Delusional Ramblings

First, can we finally now admit that the FCC has no idea what they are doing? I hope the fact that most of these articles point out that this is the "outgoing" FCC chairman indicates that someone with more intelligence will be coming in. We can't just print money, and I'm really tired of the federal government thinking it (it being the taxpayers of this country) needs to finance everything for everyone. Free Wi-Fi has failed in metropolitan cities - this would just fail in a more spectacular fashion, and that's not even considering their ridiculous "porn-free" clause. *Sigh*.

That plan segways nicely into the next delusional rambling though. How do we find a way to eliminate all credit cards? Now. Seriously, if you don't have the money, you can't spend it. It's as simple as that. You can't have a horribly failing economy and then have the best Black Friday ever - not possible. I know more people who bought flatscreen TV's, Wiis, and computers this year than any year in the past. When did it become a guarantee that every family in America was entitled to a flatscreen TV? When did people start spending thousands of dollars at Christmastime? There is one way to fix the giant blob of crap that the country is languishing in right now. Get some self-control and willpower back in our lives. Stop buying crap that isn't a necessity. Don't buy anything that you can't cover with cash in the bank (yes - I know there can be exceptions like housing - quit nitpicking). Let's want better for ourselves, and put in a little bit of hard work and restraint to make it happen.

Now I know I've lost my mind

Yep - it's gone. I've gone off the deep end into the esoteric world of geekdom. Even true geeks now laugh at how far gone I am.

I love learning new computer languages, I should do it far more often than I do. Practicality often gets in the way of my true self. I of course almost always learn with some form of a hello world. If you don't know what that is, quit reading. Seriously, you will only find yourself in pain from this point forward. Just quit.

While waiting for a backup to finish tonight, not particularly wanting to do anything else, I stumbled upon a Brainfuck page. I had actually been here before after linking there from Eric Raymond's (ESR) INTERCAL webpage (don't ask - it's easier that way).

So - I decided to write a hello world in Brainfuck...and I enjoyed it. I'm sick. Here it is:

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<<<<<<<<<<<<<< [.>]

Hopefully Blogger doesn't screw up the format. You'll probably think it did anyway, it basically just looks like line noise. I kid you not though, compile this bad boy (here's a link to the compiler I used), and it will output "Hello World!\r\n" (rendered appropriately by your terminal).

Only after I was finished did I go check out the wiki for Brainfuck, and see that they had their own version of a hello world.

Anyway, if you are sick like me, seek help. Otherwise, follow these steps to validate I'm not lying to you:

1. Download the compiler from the link above. Rename from bf.asm.txt to bf.asm.
2. Look at the assembly source and verify there is no voodoo trickery going on - it really is a compiler.
3. Run "nasm bf.asm" to create the bf executable (your compiler). Make it executable.
4. Copy my source into a file named HelloWorld.b or something similar.
5. Run "cat HelloWorld.b | bf > hell.elf
6. Run "./hell.elf"
7. Run screaming from the room as you realize what you have become.

Winter Break Projects

I've mentioned countless times before (although not necessarily on this blog) how much I enjoy my Xbox Media Center. I still find the quality of software that those open source guys kicked out to be incredible and I use it pretty much every day.

So...one of my projects that I ignored until my winter reprieve from work was to fix an Xbox of mine that didn't quite work right. Couple that with one that offered to fix for someone else, and I created the ultimate Pimp My Ride scenario in my living room:

"We put three xboxes on top of your TV!!!"
(Eat your heart out, Xzibit).

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about right now, there was an episode of that ridiculous show where they stuff 3 xboxes into the trunk of a Nissan 240SX. I was amazed to find a thread with the guy who owned the 240 today while searching a bit.

Blowing it off

Sometimes there is nothing more soothing or relaxing than working on something completely pointless and fun. I'm trying to do more of this, as silly as that may sound.

You might notice my (hopefully) growing list of links on the side of this blog to my other various sites and projects. One of those has actually been around for a while, but I just added to it again tonight.

