolize. I just can't believe how people don't see that these shootings are the result of such free gun ownership coupled with violent tendencies. The least we could do is eliminate the gun issue. But no one wants to give it up for the good of the rest of society. I just don't get how some people don't see that someone having a gun in the first placed caused such carnage. How can the best answer be to give guns to everyone else instead of taking away guns. That is why the arguement for gun ownership in relation to these situation comes with the caveat of preventing "additional deaths". It is like they don't give a damn or don't think we can eliminate or greatly reduce death related to gun violence.
The other thing is using these rare situation such as the one at VT as platform for any kind of gun debate. These are the worst examples to use. The ones we need to look at are the statistics that tell is the black males aged 18-24 living in an urban environment are most likely to be killed by gun violence than anything else. That is the dirty stat that no one likes to look at. Guess what, a whole bunch of people in the ghetto have guns and it ain't helping to make anybody safer. So this idea that letting people or encouraging people to carry guns will prevent deaths is bullshit. Complete bullshit and there are countless real-world examples and evidence to show how stupid that idea is.
I read a curious thing the other day. It was about Japan. I know Japan is generally known for its low crime rates. Especially Tokyo when you consider it is the largest city in the world and has one of the highest population densities in the world. Two things that usually point to higher crime. The curious thing I read was that there were 53 shootings in Japan in 2006. 53! Japan is not a small country there are about 125 million people there yet only 53 reported shootings. 30 something of them were between gangsters in shootouts between themselves. So only about 20 people got killed in the whole country in one year due to gun violence. I live near Philadelphia. In only 4 months so far of 2007 there have been over a hundred murders and no doubt more than half of them were by guns. Philadelphia has about 4 million people. If you look at those statistics and don't see something then you are probably illiterate. Japan has very strict gun control laws. Personal hand gun ownership is illegal and hunting guns are strictly regulated. In fact most of the guns involved in killings are illegally smuggled guns. Now that low number of shootings can also be related to other things in their society but the link between their control of firearms and lack of gun violence is undeniable. You can't shoot people unless you have access to a gun. 53, that number is still insanely low to me. There are thousands in the U.S. every year. 53! Damn.
Friday April 27, 2007 - 6:30PM EDT
I remember before the Wii came out all the so called financial analysts were predicting it would be a niche player firmly planted at #3 in the console race. I found it baffling that they were just placing them in the same position they were in the previous console generation without any real analysis. These guys may have known finances but they didn't know a damn thing about video games. All these clowns are eating crow now. I personally liked Nintendo's strategy and thought they had a chance. The funny part is that even with Sony's missteps in the begining and Microsoft's poor sales in Japan (the second largest video game market after North America) analyst were still predicting Sony domination. With Kutagari stepping down the other day that is a sign of just how bad Sony messed up this launch. I do however still side with many analysts that the PS3 superior technology will keep it around but the idea that it will be the dominate console is erroding every day. The single most important factor in console success is installed user base. Because if you don't have the machine in people's hand publishers aren't going to spend much time on your machine. That is the problem that plagued Nintendo's last two consoles. However they were able to survive those cycles without much damage due to their own first party publishing strength. They didn't necessarily need outside publishers to make games for the system for it to be profitable. Neither Microsoft nor Sony have the first-party game making strength Nintendo has. Which was built over decades of making games.
The brilliance of Nintendo's strategy is that it wasn't a gamble per say. The DS was their small experiment and once that became successful they knew Wii would have a hell of a chance of being huge. The DS in fact has become the dominate video game device on the market. They expect to sell 22 million on those things this year. I have to admit I think I play my DS more than Wii. For Nintendo to not be dominate for two cycles after dominating with the 8-bit system and possibly coming back to the top is impressive. They have got to be one of the most innovative and competitive companies on the planet.
It still remains to be seen who will come out on top. It will take another year or two to determine who has the largest installed user-base. 360 is top now but Wii is catching up after being a year behind. I just wonder where PS3 is going to end up. Because in video games as so many have already said it is about the games when you get down to it. But as I said before without user-base or strong first party showings it is hard to get the games.
