Saturday, June 07, 2008

Honesty is good.

Overheard Everywhere | Which Also Explains the Peanut Butter Smears:
"College student: That one answer is wrong. You put a nine instead of a six.
Professor: I was probably stoned at the time.

Sussex, New Jersey"

Friday, June 06, 2008

"“Like pain, fear can be controlled”" - Joss Whedon.

Wisdom from the geek overlord.

Joss Whedon quotes:
“I'm a believer in that, ... I am a great believer in found families and I'm not a great believer in blood. Although I love my family, even the ones I grew up with, to me I've always felt that the people who treated you with respect and included you in their lives were your family and the people who were related to you by blood might happen to be those people but that correlation was a lot less [strong] than society believes it is.

...

“Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.”

...

“It's about how much freedom you can take away from somebody before they either fold or fight, ... It's about the right to be wrong and the nature of human beings, that they need the freedom to be wrong. That they cannot be made to be better or perfect.

Training 61.

Nutrition
Cup of coffee w/cream, equal
Shake - 3 eggs, coffee, equal
4 salami sticks
Shake - 3 eggs, peanut butter, equal, cream
1.2l diet soda
1l water

PT
Pushups - 3x15
Lunges - 3x15
Dips - 3x15
One arm DB snatch - 20x15, 25x15/15
SSaw - 20x15x3
Shrugs - 105x15/15
Row - 52.5x15
Face pulls/dislocates - 20/20

Thoroughly and truly Japanese.

Overheard Everywhere | I Suppose I Could Have One of My Concubines Answer Them, Though:
"Student: Professor, will you be able to answer e-mails while you are away, since our final is in a week?
Uncomfortable Japanese professor with strange British/Japanese accent: No, I will not be able to answer students' e-mails because most of the time I come home I am drunk.
Students: [Incredulous silence. Laughter.]

Philosophy class
McGill University
Canadia"

The ends justify the [kinda funny] means.

At first glance it seems a bit cruel. But really, kinda clever.

Fake bus stop keeps Alzheimer's patients from escaping - Boing Boing:
"A nursing home in Germany built an exact replica of a bus stop in front of the facility. The only difference is that buses never stop there.

“It sounds funny,” said Old Lions Chairman Franz-Josef Goebel, “but it helps. Our members are 84 years-old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works at all, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home...”

“We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later today and invite them in to the home for a coffee,” said Mr Neureither. “Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave.”"

They're stupid and not to be trusted.

And a little evil too.

Entertainment industry accuses campus laser-printers of downloading Indiana Jones - Boing Boing:
"Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered serious flaws in the way that the copyright cartel's enforcers detect and complain about copyright infringement. The methods used by these enforcers are so sloppy that they sent a DMCA takedown notice to three campus laser-printers, alleging that the inanimate objects were downloading Iron Man and Indiana Jones.

And yet these companies expect universities to take their notices seriously and spend their operating capital chasing down every wild accusation they make."

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Training 60.

Nutrition
3 cups coffee w/equal, cream
900ml diet soda
1l water
Shake - 3 eggs, coffee, cream, equal
2 eggs, ground beef, cheese, spices, mayo

PT
30m Rutten MMA wkout/Boxing 3m rounds

Bed@2315

Setting up the new computer...

Scrape off all the adware, bloatware and "free trial" nonsense that comes with the new computer.

Remove unnecessary programs, including everything "Microsoft" that they'll let me.

Compress/Index drive settings. Adjust performance/appearance.

Download and/or install Firefox, Utorrent, Foxit, Open Office, CDisplay, Picasa, VLC, MediaMonkey, Skype, Wordweb, Ad Aware, AVG, ExtractNow, and Power Japanese.

Add the following Firefox Extensions - Linkification, Downthemall, Google Toolbar, Google Notebook, Tiny Menu, Tubestop.

Configure the Firefox search bar - Google, Amazon, Ebay, Scrapetorrent, TPB, Wikipedia, Isohunt, Wikipedia, YouTube, MMA Tracker, Dictionary.com, Urban Dictionary, IMDB.

Configure Online services - GMail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Notebook, Blogger, Picasa, Google Docs, iGoogle.

Download photos from my PicasaWeb site.

Download and burn two weeks of torrent/video/etc files.

Still to do - tx music from MP3 players. Upload backed up videos, ebooks, music from disc. Edit/backup misc photos.

Will Washington DC be greater than or equal to communist era Berlin?

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Highway to the Neighborhood Zones:
"The Examiner has the scoop on a controversial new program announced today that would create so-called 'Neighborhood Safety Zones' which would serve to partially seal off certain parts of the city. D.C. Police would set-up checkpoints in targeted areas, demand to see ID and refuse admittance to people who don't live there, work there or have a “legitimate reason” to be there."

