Venting

If this was a joke, it might be funny… but this is just sad.

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” Stephen Gardner, litigation director for the advocacy group said in a statement. “McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity.”

The group is the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

It undercuts parental authority?

If McDonald’s handing out toys undercuts a parent’s authority, then that parent has no authority (or backbone) to begin with. If you want to help your child develop in a mature manner, learn how to say “No” when Junior whines for a Happy Meal.

Good fucking grief.

I can’t believe shit like this is happening. These people are off their fucking rockers. I’m not saying McDonald’s is some bastion of healthy living (and frankly I think their food is rather bland), but this Stephen Gardner is way out there.

It’s never our fault and always someone else’s, especially if they’re a big corporation;we can’t and won’t take responsibility for ourselves or our children; self-control doesn’t exist.

The pussification of America continues.

BTW, CSPI is fairly well-founded as being full of shit. Witness here, and this whole website devoted to their bullshit.

Who’s racist?

/ hsoi

According to “modern politically correct society”, this man’s message is one of valiant struggle.

But change the speaker to “a white guy”, substitute “white” for “Mexicano”, substitute “Aryan Nation” for “La Raza”, substitute “Aryan Front” for “Northern Front of a Latin American Revolutionary Movement”… just make those small changes to his speech, but you can keep “our people” as “our people”. Suddenly, this same message becomes racist, again by modern politically correct standards. Why the double-standard? And how is it this man — who is angry about racism — doesn’t see his own racism? He is angry about racism directed at him, but then lashes out with racism of his own?

He claims superiority and justification due to his racial/ethnic heritage. He’s wanting to separate himself from the rest of the world and beat the rest of the world down (or at least “whites”), because they are not of his racial/ethnic heritage. And he wants only the people of his same ethnic/racial background to join him. Is that not racism?

If we really want to stop racism, we have to stop racism. Racism isn’t “whites oppressing non-whites”, it’s anyone claiming superiority due to their race, it’s anyone putting someone else down because of their race. It’s using race for leverage, for politics, as a rallying point, especially for selfish gain.

If you want people to stop caring about your race, you have to stop caring about your race. If you separate yourself from others by your race, expect others to separate you from others by your race.

I know my ethnic background, but I see myself as a human. The only groups I tend to split people into are good people and assholes. Being good or being an asshole has nothing to do with your ethnic background, your level of education, your economic status, gender, religious practice. It’s only a matter of what sort of person you choose to be and how you treat others around you.

Dumb fucks, eh?

/ hsoi

So, Facebook found Mark Zuckerberg thinks we’re all “dumb fucks”.

Last night I was talking with a friend. He’s semi-tech savvy and had a paper to write for a class, and being I’m sorta tech-savvy he wanted my input. I forget the details of the paper but the basic question was: “what do you want to see in eCommerce in the next 5 years?”

My answer?

Honesty and integrity.

But I want to see that period.

Facebook is prime example, and one that I constantly hum-haw over. I avoided Facebook for a long time, but one day while trying to find an old friend they came up via Facebook and joining was going to be my only way of reconnecting with them. So I gave in and did it. Since that time, I’ve reconnected with a lot of folks from my past, and it’s been quite a wonderful thing. It’s a casual social environment that allows me to socialize with friends all around the world from different parts and points in my life. I see what’s going on in their lives, and they mine. There’s just something great about the way the platform works that allows for this mode of communication and interaction. It’s great.

But Facebook needs to make money, so they make it by selling advertisements (ignore Mafia Wars and Farmville and all that). The way the ads work is simple: truly targeted demographics. People voluntarily enter in all this information about themselves. Then there’s various connections due to your friends. It’s just a fantastic way to analyze the things you might like and might care about, and even the things you could care less about, then to allow advertisers to deliver a perfectly targeted message right to the people they want to see it most. How awesome for the advertisers, right?

And if you turn it around, it’s actually good for you as the consumer. If you don’t care anything about cats but love dogs and list it as such in your Facebook profile (maybe your Info, maybe based upon your Likes, whatever), then you can be pretty sure that your time won’t be wasted learning about cat-based products. Good thing!

A personal prime example? That Motörhead show I recently attended? I learned about it because of a Facebook ad, and I’m so glad I did. So, I don’t get ads about Taylor Swift, but I do about Motörhead. That’s a good thing. I now have less chaff to sort through, I learn about things I want to learn about. Isn’t that a good thing for me as well as the advertiser?

So folks, don’t consider it to be a one-sided “they’re horrible” thing for them wanting to target you in such a way. And if you don’t like it well… don’t use Facebook, or if you do, mind what information you put on there.

So how does this relate to honesty and integrity?

Because Facebook hasn’t had either.

Look at how Facebook has behaved the past 5 years with their changing privacy policy. And then for those people who don’t want to play by their rules, it’s harder and harder to do anything about it, especially after the fact.

People don’t like that.

If Facebook had been honest from the get go, that’d be different. But they haven’t been honest. They have been arrogant. They are driven by money, not making happy users. Now I see nothing wrong with making money and as much money as you want to make. But, and call my naive, I believe you can make money and still be good. How does the Socrates quote go?

“Virtue does not come from wealth, but. . . wealth, and every other good thing which men have. . . comes from virtue.”

You may make money in the short-term by being ugly, but it won’t last. People will not stand for it. You may try to change your stripes, but your true colors have already been shown. Consider what Home Depot just did.

Karma’s real, folks.

Bass Ackwards

/ hsoi

Some Sprint employees stopped someone robbing an Apple store.