Here is my latest t-shirt design: http://www.cafepress.com/floydpink.105916729. In this particular case, I resurrected an old web classic, and brought it to textile form. Why? Because I can.

Silly Bowling Team Names

A group of us at work are going to be doing our annual Bowling for Kid's Sake event again this year to help out the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program (click here if you actually want to donate to me).

In doing so, we needed to come up with a good team name (there is swag on the line...). So, we came up with the following list:

• I'm with Stupid
• Head Bangers
• Nuns with Guns
• Than we shall bowl in the shade...
• ...and the horse you rode in on
• Overstuffed Windbags
• Smoka Bowl
• Jason types like Shit
• Bowling John Malkovich
• Ebowla
• Off Constantly
• Victorious Secret
• CloscoresEX
• The Muffin Stuffers
• Shocker
• Huge Racks
• Mines in the Gutter
• RTFB
• (10 balls and a split) or (10 balls, 1 split)
• Bowl Movements
• Freshly Waxed
• Snarky Self-deprecating Elitists
• The CN4's
• I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter
• Off in the Gutter
• Muppets and Naked Breasts
• If it weren't for my horse
• Richard Craniums and a Female

In the end, we narrowed it down to the following 2 choices (our team has 5 males and 1 female in case you were wondering):

• Mines in the Gutter
• (10 balls and a split) or (10 balls, 1 split)

Although I still find the 2nd choice particularly awesome, we decided on the first for a good team name. Why am I sharing all of this? Because sometimes you just need a good, stupid post on a Friday. Alternatively, why not?

Software and the idiots who use it

I needed something to get me fired up (many of you will find that hard to believe). This will definitely do it.

As many know, Apple released a version of their Safari web browser for Windows yesterday at their WWDC developer conference. An unexpected move for many, including myself, and one that spawned a good amount of discussion and pondering.

Don't confuse pondering with pandering though, which is what many in the tech community love to do so much. The bits had barely hit the web before people were trashing the release. I'll admit, I tried it immediately, and was less than impressed with the usability and visual aspects of this particular build. Guess what? It's beta. Should this be a surprise? So, rather than bitch continuously, I simply closed it and will wait for a later version to do additional evaluation. After all, Apple actually still uses beta to mean pre-release, not perpetual unwillingness to claim completion like other companies.

The worst of these were some of the security exploits supposedly found, as covered by Slashdot. The first of these idiots is the guy who supposedly had found a bug in Apple's Airport, only to be smacked down later. He claims he found a bunch of holes, but he will not be disclosing them to Apple. Fantastic, great plan. Run around, spouting off about how great you are and poking holes in software, rather than attempting to improve something. Specifically, a beta, which is released entirely to attempt to find issues and get them fixed before release. These people need to have their Internet pass revoked.


Personally, I want to see Safari not only succeed, but excel. Mostly, because I want some competition to push my favorite browser, Firefox, a little harder. At this point, I really don't see myself ever moving to Safari. I like some of its features, but I have nearly all of them already courtesy of extensions. Extensions are still the silver bullet of Firefox for me. Also, I find Firefox to still run very snappy, and I have his memory in check on my machine. I look forward to some friendly competition between the two to keep improving them both.

What is this number?

How DiD i come up with a Very Dumb blog post? And, Ask yourself Could Sending it to the junK foldEr be verY smart?

In either case, I have no idea why my typing was so bad on the previous sentence, or what this number means: 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

Why Google, Why?

Others have talked about how they really like the personalized Google homepage, and even the new themes. I personally no longer use a homepage, I never really close my browser so it wouldn't make much sense. I tend to just bounce between a few Google applications for the most part.

However, even those I know who do like the homepage would have to question Google's latest move I'm guessing. Since its start, the personalized page was at http://www.google.com/ig (OMG, how did I just link to your personalized homepage? --fun with n00bs). Apparently, that "ig" now stands for "iGoogle", complete with an ass-tastic logo and all.

Google, you should know better. Why did you stoop to this lowness?

