Satan’s Garden

Christians continue to crack me up.  I haven’t been able to verify if this was a real event, but the pictures and videos sure seem to point to it.

Apparently a group of concerned Christians went down to the wall street bull, in order to pray to God to turn around our economic bear market.

Yes, you read that right.  They prayed over a bronze bull idol. Something about Exodus comes to mind…

Just when you thought that the morons at PETA couldn’t get any more stupid than they already were, they prove that their idiocy knows absolutely no bounds.

PETA’s Executive Vice President, Tracy Reiman, wrote a letter to Ben & Jerry’s, urging them to switch from cow to human milk in the production of their ice cream.  Read the story here.

Well Tracy, I urge you to put your teats where your mouth is!  That’s right, I want you to be the first to volunteer for the milking machines at Ben & Jerry’s.  It’s one thing to talk the talk - I want to see you walk the walk - or perhaps in this case milk the cow.

After all, how can you expect others to follow your foolishness, er…advice, if you’re not leading the way?

Once more, this really has nothing to do with animal abuse or animal rights and everything to do with the mistaken idea that humans should all be strict Vegans - ignoring all of the evolutionary traits which prove us to be omnivores.

Makes me want to go out for a big steak dinner…

Time is getting short on the election. With one and a half months left to try to determine if a single candidate in the mess we call the political system of America is worth their weight in horse manure, the stories just keep getting more depressing.

First and foremost, Ron Paul is out of the picture. In most states, you can’t simply put him down as a write-in candidate, either. Requirements vary from state to state, but many require that the candidates themselves file appropriate paperwork with the state in question. This does not lead to a candidate showing on the ballot, either. You’re still a write-in.

Bob Barr is the official Libertarian candidate this year and frankly I don’t know what to think of his liberty “born again” status. Barr was never a devoted fan of liberty in his years - he even voted for the Patriot Act, though now states;

“I voted for the Patriot Act– but I certainly would not do it again. It was probably the worst vote I cast in Congress. At the time we had obtained assurances from the administration that they would limit the applicability of the Patriot Act provisions. They promised that they would engage in appropriate and full reporting and disclosure to the Congress, and we were able to secure sunset clauses for a number of provisions.

But it became clear very quickly that the administration did not intend to limit the use of the Patriot Act. So one of my primary activities over the last five years since leaving Congress has been trying to undo the damage wrought by the Patriot Act and preventing further abuses.”

I don’t know whether to believe him or not, but perhaps it is best that I give him the benefit of the doubt for having changed. After all, in spite of his inability to even stand in Ron Paul’s shadow, he is at least talking the talk these days about shrinking the government and returning to the Constitution. That’s far better than what I’m hearing from the others - insecurities over whether his words will match his actions aside.

I could never vote Democratic, due to the anti-Constitution stance the party has maintained for decades. I don’t need a mother, thank you…and I don’t care to put Obama in that role. Besides, I’m quite sick of his call for “change”, when all it means is to impose a different pile of manure than what the Bush administration has layered on us. Whether the fecal flow comes from a donkey rather than an elephant is inconsequential - we’re still covered in shit.

John McCain - what can you say? Technologically inept, a poster boy for “more of the same” when it comes to the Bush war on everyone and everything “not American” - there’s nothing appealing about this guy. As for his running mate, Sarah Palin - well, that’s where I’m truly frightened. Her bronze age beliefs in the Biblical “end times” being at hand, as well as her dispensation viewpoint being so utterly against my universally libertarian nature, added to her lack of any background in foreign policy - leads to a model of interaction with the world, that would make Bush’s fiasco’s appear to be a model of foreign policy sanity. Anyone willing to sacrifice America for Israel should be immediately disqualified - and her religious beliefs would call for just that. That and since I view religious devotion as delusional thinking at best, insanity at worst, her faith alone rules her out.

Looks like it will have to be Bob Barr for me this year. I wish I could say that I was enthused with this choice, but he is quietly talking for the points I believe in. I hate to think that I’m picking the lesser evil, but if that is the case, at least I’m picking an evil which is actually calling for protection of individual liberty, while the others scream for more control.

I’ve come to the conclusion that following the Mormon faith makes you into an idiot, even if you didn’t start out that way.

Case in point, the drivers in the state of Utah. This morning, while motorcycling to work, I once again nearly died due to the amazing ignorance of the typical Utah driver. I call them Utards, for short. It started off typically enough, with two cars on the south bound two lanes of a divided highway, driving side by side. Neither would speed up or slow down. They were a moving wall. Eventually the one to the left decided that he wanted to merge to the right and signaled (a rarity) but when he tried to speed up to make some space, the car on the right sped up as well, to keep in parallel with the other.