The other curious thing about the Wii is that Nintendo makes a profit on selling the actual system. Something that is almost unheard of in the console industry. Consoles are usually sold at a loss and companies make up for it in software sales or eventually start making a profit when production costs come down. I wonder how this will affect the console cycle for Nintendo or the their next console. Will the extra cash allow them to pour more money into research and development for their next console and allow it to be more advanced and not be expensive? It is an interesting question of what Nintendo will do with the extra resources from its Wii and DS successes.
Wednesday April 25, 2007 - 7:43PM EDT
So now that the push to get rid of the incandescent light bulb catching on in many places I already see a flaw. Most of the push revolves around replacing incandescent with fluorescent. Fluorescent lighting however is manufactured with and contains a hazardous chemical. Mercury being it. Is the energy savings worth the countless used bulb that will probably end up in landfills poisoning the environment. It may be in the short term. I just don't want to see the push to get rid of incandescent be linked only with replacing them with fluorescent. LED and organic-LED are the real solutions to incandescent replacement. No hazardous chemicals to worry about in disposal, possible extremely cheap to make with efficiency and longevity that is better than both.
Monday April 23, 2007 - 1:11PM EDT
So I read this news story today about how a convicted sex offender was found not guilty of kidnapping and raping two 17 year-old girls (his previous conviction was for raping a 12 year-old). Whether he actually committed the second crime or not at this point is not relevant. The defense stance was that the girls made the story up and had consensual sex with the man to get drugs. So the jury believed that, which is not something totally outlandish. What the problem is here is what in the hell is a person convicted of raping a 12 year-old doing living free in society. I've seen a man put in prison for 30 years for stealing cars to help fund his drug habit. We threw away a man who had a drug problem yet we give this clown another chance. Sexual crimes seem to always have such a deep mental, psychological or even biological problem that those people are basically permanent messed up for their lives. Why is it that there are so many repeat sex offenders. What is especially disturbing is the repeat offenders who have already been convicted. This is one area where society has never learned their lesson. Punishment for sex crimes are horrible lenient. The blame for this stuff lies squarely with me. Yes myself. A man. Men and their domination of society has made it that these type of acts aren't treated with the seriousness they should be. It's ridiculous. I don't understand how there are statutes that limit rape prosecution. Some might argue that it is to prevent spurious accusations against people (mainly men) to protect them. What a load of fucking garbage. The idea that a man needs to be protected against a women's allegation of rape is symbolistic of our male dominated thinking and the poor treatment of women in most societies throughout much of recorded human history. Maybe if we haven't treated women so bad for so long such a thing as false rape accusations wouldn't happen (or at least be extremely rare).
It sickens me to think of all the damaging consequences there are to a non-egalitarian human society. I honestly can't imagine what there is to gain or what advantage is there from one gender dominating in human society. But like I've said before does anyone really want egalitarian society? Do they even know what that would entail? There are probably things that would change that you wouldn't even think of. Things that seem so normal and part of everyday life but are really only the normal for male dominated societies. The gender inequality issue is as tough or tougher than racism. Because while race is not a real indicator of any kind of logical differences gender does have many biological components to differentiate. So how does one accommodate those differences in some areas while not allowing them to affect judgment or outcome in others that shouldn't be affected by the differences.
Friday April 20, 2007 - 8:28AM EDT
So I read today that Gates said American patience is wearing thin with Iraq trying to clean up its situation. This is weird for so many reasons. First is that him being a part of the White House and their insistance on no time-table for withdraw is not exactly congruent with patience wearing thin statements. Second, since when does the invading country have the right to tell them invadees that their patience is waning for them to be able to leave the country when the invadees never asked them to come. Third the rampant insurgent violence and people's street protests are indications that the American military leaving is exactly what Iraqis would like to have happen. This is one of those weird situations in which when it is taught in history books decades later the more intelligent kids or insightful teachers will point out the absurdity of the whole situation. Like that battle in the Revolutionary War where people gathered behind the American soldiers to picnic and have a good time watching a war battle. Could people be any more dumb?