Random Dumbness

It's Sunday night. Bear with me as I hit you with some mostly random stories of stupidity.

I was going to post about the stuff on Slashdot from today that just plain made me angry. Especially the comment from the guy who said, "I'm smarter than most other people (98th percentile)...", but I just couldn't contain my rage long enough to write about it.

Instead, I'll start you with this gem. This guy lives near an International border and doesn't bother to check if he can build a 4 foot wall? I would check on that for my own private property lines, which come nowhere near the border of even a small municipality. Moreover, why did they need a $15,000 wall to contain erosion? I could have set them up with a few hefty bags strung together like the DOT uses, and pocketed the rest.

Next, less pure stupidity, and into the scary stupid category. How do we have government agencies that are setup to be so dumb? "Hey, let's kill the golden goose, because that's what our process says to do." I'm sorry (not really), but I completely disagree with this type of thinking. This is wrong and should be stopped/blocked/killed immediately.

Man, I see why Lewis Black finds it so easy to come up with material and get worked up over it. Because of that, I will leave you with some great quotes of his:

"Metal detectors don't work. I went through the metal detector and they said, 'we're gonna hafta check you.' 'I just went through the metal detector. That should be it.' Then they check you again. That means, that doesn't fuckin' work, does it? All right, so then, they got a thing called a wand. It's the same thing. It's like a metal detector for your hand. And they go, woo-wooo, and then you're clear and then they say, 'well, we'll pat you down.' Well that didn't fuckin' work either then, did it? And if what you really need to do is pat us down, then pat us down. Pat us the fuck down. Don't do this bullshit. Don't send me through two fake things that don't work."

and now a long one...

"When from behind me, a woman of 25 uttered the dumbest thing I'd ever heard in my life ... She said, 'If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.' I'll repeat that. I'll repeat that because that's the kind of sentence that when you hear it, your brain comes to a screeching halt. And the left hand side of the brain looks at the right hand side and goes, 'It's dark in here, and we may die.' She said, 'If it weren't for my horse...' as in, giddy up, giddy up, let's go - 'I wouldn't have spent that year in college,' a degree-granting institution. Don't! Don't think about that sentence for more than three minutes, or blood'll shoot out your nose. The American medical profession doesn't know why we get an aneurysm. It's when a blood vessel bursts in our head for no apparent reason. There's a reason. You're at the mall one day, and somebody over there says the dumbest thing you've ever heard and it goes in your ear. So you turn around to see if your friends heard it, cause if your friends heard it, and you can talk about what the jackass said, then it'll be gone. But your friends are over here, pretending they're gonna buy a cellular phone, and they're not gonna buy a cellular phone, because they don't even understand how the rate structure works. So you turn back, to find the person who said it, because if you can ask 'em a question like, 'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?!' then it'll go away. But they're gone. And now those words are in your head. And those words don't go away. Cause the way I see it, 7% of our brains functions all the time, because 99% of everything that happens is the same old stuff. We get it. All right. Move on. Get it. Right. But every so often, somethin' like that happens: 'If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.' So your brain goes, 'LET'S FIGURE IT OUT! Son of a bitch! I wonder what that's about!' I wonder, was she riding the horse to school? No, she wouldn't be riding the horse to school. Maybe it was a polo pony; she had a polo pony scholarship. Maybe she sold the horse and that's how she - she was betting on the horse! WHAT THE FUCK?!! And then you realize that anybody who went to college would never say anything that stupid in public. And as soon as you have that thought, your eyes close and the next morning they find you dead in your bathroom."

Sleazy

I don't usually make this blog a spot for gossip. This one's too good to pass up though.

If you haven't heard about the Joe Rogan vs. Carlos Mencia showdown, you need to check this out (original YouTube clip in case it drops off the frontpage of his site eventually). Obviously this is only one side of the story, but the video linked alone pretty much tells it all.