This stalemate lasted for about twenty or thirty seconds, until the driver wanting to merge finally decided that he needed to speed up more than he had been and finally got ahead and merged to the right, in front of his previous dancing partner. They remained in this position for several seconds, with no sign of change, so since we were still about ten miles per hour under the limit and the car which had been on my left had fallen well behind, I decided to change left and pass them.

About the time I was half way past the rear car, with a conveniently placed metal guard to my left, he decides to merge into me without signaling his intention, or obviously checking his blind spot. He didn’t even check his mirror, to be honest. I clamped down hot on the brakes and for once managed to hit the horn at the same time (often I don’t have time to do this.) He suddenly spots me, over-compensates and nearly goes off the other side of the road into the ditch.

With my heart in my throat, I make my way past both of these dimwits and take a left turn off onto a freeway entrance ramp. This ramp leads up to it’s own lane on the freeway, which ends after about a quarter mile - to allow for smooth merging during rush hour. As I’m approaching the last eighth of a mile of this lane, moving faster than the freeway traffic to my left, another moron decides to merge to the right - right into me. No checking of the blind spot. No checking of his mirrors. He just cheerfully starts to merge into me, as I’m moving past. A quick downshift and twist of the throttle and I’m barely out of harms way again, with the driver merging in behind me, suddenly braking hard as he spots me.

First off, why the hell was he merging into a lane that was going to end in less than an eighth of a mile? There was clear visibility on a straight, flat shot of road - with at least one sign indicating that the lane was going to end. Secondly, why would either of these idiots merge without even the slightest check of clearance? Thirdly, why do they react with absolute shock that a vehicle is suddenly in the position they never checked? It’s like the time I was rear ended in my truck and the driver of the car behind me claimed to the police officer that I was in his “blind spot”.

From conversations I’ve had with various Mormons in the state of Utah, I’ve come to understand that they are completely, utterly ignorant of anything outside of their religious teachings. A great example was a conversation with a supposedly “open minded” Mormon, who’s first question asked of me was “what religion I was”, as if everyone needs a religion to exist. When I told him that I was atheist, he clearly couldn’t understand the concept that I don’t worship anything and when I stated that I saw at least some reasonable ideas in Buddhist concepts, his reply was, “So you worship Buddha, then?” Silly me, here I assumed even Buddhists don’t worship Buddha. Buddhists don’t worship anything. Never would I have guessed that finding reasonableness in some religious tenant is a declaration of worship of the religion’s namesake.

It wasn’t until I had a conversation with another Mormon acquaintance that I found the answer to the driving dangers and other stances of ignorance in Utah. He is a lapsed Mormon, much to the ire of his family, and he plainly stated that most in the church have a deeply entrenched belief that God is protecting them from all harm. They believe that a mystical, magical figure is guiding their hand in every action and keeping them safe - no matter what.

So, there you have it. They merge without even looking in their mirrors, they turn and change lanes without signaling, they make U-turns through red lights at intersections, they check their makeup in the mirror while rolling backwards down a mountainside - because they believe that God is guiding them and keeping them safe. Like religious ostriches, with their heads planted firmly up God’s ass, they remain blissfully unaware of their surroundings, with the unwavering belief that their mystical maker is going to co-pilot every aspect of their life for them - allowing them to absolve themselves of any personal responsibility and any action of caution that others outside of this delusion would take for granted as required.

Perhaps I should just be thankful that they’re blissfully ignorant. If they knew what was going on around them, I’m sure the reaction of shock would be more than those outside of the Mormon church would want to deal with.

It’s been about a month since I last wrote anything here, but there are times when the creative veins are all dried due to the press of prosaic garbage in your life. This is one of those times.

Aside from the usual work hassles and dealing with the daily Utard parade on the commute, my wife and I decided to spend a rather large chunk of money getting new windows put in the house, before we spend the other half of our vast fortune on fixing up the long neglected stucco on the outside walls. What should have been a two day job, has turned into a pissant circus of the irritating - as the contractors brought in squandered away my good will with their laziness.

The story is a boring one, let’s just resolve to saying that beyond all the screw ups on the job itself, when a contractor promises on Friday to call back the next Monday, but never picks up the phone - there are going to be problems. Worse yet the guy actually tried to claim that he did attempt to call to no answer, but my cellphone has never failed to notify me of a missed call before, so I have my doubts.

