It has already begun.
Category: Uncategorized
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/me listens to pundants, beats head against desk
So… the question of the day, according to the news, is “how did the Republicans fail to get the presidency this time around?”
Gee…. let me see…
You take a your most left leaning candidate (thus failing to motivate your largely conservative base)
You try to dress him up as a staunch conservative (thus alienating everyone else that’s not paying attention)
Oh, and you fail to throw the guys who claim things like “women can’t get pregnant from rape” out of the damn party (thus giving the opposition plenty of ammo for their claims that Republicans are women hating racists who don’t believe in science)
I think the real question is:
How did the Republicans expect to win?
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How we got here
I was just in the car listening to the local VWRC affiliate, and at the top of the hour ABC News came on.
When they came to the (as of 10am central) 300 point drop in the DJIA, they described it thusly:
The Dow is down over 300 points today after yesterday’s election produced fears of gridlock in Congress, where Republican retained control
Yeah. Republicans in Congress. That’s why investors are freaking the hell out.
MiniTru is out in full force.
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And now for something a little lighter…
Was at a fairly major department store yesterday buying a few items, and had this conversation:
cashier #1: Do you have a [store] card you’d like to use?
me: nope
cashier #1: would you like one? It will save you %15!
me: If it’s a credit card, I’m not interested.*
cashier #1: Ok, think about. It’s a good deal.
me: I don’t use credit cards.
cashier #1: You don’t use credit cards? [looks puzzled at other cashier]
cashier #2: Don’t look at me. I don’t use credit cards either!
*you never know. Target now hands out cards that tie directly to your debit card and gives you the same discount as their credit cards.
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That DVD on your shelf? Yeah… you don’t own that.
To me, and many other folks, owning something means that I can do what I want with it. If I go to the store and buy a DVD, I should be able to take it home, and watch it on any of my devices that have a DVD drive in them right?
Nope. At least not legally.
Ever since the DMCA passed, a group from the federal government gets together every couple years to agree upon what is an isn’t a breach of the DMCA. They’ve once again decided that jail breaking/rooting your phone is permissible, but oddly enough not tablets that are essentially the same thing except bigger. Also, apparently modifying your gaming console? Also illegal. Which, oddly enough, means that the DoD is in violation of the DMCA for buying a boat load of PS3’s and using them for cluster computing.
Oh, and those DVDs that I mentioned? Yeah… you can only watch those on approved devices with approved software. If you were unaware, most DVDs that come from Hollywood are actually encrypted (CSS encryption). Of course, this encryption was broken years ago by people that wanted to watch their DVDs on non-approved players, but it’s still encryption.
This becomes important to me because most of the computers in my household are running Linux on them. There is no Hollywood approved player for Linux out there. The reason? because that would cost money. There’s a paid license attached to every encrypted DVD, DVD player, and commercial copy of DVD playback software that goes to the owner of the encryption scheme (the DVD CCA).
So… just to be clear, I were to:
Buy a legal copy of… say… the Avangers, a bit of my purchase goes to the DVD CCA
I pop it in to the DVD-ROM in one of my Linux computers that came with a Windows only DVD playback program (so, a little of that purchase went to the DVD CCA).
I use one of the handful of free DVD playback programs for Linux to watch my *legal copy* of the movie.
I’m breaking the law, and am an evil, evil pirate.
Oh, and those nifty new Blu-Ray discs? Just as bad, if not worse.
One of the definitions of ownership is being able to do what you want with the item. Legally speaking, I am not allowed to consume DVDs and Blu-Ray discs in the fashion that I desire, therefor I can not say that I own them.
Oh, and by the way, those commercials and PSAs that you can’t skip through on DVDs? Yeah… using non-authorized software means that you can. Doing the illegal thing is actually a better user experience than walking the straight and narrow and you have coughed up the money to the right people.
*EDIT – Corrected the typo pointed out by Chris Byrne*
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Huh… advertising must work!