I never really cared for Joe Rogan as a comic, although I always found him somewhat interesting back on "News Radio". However, I never found Carlos Mencia funny in the slightest. In either case, Rogan threw down on him like no other and it is funny as hell.

Sensationalism

I may have actually posted about this before. It bears repeating though.

I am disgusted and tired of sensationalist journalism. It along with media saturation are why I have almost completely eliminated traditional media from my life. I now almost solely get my news from aggregated sites online such as Google news. I like to get as wide of a variety of news as possible, in as quick to digest of a form, and available when I decide, not on any other schedule.

This article represents most of what I find wrong with the news currently. News is no longer about just reporting events of substance, it is now about filling all available time and senses with anything that can pass for a story.

How is this story relevant to me reading the HawkCentral website at all? Why is the fact that this guy once played for the Hawkeyes years ago even a part of the story? Shouldn't they mention that at one point he used to eat baby food and wear diapers too? I think that is equally relevant. Moreover, why do they need to mention that the injured party was an airman who served in Iraq? Is that any different than if he was a pimp from Oakland? Seriously, the only story here is local policeman potentially used unnecessary force on another local person. It is only relevant to that location, and only to those concerned about their local police force. Nothing more.

Blech, I need more of the tasty Bud Light in the cool aluminum bottle (yes, you read that right) to get the nasty taste of this story out of my mouth.

Childish

Often my blog is far too serious and preachy, you are no doubt saying. Fear not, today you will find none of that.

I decided not long ago (or remembered more likely) that people need to spend time occasionally doing something stupid and pointless, just because it is fun or makes them laugh. That's a necessity.

I have a week off, so here and there I have been doing such things. Yesterday, I made myself a new iPod holder. Nearly everyone else says, "What is the point of that?" I say, "Who cares, it is cool!"

Today I found something even dumber to make me laugh. Here are the steps, in case you are inclined toward silliness like me.

1. Sign up at one of the bajillion free trade magazine sites out there (if you are a member of somewhere like MyPoints, you can actually get points for this as well).
2. When you fill out your address, they will usually ask for an occupation, to be printed on the label. I elected to fill out my occupation as "badass".
3. Laugh every month when your address label on the magazine says "Mrs. Chanandler Bong, Badass". I just guaranteed myself at least one laugh a month in perpetuity...
   

Oh smart phones, why do I hate you so?

It has been said far too many times, but I have expressed dislike for cell phones in the past. Unfortunate in some regards, as I do occaisionally see some value in having one. If I wasn't averse to paying money for them, or if they were cheap enough, I would actually still have one. The problem is that I have complained about some aspects of them often enough that I nearly seem hypocritical if I did.

Crackberrys and other smart phones though, that's pretty much a different story. I still find them to be a useless annoyance dragging people down. Apparantly, I am not alone.

I really want to reach through my monitor and give an ass-whooping to a few of these parents. When, oh when, will that technology be created?

Now, a few of my favorite comments from this story (RTF story first...):

• "His dad, private banker Ross Singletary, calls it "a legit concern." He adds: "Some emails are important enough to look at en route."
  
  "No. No, no emails are important enough to look at en route. Period.
  Get a life, and pay more attention to things around you instead of work. There's a whole world outside, and your kids mental well being is more important than your job no matter what you might think."
  
  
• "The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men." -- Charles De Gaulle
  
  
• "I suppose kids aren't reading this, but if you are, smash your parent's blackberry. Blackberries are expensive. They might get another one, but after you smash three or four, they won't get more. If their blackberries are issued by their employer, your parent will be fired after you smash two or three. Again, problem solved. Don't be afraid. Your parent my yell at you, make scary faces and noises, and send you to your room. But that's attention, and any attention is better than none. And they'll get over it an a day or two and love you again, without a blackberry."
  
  
• Maybe the best comment of the whole thing (too long to list it here)

I realize bad parenting isn't new, and neither are clueless companies. It does seem like both are increasing lately though. I would like to see an active effort to reduce both.