The result is that a week went by from the start of the job, with the windows unsealed and the threat of wet weather looming. Thankfully it remained dry and by the time my complaints got through to the right ears at the place where we bought the windows (who arranged the contractors for us) some ears were chewed on. Finally, the contractors returned and cheerfully finished most of the job.

That’s right, most of the job. There is still the issue of one window which was measured incorrectly (by the same contractors on the initial specs, of course,) where they displaced the X and Y measurements, leaving us with a window with the weep holes on the side. He kindly offered to cut new weep holes into the existing frame, but when I’m paying this kind of money, I expect to get the right thing, not a hack. Funny too, that a “professional” contractor would install a window with improper weep holes and not even notice it.

Overall, I’m underwhelmed. If there is but the slightest problem with weather or what have you, I think I’ll be spending the stucco money on a lawyer instead.

Which leads me to my general topic of angst for the week; what ever happened to taking pride in your work?

It’s not that I’m mechanically or construction inclined, but I’ve reached a point where I’m ready to give up on “professionals” and to do it myself instead. It will take longer, I’ll hate every minute of it - but it will be done correctly.

Sorry woodworkers and construction craftsmen, but I don’t share your love of house renovations. Just tearing the old carpeting out of the master bedroom the other week was enough to make me want to crawl into a cave and give up on houses altogether. I don’t enjoy it.  I’d rather pay someone who does enjoy it to do the job - but I’m finding that either I have the worst luck in the world with contractors, or there are no good contractors left in the world - or at least in Utah.

So, I’m faced with the do-it-yourself route and a house full of projects to do: Tearing out all the carpeting and laying down hardwood floors in the living spaces and tile in the bathrooms, re-building the entire upstairs kitchen, replacing at least one bathroom shower, replacing the same bathroom’s basin, etc, etc. Just the floors are going to be a job and half, tearing out the old and simply disgusting sub-flooring, putting new sub-floor in place and then hoping I can put down the wood flooring without building the kind of structure straight from Little Bill Daggett in “Unforgiven”.

I’m probably going to need anesthesia to make it through sane. Can you successfully do this kind of job drunk?

June 30th was the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska blast in Siberia. (Google for “Tunguska Event” as there is far too much material to link here…) General estimates of the blast put it at 10 to 15 megatons (though some now argue 3 to 5 megatons), or about 1,000 times the Hiroshima detonation. 830 square miles of trees were flattened. Windows shattered 250 miles from the blast center. The fluctuations in air pressure were measured in England, thousands of miles away.

In short, it was one hell of a bang.

No crater was left behind, making it likely that it was a meteor or asteroid, maybe even a small comet burst in mid air.

The problem is, aside from tree damage, we have no physical evidence of the “object”, if there really was one. Basically, we don’t have a clue at this point, but it’s fun to speculate. You can certainly spend hours reading every take on it.

My take is simple: nature still has the last laugh.

I don’t think there’s anything more frustrating that dealing with the typical technical support call. In this case, my DSL modem bit the dust. It’s was an ActionTec GT701-WG, which I was not completely thrilled with for starters, but it did the job well enough - until yesterday.

Out of nowhere, the Web interface died. Normally people aren’t on the Web interface to their DSL modem everyday, but I have a script running which queries the status page once every ten minutes. If the PPP or DSL connection is lost for three minutes after first discovery, the script triggers an X10 power switch to reset the modem (complete with a 20 second pause between power down and power up.) A script like this wouldn’t normally be required at all, except that I had two incidences where I lost DSL connectivity while I was at work and needed to obtain files from my home machine and for some reason or another either DSL itself or PPP wouldn’t re-connect. The script had helped me out, according the logs, once since I enabled it.

Back to the current issue: Along with the Web interface giving up its mortal coil, the PPP connection finally dropped as well. DSL was still trained, but that was it. I had a modem which wouldn’t respond to me and no line to the outside world.

The system had worked flawlessly, as I said, for about two years, with the script in place for the last eight months, so nothing had changed on my end for quite some time. I tried connecting several times manually, and managed to get in on the Web interface for about two or three minutes a couple of times each, before its little brain went south again and then wouldn’t even respond to ICMP pings. From that data gleaned, I verified settings and what connection status there was with my ISP, just to be thorough. I tried the hard-reset process - which didn’t work. Finally, the beast simply wouldn’t come back to life at all.

All signs pointed to a dead modem.

