The 16th Minute

I have to say that Detroit Metro Airport has been updated to the point that it is pretty fantastic! The TSA lines were structured to be fast, people are processed for rape quickly and efficiently, and the facility itself is clearly laid out. The tram they added a few years ago is brilliant and makes inter-terminal transit fast and painless.

That said…

I love the digital signs outside the checkpoint. One screen said, “joking about bombs, terrorism or weapons will result in more delays and extended searches.”

Cause you know that a terrorist is gonna FUCKING JOKE ABOUT BOMBS.

Fuck you TSA. Fuck you until you die.

That organization needs to just cease to exist. Think how novel that would be.

You walk into the airport. Get your ticket. Sit down to board your plane.

The ticket counter does a cursory luggage inspection to keep people from bringing elephants on a carry-on. Beyond that, open and free. What a thought!

Oh well, back to dreaming…

I knew this would happen eventually.

Part of the exclusivity of being a Mac user was using PowerPC, an architecture that was a little different than Intel. While it’s great that newer Macs can be beefier pimps running on the new superfast Intel multicore behemoths, it makes one wonder how much more vulnerable it makes the computer industry as a whole.

Now we have:
* Intel Macs
* Intel Windows boxes
* Intel Linux boxes

One convenient architecture to hack!

Which is apparently going to be demonstrated soon.

FTA:
“Security researcher and author Kris Kaspersky plans to demonstrate how an attacker can target flaws in Intel’s microprocessors to remotely attack a computer using JavaScript or TCP/IP packets, regardless of what operating system the computer is running.”

It’ll be interesting to see how many platforms can be affected! (Also scary!)

12 babies HAVE died SO FAR DUE TO vaccine trials (fucking headline on that site is misleading) thanks to GlaxoSmithKline’s profiteering and abuse of impoverished people.

Sad thing is, I bet you anything the fucking idiots that get pissed over monkey testing won’t give a shit about human testing in lesser countries, as long as they can keep getting their sandals, weed, and wheat grass shots at a good discount price!

So! Without much fanfare other than a link, we have the new Wiggy Wiggy Wiki!

It’s all satire, really. If you’re offended, close the browser window. That’s how America is supposed to work.

Otherwise, enjoy!

We’ll be referencing it often.

Thanks to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney making America better, we have to deal with issues such as the one in this article!

Oh yeah I was going to cite some body text from the article but ABC’s stupid shit web site won’t let you copy text in Safari thanks to some clever javascript. You know Macs are getting more popular when web sites actually try to block Mac users from information.

Mac superiority is going right out the window!

Oh well, basically American life is worth like $1 million less what it was a few years ago, which doesn’t make much sense I guess. With inflation and everything wouldn’t one assume that if nothing else it’d go up? Cost of living has gone up, expenses have gone up, oil has gone up. Wouldn’t the life go up accordingly? Or is outsourcing degrading the value of one person?

Or is it just futzy accounting so the bean counters can find new ways to rip off, cheat, and piss off Americans until we reach a critical mass where we find it necessary to take back the country.

That’s my new slogan, “Take Back America!”

Karl Rove refused to appear before Congress to testify about his involvement in the Valerie Plame scandal.

Rove deliberately ignored a Congressional subpoena by his refusing to testify, and now face contempt of Congress charges, and (with any luck) he might even be arrested and forced to appear.

Rove’s refusal to appear is based on his claim that the information falls under the realm of executive privilege, and as such he does not have to testify.

Unfortunately this reasoning does not pass one simple test of logic. In order for Rove’s activities to fall under the purview of executive privilege the executive (meaning Bush) would have to be involved. Since Rove and Libby, among others, have given sworn Grand Jury and courtroom testimony stating that Bush was not involved and as a result knew nothing of the plan to out Valerie Plame. Since Bush was not involved, it does not fall under the realm of executive Privilege. Period and end of story. He has to testify.

Of course, since Bush has publicly stated that he declassified the information that was used to leak Plame’s identity as a covert operative before the scandal ever broke, he must have clearly been involved. So at the very least Rove should be facing charges of perjury. 

A report issued late last week from the National Institutes of Health reported that teen pregnancy is on the rise in the U.S. for the first time since 1991. Anyone following the Bush Administration’s policies of promoting abstinence and not explaining safe sex could’ve seen this coming a mile away.

First of all the plan is pathetically flawed since I’ve never met a teenager who was not interested in sex. Ever. Period.

