Color Management

I've never liked the whole color management thing in regards to digital imaging. Although from a theoretical standpoint it makes sense; profiling all your gear to get consistent color and whatnot, but in practice it is mostly a huge pain in the ass. The cynic in me thinks that this entire color management thing is simply a scheme cooked up to make money and make people think they're doing something useful when you're really just jerking the computer off. My experience with color management has been that you mess around for hours and in the end you get color that is like 5% better\different than what you had to start with. Case in point, those suction cup monitor things. We bought two new Apple Cinema Displays for our designers and of course had to get the calibration doodads. So I ran the software, went through all the rigamarole and in the end you can compare your monitor new fancy pants profile with the bone stock settings. THERE AIN'T MUCH DIFFERENCE! Oh boy, so it's a little less red than before. Whoop de doo. Yeah, THAT was worth 300 bucks...it's a joke.

I do admire the extremely technical-minded people who can grasp all the scientific stuff involved, but when you just want to git 'r done, cripes what a waste of time! When I worked for a commerical printer doing scanning\color correction\retouching we didn't screw around with color management, we just used a little utility by Thomas Knoll called Adobe Gamma. Tweaked it so our greys were as neutral as possible on our monitors and had decent contrast and we were off. There are perfectly good reasons for using measurement tools, but when you're dealing with an inherently subjective medium like photography I think there's a lot of leeway for the "well it looks right" approach.

The other thing to consider is that no matter how accurate and precise your spectrophotmeter or colorimeter is, your klunky 'ol analog eyeball\brain system is correcting for color shifts anyway. It is SO damn relative! You can work at a CRT monitor for a few hours tweaking a photo and think you've got the most brilliant image with blazing hot highlights, but then you look over to the lightbox with the original transparency and think, "Fuck! It's ten times brighter!" I am a big fan of CRTs, but put a Cinema Display side by side with one and the CRT looks dull and dim. But you can still do great work with either format. Your brain gets used to the "flaws" of either system.

Perhaps I am just jealous of those who are imminently technically-minded and completely grok the whole color management process? I think part of it has to do with the fact that running all these calibration procedures is not usually something one needs to do on a daily basis. It seems to be a fairly involved process that is easily forgotten from disuse. When our Epson 9800 began drifting at work I was in a real funk because I couldn't remember or make sense of the steps necessary to generate profiles. I honestly don't know if the software is poorly designed or I am not smart enough for it. It could go either way. I wonder if the same could be said of Photoshop? I hope not. I hope it's poorly designed. Heh!

In many ways the whole printing process is poorly designed. I can accept that there are numerous parameters to control, I can accept that it is complicated, I can accept that not every user needs to understand every parameter which is adjustable. However, I cannot accept the interface. By that I mean there are far too many screens involved. I honestly think there could and should be a SINGLE screen\dialog box for printing. I must give credit to Adobe, their dialogs for Acrobat and Illustrator come very close. Anyway, that's beyond the scope of color management and I couldn't possibly add more words to the title.

Cumulus Server Is A Suicide Bomber

Why, when Cumulus server crashes does it have to take down everyone with it? What's wrong with crashing and restarting? Do you have to corrupt the open databases and force us to endure a three hour repairing session? What is it doing when it's repairing? What's actually broke? Why is it sorting records? It's completely ridiculous. Just crash, fine I get it, you can't hack it. I asked you to catalog 10 records, perfectly understandable that that was too much to ask. But why can't you just crash and then I can restart your sorry weak ass again? Why kill the database? What did it ever do to you? Just by virtue of being open on my machine you have to kill it mercilessly? Fuck you Cumulus Server!

Blessed Be The Warmakers

It's pretty amazing how widespread the absolute adoration for the military is in the US. Just about everything I read shows people bending over backwards to thank the saintly soldiers and their sacrifices. And I don't disagree, of course it's a sacrifice. You volunteer your entire being over to the State, shave your head so you look like everyone else, wear the same uniform as anyone else and completely surrender yourself to a single central authority. Then you are taught to kill people and destroy things without question. You are taught obediance and strict adherence to rules. Then we are told that such people are the fundamental cause of and defenders of...FREEDOM!? Huh?!

The jingoistic propaganda has taken root. Everyone repeats the same lines about how military veterans ensure that we lowly civilians can VOTE (ooh ahh) and have FREE SPEECH! If there was no military there'd be no free speech apparently. Huh? And voting? Oh boy, I get to vote on which powermad creep gets to spend my money the way he sees fit. Oh boy, sign me up for that. I don't have any want or need for a "leader" to somehow guide my life by remote control. So the ability to vote for politicians doesn't hold a lot of weight to me. Sure there's people I like and agree with, but if you think that it's possible for another person to act as your avatar, and not only you but thousands of others, well then I think that's an insane idea. The best represenative government is one where each person is their own president.

There's no doubt that soldiers have a tough job and their trials and tribulations can often be very touching and profound, but there's a lot of tough jobs out there. Soldiers are no more deserving of our respect than anyone else. Why are the most violent jobs worshipped and not the most peaceful ones? All the good things we enjoy arise from the collective efforts of non-violent people. These things exist either in conjunction with or in spite of violent military operations. Peaceful, intelligent, reasonable, hard working and crafty people will continue to work to make human existence positive despite the efforts of power-hungry and violent people who desire to coerce their fellow man if they don't see things the same way.

Yes, many people will be directly helped by military effort. Absolutely lives will be saved by their intervention. But it is absurd to think that ALL people owe their lives to the military. Nobody needed to be shot or blown up with explosives in order for me to write this blog and all the vast amounts of technological advancements that needed to occur behind it. Peace and freedom is not maintained by US military presence in countries all over the world. It is maintained by trading goods and services between countries. Are we also to offer our humble appreciation to the soldiers and veterans in those countries "we" are at war with? Shall we respect Iraqi soldiers for defending their country as well, even though it's a theocratic system at odds with our own? Is their "sacrifice" any less? Their idea of freedom apparently involves a really goofy book and is vastly different than ours. The US military idea of freedom is vastly different than mine.

There is not a menacing black cloud of palpable Evil which is being kept at bay by the military. Human society does indeed have a violent history, but more often than not it is a peaceful one. Our cooperation and respect for one another is what allows free speech to happen, not our willingness to engage in violent conflict with each other. If the military is so great then why don't we all become soldiers and then we can be in a perpetual state of war and patriotism? Or would you rather have a real job, where your labor and skill can be used to increase wealth and well-being? Humans will likely always have a secret desire for violence and battle, but there are other avenues to express this need without actually losing your life in the process.

You might think this opinion makes me anti-American, unpatriotic or traitorous. I don't really care. Call me whatever names you like. I can't be patriotic because it's hard to be in love with groups in numbers that are hard to fathom. I can't be in love with an entire country. There might be thousands or millions of people I think are great, but others I think are jerks. I'll never meet them all, so how can I know? I will give everyone the benefit of the doubt however and say that the majority of humans are probably good and don't want to kill me or take away my liberty. So my patriotism extends beyond geographic borders. But I can't give it that name.

Just don't try to kill me or rob me, don't put me in jail, don't try to shut me up, don't make me worship your religious ideals and we're fine. I will extend the same courtesy to you. None of this requires camoflage or M-16s to make it happen.

This Photo Of The Californian Fires From Reuters Looks Like A Hieronymus Bosch Painting

Aina? Photographer is Max Whittaker it would seem.

One Shot One Kill

Yes that's right, if you make ONE mistake on the online banking login the system locks you out. Uh, well I guess that's a secure system...secure against both legitimate and criminally-intent users. Where else have you encountered a system that does not even give you a second chance!? Even the system we have at work allows you three tries. Is this how the l33t hAx0rz (sic) work? They just try random names and passwords to see if they work?

"Well I found out this guy named Bob Smith has an account here, I'm gonna see if his password is "bs" Nope. How about "bs1" Nope. How about "bobsmith". Nope. Oh, I know Bob is 48 years old, let's try "bobsmith48" Nope. *sigh* Man being a hacker is hard work! This is gonna take me hours, but rest assured I will have Bob's money! Muwhahaha! I tell you, I sure hate freedom! I wish everyone could live in slavery, then we'd have peace. I swear, if I could just get Bob's money to give to Al Queda they'd meet their February budget and be able to wipe out all non-believers with the seal over their hearts and that. I can't wait! I hope my fingers don't cramp up from trying passwords all night!"

Useless Laws In Action

This post is not going to be all that elegant because I'm writing it when I'm MAD. You shouldn't do that, but I'm doing it anyway. I've now been locked out of my online banking accounts at Associated Bank for the fourth time. Why? Because the federal government passed a shitty law about so-called security questions that you have to answer. There's this list of bullshit trivia they quiz you on and you're supposed to fill in an answer for. "What's your favorite candy?" "What's the name of the street you grew up on" and stuff like that. Yeah I get it, stuff only the user would know. Usually I enter just my normal password and get in, but every month or so it seems I enter the password and then the shitty, government-crippled system barfs out "You've been locked out cause your security questions were not answered correctly". Which is a damn lie because they didn't even ASK them. Either the system locks you out instantly or it is programmed to fail on some kind of timed interval. But you cannot call some automated line, a case where automation would be welcomed actually; instead you have to call during daytime hours to speak with a bank person to reset the fucking questions. IT IS THE LAMEST MOST BOGUS SECURITY AND THE BIGGEST PAIN IN THE ASS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A COMPUTER SYSTEM!!! Fuck the Federal Government and fuck their laws that treat me like a fucking terrorist. I'M NOT SENDING MONEY TO AL QUEDA YOU USELESS BUREAUCRATS, I'M JUST TRYING TO PAY MY FUCKING BILLS!!! This is what you get with laws, good intentions, total failure in action. And what can I do, close my account? I'd LOVE to. I'd LOVE to rip Associated Bank a new asshole for this treatment, but it's not their fault, they're just OBEYING like everybody. I'm sure this pointless hot air piece of legislation makes ALL banks have to fuck up their systems with this silly hoop jumping. Fuck them. If this is security I don't want it. I'll take my chances with just my plain 'ol password, thanks. AND I DON'T WANT TO BE LOCKED OUT BECAUSE OF A FUCKING TYPO!!! I'm HUMAN for fuck's sake, I can't type perfectly every time! Hitting a Y instead of a U doesn't mean I'm a hacker trying to steal money. Forgetting which serial number I've added to the end of my regular password (thanks to the ordinary bullshit practice of expiring passwords) doesn't make me a guy hellbent on funding terrorists!

