Today I washed some things and I have never been very good at taking things out of my pockets before washing them.
The following are things I have had survive a trip to the washing machine:
SumoGrip Mechanical Pencils - PERFECT WORKING ORDER.
Keys
Money
Plastic Sandwich Bags
I will update this list if I ever remember to if I find additional things.
ALL MY POSTS ARE LIKE THIS ONE.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
I am irked by things
The other day I heard some bad news. Comcast had won a federal court case saying it's okay for them to throttle bandwidth based on what type of data (like bittorent) and I felt this was a terrible thing. I spent that day listing out other things that really bother me in addition to a lack of net neutrality.
Laws against modifying hardware that I have purchased:
I bought the thing. It is mine now. I should be able to do what I want with it. I didn't rent it for god's sake.
Laws against self-destruction:
If some asshole wants to not wear his seatbelt, or kill himself, that's his business.
Laws which prevent one thing for the sole purpose of preventing a different thing (Especially in cases where the latter thing is already prohibited):
This one doesn't need explanation. Not being allowed to own something that could be but is generally not used for a crime is a common example. I do however approve of harsher penalties depending on the circumstances of the crime.
Patent law:
Fucking ridiculous. People are too able to lock down ideas based on broad and over reaching patents. Here's what I say. A patent should protect your idea for ten years. No more. Ever. If you find a patent that has what you want to do in it that' over 10 years old, you then have clearance to do it. 10 years is plenty of time to make some money and this would discourage patents that are too vague because they would screw you in the long run.
Corn:
We grow (and pay farmers) to grow lots of shitty fucking corn as opposed to corn that has decent nutritional value and I don't understand why.
Farmers can get sued if some of somebody's PATENTED plant accidentally mixes with whatever their growing:
Yeah. For instance, someone has some patented genetically modified corn. Farmer next door has regular corn, but due to the GMO corn's better ability to spread, and completely displace the old corn, some of the GMO corn starts growing on the ordinary corn farmer's land. Farmer gets sued. THERE'S NO INTENT THERE. If the GMO corn guy wants to keep his corn to himself, he better keep a tighter fucking reign on his land via physical means.
DRM:
Digital rights management doesn't deter thieves. Thieves have consistently beaten it in all it's forms. Best case scenario, thieves are mildly inconvenienced. Worst case scenario (and this is very commonly so) it causes suffering for paying customers who are now having trouble using whatever they purchased.
Music industry:
Big labels give tiny margins to their musicians a vast majority of the time and I feel music on the whole would be better served by self-distribution and self promotion.
Lack of standards in consumer electronics and power outlets:
So power outlets around the world are different and there's not a lot we can do about it. But device makers did not need to make a billion proprietary connectors for their USB cords to dick us around with overpriced cables. USB should be a standard connector. The same on both sides. Always.
Insurance (and health care):
Insurance of all types needs to stop having the ability to charge different people different prices or deny them insurance based on things that occurred before they had insurance. Also, car insurance being required is also terrible (and health insurance is going to be mandatory, that's terrible too.) Health CARE, not insurance needs to be more affordable. It costs 20 to 30 thousand dollars to have your appendix out. This should cost about 10 percent of that to start with.
Political Parties:
All political parties really do is encourage voters to vote blindly based on a label which is often abused by the candidates anyway, so even if the labels were useful, you don't know if they're valid. People should actually have to look at what their candidates do, and vote for, in order to feel qualified to vote for them, but if I had my way this point would be moot, because:
Representative Democracy:
This is terrible. We have the technology to figure out a better way. A way where there are no representatives at all, and people just vote on laws and regulations. Your congressman can't be bribed or bought because he doesn't exist. The only political representatives we have would be vote counters and someone to communicate with other areas but does not actually influence anything further than his ordinary citizen vote. You could set it up so first stage is petition for a change in law, get a certain population to agree, then it comes to a vote.
Shoddy Materials and Construction:
You've heard it said by the elderly. They don't make things like they used to. It's a true statement. Quality is much harder to get than it used to be. This is garbage.
Sports in Academia:
Coaches make way too much money, and schools spend too much money on sports related things. I don't hate sports, but I don't see them as something that should be emphasized so highly in institutes of learning, especially in higher education. Coaches in higher education make an average of a million dollars a year.
CHART - SALERIES
Cost of tuition and why:
HEY LOOK. A GRAPH. COSTS
Prevalence of government surveillance:
This bothers me. I'd like privacy.
Also Airport Security:
I consider it mostly theater that does very little to actually make me safer and I certainly FEEL much LESS safe when I travel because of it. Show me a group of Air Marshals on a plane and I'll show you the guys who would have the easiest time taking it over.
Immigrating/Emmigrating:
Procedure for changing your country of residence and citizenship seem pretty difficult. More so than they should be.
Energy Issues:
I have a sneaking suspicion that we have the means, the land, and the know-how to get clean renewable energy that would be enough to keep the country going, and that we just aren't doing it. Just a hunch.
Smoking:
I just don't see the appeal of starting smoking these days. Why do people start?
