I want to live here, but everything is "contact us for a price".

"If you have to ask, you can't afford it" is just a euphemism for "we're targetting really stupid people with a lot of money". See, there are three types of rich people:

1) the ones who are rich, know it, and make sound decisions in order to remain rich.

2) the ones who are rich, know it, and flaunt it because they're brainless idiots trying to become poor through bad decision-making

3) the ones who are so offensively rich that it doesn't matter which path they take, nothing short of the collapse of society is going to change their wealth status.

There aren't many of any of these three, but #3 is by far the least common of the lot. I'm none of these three, so I will forgo this particular set of apartments - regardless of whether I can afford them or not - in favor of something a little more frugal.

------------

Over the last five years, I've regularly gone to a little pizza parlor around the corner for lunch. I can't afford it so much anymore now that I've become part of the disappearing middle class, but when I did go regularly I took joy in evaluating the people around me.

A number of folks who came in over the years were all quite obviously "leaders" of one caliber or another at their place of business. It has confounded me, however, to note the common qualities in many of these leaders over the years:

+ They tend to be less intelligent in some respects than you might expect. I regularly see prim and proper business people confounded by the simplest of technology, unable to make a decision between pushing a big red NO button and a big green YES button on a pinpad.

+ They have a tendency to be less suggestive/coercive than they are just plain bossy. Don't get me wrong, this usually works, but I'm always somewhat taken aback by their demanding nature and, even more so, by other people's willingness to jump when they demand it.

+ They are bad drivers. Many times it's not the frazzled mom with six kids in the car that blows the stop sign while she's westling with them. It's the suited silk-tie-wearing businessman who's just plain not paying attention or just apparently doesn't care.

I have no idea if this extends to other quarters such as the military or government, or if it even extends beyond my geographic boundaries, but it's interesting none-the-less.

------------

Nobody who ever had to make something from nothing says you can make something from nothing, but a lot of people who had something to start with and just don't recognize it do.

------------

The only difference between lying and making a mistake due to willful ignorance is that it makes it easier for your friends to make excuses for you after the fact if you do the latter.

------------

The people who are most willing to disrespect other people's beliefs are the ones who complain the most that other people disrespect their's.

------------

I think Wal-Mart is a perfect example of how easy it is to manipulate the gullible American public into doing things that are bad for it.

Everytime you buy something at Wal-Mart, odds are pretty good you're sending money to two places:

      1) Wal-Mart management
      2) China

The biggest price cuts for Wal-Mart don't come from innovative supply chains, they come from strong-arming suppliers so that demand is cut and churning out high volumes of low quality, low price product to compete. That means that every purchase at Wal-Mart either serves to solidify the damaged supply chain process (thus permanently undercutting the profits of American companies) or pump money away from America into the Chinese economy.

Since the U.S. is already desperately short on cash and stretching its credit with the world painfully thin - credit that is currently being used to support crucial government expenditures like the war in Iraq - the only thing you're doing by buying at Wal-Mart is bringing the looming credit crunch ever closer and making it that much more severe in the process.

------------

I think the media is at least partly to blame for the problems we have today with kids, but I also think that it's the parent's fault the media had that much power over their children in the first place.

------------

I think holocaust deniers have the same basic defect as anti-evolutionists, the holocaust deniers just apply their defect in a more socially destructive way.

------------

I think that the metric system is superior.

------------

There's a certain sick irony in venerating yourself as a democratic republic while you mock the will of the majority of the world.

glissade /glisaad, -sayd/ n. 1. a slide down a steep slope of snow or ice, typically on the feet with the support of an ice axe. 2. Ballet a gliding movement.

v. perform or move by means of a glissade.

-ORIGIN French, from glisser 'to slip, slide'

Your word for the day is brought to you by my new copy of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary.

lol capitalism

Not only that, while I was playing rebate russian roulette I wound up getting a thumb drive for the same price with twice the storage, so nyah.

Hey, that's capitalism. If you don't want people taking advantage of dickhead pricing schemes, don't use dickhead pricing schemes.

This is an accurate depiction of the back of the average LGFer's truck.

America: FUCK YEAH!

I'm mailing this groundbreaking scientific research to Scientific American as we speak!

I had forgotten that Geocities and FortuneCity were the appropriate places to post scientific materials for peer review.