Invisible Mouse Buttons

I just ran into an interesting PEBCAK problem with a co-worker. (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard) He is using the Apple Mighty Mouse (at least I think that's what it's called, the white one with the tiny scroll ball) and had occasion to use a contextual menu. That in itself should be somewhat of a red flag, don't people use contextual menus all the time? Hmmm. Anyway, there is a plugin I've installed on all the department machines which copies the path of a file into the clipboard so you can paste it into an e-mail. So if Jim wants to tell Bob to open up the October Sales Projection document he right clicks on the file on the server, chooses this "Copy Path To Clipboard" command and pastes the string into an e-mail. Easy enough, right?

Now here's a criticism of Apple's hardware; they made a three button mouse that looks like a NO button mouse. It doesn't have buttons per se, but it has sensitive areas which function just like buttons. By default the driver is set to make the mouse one button. This is why the co-worker thought he could not right-click on the files. So I showed him how to change the driver preferences to make the right sensitive-invisible-button to be "Secondary Click" and the left side "Primary Click". This seemed to be fine for a few weeks.

Then today he says that he changed the prefs back to both sides being Primary Click because he was getting unwanted contextual menu popups in the Finder. Why? Well it's simple; because he always clicks with his middle finger on the right side of the mouse. Erm, okay... So it had nothing to do with the software or hardware, just that you're clicking the wrong button! Sheesh! So I explained to him the revelation that Control-Click is the same as Secondary Click on the Mac. What about swapping the buttons around? It's like he's left fingered on his right hand or something. Really really strange.

It's Not Even Halloween Yet You Idiots

Could we PLEASE stop rushing holidays further and further ahead of the day they actually happen? It's bad enough to be rushing Christmas in November but now the bastards are pushing it in fucking October! People, a holiday is ONE day. ONE SINGLE DAY, not THREE MONTHS! The next holiday coming up is HALLOWEEN. Got it? HALLOWEEN. Not Thanksgiving, not Christmas, not New Years, just fucking HALLOWEEN. Can we stick to that? Stop skipping ahead!

Since time is apparently malleable to whatever we want how far will this nonsense go? A year ahead of time? On December 26th 2007 the stores will be advertising sales for Christmas of 2008?! Why stop there? Why not five years ahead of time? Hell, let's just make every single day Christmas so we can have non-stop sales and shitty Muzak at all times.

Gee, Thanks Allah

Even more difficult to believe than the idea of some supreme god who created the universe are the texts allegedly written by these deities. I started reading the Koran and it is equally if not more mind-numbingly dull and pointless as the Bible is. I can't get past Genesis in the Bible and I couldn't get past "The Cow" in the Koran. Truly, it might as well just say, "Blah blah blah". It all just starts with a bang, single phrases thrown at you with no set up or explanation whatsoever. But nevermind that, it's not supposed to be entertaining or interesting, this is the Word Of God, right? The most important thing you could possibly read! Wow, it must be good.

Already, right out of the gate I've been doomed as a non-believer within the first ten verses. Just listen to this rubbish, if you don't fall asleep first:

[2.1] Alif Lam Mim.
[2.2] This Book, there is no doubt in it, is a guide to those who guard (against evil).
[2.3] Those who believe in the unseen and keep up prayer and spend out of what We have given them.
[2.4] And who believe in that which has been revealed to you and that which was revealed before you and they are sure of the hereafter.
[2.5] These are on a right course from their Lord and these it is that shall be successful.
[2.6] Surely those who disbelieve, it being alike to them whether you warn them, or do not warn them, will not believe.
[2.7] Allah has set a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing and there is a covering over their eyes, and there is a great punishment for them.
[2.8] And there are some people who say: We believe in Allah and the last day; and they are not at all believers.
[2.9] They desire to deceive Allah and those who believe, and they deceive only themselves and they do not perceive.
[2.10] There is a disease in their hearts, so Allah added to their disease and they shall have a painful chastisement because they lied.

So much for free will! Allah has made me this way, I can't do anything about it and I'm gonna be tortured for it! Geez. Muslims supposedly want everyone else to convert to Islam but what about Allah making us this way? It sounds like we've got no control over our destiny. Oh don't worry, I'm sure there's another verse for that. These singular holy texts written by the single holy dude have an odd way of containing multiple meanings and interpretations. Hardly the clear, concise instruction a deity would need to communicate his big divine plan to the masses.

Why isn't there a "God Language" and why don't newborn babies speak and understand it? If there is one god shouldn't there be ONE common language? Why don't humans innately understand Arabic? Oh wait, now I remember:

BECAUSE THEY MADE THIS SHIT UP!

Ahh, it all makes sense now. How this mindless garbage still survives in the modern world I will never understand. We need to grow up, folks. Luckily there's plenty of GOOD literature around, and we needn't slaughter each other over it. Take "The Silmarillion" for instance. Why can't this become a religion? Tolkien writes more interesting stuff than anything in the Bible or Koran. And let's give him credit, the Silmarillion IS a tremendously dry tome. Plus it starts out with a creation story and everything. Come on folks, let's all switch to Illuvatar worship! Hooray!

Voluntary Censorship or Debate?

One of the great things about the web is that people can argue, debate and generally go back and forth about their ideas. Sometimes it can be calm, or heated and sometimes people can start screaming at each other (to the extent that one CAN "scream" in text) But one thing I find particularly vulgar is for person A to actually request that person B change the very words they wrote in order better satisfy person A. Is this voluntary censorship or debate? This is a fine line I'll grant you, but to me there is no grey area here. It is the difference between a real argument and self-censorship.

Censorship is wrong because it is a lie. If you alter the original idea you are fundamentally violating the author's ideas. No matter what positive end you hope to gain by altering the words it is still a lie. It is perfectly fine to challenge a person's ideas, to tell them why you think they're wrong, even to scream at them what an asshole they are. But to try and craft another individual's words to better suit your ideas about HOW they should come across to others is a terrible insult. It's so feeble-minded to try and do that. It shows that you don't really have an adequate response to their message but only wish that they hadn't said it like that. How weak!

How dare anyone seek to change what you say or how you say it by these mealy-mouthed requests! People's minds are changed and new ideas are gained by a long and continuous string of unfettered communication, not by going in 'behind the scenes' and tinkering with the parts. That to me smacks of poltics and bureaucracy rather than a free exchange of ideas. It goes a step backward from genuine persuasion. It is one thing if you are writing an article and working with an editor who wants to change your words around, but here I am speaking of online communication between people. Opinions vs. opinions.

Challenge people about what they say, but don't be so rude and self-important to make them change how they say it or what words they should or should not use. Offer your own idea in turn and explain why you think you're right. Don't tinker with the semantics! You may achieve the same ends after all.

Printing - The Case For A Single Dialog

In the general sense computers keep getting better and better, however there also exists the phenomenon of getting used to bad designs. We learn to accept and work around unnecessarily complex software. Perhaps complex is not the right word, more like disorganized. With the amount of functions that we want our software and hardware to do making things simpler isn't the easy answer, but I do think things can be made far more organized so that the operator can view and change the parameters without a lot of fuss. I speak specifically of printing. No matter if your platform is Mac or Windows, printing software is absurdly complex. There are literally dozens of dialog boxes you can go through, some of them are useful for what you want to print, others aren't. But no matter what you have to memorize a dizzying array of screens\dialogs to wade through before you get what you want. If you ask me the whole thing is a complete mess and we need to start over on this printing business. There is far too much rope with which to hang one's self.

I print stuff everyday on a variety of printers from desktop inkjets to laser printers and high end RIPs. Even though I have learned what most of the settings mean and how to get it to print in the way I want, it is still very frustrating and numerous mistakes are incredibly easy to make. Learning the settings is difficult enough, but the process is made all the worse in that there are too many places to make the settings. There's an OS interface, an application interface, and a printer interface and they all might have redundant or self-defeating settings. The possibility for screwing it all up is extremely high. Why does it have to be this complex? Why do we have so many places to change printer settings? We need ONE dialog box. Make it full screen. Use every inch of the monitor to display EVERY setting. Be able to change everything in one screen with NO hidden functions. Show a legible preview of exactly what you're getting.

The closest I have seen to a decently-designed print dialog is Adobe Acrobat's, but that's not saying much. There are still plenty of hidden functions. Why are there TWO separate dialogs for Page Setup and Print? If you hit Print and the page size isn't correct for your printer you have to exit that dialog and open another. It makes no sense, I am printing the damn thing, so why not have all the preferences clear and visible in one go? If it makes sense to hide the features you never use that's fine, but at least the option should be there.