Thursday April 19, 2007 - 11:17PM EDT
Well kind of unexpectedly exactly what I posted about yesterday was all over the news today. Using those images so rampantly in the news was roundly criticized by a number of people. I'll give the public credit on this, which is hard to sometimes but maybe we have learned a little of something. Of course the media outlets response to the criticism was predictable. I heard the president of NBC say something about trying to answer the question of why. What a fucking loser, I knew they were going to say such garbage. How in the hell do you understand why from a few clips. You don't. I challenge anyone to have garnered any kind of meaningful insight into questions of why from having the images rammed down our throat on the evening news. The victims families certainly didn't get any insight, in fact they were some of those who denounced the use of the images. These news bastards will just pick and choose what they want us to see in order to further their own agenda. Its pathetic. I didn't see anyone say the full contents were available for viewing at your choice from our website or something like that. They all just picked whatever they thought was "newsworthy" and put it on tv. Even the reporter on tonight's news responding to criticism said that they only showed various chosen excerpts. How do you find the answer to the why question by viewing someone handpicked pieces of the larger picture? Riddle me that NBC president. Pathetic that response of his was.
Wednesday April 18, 2007 - 11:34PM EDT
Why should I be surprised that the news is awash in pictures and video from the crazy man's last word? Obviously this is what he wanted or else he wouldn't have sent it. But what use is it to the general public to have those images rammed down our throat. I believe in full disclosure of all information and in the age of Internet and advanced communication it is so easy to do that. So why is the news plastered with pictures? News outlets could simply have made the pics and videos available for download but to put that on TV seems gross. They are selling one man's propaganda to the masses. They are not really even doing that, if it is possible they are shortchanging the dude by picking bits and pieces out to serve their own purpose. Simple clips here and there cannot offer insight into the inner workings of a mind. All these clips do is to further allow the people that display them to advance whatever view and agenda they have in relation to this story. I guess the idea of news being a passive factual medium is dead. Was it ever even alive?
I think the argument you'd hear from those displaying this is something about telling the truth and full disclosure maybe. But that is ridiculous in today's times. Information dispersal is not the sole domain on news broadcasts anymore. When will the day come when raw information can be accessed without bias? The idea of information purity is so tough to achieve.
The other thing is copycat type stuff. This is an ongoing debate on whether display of such images leads to copycat behavior. This debate always seems so contentious because everyone has interests they want to protect so they take extremes of each side. Of any discussion that required moderation this is one of them. Humans are really bad at intuitively judging statistical information and linking it to reality. A few happenings of something will skew our perspective and distort our reality of things. In my limited reading on psychology and brain function I think there is discussion on such behavior being related to old brain and new brain difference. The new brain I am refering to is the neocortex which is thought to handle high level logic. While the combined parts of the rest of the brain will handle more instinctual thinking. The functions of these two parts overlap in some places. So maybe our old brain makes decisions based on limited number or for lack of a better word thinking cycles while the new brain (neocortex) is much better at processing data and predicting outcome more accurately. This is not my personal view just something I've read about. I written about similar stuff before. It is a discussion that is rarely taken up. Our perception of things and the reality of it. It is tough thing to analyze in humans. Most recently the last thing I read was something by the computer security expert Bruce Scheiner. About how the average person's instinctual perception of computer security can be worthless. That more logical thought is required to see the reality of computer security situations. Interesting stuff.
Tuesday April 17, 2007 - 11:13PM EDT
It is April and it is still cold. I don't like it.
Tuesday April 17, 2007 - 11:57AM EDT
I've talked about how little tribe mentality among humans prevents us from advancing past a certain point and will continue to cause conflict because all humans don't view each other as part of the same large group. Hopefully we will get there eventually or our survival as a species may be stretched to the limit.
Today I see a headline on BBC news that read "South Korean named gunman". BBC news wasn't the only one who had headlines like that. Pretty much every news outlet had similar headlines. Most may look at the headline and say what is the problem. And that my friend is the part of the problem. The headline has implied that this terrible act is somehow connected with being South Korean. Whether you like it or not having gunman and South Korean in the same sentence is going to affected how people view South Korean. Not only that it gives you a little bit on insight into how those that write the headlines think. If it had been a farmboy from wisconsin would they have said "Gunman was a Wisconsin kid"? Almost certainly not. I wish I could go back to the various similar incidents like this and see what the headlines said for all the homegrown gunmen. The most recent one that comes to mind is the shooting at the CNN building. I didn't hear a single thing about the man's heritage or race in the headlines. America has learned a little bit that you don't do that with race (I am speaking specifically about naming African American or Black in such headlines), but we still have the same prejudice against foreign born non-white people. I make the distinction of non-white because chances are if the gunman was and of anglo-saxon descent but from Britain they wouldn't say British gunmen although I think there would a slight chance that they would mention they were foreign. I just don't get what being South Korean has to do with reporting who the gunmen was to the general public. If it had to do with some kind of radical ultranationalistic act then it might matter. And other than it doing in the investigations of speculating to why he did it and his being different as being part of it then it doesn't matter to a headline.