Sometimes I think anti-evolutionists so vehemently deny the fact of evolution because they're mad that it apparently left them behind... idiots.

Just some random, general points that were encouraged by Eth's JE this morning. Feel free to discuss the more specific topics at hand over there.

Evolution Might Be Wrong
True. I might also be wrong when I say that clouds can float in the sky. But the odds that I'm wrong are so astonishingly poor that there's no common sense reason for anybody to pursue the possibility.

Evolution is like that. All evidence so far points to the current theories of evolution. It's not like a bunch of scientists just got together one day and decided to perpetrate this huge hoax and they've managed to get all members of people from the various related fields to play along. They looked at the evidence, made some predictions and some hypotheses, tested, found some more evidence and here we are. Everything we've found so far has pointed to the current evolutionary theories. Yes, we might be wrong on the whole, but the odds are so astonishingly small that this is the case that it's not worth actively pursuing. If some new, earth-shattering bit of evidence comes up that throws the whole thing into a tailspin, then new ideas will be formed. Until then, however, the evidence points to X, so X it is.

This is why evolution is a fact, just like it's a fact that clouds float in the sky. Fact does not imply 100% airproof, uncontestable truth, otherwise there would be no facts. Fact simply implies that it's so unlikely that the statement is false as to not be worth even thinking about the possibility.

There is no meaningful debate on Evolution
When it comes right down to it, the only place evolution is debated is in the popular and legal realms, and neither of those are science. It's like arguing the speed of light from a legal perspective. It really doesn't matter what the judge or the population thinks, the speed of light doesn't really change based on public and legal opinions. It's not like if the majority of the population believes that the speed of light is half what it really is then the light from the sun is going to slow down and take twice as long to reach earth. Just like evolution, the speed of light doesn't care what you think. It just is, and nothing you can do will ever change that.

Random list of discredit anti-evolutionist arguments
Post your favorite anti-evolution argument and I'll explain why it's invalid. In the meantime, here's a common list:

1) Carbon dating is not accurate
This is a partial statement. Carbon dating is inaccurate in some respects. For example, you can't pull a fossil out of deep ocean water and carbon date it because the ocean retains a great deal of carbon and you'll get an inaccurate result. Fortunately, there are many different types of dating methods that are used for different situations depending on what was found where.

2) The sun is shrinking
The sun is not shrinking. The argument alone is fallacious, but that doesn't even matter because the information is just plain fiction.

The "argument" stems from a "finding" more than a quarter of a century old by John Eddy and Aram Boornazian at the American Astronomical Society meeting in 1979. The findings were immediately disputed and have since been determined to be the results of flawed instrumentation. Studies attempting to corroborate the findings found, respectively, 1/4 and 1/7 of the expected amount of shrinkage predicted by Eddy and Boornazian's results. It did, however, lead to the finding that the sun's diameter does shrink and expand on a regular cycle of about a 1/4 of a millenium.

Even if the findings had been inaccurate, it would still be a fallacy since it automatically assumes that because the sun was shrinking at the point in time of the discovery, it must have always been shrinking. There is, of course, no reason to believe this to be true.

3) Various "hoax" or "inaccurate" fossil records
For every one hoax there are hundreds if not thousands of validated fossil records. A handful of mistakes/hoaxes - all eventually discredited by science, ironically - does not invalidate the evidence provided by all the valid records.

4) The Watchmaker Analogy
This is perhaps one of the more maddening "arguments" presented, because it is clearly a false analogy. It was originally put forward by Cicero using a sundial and the shadow as an example (the movement of time is driven by intelligence) and then updated by William Paley using a watch. The argument goes:

a) A watch is complex
b) A watch has a watchmaker
c) Life is complex
d) Life must have a creator

You cannot, of course, logically infer that because two objects share one trait, they must naturally share another as a matter of course. This is easily illustrated by "proving" that money grows on trees:

a) Leaves have complex cellulite structures.
b) Leaves grow on trees
c) Money has complex cellulite structures.
d) Money must grow on trees

Meh. Abrupt journal entry end here.

Naturally.

I have been photo-shopping Jack Thompson pictures over at 4chan for much of the evening. It is surprisingly fun and good for unwinding. So far I have Emo-Jack and Potato-Head-Jack. Gonna go for goth Jack next, or maybe try to slip him into one of the skins from a GTA game just for the irony.