That’s not what’s bass-ackwards.

The Sprint employees were fired for having done so. Why? Policy, of course.

Last week Sprint HQ started asking questions, and shortly thereafter terminated their employment, citing a policy that “employees shouldn’t confront thieves” and classifying their actions as employee misconduct.

Utter bullshit. They do the right thing and this is the thanks they get?

Is it too much to ask?

/ hsoi / 13 Comments

Is it too much to ask for people to:

  1. Use a turn signal
  2. Check your mirrors
  3. Look over your shoulder (blind spot check)
  4. Ensure your rear bumper is at least oh…. a couple inches ahead of my front bumper, instead of 2 feet behind it)

all before you decide to change lanes in front of me?

Taking my mother to the airport this afternoon I had 5 people nearly put their rear bumper into my front bumper. All because they were changing lanes, into my lane, ahead of me. If I didn’t slam on my brakes each time we would have certainly kissed bumpers.

And every time there was no turn signal. No checking of mirrors. No looking over of the shoulder. And all started changing lanes before they were ahead of me.

Everyone says the drivers in their town are terrible. I’ve visited and driven in many towns throughout this country. And hands down Austin drivers are the fucking worst.

Today is going to suck.

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I just bit myself, hard.

Day job has me as a software developer. I was testing out some changes to a window layout. This window allows you to configure automated tasks… so say, at midnight your computer will automatically execute whatever you told it to do. Well, I was just testing out the GUI changes but needed a task in the window so I created a dummy task. The task ended up being set to move basically every file in my home directory into my Documents folder. I didn’t set it that way, those are just all the initial settings when you create a new task. I didn’t care.. .it was just to be a dummy task for the GUI testing, right?

Only I forgot to remove the task before I stopped work for the day.

I get to my work computer this morning and about shit myself because I saw everything was gone.

Only no, it’s not all gone, it just moved some 97,000 files to a single folder.

Shit. Shit. Shit!

And the sad thing is, my Time Machine backups were turned off because last month it started to constantly choke on these particular files, and I couldn’t resolve the issue. So the last backup I have is a month old. But hey, if I had a backup from a few hours prior I could just blast it back and be done with it.

Damnit.

Well, I know what I’m spending today doing.

*sigh*

Damn hair farmers

/ hsoi

So a 4-year-old — yes, 1… 2… 3… 4 years old — cannot attend classes because his hair is too long.

[Mesquite, Texas ISD officials] say the dress code prepares students for a business-orientated society where appropriate dress is critical.

Yet again we see how far out of touch school officials are with the rest of the world. Back in the 1950’s I’m sure “long hair” like this kid has probably could be held against you. Today? Pffft. I’ve had long hair for about 20 years and it hasn’t caused me any professional problems. I also don’t need to wear a suit and tie every day.

But the bigger question?

What sort of reasoning is that? This kid is 4-years-old. Four! What the hell are you doing preparing him for the business world? It wasn’t too long ago he learned to use the toilet on his own. His biggest concerns in life are getting another graham cracker, if today he’ll get to finger paint, and when is nap time. Good grief. Let the kid be a kid. About the only lesson for the real-(grown-up)-world you’re giving this kid right now is a healthy demonstration of how some adults can be douchebags.

But hey… yet another example of our failed public government school system.

On Voting

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

“I’d vote for them, if they had a chance of winning.”

I never understood that sentiment.

You know what? If you vote for them, they will have a chance of winning!

Ever notice that people only vote for a “possible winner” but then all we ever get in office is a Certified Loser?

 

Obviously another terrorist

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

So we had a 6-year-old Cub Scout suspended from school because he brought camping gear on school grounds. Zero tolerance.

Now we have a 17-year-old Eagle Scout suspended for 20 days because he had a 2 inch knife in his car. Why did he have a knife in his car?

Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town.

He lives in upstate New York, so getting caught out in the snow is a real possibility. So he keeps things in his car, ready in case of emergency. Good for him.

And so why is this all being done? Because they have to apply policy. Because they have to make an example out of him.

Whalen said he does not know why the 15 days were added, but he said a school district employee told him it was because the school wanted to apply its policies consistently.

“I’ve been told by someone who works for the district that they had to do it, because if someone else had a knife and they saw that I didn’t get a suspension, that it would look bad for the school.”

What looks bad isn’t Matthew Whalen. What looks bad are stupid school administrators making asinine rules. I thought schools taught critical thinking… but I guess they don’t need to apply it.

Secure in our illusions

/ hsoi

Robb Allen makes a point about “security theater”:

The problem isn’t that weapons can be easily brought in and out of theme parks (they are all the time), the problem lies with people accepting the stick in the backpack as ‘security’. People think that’s all it takes to protect them and their own and that kind of mindset spills over into the rest of our lives. We continue to accept these intrusions into our privacy that are nothing more than an illusion. Again, remind me how using a dowel to poke through a diaper bag prevents Thomas the Thug from carrying a 9 into the park?

I say that these types of false securities harm us more than help by lulling the populace into a false sense of safety. Because people allow themselves to be fooled that they’re “safe”, they’re less likely to look after themselves. Then, when all hell breaks loose, they look for someone else to blame then cry for more illusions from the government so that they don’t have to face reality.

So true. But this is how we are in America these days… we want someone else to worry about all the “hard things” because we have more important things to concern ourselves with, like what’s on TV tonight, who to vote for on American Idol, Michael Jackson, getting my “Obama money” (yeah, but where does it come from?), someone else paying for my care and well-being, and so on.

*sigh*

I need to stop else I’m going to get all ranty.