The Federal Reserve:
I had an economics teacher in college tell me that he felt the federal reserve does more harm than good when trying to stimulate or put the brakes on the economy. I agree. Throttling it up and down and futzing with interest rates just means we never hit equilibrium.
Paperwork for just about everything these days is more intense than it should be:
Certain people like to ask things on forms that are irrelevant to what their doing and are none of their business.
A vast majority of drug laws:
Most drug laws cause more crime and suffering than they prevent in the same way prohibition did before. Waste of money.
Fiberglass car bodies:
A fiberglass car body is an invitation to vandals. It says "Why bust up the car that dents when you can smash the one that shatters.
Censorship:
There's too much of it. Keeping impressionable minds away from bad stuff is the job of parents. Not the government.
Anyway, I'm done ranting, but if all of this stuff changed, I think the world would be a much better place.
Laws against modifying hardware that I have purchased:
I bought the thing. It is mine now. I should be able to do what I want with it. I didn't rent it for god's sake.
Laws against self-destruction:
If some asshole wants to not wear his seatbelt, or kill himself, that's his business.
Laws which prevent one thing for the sole purpose of preventing a different thing (Especially in cases where the latter thing is already prohibited):
This one doesn't need explanation. Not being allowed to own something that could be but is generally not used for a crime is a common example. I do however approve of harsher penalties depending on the circumstances of the crime.
Patent law:
Fucking ridiculous. People are too able to lock down ideas based on broad and over reaching patents. Here's what I say. A patent should protect your idea for ten years. No more. Ever. If you find a patent that has what you want to do in it that' over 10 years old, you then have clearance to do it. 10 years is plenty of time to make some money and this would discourage patents that are too vague because they would screw you in the long run.
Corn:
We grow (and pay farmers) to grow lots of shitty fucking corn as opposed to corn that has decent nutritional value and I don't understand why.
Farmers can get sued if some of somebody's PATENTED plant accidentally mixes with whatever their growing:
Yeah. For instance, someone has some patented genetically modified corn. Farmer next door has regular corn, but due to the GMO corn's better ability to spread, and completely displace the old corn, some of the GMO corn starts growing on the ordinary corn farmer's land. Farmer gets sued. THERE'S NO INTENT THERE. If the GMO corn guy wants to keep his corn to himself, he better keep a tighter fucking reign on his land via physical means.
DRM:
Digital rights management doesn't deter thieves. Thieves have consistently beaten it in all it's forms. Best case scenario, thieves are mildly inconvenienced. Worst case scenario (and this is very commonly so) it causes suffering for paying customers who are now having trouble using whatever they purchased.
Music industry:
Big labels give tiny margins to their musicians a vast majority of the time and I feel music on the whole would be better served by self-distribution and self promotion.
Lack of standards in consumer electronics and power outlets:
So power outlets around the world are different and there's not a lot we can do about it. But device makers did not need to make a billion proprietary connectors for their USB cords to dick us around with overpriced cables. USB should be a standard connector. The same on both sides. Always.
Insurance (and health care):
Insurance of all types needs to stop having the ability to charge different people different prices or deny them insurance based on things that occurred before they had insurance. Also, car insurance being required is also terrible (and health insurance is going to be mandatory, that's terrible too.) Health CARE, not insurance needs to be more affordable. It costs 20 to 30 thousand dollars to have your appendix out. This should cost about 10 percent of that to start with.
Political Parties:
All political parties really do is encourage voters to vote blindly based on a label which is often abused by the candidates anyway, so even if the labels were useful, you don't know if they're valid. People should actually have to look at what their candidates do, and vote for, in order to feel qualified to vote for them, but if I had my way this point would be moot, because:
Representative Democracy:
This is terrible. We have the technology to figure out a better way. A way where there are no representatives at all, and people just vote on laws and regulations. Your congressman can't be bribed or bought because he doesn't exist. The only political representatives we have would be vote counters and someone to communicate with other areas but does not actually influence anything further than his ordinary citizen vote. You could set it up so first stage is petition for a change in law, get a certain population to agree, then it comes to a vote.
Shoddy Materials and Construction:
You've heard it said by the elderly. They don't make things like they used to. It's a true statement. Quality is much harder to get than it used to be. This is garbage.
Sports in Academia:
Coaches make way too much money, and schools spend too much money on sports related things. I don't hate sports, but I don't see them as something that should be emphasized so highly in institutes of learning, especially in higher education. Coaches in higher education make an average of a million dollars a year.
CHART - SALERIES
Cost of tuition and why:
HEY LOOK. A GRAPH. COSTS
Prevalence of government surveillance:
This bothers me. I'd like privacy.
Also Airport Security:
I consider it mostly theater that does very little to actually make me safer and I certainly FEEL much LESS safe when I travel because of it. Show me a group of Air Marshals on a plane and I'll show you the guys who would have the easiest time taking it over.
Immigrating/Emmigrating:
Procedure for changing your country of residence and citizenship seem pretty difficult. More so than they should be.
Energy Issues:
I have a sneaking suspicion that we have the means, the land, and the know-how to get clean renewable energy that would be enough to keep the country going, and that we just aren't doing it. Just a hunch.
Smoking:
I just don't see the appeal of starting smoking these days. Why do people start?