Allmovie.com says the movie "feels like it dove off the stupid bridge on the way to the big screen".

In my personal opinion that puts a bit of a polish on the movie that it really doesn't deserve.

RE2 is, quite possibly, the single worst zombie movie ever created in all of history. In fact, if a more idiotic zombie movie is ever created I believe that rather than blame the creator of that movie for making a really stupid movie, we can blame this movie for making the creator so stupid he couldn't make a smart one.

First of all, did anybody notice that they went to great lengths to try and explain how Nemesis, a rocket-launcher-toting hulk in a rubber mask and cheesy S&M outfit, came into being, along with the oddly supergirl-like Alice, but never bothered to explain where the lickers came from? So, okay, you just have these things that have somehow developed insect-like muscular structures and they all happen to converge on the church or maybe they just travel in packs and nobody knows where they came from or why, and since they're not really zombies the zombies attack them and....

Fucking Stupid (TM).

Of course, you can forgive this kind of lapse in a good zombie movie because the focus is on the zombies attacking and eating people and busting in through the doors. But we've already established that this isn't a good zombie movie, so let's get on with the complaining.

The goddamn action scenes are so imbecilic that I was embarrassed for Mila just watching them. Seriously. She runs down a wall.

SHE RUNS DOWN A FUCKING WALL.

I guess Raccoon City also happens to be situated over a temporal vortex where the normal laws of physics don't apply.

Oh, and that thing at the end where she fights Nemesis? There was so much cheese in that scene that I think I could have mixed up some macaroni with it and fed the entire world. For a year. Five meals a day. And still have plenty left over to feed everybody's pets too.

Yea, okay. So this thing can withstand countless gunshot wounds from high-powered military assault and sniper rifles, but it can't take a few punches? Whatever. Umbrella Corp must be a little on the light side when it comes to talented, intelligent individuals, because at some point you'd think somebody would've pointed out that they could've just bought a goddamn tank and flushed this rubber-mask-maniac down the toilet and been better off. I'll bet a guy with a sniper rifle and a squad with machine guns holed up in a store probably wouldn't have stood much of a chance against a Bradley either.

What really bites though is that I just watched Sin City yesterday. After watching badass Marv fly through his comic-book routine, I just can't say as I really look at Nemesis as that tough a shit. Marv could've fucking wrecked that guy. Hartigan could've fucking wrecked this chump. Hell, fucking Elijah Wood's character, Kevin Rourke, could've shredded this bitchass punk without breaking a sweat.

I bought this damn thing because I figured it would cost me $4 to rent it, so $6 to buy it wasn't a bad deal.

WRONG.

I want my $6 back. I want my $10 back. Somebody owes me sixteen fucking dollars and I want it back.

Probably that little fucker Nemesis. In fact, I think I'll go stomp his prissy little ass now and get my goddamn money.

I'm sick of all the various pricks out there telling me that I shouldn't be doing/saying X because of political issue Y.

So here's a list of people I don't give a flying fuck about when they're talking about specific subjects. Just for reference. I encourage you to print this out and keep a copy in your fucking wallet.

SUV Drivers talking about why I shouldn't be on their ass about driving an SUV.
Hey, here's a thought. If 99.5% of you motherfuckers drive like cerebral palsy victims with your hands stapled to the fucking steering wheel at the 12 and 6 position, maybe I don't really give a shit if the other 0.5% of you actually drive like sensible human beings. The majority of you are self-absored dickheads and I don't give a fuck if you feel otherwise.

Oh, and to that fuckwit in the Explorer about 25 minutes ago on 581 right outside Camp Hill? The dickhead that tried to merge between me and another car inches from my rear bumper just because he didn't want to brake and wait for two cars to pass?

Go ahead and cross me again motherfucker. If I had been the only one in the car I'd have stood on my brakes and then sued your shitty motherfucking ass when you caused a smashup.

Conservatives babbling about pretty much anything.

No WMDs, no threat, no discussion. You were wrong, Bush was wrong or lied, and that's all the fuck there is to it. I don't give a shit what nonsensical lies you've convinced yourself to believe, mkay?