Secondly, this plays to a whole religious element of what is considered to be right and proper behavior. Naturally (as with anything religious) it is reinforced through guilt and self loathing for being “weak” in the face of “sin.”

Of course when anyone, especially a teenage girl, is made to feel guilty they will also feel bad about themselves. Since they feel bad about themselves they will seek out anything to feel like they are more worthwhile. And then, as if by magic, along comes a horny ass teenage boy that doesn’t know squat about safe sex who tells the girl she is beautiful and special, and faster than you can say “it turned blue” she’s on her back with her legs spread getting filled out like an application.

Just another in the long line of failed Bush policies. Good job Governor. Err.. Oops, I meant President. Honest.

‘Nuf said.

Comments?

It’s to the point that I can say a good percentage of a song’s rhymes with the vocalist during my first listening of the song.  The rhymes are that obvious, reused, and boring.  Bitch, trick, and shit are a great fallback rhyme.  Bacardi / party was a popular one a few years ago.  Paint / lane / stain is a popular one now.

And of course the “extend my rhyme” to multi-syllables by adding an identical phrase to the end of each line.  Popular extender words include playa, pimpin’, and nigga, though the last one isn’t used as much since it won’t make it to the radio.

Yo what’s the deal pimpin, I’m so for real pimpin
I get my Cinderella with unbroken seals pimpin

It reminds of the arcade game Killer Instinct.  In this game, you could string together longer combos by pressing one or two buttons, and the game would do the rest, rewarding you with double-digit hit combos at times.

That’s what these rappers do.  They say one word, auto-follow it with “shawty”, and then look at everyone like they just did something impressive.  You didn’t.  Shut the fuck up.

Or, you can even bypass that initial rhyme, as our wonderboy Michael Jones demonstrates:

I’m in the club, lookin for a bad bitch
I’m in the parking lot, lookin for a bad bitch
Everywhere I go, I’m tryin’ to find that bad bitch
You know me, I gotta keep me a bad bitch

The parking lot?  Yes, they’re known for a high ratio of bad bitches.  I guess the Killer Instinct equivalent of this verbal mastery would be watching the demo because you ran out of quarters.

Everyone already thought they were a rapper - even fucking Fergie.  But thanks to auto-tune, everyone now thinks they can be a singer, too.  Lil Wayne’s voice was already terrible before he auto-tuned the shit out of it.  And Kanye West is garbage, too.  Yes, he is.  It’s all comparison - if everyone is going to rhyme the same thing seventeen times, then a line like “haters givin me salty looks — Lawry’s” might not seem ridiculous - but it is.

My chain too silly
My wrist too silly
My ride too silly
I ride too silly

I have been reading all the articles lately about this new nonsense crap the Internet providers are trying to pull, such as this New York Times article.

Here’s my take on the Internet bandwidth debacle.

If you are an Internet provider, and you sell a certain speed. That’s it. No imposing bandwidth caps.

“But wait!? How do you stop bandwidth abusers?? Throttling? Traffic control? TCP reset packets?”

Not at all.

So you buy 3Mbps Internet. Ok.

3Mbps = .375 MBYTES/sec or 22.5 MBytes/minute.
22.5MBytes/minute is 1,350Mbytes/hour.
x 24 hours in a day, 32,400Mbytes/day
x 30 days, 972,000 Mbytes/month

So if you have 3 megabit Internet, cap them at 1 terabyte a month transfer.

If you are paying for 8Mbps Internet, you’re not only paying for faster speed, you’re also paying for using more of the pipe, (a maximum of 20.736 Terabytes/month) otherwise what’s the point of the speed? If you have more speed, this will of course lead to more downloads! If the provider can’t support this infrastructure, it’s THEIR fault for OVERSELLING and THEY have to upgrade their infrastructure.

“Wah wah, but it’s too expensive to upgrade our backhaul!”

So? If it’s too expensive, the providers’ service quality will continue to degrade. Users will leave them for another provider (or in the case of areas with no choice, they will continue to use this provider and complain up the ass and back until it gets so bad they leave anyway and go back to dial-up.)

Either way, the provider will have to shape up, or lose customers.

I think it’s all part of that whole “Free Market Economy” thing.

Putting unrealistic bandwidth caps on Internet connections just opens an entire new can of worms.