Maybe nobody cares about printing in this day of gee whiz pocket organizer doodads, but I know my job would be a lot easier if I thought there was some logical interface to use when printing documents. We have just piled complex stuff on top of each other without trying to make it one cohesive operation.

What Defines Cheating In Sports?

I personally have no interest in following professional sports, but I do occasionally read other people talking about sports or listen to people talking about sports on the radio. It seems that there is a lot of hoopla over steroids and whatnot. I'd be curious to know what people are actually upset about when a certain athlete is found to have used steroids, or blood doping or whatever the heck it is that athletes do; is it because they broke the rules of the sport or because it is unethical and subjectively dirty and underhanded to use these substances? Personally the only argument I can support is that the athletes broke the rules of the sport. If the rules say you can't take drug A B or C then you ought to be disqualified. But if there aren't such rules I don't see using drugs in the same sense of cheating. There was some guy in the Tour De France who was kicked out for having a blood transfusion or something. I find it hard to feel much enmity towards these guys because whatever they are putting in their bodies they're still huffing it on a bike for miles and miles. To me cheating in a bike race isn't using drugs, it would be if you put a motor on the bike or sticking a rod through a guy's spokes, having your friends pull a rope across the road as your rival passed by, taking a shortcut off the course or something. Chemicals are a much more nebulous subject.

I'm sure if I was allowed to take every single performance-enhancing drug known to man I still would not be able to throw a baseball as good as the worst professional ball player out there. The degree of physical ability and training that pro athletes have seems amazing enough to me. I would be more likely to call drugs cheating if there exists such a drug where you can take a guy off the couch, inject him with this substance and he can beat the undrugged pro athlete who has been training and practicing for years.

I dunno, I'm just glad I don't actually care about this subject! HA!

Quark License Administrator

The government isn't the only group that can treat you like a suspected criminal at all times. Take for instance, Quark Inc. If it were up to me we would never pay money to endure this sort of anti-piracy abuse. Quark does not trust you, they think you are a low down dirty software pirate stealing bread from their table. You pay them five fucking grand for their goddamn page layout software and then you have to endure the most draconian software licensing scheme I have EVER encountered. Why? Because you're not a valued customer, you are a potentional enemy and thus you must prove yourself worthy every time you boot the program. Convicted child rapists probably undergo less scrutiny than the average Quark user! My fear is that Adobe will also adopt this customer-is-criminal approach too. Look, I realize piracy is an issue but it did not stop these companies from becoming HUGELY SUCCESSFUL. Legit, paying customers are keeping these guys afloat and as a legit user I must protest this draconian horseshit. I want to pay to use a page layout program, not appease some whiny Quark License Administrator software! Fuck QLA, fuck it right in the ear.

I Don't Get MySpace

In addition to not being hip to myspace whenever the hell it started becoming the popular thing I also developed an unexplained aversion to it. I don't know why. Perhaps it's the fact that every myspace page I ever looked at is a design abortion? What the hell is going on there? Why does everyone choose to use a complex photo background so you can't READ ANYTHING??? I don't have cause to go there but whenever I have the page looks like digital vomit. They remind me of those copy protection schemes used by computer games back in the old days where you had to read something using a red filter over your eye.

That's what I like about Blogger here, its templates do not encourage hideous web design. You have to try harder to fuck it up and make it an illegible mess. Seems like with MySpace the illegible mess goes with the territory. I don't get it.

FUCK UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Gas Boycott, What Was I Thinking!?

Recently I put my foot right in a big cowpile of illogic and thought I should come clean. I was headed out to my step brother's place this past Mother's Day with my folks. My dad informed me of some 'nationwide gas boycott' thing where you weren't supposed to buy gas on tuesday. I thought it was a good idea because it was a market-based solution, not a government regulation one. I thought it was a good way to Stick It To The Man. But the next day my stupidity became embarrassingly obvious. A one day gas boycott, are you freakin' NUTS? What the hell is that gonna do!? Don't buy gas tuesday but wednesday's okay? Ridiculous! I am not very good at thinking on my feet unfortunately.

If you want to Stick It To The Oil Man you simply have to make a LONG TERM CHANGE IN YOUR GASOLINE CONSUMPTION. Better yet, make a short term change by actually consuming gasoline. You will die and Mother Earth will be reborn in splendor. No but seriously, unless you make a fundamental reduction in buying gas they aren't going to see any decline in sales. Reduce unnecessary trips, use a bike instead of a car, move closer to work, buy a more efficient car...these things will actually help. Everything else will be either symbolically good but useless or have the reverse effect.

But fundamentally I am stumped by the fact that complaining about gasoline prices are a favorite pastime of Americans. I am an evil person who wants to destroy the universe which means I commute a long distance to work everyday, burning fossil fuels and causing unborn babies to choke on deadly smog. However, the cost of this earth-raping madness of mine has never really caused me undue grief. Gasoline does not comprise a huge portion of my spending. If it bothered me so much I would have recourse, I could move closer to work. I wish all the gas price complaints were directed instead at something truly nefarious like say the income tax, or our fiat currency system which causes inflation in the first place.

A boycott of a certain product or company seems to be a form of protest. But what was the message of this alleged one-day gas boycott?

"We're pissed about high gas prices and you oil companies can go to hell!"

or was it actually:

"We're pissed about high gas prices and uh, we're going to keep buying it anyway. So yeah, go to hell oil companies! Um, just as long as you can still sell me gas in Hell...please? I need it..."

Let's face it, certain industries have got us by the balls. The energy business is a great business to be in. We all want it, and there's people willing to provide it. Sure we can go without, but well, it's really really nice to have. Sometimes I wish I worked in such an industry. Something like energy, food, drugs, funeral homes...these are industries that will never go away. I work in a lesuire activity industry that's based upon another industry whose golden age is slowly fading into history: model railroading! And it's in the printed page too, another area I worry is threatened by the steady march of progress. But I digress...

As they say in Morbid Angel, "send up our hate\to burn Heaven's gate". Such hate ought to be addressed to Washington D.C. and not the local filling station in my opinion.

(cripes, don't use the spell check on Blogger, it fucks up your text! *doh*)

Chubby Chasers: A Future Federal Agency?

As the USA stumbles inevitably towards its fascist destiny, blithely ignoring all the lessons of history I can't help but wonder if there will ever be a saturation point? Is there anything the feds will stop short of? Is there any War On _____ that will hit too close to home for even the slickest politicians to weasel out of? Personally I think it's gotta be the War on Fat. Nobody cares that much when minority groups have their rights bulldozed by the feds, but when the time comes when being overweight is illegal how will fat politicians possibly legitimize that? Fat people are the majority! America is large and in charge. JimSensenbrenner wants to make sure your papers are in order with his Real ID horseshit, but one look at the jowly mug of this creep and it's hard to imagine this guy pushing a fat crackdown. It would look very bad. I know, we're talking about professional hypocrites here, but somehow I think they'll stop short of the fat war.

All the other crackdowns middle America seems to be perfectly happy with. Yeah, go bust the pot smokers, the cigarette smokers, teenagers who have voluntary sex and get busted for mutual rape, go ahead and bust those terrible Mexicans who come here ILLEGALLY (*gasp*!) go ahead and bust down the wrong people's doors looking for naughty drugs, go ahead and strip search me at the airport; we're Average Americans, we don't give a shit! As long as the Other Guy is getting fucked we don't give two shits, right? But ahh, what's this now? Going to jail for being fat!? Mandatory federal exercise programs? Taxes levied per pound? Food bans? Wait a minute, I'M FAT! NOW I'M A CRIMINAL TOO!!! Oh no! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

But we're not going to do anything are we? We are gonna wait until the jackboot has got our oesophaguses halfway crushed before it dawns on us that gee, things may have gone too far. Yeah well, what can ya do? Humanity can't seem to get off this ride. Just a continuous cycle of oppression and bloodshed. We don't learn. *sigh*

Listen to movie Gandalf's advice, dammit:

"I would use this ring from a desire to do good! But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine!"

Online Rudeness

Like bazillions of other people I occasionally like watching videos on YouTube. But what strikes me about the site (besides the incredibly poor video and sound quality, but hey you get what you pay for) is the complete and utter rudeness displayed. People's comments are more often than not extremely cruel, vulgar and nasty. I don't want to sound prudish, but the level of intelligence in many of the comments seems to be almost non-existent. My theory is that the degree of rudeness demonstrated in online communication is a result of a complete absorption in the virtual medium. This happens to me all the time too, and it should be something to watch out for. I would have expected less rudeness with YouTube considering there are often actual faces to put with the text, but instead the comments are even nastier than in strictly text based boards.

It is perfectly fine to accurately express one's emotions even if it involves anger and contempt, but in the back of your mind should be the thought, "Would I say these things to the person's face?" I can't imagine some of the youtube idiots being that crass if the communication was in the physical reality. There are better ways to insult and belittle a person that don't involve blatant hostility which often just makes you look bad. Not that genuine hatred and rage should be bottled up or censored, but rather focused in a concise beam.

Comparo

I don't like it when people shorten the word "comparison" to "comparo". I also dislike shortening the word "distribution" to "distro". It's not that I don't understand why people do it, because compari and distri would sound goofy. I just think the full word should be used when the shortened version changes a letter. This menace to society must stop. It is probably the most serious issue facing the human race today.