Schiavo: you were wrong about everyfuckingthing. Again. Now fuck off.

Oh and hey? You want to chit chat about how you "made it on your own" because you worked in college?

No college, no training, no experience, motherfucker. I learned Perl on my own. I learned TCP/IP programming on my own. I learned C on my own. I learned how to set up a network on my own. I learned how
to write business cases on my own.

And I make enough money to drive a decent car, live in a decent apartment, stay well fed and stocked with beer, and I help support my fiancee while she's finishing up college, so you fuck right off with this "oh wah wah I worked so hard because I had a job stocking shelves at the local Wal Mart" bullshit. Yea? I worked seventy hours a week busting my ass RUNNING from door to door in 103 degree heat to sell coupon books to pay my bills while you were doing that SO SUCK MY DICK.

Well-to-do people yipping and yapping about capitalism
Capitalism is really great when it's not fucking your ass to a bloody, oozing pulp with a money clip, isn't it asshole? Guess what? I'VE been fucked over at every turn. Whether I was getting chased by cops for trying to make a living selling things door-to-door or because some fuckwad of a company wouldn't let me use the receipt THEY PRINTED to get a rebate, I've never had anything but bad experiences with this glorious "capitalism". Capitalism is really great until you get to a service society where you have rich managers paying poor workers to serve other rich managers, isn't it? Gee, the whole things goes to shit and creates an enormous impoverished base and an elite faction that controls nearly all the wealth once you eliminate the hard goods production that drives further development, huh?

Fuck you.

Anti-evolutionists talking about anything
You're fucking morons. It really is that simple. If the clergy told you that you're hand was the devil itself you'd gnaw it off in front of them with your teeth. Because you're fucking idiots.

Guess what folks? I don't give a shit anymore. I'm here for ME now. I'm sick of this shit where I try to be "fair" and "open minded" and people come in and shit all over everything because god knows we can't have simple intelligent discussions on anything. I'm sick of assholes running this society and trampling over everyone because you can't haul off and punch dickheads in the nose anymore without running the risk of becoming an indentured servant at the hands of some oily shyster looking to make a quick buck by exploiting this idiotic "pacifist" society we've developed.

Cluestick asswipes: this country would be a whole lot better if when some motherfucking cocksucker parked in a handicapped space just because he's lazy, somebody actually grew some balls and really handicapped him. I'm fucking sick and tired of this shit where I have to roll over and let people march over me like a doormat because of "civility". It's "civil" to be a dick and go flying through a parking lot at 35 miles per hour and nearly take out some kid in a stroller, but if someone pulls the cocksucker out of his Nissan Armada and beats him on the asphalt guess who gets the fucking shaft?

Fuck it. This entire country is fucking pathetic and you can all suck my hairy balls if you disagree. Grow some and stand up for yourself or somebody else who needs help for once. Victims aren't created just by crime, they're created by plain assholes taking advantage of people too. Grow a little spine and do something about it.

Long story short, I bought an SD card at Circuit City and it has a $10 rebate, but I destroyed that fucking plastic case it came in with a homicidal rage because, frankly, those goddamn things could be used in Iraq on the bottom of hummers to protect from IEDs they're so goddamn hard to get through.

Anyway, this means the UPC is gone, so no rebate. I will take one of two courses of action:

A) Just walk into Circuit City with a pair of scissors and cut the UPC out of another one right in the store.

B) Lie about the SD card not working, get a new one, and use the UPC from that one.

I'd take a camera in for documentation if (A) wins, but it's not my camera, and I'm afraid they'd confiscate it if (when?) they catch me. The only thing that bothers me about (A) is that it will almost certainly cause a confrontation between me and some poor schmuck who's making seven bucks an hour and really doesn't want to even be there. I don't give a shit about the store, I'd be just as happy if Circuit City, Fry's, Best Buy et. al. burned down and their entire boards died of simultaneous heart attacks. I feel bad for the poor suckers on the floor though because they get abused by the customers when the customers get abused by the company even though they really have no say in the matter.

Also, I'm watching "Live" and it looks like that blonde chick wants to reach over and rip out Regis's lungs. That would be cool.

Ex-player Bill Romanowski.