"The most dangerous human beings..."

journal creature: <i>Become An Archetype</i><br>Grapevine, CA:
"...the most dangerous perspective to think one possesses is realism. As if all perspectives weren't mutable and chosen. The realist thinks hers is fixed and actually more valid than the others. At least the pessimist knows perspective is subjective and theirs tilts towards impending doom. The most dangerous human beings in the world think there is an objective reality and they have a monopoly on it."

It's always something.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

"...take control of your own destiny."

Wanted.

Looking increasingly good.

If only vaguely similar to the comic.

65! Awesome.


Bodybuilding keeps 65-year-old young - Saturday, May 24, 2008:
Sam J. Bryant is working to spend the rest of his life healthy.

He's 65, an age at which most of his peers are either retired or nearly so and whose idea of a physical workout is a full 18 holes of golf without benefit of a cart.

But Mr. Bryant is still pushing his body like a man a third his age, spending five hours a day in the gym four or five times a week, prepping for professional bodybuilding competitions.

"People can't believe I'm 65," he said. "That makes me feel good. I see people my age that have already gave up."

Mr. Bryant, a housekeeping employee of Omni Health & Fitness of Augusta, took up the sport when he was 43 after he was invited to a contest by a friend.

..."The young guys claim they are going to beat me," he said. "So I just work hard. I'm not going to just lay it down and let them have it."

Mr. Bryant isn't trying to prove himself; he is trying to preserve his health.

"I'm not trying to prove a point that I'm better than you," he said. "I just want them to know that I can do what you do. It's not my age that has anything to do with it."

We all hate that shit.

Overheard in New York | What Not to Wednesday One-Liner:
"Disembodied voice: Yo, these are mom jeans. I hate that shit! The waist goes all the way up to your stomach and then it makes a little V-neck pouch for your vagina. I hate that shit!

--Fitting Rooms, Gap in Herald Square

Overheard by: Zarya"

Work through it.

Overheard in New York | Maury Povich Says You're the Wednesday One-Liner:
"[Before the start of the NYC pillow fight.]
Pillow-fighter: I'm gonna beat you all down like you were my daddy! [Hits people with his pillow.] Why weren't you there, dad, why!?

--Union Square"

Training 58/59.

58
Nutrition

Lg coffee w/equal, cream
Ground beef, salsa, cheese, mayo
Um... about 1.5l of soda. Computer stuff. Very little focus. Least I didn't eat a buncha junk.

PT
Day 2 of no PT. But my computer is pretty much set up. Sad, I know. Don't you judge me. You bastard.

59
Nutrition

2 cups coffee w/equal, cream
5 eggs, ground beef, mayo
1l diet soda
1l water
Shake - 3 eggs, cream, pb, equal

PT
Chins - 5, 4-1, 4-1
One arm DB snatch - 52.5x5x3
DB press - 80x5, 90x5/5
DB front squat - 70x8, 90x5/5, 105x5
DB RDL - 105x15/5/8
NNods - 6x50

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Ambitions.

Overheard in New York | When the Bimbos Come Home to Roost:
"Middle-aged suit #1: So I'm going to be a father again.
Middle-aged suit #2: Oh, really?
Middle-aged suit #1: Yeah, the mother's some bimbo on the West Side.
Middle-aged suit #2: Oh yeah.
Middle-aged suit #1: Yeah. I figure if I'm going to fuck up my life, I might as well do it in grand fashion.

--Times Square"

Standards.

Overheard in New York | Shrooms Are for Funerals. Cocaine Is for Weddings:
"Girl #1: I mean, really, she was doing cocaine at her father's memorial service.
Girl #2: I know. Me and Ashley were like, 'We're no prudes, but there's such a thing as decorum.'

--84th & Madison"

If only they could harness their power for good.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Police Union Intimidating Derrick Foster's Supporters:
"So in sum: The Columbus police waged a hasty drug raid (the third that night for the same SWAT team) on a house where no significant amount of drugs were found. In the process, a man with no prior criminal record and who worked for the city understandably mistook them for armed robbers, and fired his legally-registered gun in self-defense. The authorities are now charging that man with attempted murder, and any of his friends or acquaintances who dare vouch for his character and judgment (both of which are pretty important to establishing his guilt or innocence) can expect intimidating phone calls, emails, and visits from the police, as well as police efforts to interfere with their careers and livelihood.

Foster's attorney is right. This is blatant witness intimidation. Ohio's attorney general needs to rein the police union in.

We continue to get these cases where someone with no prior criminal record fires on a team of raiding police officers. And every time, we're supposed to believe that said person knew the armed men breaking in were cops, and that for whatever reason, each time this person who had shown no prior indication of criminality suddenly turned into a deranged cop killer.

Hardly seems likely, does it? Isn't the more rational explanation here that these raids are dangerously volatile, confusing, and violent, and put the people on the receiving end of them in understandable fear for their lives?"