Campaign For Real Ugliness

More on the campaign for real beauty rant:

And another thing...if you think those chunky gals in the "Plus Size" section of the sunday ad slicks are scoring a victory for regular schlubbos being properly represented you're mistaken. Those women are exceptional looking as well, they've just got extra junk in the trunk. The closest I've ever seen to joe average looking people in print would be the Fleet Farm catalogs I used to work on. Truly, there were indeed regular folk modeling clothing in there. But cripes, this is a catalog that sells toy manure spreaders fer pete's sake. I've never really seen anyone I'd describe as being homely or ugly in any catalog. It just doesn't happen. The truly ugly get weeded out. Nobody wants to see that, there's no demand for it. But don't fret, it's got nothing to do with real life cause ugly people get hooked up all the time.

I say we need a campaign for Real Ugliness instead. I don't watch it myself, but there's some TV show called "Ugly Betty" out there. Well dammit, she ain't ugly. Glasses and braces don't make ya ugly folks. Where the hell are the truly repulsive faces? If you want to make movies with dorky losers then get the real thing, don't insult us with these quasi-homely model types. But who can blame Hollywood for giving us this half-ass ugly? Because we don't really want it, no matter what we say. When truly homely folk are put up on the silver screen we secretly cringe because it hurts too much, it hits too close to home. No, it's probably better to dress a good looking person in ugly camoflage and suspend our disbelief.

Sometimes Look On The Bright Side of Life

Both places I've lived in within the past few years have had an empty field, a small cluster of trees and a water tower directly across from my bedroom window. I like empty fields, but I also like trees. But forests can be boring if left to their own devices. What seems ideal is a mix of raw Nature and Man's meddling chainsaws. Trees are more aesthetically pleasing when they are scattered about with empty space in between them. The lone tree on the farmer's field I like, as they often grow very large and gnarled. Still, many farmers have not observed Bob Ross' rule that everybody needs a friend. I say instead of one tree, a group of three would be better.

A water tower in itself is not terribly pleasing, but it is odd that they have "followed" me like they have. I would rather look at a distant water tower than into a neighbor's window. Neighbors are also something I could do without, but this post is supposed to be about the bright side so let's leave that to one side for now.

I'm grateful for the Time Warner corporation for allowing people to turn off their television service. To be able to choose what services you want and those you don't want is good. By doing so my monthly bill was cut in two. Choice rules.

I will now say something positive about a government worker. Rare, I know. Awhile back a nice lady at the water department was very kind to me when she could have very easily ignored it and left me with a huge bill. Well, I did get a huge bill but I was able to stop the damage. I had a super-duper-slowly leaking toilet in an unused 2nd bathroom and the sucker was slowly gobbling up water. The nice lady alerted me about the unusually high consumption even though it was in the water department's best interest to wish everyone had a leaking toilet. This shows that personal ethics can override bureaucracy at times.

I'm grateful for the internet. A decentralized, more or less anarchic system which totally works. How great to be free from the mind-numbing crap they feed you at the big media outlets. Now I can watch clips from those big media outlets at my leisure just to confirm the existence of the dark side of sound-byte ridden, emotionally-charged, shouting matches that pose as talk shows. The seemingly cruel view that the masses are stupid is painfully obvious if one assumes these shows are people's sole source of news. To watch CNN or Fox is like having your brain injected with a long needle filled with novacaine. What's that I was saying about the bright side? Crap! Well the bright side is that you don't have to rely on this garbage. It can also be pushed aside if you wish. That's bright.

If you're ever feeling bummed out with environmental hysteria and guilt over mankind's pollutive nature a good glance at Google Earth's satellite images are a wonderful elixir. Maybe I am a complete fool, maybe they are goosing the data to make it look better than it really is...I dunno. But what I see is an unfathomably BEAUTIFUL earth full of the most rich colors and textures. It also makes me glad to see large swaths of the planet seemingly not covered by humans and their little grid system. (We do love the grids) And how cool are the salt flats in Utah? Just look at that, a huge blob of white just sitting there amongst the browns and greens. I might not have a jet car, but I wonder if it is interesting to visit the salt flats or if the attraction wears off? Can you reach a point where there is nothing but white in all directions or are there always distant mountains visible? Hmmm.

Can People Ask Each Other Questions Anymore?

Has asking a simple question to a person been rendered pointless now than we have Google and Wikipedia? It seems like no matter what you want to know in life, the answer is 2 seconds away as long as you have a computer and internet connection. Often I feel like just asking a question of someone even though I know I could find out myself with a search. Wanting to ask a basic question from a living human is followed immediately by the thought of "Geez I'm lazy, I could find out in 2 seconds with Google..."

What do you think? Look it up on Google and keep the answer to yourself. Thanks!

*ist D Is A Stupid Name For A Camera

*ist D is a stupid name for a camera. What exactly were they thinking? I finally found a site that gave the pronunciation which is apparently:

IST DEE

So the asterisk has NOTHING to do with it. It's not "asterist", "star-ist" or "asteriskist" or something as I originally guessed. You just flat out ignore the * and say "ist dee". But what the fuck does Ist Dee mean? The artist formerly known as prince is behind this isn't he? I knew it! I guess I have to give them credit, the name is weird and annoying which is better than boring I guess. The vast majority of articles about this damn thing don't bother to explain the glaring question of, what the fuck is this thing called?

But now, thanks to Steve's Digicams all is right with the universe. Ahhh.

One Size Fits None

The whole problem with politics and government (besides being crushingly dull and maddening) is that it is based on the idea that there can be a single system that satisfies all people within a geographic area. We accept the fact that humans come from all different walks of life and yet we want to be all the same.

It seems the only political office that people care about is the president. I guess if you just focus on the one guy at the top then it becomes much easier. That's probably why cultures have endured kings throughout history, because it was such a simple system. One asshole out of the bunch declares himself to be the greatest human alive and somehow manages to convince other morons to follow along with the game. It's simple and easy to understand even though it's completely absurd. Not only did humans invent imaginary gods to rule over their "spiritual lives" but they also invented fellow humans to act as gods to rule over their physical lives. What are ya gonna do, we're a flawed race. We'll figure it out eventually, but just not now. Like the Acid Orangutan song goes, "I've got no choice, but to fuck shit up"

So I happened to catch some of the presidential debate stuff on YouTube and was pleased to learn that Ron Paul was running for president. Like Michael Badnarik before him (although to a somewhat lesser extent) I saw an intelligent man telling the truth (which is usually unheard of in politics) who was the only guy I could possibly vote for. But then again, here's the problem - this is all about which ONE guy is gonna get the top seat. Why does it have to be that way? Why can't I have Ron Paul be my president and your guy can be yours? This is a comedic statement because we all know that it ain't like that, we have to FIGHT over which guy wins. It's a fight over whose choices trumps all other choices. It is inherently competetive like sports, but on a grand scale. You can't leave the stadium unless you want to live under water in the middle of the ocean. I figure the ocean is the only place on earth a person can go to be truly free from retarded laws. Once you set foot on land you've become someone elses' slave in some form or another.

It seems that as long as we're married to the idea of borders I think we need more of them to accomodate the array of political opinion. I'd be all for abolishing the United States and thinking of each of the 50 states as independent countries. Just nip off the federal part of it. The less centralized power is the easier it is to manage. People should probably be more concerned about their local government than the federal government. I figure a lot of little tiny governments is favorable to a single monster government.

Why shouldn't people be able to choose the laws they are bound by just as they can with any other decision? We have so much freedom in some areas of life but none in others. If you hate Wal-Mart you don't have to shop there. If you hate the idea of killing animals for food and clothing you can become a vegan. You can choose what job you want and what car you drive to get there. Or you can walk. But you cannot choose to keep the money you earn at that job. That is not one of your choices. So sorry, but this group of people is going to steal part of your income. Why? Oh, Essential Services! Like what, I don't use any of those! Oh well too bad you're paying for them anyway. We should look at taxation as being equally ridiculous as if we said that you must buy $10,000 worth of goods from Wal-Mart per year, or go to jail. Does it make sense to pay for something you don't use? If you need to call upon the police shouldn't you have to pay for it? Why should it be any different than hiring a plumber or carpenter to do some work for you? Last year I spent nearly 10 grand on a bunch of shit I don't even know about. If I worked for a year, saved up my money and then burned it on the compost heap in the backyard people would think I was insane. But that is exactly what I'm forced to do every day of my life with all the numerous taxes. If you WANT to burn your money on the compost heap you should be free to do so, but why threaten me to do the same?

The human race is not made of coral, it is not like a school of fish. We're not all the same. It is pointless to think that one person can act as the avatar for millions. Nevertheless, I heartily endorse Ron Paul for president. I don't agree with all of his issues, but that's okay. The guy at least wants to stick to the government's rules. I don't know if there's any logic in the idea of electing good people to fix a bad system, but it seems that's the best we can do. And wouldn't it be nice to have a president who can actually speak, unlike the knuckle-dragging hillbilly that's in there now?

Smoking

For many years I have been somewhat of an asshole non-smoker. Although I didn't go the extra step of actively nagging smokers to their faces nor whining about any second hand smoke I might be breathing, I did still have an elitist internal attitude about smoking. But for the most part it was a genuine empirical judgement. The fact was that I thought cigarettes smelled bad, I observed that they made the smoker's surroundings yellowed and dirty, and observed that many smokers looked older and more grizzled than their non-smoking brethren. But I tried to restrain my distaste for smoking in a reasonable manner because after all people in my own family are smokers and I can't really get on a soapbox and condemn them. The general cultural notion that smoking is a terrible evil is of course unavoidable and informs one's opinion of it as well.