The most difficult part about this thing is that no one notices. In fact there are probably people out there who think I am just some kind of over sensitive crazy person. This is where I need to bombard you with historical news headlines showing exactly what I mean. Because what I am saying is there, it is not some kind of fight THE MAN illusion. Well I need some food.
The other crap about this is the damn prayer vigils I see as captions to pictures. What a fucking worthless act. Well I suppose it is not worthless in a personal sense of coping but as far as practical public help or change in relation to the tragedy it is a laughable action. These clowns sit there and pray to some god yet any clown can go out and buy a gun and do the same thing again. Some of same people praying will probably still treat their fellow humans like dirt (especially those deemed foreigners or some junk) which can lead to this kind of garbage. But it is ok, because they feel a little better after.
Monday April 16, 2007 - 5:49PM EDT
I got a new job! My new occupation is ambassador for the practice of interplanetary funkmanship.
Monday April 9, 2007 - 9:12PM EDT
A while back I made a post that referenced the show Two and a half Men. The post wasn't about the show specifically. I've seen the show a few times and I like it. It is pretty funny.
Friday April 6, 2007 - 1:21AM EDT
I just recently read a headline about how rachel ray hosted a prom for those that lost their school in a tornado. The content of the article is unimportant but the thought it sparked in my mind is. That kind of thing happening can be seen as a virulent sign that government's job as protector of the public good is being usurped. Usurped by the uneven distribution of resources that give... This thought is incomplete. I need more time to think about this. I think I have a good start but it needs to be fleshed out more before I post it.
Wednesday March 21, 2007 - 7:18PM EDT
tired of philosophical discourse on many things. Descartes, Kant, Spinoza, Hume, Malebranche, etc.. At first they seemed interesting. But as I read their ideas more I saw their views as tiresome. Eventually I thought to myself, who are these clowns to present a static view of things based on their own pithy experience. What got to me the most was positioning of philosophy as an objective view of the universe. As each successive philosophy is defeated to be replaced by a new one it seems a useless exercise to me. Alright so I'll give up that it is not completely useless, but there are better and more beneficial ways to approach things than through esoteric philosophical discourse.
Since watching various documentaries on animal behavior and reading an article here and there on similar topics, the ideas of morality and ethics have taken a different shape in my mind. Morality and ethics as a rational thought process that needs to be figured out by each person or it being doled out from a supernatural being didn't make much sense. So today I saw
this article. It is a minority viewpoint but one that has implications in many things. And finally makes some kind of sense. I'm tired of various people trying to explain morality as if they have everything figured out already. More times than not, they simply come up with something to fit into whatever they want to be "right". Its pathetic. That something like morality has a biological basis is an idea that chips at the foundation of esoteric ideas being a basis for many things. Morality has for the most part always been seen as something not concrete, corporeal or tangible in any sense. It is one of the pillars that hold up the foundation of ideas that stem from "mysterious things". Morality as being so important in everyday life but not easily explainable in a scientific sense gave weight to other ideas based on mysterious things have validity. Damn that sentence was confusing. Anyway, as stated in the article I too will be happy when morality is pried from the hands of philosophers.
Damn smoky what you been eating? Corn? - comments(18)
Sunday March 11, 2007 - 2:46PM EDT
Biofuels Boom Raises Tough QuestionsI am glad I finally see an article that raises any questions about ethanol instead of proclaiming it the answer to energy problems. Maybe this can be the start of having an honest dialogue about ethanol. Too many times half truths and lies form the basis of discussion.
Roids and other substances - comments(26)
Thursday March 8, 2007 - 5:56PM EDT
I can't remember whether I blogged about roids and other substances. Crap I lost my thoughts on this. Damn it was going to be a good rant too.