Stuff I Didn't Know

Learning is good for you. Yes, it really is, and I try to learn new things as often as possible. Often they tend to be just stupid, simple things that I didn't previously know or understand. The Internet is often my tool of choice to tackle these issues, and that was the case tonight.

Item #1 - What does being an at-will state really mean?
It turns out that my state, like many others, is an at-will employment state. I always pretty much understood that to mean that at any point in time myself or my employer could tell the other to hit the road, with paychecks ceasing. I was not sure however how this all played into severance and potential litigation after a termination. I now know the answer:
http://research.lawyers.com/Iowa/Employment-Law-in-Iowa.html

Item #2 - How do you really distinguish between a muffin and a cupcake?
This question came up during dinner, as we were discussing some tasty insomnia cupcakes I ate at work. I still don't think I really have a satisfactory answer after searching a bit though. I'll go with Shannon's definition of cupcakes having frosting, and muffins not. Here was another guy's take on it (and I like his statement of having a "Seinfeld moment"):
http://calderonline.blogspot.com/2006/10/seinfeld-moment-muffins-vs-cupcakes.html

Extreme Stupidity

(Click here to skip the background, and go straight to the stupidity)

First, some background. I am not particularly fond of cell phones. I hate when the ring, pretty much always. I hate when people talk on them very loudly, about worthless and mundane topics. I think they are the single biggest contributor to ADD in existence currently. What I really dislike personally though is paying for them.

I had a cell phone for about 4 years in college. I remember being excited to move from my analog to a digital phone. I liked them occasionally. However, I really didn't like paying lots of money, so that people could get a hold of me immediately, rather than waiting until I was near another phone. Sometimes it's actually nice to just disappear for a bit. So, even though I never moved beyond a $25 per month plan, I eventually dropped the phone about 3 years ago, and haven't regretted it since.

People are often amazed that I am able to survive without one. Apparently, generations previous to us were just lucky that they didn't die on a daily basis without a mobile telephone.

Now, to the point. Our friends at one of the plethora of cellular service providers have decided they need to help people out, give back to the community. They have a new deal for those less-fortunate, who somehow can't manage to pay their bills, but absolutely have to have a cell phone (and a satellite, and new sneakers, and...sorry, getting off-topic).

Now, if you already qualify for low-cost utilities or subsidized phone service, they will give you an extra special package. It has 700 minutes, free incoming everything, blah blah blah. All for the low, low cost of $37 per month. $37 per month!!! That's over 1/3 more than the point where I considered my service too expensive to continue. And this is for those who are struggling with money? Bullshit. This is just one more excuse for the cell companies to line their pockets.

However, lest you think all lost, the Hawks won big today. All is now well with the cosmos again.

Hawks 47, Purdue 17

Something stupid (but funny) for your memorial day

I wish I had something of substance to write, but I don't. Instead, check out this uneasysilence post about stupid warnings included with Sony laptops. You need to read the explanations to make it even better.

It's Sweeps Week!!!!

Sometimes you come across something on the Internet that just makes you feel dumber, or sorry for all the dumb people in the world after seeing/watching it.

Tonight I was searching for some information on the upcoming Vonage IPO, that will be happening this fall. I ended up finding an article about it on Forbes.com. I expect fairly accurate and informative news out of Forbes (maybe unjustifiably). While there, I notice a little box to the side, and the top link is "Top Topless Beaches" (Here is the link in case the Forbes site changes). This seemed a bit out of place, but of course I had to click on it. For those following along at work don't worry, there is nothing at all here that is NSFW.

Be warned, the first obstacle is that this video is in Real format (as in Real Shitty). I have Firefox tricked out to use Real Alternative, so I was okay there. I then proceeded to watch the video. This is maybe the dumbest, most pointless, least informative thing I have ever watched. The person brought into the clip is more of an airhead than I ever thought possible. I feel dumber now just for watching. To even things out, I wanted to make sure everyone else watches it and sinks down to my new, dumber level.

Do blonds really have more fun?

This is one of the best blond jokes I have ever seen, so I had to post it.