I began a new philosophical and political journey within the last few years, discovering that there were definitions for the ideas I had always felt. Part of that journey was starting to see different groups of folks who are socially persecuted. Certainly smokers have got to be on the top of that heap. Whereas I usually felt a sense of schadenfreude whenever tales of anti-smoking crackdowns came up, I began to see that they were getting the shaft for no good reason. The contempt for smoking seems to be an almost universal truth in American society. Therein lies the problem; how can an activity which (like it or not) really only affects the person choosing to do it be grounds for such aggression? Smokers as a group have been banished from most indoor places and forced to engage in their "filthy habit" outside in designated areas. Signs are put up to isolate them from non-smokers. For the most part they have shouldered this ostracism with total acceptance. On its surface it makes sense, smoke floats through the air and if you get a bunch of people smoking in a confined space without enough ventilation then yes, it's gonna be very smoky air. Probably not a place a non-smoker would want to be.

So even though for years my asshole non-smoker mind was quietly sneering at these ghastly people who were ruining their lives with yucky tobacco, I was more bothered by the persistent societal manifestation of that same attitude. I began to feel sorry for the underdog. It seemed cruel that these smokers were shouldering all this ostracism with such acceptance. I decided that I ought to switch teams and see how the other half lived. I decided I would try smoking, and one of the reasons would be spite.

Then somehow I got to reading about pipes on the web. I always had a soft spot for pipes. Some of my uncles smoked pipes and when I was at a family gathering with them in my youth I always liked the smell. It was a very rich and woody scent, for whatever reason they didn't remind me of cigarettes which seemed to make me cough and sneeze. Perhaps I had the same view of cigars, I can't remember. Actually I do recall one unpleasant second hand smoke experience at a baseball game where a man a few rows up from us was puffing away at a very smelly stogie. But pipes seemed to be even more rare. I had a picture in my mind of pipe smoking being this activity of kindly old men with long grey beards. It seemed like a quaint thing to do, a relic of a forgotten time or something.

The attraction to pipes really grew once I saw what kinds of beautiful craftsmanship was out there for these things. I am a gear junkie when it comes to hobbies. So pipe smoking seemed cool because there was an instrument involved. Cigarettes and cigars are just rolled up leaves that burn almost entirely to ash. But with pipes there was a collector aspect. There was woodworking and art involved. So I decided I would buy a pipe and try it out. Only I was still completely spooked by the idea of getting ADDICTED to tobacco. You know, that horrific EVIL thing which takes over your life and you can't STOP! So then I came across this whole herbal smoke thing. To make a long story short, it's overpriced. Trying to fight tradition turned out to be kinda futile, so I went ahead and bought a few bags of bulk tobacco. I figure there's gotta be a reason why this particular plant is the one of choice for smoking. The tobacco was more moist than the herbal stuff and seemed to burn better. There's a whole connoisseur aspect to tobacco as well with different flavors and types and whatnot. I can't pretend to know all of that of course.

I was able to get a bit of that old world smell that I remembered from my uncles, but to be honest the smell is much more noticeable when you aren't smoking it. It seems to be more of an external thing. It is noticeable when I first walk into my apartment. I could be wrong, but it does not seem to have as offensive an odor as that of a cigarette smoker's room. Maybe I am completely crackers on this, but I think it has a more pleasant scent. I haven't studied what difference, if any, exists between cigarette tobacco and pipe tobacco.

Is smoking bad for you? Well, you're sucking combustible material into your body, so naturally your body is going to react. I find that there's a lot of phlegm produced in the lungs after smoking. These are just my empirical observations. I quickly learned to take former president Clinton's advice and NOT inhale, though. (joke) No seriously, if you just suck in enough so that the smoke fills your mouth and then blow it out right away you'll do better than if you let a large puff of smoke hit your lungs. I do mean hit, because if you really inhale that stuff it's like getting hit in the chest with a hammer. You can really feel it. But if you just puff on it gently it's a very relaxing and fun leisure activity. I was worried that I would develop an addiction to it, but as of yet I have no cravings. I am actually more concerned that I would not even continue smoking and the beautiful pipes I've got would just sit unused. I bought 6oz. of tobacco in March and there's still about 2/3rds left. I don't smoke at work and I'll have one, maybe two bowls per day but there might be a day or two that I'll not smoke at all. Wikipedia has this to say about pipes:

"Pipes can range from the very simple machine-made briar pipe to handmade and artful implements created by pipe makers which can be very expensive collector's items. The popularity of pipe smoking in Western countries has declined in recent years. However, it has also enjoyed a resurgence of late among younger and middle aged smokers who find its contemplative nature and age-transcendent status as "hobby not habit" to be both thoroughly enjoyable and stress-relieving."

I'd have to strongly agree. Maybe one way of looking at it is that cigarettes seem like McDonalds whereas the pipe is more like a fine meal at a nice restaurant. Yes, I know it will kill you. We're heard every argument. But hey, so does food. Eventually everybody dies. We have yet to find the magical chemical which promises eternal life. Clearly if smoking was as evil as many people would have us believe nobody would be doing it. For all the health problems it causes they still come on slowly enough to as to not defeat the benefits.

The point is you've gotta do these things in moderation. Obviously if you chain smoke one after another there's going to be a price to pay. So don't chain smoke. Take it easy, take it slow. And most importantly of all, get off your high horses and stop sticking your nose into other people's business. I keep feeling that America has this eternal life fantasy and that if you do A, B and C then you'll live long and happy. But what use is eternal life if you can't enjoy it the way you want? We all need to lighten up on those who are lighting up. All this hysteria is just going to give the nanny state more power which will force our individual choices to weigh upon other people's choices and the whole of society will become more bitter and disgruntled. No thanks!

The Distortion Of Beauty?

Today I wanna talk about beauty and photography and people's perceptions. First check out the video on this website. I came across it on YouTube.com during a search for photography-related videos.

Campaign For Real Beauty

Also, check out this one:

Extreme Photoshop Makeover Video

First off, let me be clear I'm all for the idea that little girls should have positive self esteem and all that. Of course that's a good thing. I don't have any real quarrel with whatever it is that Dove's doing. What I want to address here are some of the youtube comments and moreover just the general knee jerk reaction people have when presented with the realities of digital imaging. This whole "boo hoo fashion photography is a lie" pretense I find extremely smug and condescending. I resent the idea that somehow showing great looking photos in magazines is deceiving or somehow ripping off the public. Yes, I know nobody made that exact claim, but that is the vibe I get. Dude these photos are bullshit, that chick isn't hot! or something like that. Photoshop can make anyone into a supermodel, man! Utter nonsense!

The fact is, people who are models are indeed more attractive than the average person. THAT'S WHY THEY GET THE JOB. That's why THEY are in magazines and YOU aren't. They're beautiful because they've got the right geometry going on. They've got symmetry and proportions most likely fitting within the golden ratio. They are exceptions to the norm. It doesn't mean that everyone else is ugly by comparison. It's just nature at work. Check out BBC's "The Human Face" hosted by John Cleese for more of this. It's a fascinating show!

Did anyone really think that girl was a hideous hag when she first sat down? No, she IS a good looking woman, they simply did the things you do when you want to make a striking looking billboard. Yes it's very extensive, but they're selling an image here, they're not doing a science project where person X is photographed and documented. I also have a feeling that Dove's video intentionally made sure that the model looked a little extra schlubby in order to drive their point home more. Okay, we need a model who's having a minor skin breakout... But that's just speculation.

I will never forget the time I was on vaction with my folks as a young lad. We were at some outdoor museum thing. There was a photo crew amongst the tourists doing what appeared to be a fashion shoot of some kind. There were a couple female models there and I was awestruck by their beauty. They looked so unlike normal people that I couldn't take my eyes off them. My parents were moving on down the exhibits but I wanted to stay and look at these girls because they were so surreal to look at. No Photoshop there, just exceptionally good looking people. One of the girls' sweater was pinned back in the rear so it better hugged her figure. This was a little "behind the scenes" trickery that I remembered. But does any of the preparation that goes into a photo shoot mean these were dull looking people faked into being gorgeous by deceptive artists? Hardly!

The ONLY thing I can agree on as being disingenuous about what they did in the Dove video this are the very final edits where the actual geometry of the model's body is altered. Same thing with the other person's video. I think they went too far. I wouldn't especially feel right doing that extensive work myself. But hey, I don't work with people photos usually. That's just my own personal "photoshop ethics" if you will. There's certain lines I wouldn't want to cross myself.

But look, this is art and advertising, not fucking journalism! Do you want magazines full of the caliber of photos found in the average joe's family snaps? Good luck selling that. Please go ahead, go and try to market a magazine loaded with schlubby punch-flash photos of people with acne! Maybe our idea of beauty is better served by a rag like the National Enquirer? (who probably retouch photos in the opposite direction, to make celebrities uglier than usual) No glamourous retouching there! How about the GARBAGE photos they take of you at the DMV? How about a magazine full of DMV shots? Those are pure reality, right? No Photoshop magic in sight! It MUST be more true to reality, right?

All photography is a lie. That's why we love it so much, because it distorts reality. That's what makes it interesting. If you want reality don't look at photos. No matter what they are it will be an illusion. A photo can not only make a good looking girl into a fabulous angel but it can take the ugliest, most grizzled old person and turn them into something visually interesting. That's the whole magic of photography. Even you have been made to look better than you really are in your own photos. Were your parents wrong to dress you nice for class photo day in the third grade? Was the teacher wrong for grabbing a comb and fixing the cowlick at the back of your head? Were they distorting reality and making for photos that would cause other children to have low self esteem?