Monday, June 02, 2008

Training 57.

Nutrition
Coffee w/cream, equal
Shake w/coffee, 3 eggs, cream, equal
2 hamburger patties
Ground beef, salsa, cheese, mayo
1L water
1L diet soda

PT
My new computer arrived yesterday. There was no PT. Shut up.

Well, that idea died pretty quickly.

Huzzah! New computer arrived!

But my glorious, optimistic and free spirited plan to install Ubuntu Linux has died a quick death. Installed, but could not get the OS to work with my Atheros wireless card.

There IS a way... surfing through any # of Ubuntu help forums last night showed me that... it's just whatever the way is, it's beyond my meager computer abilities. I am unable to build[?], compile and install new drivers for my wireless hardware in an OS and a computer language I barely understand. Which is a shame, because every other aspect of Ubuntu, in the six or so hours I played with it, was awesome. Slick, fast, intuitive... all the things Windows doesn't seem to be.

But since I had to repartition my hard drive in order to do the Ubuntu install, in order to set everything back up to Windows as the only, and the default, OS, the only way I know how to do that is to boot up from the recovery CD and start from scratch. I'm sure there's probably another way, but seeing as how the only thing I did on Windows yesterday was download and burn Ubuntu, it seemed the most stress free way to do it.

So when I get home today I'll start over with Windows Vista, from scratch, strip out all the crapware and bloatware and proprietary nonsense that came pre-installed, and start downloading the software I actually enjoy using. [Firefox, VLC, Open Office, etc, etc] Once I get that done and get the OS tweaked out the way I want, it should be functional enough. Next computer I get though, I'm gonna get Linux pre-installed...

Oh well, it was a good idea while it lasted.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

What a joke.

The whole process = sham.

Crooks and Liars » Kangaroo Courts:
"The Defense Department was mum Friday on the reasons for the abrupt removal of a Guantánamo war court judge who had threatened to suspend the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr in a showdown with the controversial prison camp...

Military prosecutors had been pressing Brownback to set a trial date, but he has repeatedly directed them first to satisfy defense requests for access to potential evidence."

Kids are cruel, and this teacher is pathetic.

A buncha 6 year olds are not competent to be making this kind of decision. The teacher clearly and intentionally forfeited their authority, and if I had to guess, in a candy ass way to avoid responsibility and being the "bad guy." Even if the kid is a discipline problem, this is so not the way to deal with it.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Tyranny of the Majority:
"Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class.

Apparently, the poor kid has Aspergers, a less severe form of autism, and his classmates found him 'disgusting.'

Alex's response to the vote:
'I feel sad.'"

For further thought, think about how this is a knock on democracy. Mob rule uber alles.

Can't trust science.

Well, scientists, actually. No such thing as impartial science. Cause there's people involved. Always the people thing, screwing up the program.

Bioscientists photoshop their cultures to fake results - Boing Boing:
"And the level of tampering they find is alarming. 'The magnitude of the fraud is phenomenal,' says Hany Farid, a computer-science professor at Dartmouth College who has been working with journal editors to help them detect image manipulation. Doctored images are troubling because they can mislead scientists and even derail a search for the causes and cures of disease."

Let's definitely inflict some psychological trauma on everybody now, because a certain percentage could be affected by this in the future.

I can't even begin to say how much false, manipulative shit like this pisses me off.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > MADDsteria:
"Many juniors and seniors were driven to tears – a few to near hysterics – May 26 when a uniformed police officer arrived in several classrooms to notify them that a fellow student had been killed in a drunken-driving accident.

The officer read a brief eulogy, placed a rose on the deceased student’s seat, then left the class members to process their thoughts and emotions for the next hour.

The program, titled “Every 15 Minutes,” was designed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Its title refers to the frequency in which a person somewhere in the country dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident.

About 10 a.m., students were called to the athletic stadium, where they learned that their classmates had not died. There, a group of seniors, police officers and firefighters staged a startlingly realistic alcohol-induced fatal car crash. The students who had purportedly died portrayed ghostly apparitions encircling the scene.

Though the deception left some teens temporarily confused and angry, if it makes even one student think twice before getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, it is worth the price, said California Highway Patrol Officer Eric Newbury, who orchestrates the program at local high schools."

Self righteous jackass. A little bit extra from the comments that warmed my evil, cold heart.

"This sort of crap makes me want to call that police officer's family and tell them he was killed in the line of duty, just for kicks.

And you'd get arrested and charged with some wildly inappropriate charge like violation of RICO or something because a) you're not cop, you're little people, and b) what you would have done wouldn't have been for the children."

Training 56.

PT
30m Rutten MMA wkout/Boxing, 3m rounds

Nutrition
2 cups of coffee/equal/cream
2 steaks
2 burgers
1l water
1l diet soda

Bed@2230