Went to the range yesterday to try out the 795 after the upgrade and check the zero on the new scope. I decided to take the Marlin Papoose with me to check on its zero as well. I’ll write about the 795 in a different post.
I’ve noticed I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the Papoose since it magically transformed from a Browning Buckmark to its current state. Probably the biggest question?
“Is that one of those new Ruger 10/22 take downs?”
most of these folks had no idea that Marlin started making a take down back in the 80’s, but by god, they’d seen the Ruger 10/22 take down ads plastered everywhere.
Gee… I guess advertising really does work… who knew?
Of course… folks these days seem to assume that all .22 rifles are 10/22s, but…
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More adventures in applied chemistry
No… I haven’t blown anything up…
Although… this is currently being shipped to me…
Regular readers of this blog may remember that I bought a MrBeer kit back in March. I gave it a shot with the mix that came with it, and it came out like higher end American beer (which is the way it was supposed to come out). Not my favorite, but definitely not bad. Haven’t really returned to it, since I’m honestly not much of a beer drinker.
I quickly moved on to making apple pie, which I am a fan of. I’m still messing with the recipe some, but the couple batches I’ve made haven’t been half bad, and it’s a lot less wait time than actually brewing stuff. I’ll throw up the recipe I’ve been using so far if anyone’s interested.
After some prodding by some folks on #GBC, I’ve finally decided to try my hand at mead. Of course, me being the lazy bastard that I am, I’ve decided to try out the recipe for the quickest and easiest mead found here.
I figure that it sure be mead right around Christmas time.
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and now for a randomly inspirational post…
I swear… this won’t be a regular occurrence.
Erin Palette over at Lurking Rhythmically has been doing some soul searching recently. I’ll let her speak for herself as to why and on what, but she raised the question of why folks thought that she was brave for doing something she thinks should be easy. I reminded of something that happened during one of my Tae Kwon Do testings.
It was my first testing after my 10 yeah hiatus. I had started over again as a white belt ans was testing for my yellow belt. With this instructor, testings end with everyone that tested that day breaking boards. I thought on what I wanted to break with. It had been a while, so I’d go with something easy… palm strike!
I get up to break, and the instructor asks what I’m going to break with. I tell her palm strike, and she starts walking to the boards. She tells me two boards… ok… one with each hand… ok… at the same time… urk… “yes, ma’am.” I get set up, all the time trying to figure out how this should work. The board holders set the boards. I do my best, and break the boards without issue on the first try. Not break that a normal white going to yellow belt, but I used to be a red belt years ago.
Later, a lady that was in her late 70’s and testing for her 2nd black belt came up for her break. her best days physically were obviously behind her, and she was starting to have some serious health issues (she would pass away less than two years after this). Our instructor new this, and instead of asking the normal amount of breaking for that rank, she just had to break one… with a side kick. Side kicks are the probably the most powerful kicks in our art when performed properly. She didn’t break it on the first try…
or the second…
or the third…
Honestly, I don’t remember how many tries it took her, but she did finally break the board. She could have given up, and not received her stripe that day, but she did it. The entire room was ecstatic for her.
Here’s the thing. I’m pretty sure most of the folks in the room assumed I was going to fail at least once or twice with my break, and were surprised when I didn’t. Similarly, everyone assumed that this lady was going to succeed without issue, and was shocked when she didn’t (a black belt failing to break one board?!).
The first time she failed; ok, that was a fluke. It’s the times after that that doubt and fear of failure start to creep in. Especially on something that should be easy for you. If you fail at something that everyone tells you is hard, no big deal. Fail at something that should be easy? You start worrying about yourself.
The key thing is to remember that nothing is the same level of difficulty for everyone. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Trick is knowing which is which.
I’ll try to make the next post about blowing stuff up or something.
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Overheard in the house last night
Me: Oh, we got another couple kids trying to sell magazines come by earlier.
Naienko: ok…
Me: Yeah… At one point, the guy said “it’s helping us read and become knowledgeable instead of getting into guns and drugs and stuff… So what are your hobbies?”
Naienko: …umm… Guns and alcohol?