The other basic thing to remember is that we're talking about STILL images. A fixed image doesn't change and thus has to be somehow attractive to us, otherwise we wouldn't bother looking at it. Reality is constantly moving, the light on your face is changing constantly. You are making different expressions and moving your body. Take some of those slices in time and put them in a photograph and you might turn out ugly. Take others and you might look really hot. I have a theory that people look completely ridiculous 50% of the time and that the only reason we can stand ourselves is that our constant motion combines these looks of goofiness with looks of beauty and the result is a tolerable combination. You just have to look at a video of a person talking in frame by frame steps to see that in some cases they look stupid.

Yes, it's not good if your sense of self-worth is hinged upon what you see in a fashion magazine or billboard. DUH! If you really get depressed because beauty greater than yourself exists, well then you really do have a problem. YOU have a problem, not the magazine, not "society", YOU do. Just don't be trashing the talented photographers and digital retouchers who make images that people WANT TO LOOK AT just because you're bitter. As I said, they are creating aesthetically pleasing images. That's good enough for me. Should the great painters of history be similarly scoffed at for portraying reality in a more favorable light? An image can mean something different for each person, this is good. I just think that to interpret the sight of any beautiful imagery as a commandment to compare one's self to the art is a grave miscalculation. We're smarter than that aren't we?

Jerry Falwell Dead

Hey, I just heard that Jerry Falwell snuffed it! Now, if only bad ideas died as easily as people do we'd have something to celebrate.

The Hard Escape Key

I have to wonder how often people's blogs on Blogger get inadvertently flagged as being "objectionable" when really you just wanted to click on "Next Blog"? What a lousy place to put those two buttons! Which are you going to click more often? And what's more annoying is that when you accidentally mouse over "objectionable" a 'tooltip-like' message pops up that obscures what you really intended to click, the Next Blog button. Making mistakes is fairly easy with a computer, but undoing them should be quick. More often than not software punishes you for your mistakes by slowing you down. Instead of:

DO THIS! (Yes sir!)
OOPS! STOP DOING THAT! (Yes sir!)
DO ANOTHER THING! (Yes sir!)

you get:

DO THIS! (Yes sir!)
OOPS! STOP DOING THAT! (What?)
STOP DOING THAT NOW! (I can't hear you, I'm doing something!)
PLEASE STOP! I MADE A MISTAKE, ALRIGHT!? (I'll just keep doing that thing you asked)
*seconds pass*
(Okay, I'm done)
UNDO! (Yes sir!)

That's why I wish there were a HARD escape key that really really really worked. No matter what, you hit escape the software obeys and stops doing whatever it's doing and awaits your next command. These aren't people, so they can be treated brutally. I will say that Photoshop is generally pretty responsive to the Escape key. You can stop it from opening images you accidentally opened, filters you ran which are taking too long and you wanna give up, and other stuff. Unfortunately there's some things that feel they must run their course no matter what. The hard escape key should be dangerous, you should be able to make potentially data-lethal choices with it. Heck, put it under a flip-up protective cover if you must, but there should be ONE key on the keyboard which the the ultimate cease and desist.

Farming out WHAT!?

This is the weirdest thing I ever saw...a company which apparently draws Photoshop clipping paths for you! What the hell???

http://www.misterclipping.com/

I think if I had that job my eyeballs would fall out of my head! Can you imagine drawing nothing but paths for eight hours!? Yikes! I'm gonna have to put this up there with nursing home worker as one of the most undesirable jobs I can fathom. Okay no, that's not fair. I can understand the nursing home thing, you know, a love for humanity and all that shit, but cripes drawing paths!? For OTHER PEOPLE no less!? That's almost suicidal! I can tolerate drawing one or two fairly complex images in a row, but beyond that I start questioning the purpose of my existence. Granted, there is a satisfaction that comes when you finally select and blow out that background to perfect edges...but then the eye-watering tedium begins again and the honeymoon's over.

It's true, there is NO substitute for a genuine hand-drawn path; it's unquestionably Full-Ass as opposed to the close-enough-for-government-work Create Work Path from a selection cheat; but wow, to think that people would wanna do this job! Gotta wonder though, do they really do it by hand? Well, you can almost always tell...but still... It's a crazy, crazy world!

On Scanning and Ancient Grudges

My first "real" job out of college was working at a printing company. It's a fairly large plant situated in a little tiny nowhere farming town. I worked in the pre-press department as one of five people who scanned and color corrected photos for the numerous trade magazines and weekly newspaper ads printed there. I really was stoked at finally getting to work with cool equipment. I remember being especially enamoured of the TWENTY-ONE INCH monitors everyone used! THAT was a big deal to me then. Hell, it's still a big deal. You can never have a monitor that's too big or too high resolution. Okay, maybe you can but we aren't there yet. Anyway, the main attraction in the department was a ginormous Hell drum scanner. Yes, "Hell" is the name of the company. It's German. This thing was a monstrosity, it took up the entire width of the room (about 12 feet I reckon) and also had an outboard box full of electronics the size of a refridgerator. Think of those early computers which took up entire rooms. I am not sure if vacuum tubes were inside, but I wouldn't be surprised. I scrounged around Google to see if I could find a picture of one of them and this is about the closest I could find. Sorry it isn't larger.

This PMT (photo mutiplier tube) drum scanner was probably about $100,000 or so and capable of recording the finest images you could imagine. In theory, that is. You see, this device is designed by engineers. Engineers are extremely smart people, they know their stuff. Sadly, they aren't quite as good as making stuff easy to use for people less smart than they are. No, let's not say "easy to use" because a device like this probably shouldn't be easy to use. It's a professional tool after all, not a consumer widget. It should at least be ABLE to be comprehended by the average power user, that's all I ask!

The company had purchased this unit used from some other company a few months before I started working there. They were very proud of it. It was given its own room with a sign on the door about how it must be kept closed to keep out dust. And why shouldn't they be proud? After dropping all that dough you might as well make the scanner feel special.

When you've got such a massive and complex piece of pre-press equipment that you want to put into service you're gonna need some help, right? Help came in the form of a representative from Hell (I wish they were called "minions") who flew in from Germany to train the photo people on how to use this beast. I think he was there for like a week. I am not sure, as I said this training period occured before I got the job.

When you've got fundamentally difficult equipment like this the training you receive on it often takes the form of step-by-step actions one must take in order to make a scan. You couldn't hope to truly grok this behemoth unless you were one of the engineers who designed it, and I wonder if even they knew. But they managed to boil it down to a number of fairly straight forward steps that you had to punch in to get this thing to scan. It involved setting your scanning area, focusing on the film under extrem magnification, measuring the lightest and darkest areas of the photo, adjusting colors and sharpening. After awhile we got the hang of it, but we pretty much stayed away from the deeper menus. Scary territory there, one wrong move and you could blow up the universe!

After I got the job the people who received the training first hand then taught me how to use the Hell. After a few months of using the Hell I got a little more comfortable using it and experimented a little with the different settings. As it turned out there was indeed a sharpening setting which yielded better results than what they had told us to use. Otherwise we would get these really dark and heavy, high contrast halos around image detail. It was sharp, but looked very unnatural. People's s faces became very harsh and grainy, like they had an odd skin condition. The look really bugged me. It was clearly apparent on the printed proof as well, not just on the screen.

I worked second shift with one other guy and we got along really well. A rivalry kind of developed between us and the first shift crew. The first shift people were all part of the Good Ole Boys Club meaning that they had friendly ties with upper management. This was a very small town and nepotism was rampant in the company. This is great if you're Family, but for me I was an "outsider" as was my cohort. But the rivalry was more than this, it was also a fight over the scanner settings. They were dead set on the dark and heavy edges look while we rebellious 2nd shifters always put the scanner settings where they looked better, and rules be damned. Yes, I realize this can be a subjective thing but I am putting my foot down: Our settings WERE objectively better! We had no unnatural artifacts in our scans.

This bitterness slowly simmered underneath the surface as time went on. The second shift crew continued to embarass the 1st shift crew, getting stuff doner quicker, better and more efficiently. We were also successful in satisfying the desires of one particularly onerous customer who was such a stickler for image quality that he was feared by the rest of the company when his magazine came in the department. This incident and others like it, all more or less having to do with me and my partner doing things not necessarily according to the rules eventually resulted in my untimely termination. They told me "I wasn't a team player"! (The stress of getting fired at the time overrode what I now take as the highest compliment!) Oh it was a hard blow for sure, getting canned from your first real job, but I got over it eventually.

Now I look back with some more perspective on it. It's funny how wrapped up people can get over machines. I think it has to do with fear of failure. I think the other guys were a little bit scared to mess with the scanner. They didn't really care about the results, as long as they were doing what was asked of them they were cool. But you can't be afraid of these things. You've gotta go in there and see what stuff does. It's not gonna bite you! We're not talking about a dangerous device that will chop your fingers off if you don't do it right, it's just a fucking scanner! If it doesn't look right, change it. If it's not cooperating, try something else!

And we did have something else! In addition to the giant drum scanner there was also a smaller drum scanner as well as a large flatbed scanner. These two "lesser" machines were vastly easier to use and in most cases produced equal or better results than the giant Hell. The only thing the Hell was really good at was making ridiculous enlargements of 35mm slides. But you had to oil mount them, a particularly tedious and messy process. For reflective art the large flatbed did wonders. Even though you could wrap a piece of paper around the large 24" wide drum on the Hell it just did not capture the surface texture of art paper at all.

I went on to have far less stressful and confrontational jobs in the graphic arts business and am happy to still be scanning stuff today. I am using far cheaper equipment now, but I have 100% total control over the equipment. I don't get to work with beautiful large format chromes anymore, but it's much better than having to deal with a bunch of brown nosers towing the company line for good or ill.