The Federal Reserve:
I had an economics teacher in college tell me that he felt the federal reserve does more harm than good when trying to stimulate or put the brakes on the economy. I agree. Throttling it up and down and futzing with interest rates just means we never hit equilibrium.
Paperwork for just about everything these days is more intense than it should be:
Certain people like to ask things on forms that are irrelevant to what their doing and are none of their business.
A vast majority of drug laws:
Most drug laws cause more crime and suffering than they prevent in the same way prohibition did before. Waste of money.
Fiberglass car bodies:
A fiberglass car body is an invitation to vandals. It says "Why bust up the car that dents when you can smash the one that shatters.
Censorship:
There's too much of it. Keeping impressionable minds away from bad stuff is the job of parents. Not the government.
Anyway, I'm done ranting, but if all of this stuff changed, I think the world would be a much better place.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Negotiations, and FONTS. OH MY!
So, at this point we all know I had surgery. I spent my morning calling several people who don't have the decency to just bill the hospital so that the hospital can bill me. That would make sense to me.
Anywho I was looking for an visually interesting monospace font I wouldn't mind staring at for long periods of time, so I searched around until I came upon "SV Basic Manual". I like it a lot except for one thing... the zero and the capital "O" look EXACTLY the same. So I downloaded FontForge and put a backslash in the zero. I debated on putting a dot in the zero, but in the end I decided I preferred a slash.
Anyway, it's really cool that I can modify my fonts now.
Anywho I was looking for an visually interesting monospace font I wouldn't mind staring at for long periods of time, so I searched around until I came upon "SV Basic Manual". I like it a lot except for one thing... the zero and the capital "O" look EXACTLY the same. So I downloaded FontForge and put a backslash in the zero. I debated on putting a dot in the zero, but in the end I decided I preferred a slash.
Anyway, it's really cool that I can modify my fonts now.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Surgery=$$$ & Comics
Hey, just wanted to note that my appendicitis surgery would cost me about 20 grand if I wasn't getting some charitable assistance. Surgery is really expensive.
So, I recently was shown this Punisher/Kingpin comic. I am reminded that the Punisher is an asshole. It's not the comic for me because I can't root for a guy who can't see the full spectrum of morality and has no mercy for anyone. Meanwhile the Kingpin is equally ruthless and takes his own vengeance. The difference is, for Kingpin, despite causing a lot of collateral damage trying to attain his goals, revenge is more personal for him. He has some flashbacks where he goes to great lengths to exact vengeance and it is satisfying. The writers do a good job of convincing you that his vengeance is totally just which is much harder to do for Frank when his revenge isn't limited to those responsible for his origins but for every criminal ever. A lot of "superheroes" share this, but Frank almost always takes his methods further than he should.
I will say the Punisher reminds me of Batman. Both have no superpowers when they live in a world filled with super powered folks. Because of this, their stories shine most when you IGNORE the rest of their world. When they get thrown into stories with folks that have actual superpowers they just feel out of place, and those are the stories that end up not being entertaining to me. I feel like the only reason this happens is because of their popularity.
Basically they should stick to their own mythos, and keep their noses out of other hero's business.
So, I recently was shown this Punisher/Kingpin comic. I am reminded that the Punisher is an asshole. It's not the comic for me because I can't root for a guy who can't see the full spectrum of morality and has no mercy for anyone. Meanwhile the Kingpin is equally ruthless and takes his own vengeance. The difference is, for Kingpin, despite causing a lot of collateral damage trying to attain his goals, revenge is more personal for him. He has some flashbacks where he goes to great lengths to exact vengeance and it is satisfying. The writers do a good job of convincing you that his vengeance is totally just which is much harder to do for Frank when his revenge isn't limited to those responsible for his origins but for every criminal ever. A lot of "superheroes" share this, but Frank almost always takes his methods further than he should.
I will say the Punisher reminds me of Batman. Both have no superpowers when they live in a world filled with super powered folks. Because of this, their stories shine most when you IGNORE the rest of their world. When they get thrown into stories with folks that have actual superpowers they just feel out of place, and those are the stories that end up not being entertaining to me. I feel like the only reason this happens is because of their popularity.
Basically they should stick to their own mythos, and keep their noses out of other hero's business.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Surrender Freeman
Recently, I've been playing the original Half-Life. This is a game I have never played before, actually, despite it's age (Mostly due to being a console gamer and not having a PC). I've played Half-Life 2 and it's associated bits, but it wasn't until my friend gave me a copy of the unreleased Dreamcast version of Half-Life that I've played the original.
This is a game that does not fuck around. What I mean by this is that it is a challenging game. This is okay though, because the challenge is legitimate so far. I've recently launched the Lambda satellite (DECADE OLD SPOILERS EVERYONE) and I'm still enjoying my stay in the WORLD OF HALF-LIFE.
END POST
This is a game that does not fuck around. What I mean by this is that it is a challenging game. This is okay though, because the challenge is legitimate so far. I've recently launched the Lambda satellite (DECADE OLD SPOILERS EVERYONE) and I'm still enjoying my stay in the WORLD OF HALF-LIFE.
END POST
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