If I am paying per byte, I don’t expect to see ANY Internet advertisements anymore. No animated GIFs, no Flash ads, NO VIDEO ADs, nothing. I would expect to have an advertising-free Internet experience if I have to pay for the ads, in fact, maybe this will bring browsers like Lynx back to the foreground.

FUCK YOU INTERNET PROVIDERS. IN THE ASS.

So one thing that never made much sense to me was the fact that in America we use 87 octane as our baseline gasoline in cars, yet in Europe the lowest octane that can be purchased is 91.

I assumed (like many stupid Americans) this meant that our country decided to use an inferior quality fuel to Europe, because we could either build cars that run better on mopwater than they do, or we’re just generally more dirty, polluting, and not caring.

Turns out, all of this was wrong.

American and European octane formulas are CALCULATED DIFFERENTLY! In fact, American 87 octane is roughly equivalent to 91-92 octane European gas!

Taken from Wikipedia - Octane Rating - Measurement Methods

“Measurement methods
The most common type of octane rating worldwide is the Research Octane Number (RON). RON is determined by running the fuel in a test engine with a variable compression ratio under controlled conditions, and comparing these results with those for mixtures of iso-octane and n-heptane.

In most countries (including all of Europe and Australia) the “headline” octane that would be shown on the pump is the RON, but in the United States, Canada and some other countries the headline number is the average of the RON and the MON, sometimes called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), Road Octane Number (RdON), Pump Octane Number (PON), or (R+M)/2. Because of the 8 to 10 point difference noted above, this means that the octane in the United States will be about 4 to 5 points lower than the same fuel elsewhere: 87 octane fuel, the “regular” gasoline in the US and Canada, would be 91-92 in Europe. However most European pumps deliver 95 (RON) as “regular”, equivalent to 90-91 US (R+M)/2, and even deliver 98 (RON) or 100 (RON).”

Which now that I think about it, I remember many a time seeing that formula on gas pumps and always thinking, “one of these days I’ll research WTF that means.”

You learn something new every day.

So this town Bohmte in Germany is yet another place to try to improve traffic by getting rid of road signs and traffic lines.

I still hate these stupid ideas just as much as I hate roundabouts, maybe because I see it counterintuitive to remove a system that has been proven, maybe because I call shenanigans, maybe because people are idiots, who knows.

The Video:

So like, here’s my take. I have been to Germany. Traffic lights don’t work there because they are retarded, slow, and also retarded. Not once did any traffic light I ever went through have lane-sensors to adapt the light pattern to traffic flow (ie: if there’s a car in the left turn lane, activate the left turn signal, if not, don’t.) In fact, even late at night the lights were robotically retarded, waiting 3-4 minutes per cycle side even though you were the only car at the intersection.

Call me crazy, but that is frigtarded.

Sign clutter - it can be reduced to minimal amounts of signs, but they are still helpful for people trying to get to a destination - roadsigns anyone? I really hope they decided to keep those!

“Yeah, I’m lost again.” “Where are you?” “Umm…I’m at….McDonalds and Wal*Mart?” “Umm what are the road names??” “FUCK IF I KNOW MAN! There’s a…duck, Duck Avenue? FUCK THIS TOWN.” etc.

I think the only reason these communities are seeing improvement in traffic is because any sane motorist would avoid such a place like the plague rather than risk running over a pedestrian who was stupid enough to think they could win in a staring match against 4,000 lbs of Detroit steel. (Or in Europe’s case, 3 ozs of French aluminum, but I digress.)

I hear with or without roadsigns, hitting a pedestrian is still kinda like…murder…I’d be wary…

Fucking idiot pack of douche chains.

I just finished watching the movie Robocop (yes I really was that bored) and noticed something very interesting about it. Sprinkled throughout the movie are subtle digs at corporate power and the ever increasing influence of private business in the public domain. For a movie made in 1989 and set in some undefined time period to allow for a future dystopia, it is remarkably prescient about some of the expanded corporate power that we are seeing today. If anyone is extra bored one night, you should look past the bad acting and worse special effects to find an interesting subplot within a movie about a robot err… cop err. robocop!

I also found it funny that in order to find a burned out urban waste land to pass off as a destroyed Detroit the makers of the film were forced to travel ALL THE WAY from Hollywood to……. Los Angeles! If you look at the freeway chases in the film the unmistakable skyline of L.A. is visible throughout. 

Yeah I stole the video link from a rumor site, so sue me. Rumor sites suck anyway.

DOUG EXITER! I’m a scientist like yourself!