Once I even got a small bit of revenge. It was not as sweet as I had hoped, but it felt good nevertheless. At one point I got sent out to do a press check at my old employer. Years later the very same company who canned me was now working for ME! *MUWHAHAHA!!!* Unfortunately I didn't see any of the old 1st shift jerks nor my old asshole boss, but I did get to see my former co-worker. They had a new scanner by that time and I am sure it was much easier to use than the Hell. It's a shame that so much fuss was had over something so simple, but it all worked out in the end.

Holy Smokes!

This guy may be the best fucking photographer I have ever seen in recent memory. Let me put it this way, he's so fucking good I can even give him a pass for doing Amy Grant album covers! Does it get any better than this?! Holy Smokes!

http://www.marktucker.com

The Epic Quest For A B-Spline Tool

Do you remember a company called Creature House? Of course you do. Remember an application called "Expression"? Of course you do, your grandma uses it everyday. It's a mostly useless little app if only because the curmudgeonly user was so set in his ways with this Illustrator shit. But they had a unique tool: the B-Spline! Joy! Make a wonky polygon shape and what's this...smoove curves result! Math majors know what this curve stuff is and can probably plot it with some equation that scares the hell out of me just to look at. All I know is that it's smoove. It probably has something to do with the word "log" or something.

This was long ago, in ancient times when I used this quirky little app. Now, aeons later on the Mac what the heck happened to Expression, aina? I'd like to get a B-Spline tool here if I could, please? B-Spline tool in Illustrator? Oh, too much to ask! Oh but CS3 is on the way...nope still no B-Spline. Sorry schmuck, maybe you should've hunted down the feedback submission form instead of losing it with your old bookmarks after the OS migration.

Anyway, it looks like Creature House was bought up by Microsoft and all the cool artsy shit was flushed. Then lo, a few googlings later and this sweet beauty shows up:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14792

Freebie OSX Expression! With B-SPLINE TOOL! A Keyboard Shortcut editor! The shapes paste into Illustrator! Joy! You know how easy it is to draw a guitar pick\Leonardo DeCaprio's head now?

(he's only happy cause it hasn't crashed yet)

Hilarious Amazon reviews

Nobody reads this blog, but if someone did they'd probably think I was too damn angry. But it ain't always true, I swear. Here's some hilarious stuff I wish I had written myself. These are just random reviews I came across for various stuff at Amazon. Honestly, my jaw hurts from laughing so much. Thanks to these fine people, wherever they are. Enjoy!

Reviews Written by
Keith Whitener (Handsome Ville, USA__Population: Me)
Thank you Snapple!, June 29, 2004
A year ago, I collected 890 Snapple caps and I sent them in to get this table. It's a great table and I have lots of fun playing it. However, the abacus keeps falling off so I have to use wood glue, the tube the connects the goal to the ball deposit area had to be duck taped, I frequently have to adjust the rubber stoppers to keep it level, and one of the players has been decapitated. Albeit the latter, it's still an excellent table and it provides me with a great deal of entertainment. I would be willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of a busload of strangers to ensure the longevity of my table.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape DVD ~ Johnny Depp
Waste of time, August 7, 2004
This is a boring, worthless movie. It's about a guy living with an obese mom, retarded brother, and two sisters. Sad things happen that I don't care about.

There's no reason to watch this movie. It has no exciting parts that you can talk about later or funny lines. Oh no, poor people and a fat woman! Oh, this will make me appreciate life more and be a better person. No, no it won't.

This movie is not at all stimulating or entertaining. Don't watch it. Run away! Save yourself. Watch out, it's almost got you! I'll hold it off; you get out of here. Close the door and don't let it in. I'll try to stop it.

Reviews Written by
Matthew S. Woodworth RSS Feed (Apex, NC United States)
Sony MDR-R10 Home Style Headphones
Buy these right away, December 10, 2003
All my life I'm been unattractive to women. I've tried everything in an effort to get the chicks. However, dressing like Harry Potter, buying a wicked Ford Focus, getting a job as a computer programmer, and learning to play the harp all failed to deliver on their promise of converting me into a babe magnet.

Nothing worked until I bought these headphones. Now the lovely ladies are swarming to me. They are worth every penny.


David Hasselhoff Looking for Freedom
David Hasselhoff is my personal God. David Hasselhoff's legend has no bounds. He has replaces Howard Stern as the King of All media. I wasn't expecting too much when I picked up the album on Amazon. To be honest, I only bought it because I loved the pants he's wearing on the album cover and I thought I could hang the jewel case on my bedroom wall.

If you want to hook up with some booty this album is required background music. DH is da man!!! I've never been so fly with the ladies as I am now that I have Hasselhoff's latest masterpiece flowing from the speakers of my Chevy Cavalier station wagon.

In short, if you like great music and you want to be attractive to the opposite sex you must buy this album.

JR from Long Beach, CA 3
I was so excited when this came out in theatres. I was all like, a new Cronenberg film? I am there compadre! About half way through the film, I learned a little bit about myself. I thought, "wait a minute self, I hate David Cronenberg." This movie is the rare blend of abhorrent and repelent. Also, the whole thing is a pretty flimsy metaphor for anal sex, and if that's your thing, then you should, ya know, get a porn.

Smoke Free Wisconsin

Fuck these assholes and their fascist radio ads I heard this morning. (A bad way to wake up lemme tell ya)
http://www.smokefreewi.org

Hey, at least they're honest. Oh but doesn't "policy change" just sound soooo nice? Ahh, "policy change"...gee it almost sounds voluntary. Yes, let's jack up taxes for people who don't make the same choices WE make. That will fix everything! Oh and we care about the CHILDREN! It's always about the children! Quick, consult the stock photo library for shots of smiling children! Ahh yes, everyone has a RIGHT to tobacco-free air. What's that? You DO want to smoke on your own property? WELL FUCK YOU SLIM, WE'RE DO-GOODERS AND OUR RIGHTS ARE BETTER THAN YOURS! We are ridding the world of evil as we see it! Hooray!

If 2\3rds of Wisconsinsites truly support raising taxes on the Other Guy (which might be bullshit, these polls are always worded in such a bleeding heart manner no matter what it is. But it still "feels" right) then 2/3rds of Wisconsinites had better prepare for the day when big brother puts the squeeze on THEIR particular "vice". Americans are the biggest fucking hypocrites imaginable. For all our misty-eyed flag waving histrionics it's quite clear that most people don't give a shit about freedom. It's all just for show. MY freedom is correct, YOURS is wrong so here let's get the neighborhood bully to shake you down for your lunch money. That'll teach you.

Better hope you can keep a firm grip on that stick folks, cause once it gets loose you might be on the wrong end of it.

Work On A Local File MY ASS!

The advice bandied about in the publishing biz that one should always save a COPY of a network server document to your local hard drive, work on the file and save it, then copy it back to the file server is FUCKING BULLSHIT! That is 100% unacceptable. Then why have a fucking network where a group of people share files in the first place? It makes no goddamn sense. Yeah, let's have multiple copies all over the damn place! What's the most recent version? Who the hell knows? Uh...I think Bill worked on it last... What a mess.

If your software is corrupting documents by saving over the network then that's a BUG that needs to be CORRECTED. Telling people to play it safe with this copying back and forth bullshit is a total cop-out. Quark, Abode, Apple, Microsoft...you need to get your shit together. Asking us to not work with the central file server makes no fucking sense. FIX the fucking software so it works! This is an unacceptable, showstopper bug if documents are getting corrupted by basic network workflow.

Total Destruction

It's true, the sad fact is that my personal sense of well being is hinged directly upon the integrity of computer data. This morning I learned that I had accidentally moved my Documents folder into a temporary folder and then deleted that. I found the folder in the trash and immediately moved the contents back. Unfortunately the only surviving folders are M through Z. A through L are gone. Most missed is my Mozilla e-mail folder. File recovery apps seem to recover a bunch of useless generic files. Fine for images or text files, but not fine for a Mozilla e-mail directory full of cryptic insider files no non-programmer could make sense of. The directory structure appears to be lost. It's kinda like smashing your favorite glass art sculpture to pieces and then some guy saying, "Hey it's all cool, I will find all the pieces for you and put them in one box!" Yeah, great.

The moral of the story is; Back up your data right now. You don't have to wait around for a mechanical drive failure, you could stupidly delete a whole folder with one mistracking optical mouse movement! It ruins your whole fucking day lemme tell ya.

Everyone Should Drive A Race Car

Americans are always crowing about safety in automobiles. You: a soft, squishy bag of guts and sinews regularly plop yourself into a very hard and unforgiving metal cocoon filled with explosive fuel and race down the road at speeds far exceeding even the fastest Olympic runner. Nature did not design us for going from 65mpg to 0 in an instant. Bad things tend to happen in such cases. And yet, most of us don't hit anything and make it home alive at the end of the day. Still, thousands of us don't and this is very sad. There's nothing fun about a car accident. It can really ruin your day. But really, if the American dream of quasi-immortality and safety obsession really put its money where its mouth is, I propose the following.

Everyone should drive a race car. Only the race car would have a smaller engines that only went as fast as regular cars. Most of the pro sport auto racing crashes you see are just spectacular explosions of parts at high speeds, but then the damn driver JUMPS out of the car and he's relatively unhurt. There's none of this sissyboycrap; "Oh gee I'm hurt! Oh no, my legs are trapped under the engine block...boo hoo! Oh poor me, my intestines are stretched on a road sign for a quarter mile...waaah!" Those guys usually make it out well enough to go beyond fundamental mortal concerns like "Wow, I'm still alive" straight into "Oh shit I lost the race!" The car saved their ass. Oh sure, maybe a tire flew into the stands and took out a couple two 'tree people, but hey that's collateral damage. The price you pay for watching a dangerous race.