Come this morning I gave Qwest a call. It didn’t take long to reach a “technical” support person, I have to give them that, but the rest was an exercise in stupidity. I explained the complete situation, from loss of the Web interface to the lack of reset capability and asked what it would cost to replace the modem. He didn’t answer the question, instead wishing to go through a series of trouble shooting steps. I won’t bore you here with the full conversation. Suffice it to say that after an hour and a half of walking through the various steps on two different computers over this “technical” support person’s script, he came to the thoughtful deduction that the modem wasn’t working correctly and needed to be replaced.

No way! I would have never guessed. How nice it is to have “technical” help like this.

Since it wasn’t under warranty anymore (nothing ever is when it dies) I have to pay for a new modem. They wanted $50 for a refurbished replacement. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll get a brand new modem, thank you, even if it costs more. My biggest problem now is finding a decent modem on a timely basis. Everyone in Salt Lake seems to sell nothing but ActionTec - which I’m not very trustful of. Cisco 678’s are getting harder to find as well.

In any case, I wasted an hour and twenty minutes of my life, appeasing a script reader. Had this “technical” support person just listened to what I had to say at the very beginning, and answered my original question, I’d have that time for my purpose instead of their scripted nonsense.  I suppose I should have been more forceful in my demands, but I would have hoped that I didn’t need to be.

I do know now why Qwest’s motto is “Spirit of Service” - you certainly get nothing very tangible.

The Marine Corps has taken final action against two of the Marines involved in the incident where one Marine was filmed throwing a puppy off a cliff.  Lance Cpl. David Motari is being dropped from the corp and a second Marine received “non-judicial” punishment.

What little story there is of it can be found here.

Take a few minutes and watch this video of a demonstration of Windows 7 multi-touch technology. At first glance you may be thinking, that’s some spiffy new technology. I’m going to run down a whole list of reasons why this is going to flop.

Screen dirt

I can’t speak for everyone on this concern, but it is a big one for me. I can’t stand a dirty monitor. If there are fingerprints, smudges or smears which get in the way of my work, it simply pisses me off. At the resolution I run displays, even a tiny drop of pop spit up by carbonation of a nearby drink is noticeable. Now you want me to smear my fingers all over the screen on purpose? No thanks.

Tired arms

With your monitor in the traditional position of straight ahead of you and up at eye level, arm fatigue is going to set in very, very quickly. Don’t believe me? Try it now. Pretend you’re working with this interface on your monitor for a few minutes and see if your arms don’t start to tire. This means you either have to suffer through the arm fatigue and take more breaks from your work, or move the monitor into a non-tradition position of flat on the desk in front of you. Now try working in collaboration with someone else on a problem with the screen flat down on the desk.

Fat fingers produce little detail

Pointing with a mouse or trackball is as precise as the cursor. Pointing with our fingers works to a certain extent, but how often do we pick up a pen or other smaller diameter object to point with, even for a large screen presentation? Trying to run CAD or photo manipulation software with your fingers is going to simply suck. How about just spreadsheet work? Do you want to be pushing around on a spreadsheet, trying to narrow it down to the correct cell?

Blocked vision

Speaking of tired arms and fingers, what about the fact that your hand is in the way? Does anyone want to be editing a photo or laying out a spreadsheet with your hands blocking the view of your work? Try to imagine touching up a photo, where you’re trying to clone another portion or work at blending a scratch or other damage, where your hand is blocking your view.

Screen longevity

Touch interfaces take their toll on screens. I have a HP PocketPC, which after three years is already scratched and slightly worn in spots (such as the close button, which is always in the same place) in spite of my rather careful attitude toward keeping the screen intact. How many users are going to want to buy a new monitor every two to three years, because you’ve scratched up the one you’ve been using with your fingernails, or the touch membrane is wearing out and becoming less responsive? How many women with long nails are going to want to cut them short because their monitor at work uses capacitive connectivity rather than pressure?

Touch screens have their place, and they’ve been around a long, long time now (1971) - but never caught on for mainstream applications. Why? Because it is a senseless waste of effort for most tasks. Leave it to Microsoft to try to redo an otherwise limited vertical market of Point of Sale systems, pocket devices and industrial interfaces to a general PC interface. They just couldn’t take the clue that the reason this hasn’t taken off in the mainstream over the last 37 years is that there simply isn’t a need for it.

A whole lot of “gee-wiz” and not a damned bit of common sense in this one.

Bill likes to think that he’s the solid, immovable journalist, keeping a sharp and focused eye on the world. Whatever… I guess you shouldn’t mess with his teleprompter, though.