Let me sum this up for you so you don't have to waste your time watching the 60 Minutes piece on "Romo" tonight:

Bill Romanowski was, is, and always will be shit-sucking, self-absorbed scum and I don't think too many people would be real upset if he stepped in front of a speeding bus tonight. The fact that the man was even allowed to continue to play in the NFL for so long is proof-positive that the NFL isn't interested in devoted competitors, but more soap-opera-like assholes and no-talent hacks who drummed up controversy and kept the conversation bubbling from week to week.

That's your public service announcement. Thanks for your time.

And why the fuck can't I see story heading in "Lite" mode with this shitty new CSS interface?

Oh shi-

I have a question.

I have a Palm. It has a 256MB SD Card in it. I want it to be able to act like removable storage under Windows, and, although it works quite well, I don't want to buy commercial software to do it.

No, I don't want a thumb drive. I have enough crap on my keychain, including four keys for various things at work. I don't need anything else on it.

Even if that means I have to write my own bloody app for my Palm.

I understand the concepts involved in writing applications for Palms, and I'm guessing that figuring out how to interact with the USB device on the Palm will come with understanding PalmOS better. The problem I have in beginning my little project here is that I cannot, for the bloody life of me, figure out how to write a driver for a non-Windows platform that can interact with Windows. I understand that Windows XP has usbstor.sys which will theoretically allow me to use some sort of API to transfer files around.

But how the hell do I use it? Assuming I can figure out how to get through the enumeration process and I get Windows to understand that I just plugged in a mass storage device to the USB port and it loads usbstor.sys, what then? How does the communication work between my app on the Palm and Windows? I would assume I'm going to need to both send and receive commands that open/close, delete/create, and rename files since I'll need to do translations to make sure everything stays kosher. But how?

I'm totally lost. So far I figured out:

1) How USB enumeration works
2) How to write apps for PalmOS
3) How to do this on Linux with the USB kernel drivers.

But hell if I can do it with Windows. Lots of documentation telling me how to write a windows app that will interface with a USB device, can't find squat about how to write an app for a USB device that will understand Windows calls coming into the thing.

Of course, I'm probably just not understanding something about how Windows or USB communication in general works. Whatever the case, I'd very much appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction. And, of course, anything (useful) I manage to get developed will be GPL'ed.

As I am quite bored of it.

I should run a greatest hits show. It will be grand, indeed! We will have awards and popular culture speakers to present them, and they will give endless speeches to the tearful delight of a prim and proper crowd of America's best and brightest!

Also, if you let bottled water sit overnight, it gets a very unpleasant, biting, slick taste to it. I think someone maybe has poisoned me.

Anyway, my apologies to anyone I've offended over the last three years or so, and I hope you didn't take it all too personally. It was good for a chuckle, if nothing else, though some of you seem to be a little bit touchy. Perhaps you should seek therapy rather than pretending to be me as an AC (important tip, sir: I sign my posts from skratchpad, Battery Powered, and AC as TxMxP, not xTxMxPx).

As to what I shall do with this account now, I do not know. I could continue to write standard, boring political claptrap, or I could use it solely to troll. Alas, I could only post once a day in that case, so I don't know how well that would work out.

I could turn it over to someone else and just forgoe slashdot altogether, but I don't know if I want to do that.

I'm considering going about slapping down every pro-Linux post that crops up on the front page that I can find, but that would probably end in the same way pure trolling would.

Now what?

I feel pretty Oh so pretty I feel pretty and witty and gay
And I pity Any girl who isn't me today I feel charming Oh so
charming It's alarming how charming I feel And so pretty That I
hardly can believe I'm real See the pretty girl in that mirror
there? Who can that attractive girl be? Such a pretty face Such
a pretty dress Such a pretty smile Such a pretty me! I feel
stunning And entrancing Feel like running And dancing for joy
For I'm loved By a pretty wonderful boy GIRLS Have you met my
good friend Maria The craziest girl on the block? You'll know
her the minute you see her She's the one who is in an advanced
state of shock She thinks she's in love She thinks she's in
Spain She isn't in love She's merely insane It must be the heat
Or some rare disease Or too much to eat Or maybe it's fleas Keep
away from her Send for Chino This is not the Maria we know
Modest and pure Polite and refined Well-bred and mature And out
of her mind! Miss America, Miss America, speech! Miss America,
bravo, speech! MARIA I feel pretty Oh so pretty That the city
should give me its key A committee Should be organized to honour
me I feel dizzy I feel sunny I feel fizzy and funny and fine And
so pretty Miss America can just resign See the pretty girl in
that mirror there (What mirror, where?) Who can that attractive
girl be? (Which, what, where, whom?) Such a pretty face Such a
pretty dress Such a pretty smile Such a pretty me! MARIA & GIRLS
I feel stunning And entrancing Feel like running and dancing for
joy For I'm loved By a pretty wonderful boy

I think maybe America's problems might run a little bit deeper than wardrobe malfunctions and unintelligent design....