Now just take that designed-to-dissipate-energy car body and drive it at a fraction of the speed and Joe Sixpack would almost be immortal behind the wheel. Am I crackers? If people stopped caring about their hair and clothing it would seem to make all sorts of sense to put on the full face helmet and leathers for the morning commute and strap into the roll cage with a 5-point harness. People are always crowing about safety but won't go all the way. Oh sure, that would mean cars would cost millions of dollars, but the way I figure with everyone driving one and without having to worry so much about all the fine tuning of an actual race car the prices would be reduced. Not to mention the lucrative sponsorship money you'll get. But there will be sacrifices; when you exit your car in the parking lot at work people will run up to you and immediately slap a baseball cap on your head. A small price to pay methinks.

I think many folks will be pleased as punch if they could go beyond simply collecting the highly attractive and tasteful Nascar merchandise and actually commute to work in a real Nascar race car. I suppose the low speeds will make it not as cool, but remember we're all about safety here. This plan is for dramatically reducing traffic fatalities, not fulfilling the desire for racing action!

Now all we have to do is pass some legislation on this and get it going. It's a good idea and good ideas should be made into law. Anyone who doesn't drive a racecar is better off in jail. Hey, I didn't make the rules I just obey them. OBEY!

Defining Half-Ass: The OS X 10.4.9 Eject Key Delay

So are you telling me you people accidentally actually hit the Eject key a lot? Hmph. I guess I must be super skilled cause this delay is a real bummer.

The real problem is obvious: the slimmed-down Mac keyboard. They want to be artsy and designy and so they had to make these cute little compact keyboards with the eject key right next to the sound volume keys which you probably hit more often. Not so smart. But hey, they're better than the old iMac keyboards which were a fucking joke.

The delay added with the 10.4.9 update is retarded. That is a half-ass solution if ever there was one. Gee, I keep hitting the wrong key! Oh I know, we'll just make that key not work...just yet. Oh, did you REALLY want to eject the disc? Well then, you better MEAN it and keep holding it down! Hang on now, wait for it...wait for it. EJECT! *whew*

Now here's a radical concept; put the eject key on the DRIVE. You know, where I am going to pick up the CD? I know, it's too crazy. The world is not ready for such things. Better that we have clumsy, crammed up keyboards and just delay the response time for all the mistakes you're bound to make.

Now, to look into how to disable this crappola...

Ahh now I see...it's the laptop keyboards that are extra-touchy with the eject key. Well, I'm glad for ya'll, but this is still half ass. How about a nice PREFERENCE for this delay in the Keyboard system preference? Wouldn't that be nice? A choice instead of a mandate? Yes, people can make mistakes but I'd rather have INSTANT RESPONSE rather than this age old "Are You Sure?" horseshit! YES I am sure. I am ALWAYS sure even when I'm not, okay? You, idiot computer, do what I say at all times and do it NOW. Instantly! Not in a few milliseconds, not tomorrow, NOW.

Buckling to FDA pressure

I discovered why my favorite drug, Triaminicin was pulled off the market some years back. As usual, it's because of FDA heavies' threats. Oh I'm sorry, did I say threat, oh I meant to say "suggestion". Well you see, some women MAY have had strokes because of this drug, but the other billion people didn't BUT FUCK YOU EVERYONE ELSE WHO TOOK IT SUCCESSFULLY, FUCK YOUR RIGHTS! There's RISK involved! WE CANNOT HAVE RISK IN THIS SOCIETY! Everything must be SAFE! Humans can be made IMMORTAL with enough government regulation don't you know?!

Here, check out this link which doesn't work cause you're not a member of Medscape. What the heck, I dunno - it works when you click it from google, but not from here. You're on your own I guess. You'll figure it out I'm sure.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/406803

Poor sweet Triaminicin, I will miss you dearly. I still have one lone box with about four pills left. But now, by the wagging of the FDA's fists I am no longer free to buy a drug that works when I have a cold or allergy attack. Holy, sainted bureaucrats and their cronies will be making my decisions from now on. Just surrender your life to the State folks, they know better than you. They've never met you, they live thousands of miles away, but they are your fucking guardian angels. Don't fuck with them, they'll put the hurt on you. If you want to know what's good for your health it's deferring every judgement to the FDA gods, by shuffling their papers they will ensure you live a long and happy life.

Unexpected Software RAID Success

Last night I did something seemingly stupid and dangerous with my Mac but it ended up working flawlessly. I recently added two new 750GB Seagate Barracuda drives to my PowerMac G4 (these drives are quiet!) and mirrored them. These were used for a gigantic video editing project which consumes the gigabytes like a fish drinks water. These giant drives replaced a pair of smaller drives which I had striped in a RAID pair using Apple's Disk Utility. I had copied over the files from the striped set onto other single drives, however I realized I missed something along the way. One folder was short about a dozen files. And not junk, but stuff I wanted to keep! Doh! I had not done anything to the old RAID set however I had no idea if it was possible to remove the drives from the computer, reinstall them at a later time and have the OS still recognize them as a RAID array in days of yore.

Then I did something really really dumb, I shut down my machine and removed the mirrored 750GB drives (a total lie actually, the capacity is 698GB...bastards) without backing them up! Well, I had no place to back them up. Not enough free space on the other two single hard disks! So here I was potentially sacrificing the entire video project if this didn't work. Fucking moronic, I thought.

I then reinstalled the small striped RAID (I was at least smart enough to mark the position of the drives before removing them the first time) and to my surprise they mounted once again upon reboot, just like before! Sweet! I copied off the missing files to one of the single disks. Then I removed the striped RAID disks, reinstalled the 698GB mirrored pair and that too reappeared without a hitch upon reboot! Fucking amazing! The only price paid was judicious amounts of lost sleep, but we can blame some part of that on stupid ass Daylight Saving Time. Maybe the government should pass a law saying there's now 48 hours in a day instead of 24. Heck, that way we'd all have more time after work to do stuff. It's Magic™!

So the moral of the story is yes, you can remove software RAID'ed disks from a Mac, stick them back in and have them act as they did before. Perhaps I truly believed this was entirely possible in the back of my mind, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. But it did feel like an incredibly risky and foolish thing to do when I was contemplating it. I figured the relationship these two disks had to one another was forgotten once they were extracted from their host machine. Ahh, but it was not so, thankfully!

Clearly the world is now a better place having those dozen or so drum solo AIFF files restored. Ahhh...This is something humans will have to deal with more and more as time goes on. This bizarre attachment we have to something as abstract as magnetic blurbs on platters. How sad to have one's personal sense of well-being hinged upon the integrity of computer data. What can I say, that's the world we live in. *sigh*

Environmental Holocaust Solution

As you all know, any day now the world will collapse into utter chaos. Melting glaciers, floods, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, giant clouds of black pollution melting people's faces off, famine, disease outbreaks and just general unpleasantness. It will certainly happen in our lifetime, much as it will certainly happen in every generation before us. Oh yes my friends, we are all fucking doomed and it's our fault. Wretched humans destroyed the planet! There's no hope! We're all gonna die! It's the End Times don't you know? Oh yes indeed, Jesus is coming back and will judge the living and the dead. I swear, it will happen in our lifetimes. No, seriously if you read the bible it says so. It's us man, it's our generation. Everyone else was wrong. Ooh cripes, I can feel the apocalypse drawing near! Look out!

Or is it? Do we have to accept global holocaust which is coming Any Day Now? I think not! The solution is simple. The problem is overpopulation. The earth is just too loaded up with pesky humans and a finite amount of natural resources. The quality of life for everyone will increase if there are less people and more resources, right? Of course. So the solution is that half of the human population must be eliminated. Now hold on, I know what you're thinking, this is utter madness! Murder is wrong! Well yes, of course it is. But my plan is entirely voluntary. What you must do is find another person; preferably a stranger, or even someone you know if you prefer. Every human must pair up with another human. Race, sex or religion is not important. Once you have found your teammate you will then flip a coin to determine which one of you will commit suicide. The loser of the toss must kill him or herself within one year. The winner will get a special t-shirt to wear indicating that their partner lost and will be sacrificing themselves for the Greater Good. Within a year 50% of earth will be gone. Oh I know, it will be sad to see so many people die, but remember, this is to avoid EVERYONE dying! Which would you rather have? There's no question if we don't implement a world wide suicide solution that our Mother Earth will be a hideous black mass of death and devastation.

So go out and find a partner today! By this time next year, if you are one of the lucky survivors, you will be enjoying a bright new future. If not, be glad in the fact that your grisly sacrifice will be for the Benefit Of Future Generations. Because you know, it's not your life that's important, it's people that will be born 500 years from now. What kind of legacy will you leave them if you continue to sit around existing and wasting precious resources? Your great great grandchild will curse your vile name as they are dying of lung cancer in an overcrowded hospital floating on a barge off the coast of the former Mount Everest! Don't be such a greedy, selfish pig! Suicide is the only way to ensure the survival of the planet!

Book shilling

Go now and buy this book by Sam Harris: Letter To A Christian Nation
It will only take you an hour or so to read. Then, like me, you will be free to go 'round killing babies, punching old ladies in the teeth and setting fire to churches as I do. I've got burning baby all over me right now in fact. Before reading this book I was a good person with a happy smile, clean fingernails and who baked hot cross buns every sunday morning, (the natural result of reading about ancient begatting and 800 year old men on gilded edge paper) but now I have free reign to go completely nuts. It's fantastic! The body count is rising every day! Read it and know the unique sound an infant's head makes when struck with a blunt instrument.