This is a quote by Thomas Sowell which I recently pulled from eglamkowski's journal. I did not read the rest of the journal.

Each day, as I take various pills, I realize that without those pills I might not be alive -- and, if I were, life would not be worth living. Yet those who produce these medications are under constant attack from people who produce nothing.

There are numerous things that annoy me about slashdot, the political climate in this country, and the world in general. This is an excellent illustration of several of them all at once.

Sowell, here, is dismissing charges of profiteering and outrageous pricing practices by sweepingly dismissing those who make the charges as if they're nothing more than unproductive whiners. His statement is quite simple - "I can afford these pills that make my life better, so I don't care about you or what you have to say about it because I'm comfortable and alive whether you are or not".

First annoyance: I hate it when conservatives whine that they're unfairly portrayed as "cold hearted" or "cruel".

Newsflash for you guys. You are. You're black-hearted bastards who, generally, wouldn't give a rat's ass about any other human on Earth outside your own little social shell if it weren't for the faux concern you have when you think it's going to score you points on your punchcard to get into heaven. The fact of the matter is quite simple: most conservative economic views can be boiled down to "if you don't have the money to make things happen, your life isn't worth living, so you should just commence with the dying and decrease the surplus population". This is a perfect illustration of that particularly diseased mindset. I wonder just what Mr. Sowell would think if he were lying in agonizing pain on his death bed because he couldn't afford to be alive and to have a "life worth living"? Would he still defend the drug companies that simply refuse to help him because his life isn't worth anything to their bottom line?

Second annoyance: Thomas Sowell is a successful syndicated columnist, and all he's doing here is applying an arbitrary negative label to a whole group of people who are trying to help suffering and dying people. He's demonizing people who value human life and dignity over corporate profits just because HE can afford his drugs while other people can't.

He will make money off of this selling ads, selling the column. People like kowski will quote him and venerate him for being so bluntly "wise" in the face of those whiny poor people.

Yet, the instant I paint any group of people - say freeps - with a single brush, the same people that are now quoting Sowell will jump down my throat and slash at me for spewing "ad hominems" and "strawman" arguments.

Third annoyance: the insistence of modern society to simply dismiss claims based on the speakers rather than the merits of the claim. What really annoys me here is not so much that Sowell is looking at some willingly unemployed communist who's plainly looking for society to take care of him in the absence of his own will to do so, he's just assuming that all the people who ever complained about drug costs are unproductive losers and then dismissing the arguments based on his own conclusion.

Never mind, of course, that many of the people who complain about drug costs are columnists just like Sowell. Never mind that many of the people who complain about drug costs are doctors and lawyers, two professions in which the average workload is probably twice what that "hard-working" mangod Sowell ever dreamed of. Never mind that many of the people who complain were gainfully employed until their disease - unlike Mr. Sowell's disease, apparently - debilitated them to the point where they couldn't work.

I guess, in the end, I should take solace in the knowledge that I'm ten times better a person than Thomas Sowell could ever hope to be. I don't put much stock in economists, since they're basically failed scientists as far as I'm concerned, but it still irritates the hell out of me when they try to talk about social issues because they invariably end up saying something painfully idiotic.

Whatever the cause for Sowell's apparent belief that money is the sole determining factor of the external value of another human being, I would just like to point out to everyone that this is yet another hard example of where I come away thinking that conservatives are cruel, stupid, and debased creatures of comfort with no objective but to prey on the weak for their own personal gain rather than to try and strengthen them for the good of the pack.

Keep this in mind the next time you think about whining because I portray these people negatively. There are solid reasons I do so, and this is one of them. If you don't want people to think you're an asshole, don't be one. It's that simple.