Saturday, May 04, 2013

Becoming a Programmer in Just 15 Minutes a Day.

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Overview:

First understand the four levels. Bottommost of which is, you flip each switch to cause electricity to flow in a given direction for one instant. Nobody does this anymore. Next level is assembly language, where typing in certain commands, causes whole sequences of switches to be thrown in sequence for you. After that comes the traditional programming languages, which aggregate and expand on clusters of assembly language commands, the would be BASIC, PASCAL, and C++, C# etc. Above this are scripting languages, like HTML , JAVA, which are relatively easier to understand, and are useful for making web pages. Or complete programs dedicated to making web pages, from the complex Dreamweaver to simple ones found on cheap, build it yourself, web hosting pages. The more complex, the finer tuning and more extravagant effects can be achieved. To make something show up on the internet, you need to own a domain name, have a service with a server to host your stuff on their hard drive, and have a program like Filezilla to upload whatever you've written, so that people cruising the internet can find it. Enjoy!

Monday, April 29, 2013

Handling a Berserker in a Grocery Store

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This just might save your or someone else's life some day.  From a discussion about alternatives to CCW.

  • Grabbing an hurtling as many soup cans as fast as possible in the supermarket scenario, ain't being Walter Mitty. You will draw his fire, at 68 I'll risk it all, on the grounds others will see and follow suit, before he gets to me.
  • Take the cap off a vinegar bottle and toss that. BBQ light anyone? Bleach? Hammers in the hardware aisle, motor oil in automotve, and be sure to try the mortar approach from the next aisle. Or go get a knife yourself in the housewares aisle.
  • Broken Champagne bottles? Yogurt? How many potatos can you launch in 5 seconds. Artichoke Hearts jars are perfect.
  •  and of course, banana peels, bulk pepper.
  • Ram him with a shopping cart! Damn the knives, full speed ahead!

Gaming the Aesop Substitute System

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Competition for substitute teaching jobs in this county is fierce.  In times past the school secreatries and the teachers basically had their favorites, and breaking into that circle was nearly impossible.  With the recent transition to the Aesop Substitute system, that all changed, for a little while.

The system consists of online accounts for the teachers calling sick, and oline accounts for the substitute, one account for each individual involved.  I was in the system and getting jobs very nicely back in January and February, but then I took a vacation for March and April, except for the last week.  Much to my amazement, according to Aesop, nobody was sick last week.

Not believing this by Thursday I called up one of the Districts in the county, to see what was up.  I was informed that indeed, on Friday they were using 13 subs.  I have my computer on continuously all of Thurday and through the night on Friday, connected to my home theater , with the volume set to put the cat on the ceiling and leave the neighbors wondering if an earthquake had struck.

Still nothing.

Did the same thing all weekend, and added in SubAssistant, a second program that watches for posted jobs and keeps a record.  It is now 5:18 am, on a Monday morning, and across the three districts I am monitoring, on a Monday morning, not one person has called in sick.

I can only conclude that the old inner circle system is back, and that what is going on is that the teacher on the phone or the secretary in the office is literally letting the desired sub know the very second a job is posted.  By hitting the refresh button a fraction of a second later, that sub is the first to see, and then accepts the job, such that no one else ever even sees the job.  In the event someone else DOES see the job, the requesting teacher or secretary can then cancel the job, wait a minute or two, and relist list the job until the "right" substitute gets it.

Old Boy Network wins again.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Solve Many Social Ills This Way:

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  • I'm in favor of paying youth up to age 22 or so not to get pregnant, both male and female. Males in the program do have to advance submit a DNA sample. 95% in education expense (including minimal food/housing) and 5% cash outright, at least for ages 13 through 19. 
     
    Also a $100 bonus for actually graduating high school. Think of it as a stimulus/bailout package, as the youth are indeed what our futures are banking on. Monthly payouts.
     
    You would pay for this program in increased savings from no longer happening classroom disruptions and less bullying, with their attendant social costs.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Robots and Guns

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With all the worries about a rogue government, we've comforted ourselves with the notion that we can be armed and besides, no true American would gun down his fellow citizen. Or if they would, at least you'd have the satisfaction of taking out a few of the bastards before they napalmed you.

Unfortunately, there may not even be that slight hint of upright manly glory, if indeed robots get good enough to be networked together to comb an area, using data from a high flying drone. Given how cheaply extremely complicated machines are made these day, a cheap functional, m14 carrying robot may be patrolling your neighborhood soon. Appealing to its patriotism just won't work.  Are assembly lines already making these?

Monday, April 15, 2013

Making the Status Quo More Transparent.

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Now the real way to clarify the workings of Congress is to lottery off a Congressman's face time with constituents. Only constituents who voted in the last election would be entered in the lottery. Each winner gets to decide to talk to a Congressman for 2 hours, or sell their time slot. The winners who sell that time would do so on a stock market, where it has value until the time slot date passes into history. The final purchaser who actually exercises the right to meet with the Congressperson would be known to all, and nobody would be permitted to "own" more than 1 % of a Congressman's face time, or more than 5% total of all Congress folks face time.

Photography is a Crime Stopper/Solver, not a Crime.

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After the requests have been flowing out from the FBI for imaging from the Boston Marathon Massacre, it's time for all law enforcement, especially those in California, to relax and chill when cameras are pointed at them.  As long as the photographer is not close enough to interfere with an arrest or sidewalk investigation, there is no good reason to attempt to intimidate the camera people with not so veiled threats of arrest, as long as all are in public spaces. Photography in public is legal.  Using resulting photographs for advertising is a civil matter.  Using resulting photographs for editorial or news use is perfectly legal, and yes, Virginia, the photographer may make some money from the deal.

Should a terrorist attack occur, all those cameras are obviously great tools for getting leads on the perps.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

How Much Would a Semi-Cop in Every School Cost?

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$5,480,000,000 One guard at each of the 137,000 schools nationwide, at $40,000 each PER YEAR. Bob you are in favor of paying for this? Would one guard be enough at some schools? Most schools are way too big in area and hiding places. Arrange to have a paintball fight at one and see how many places a gunman can hide in. Now you want to buy fencing and security cams at how much times 137,000?

Friday, April 12, 2013

Bicyclists Should Pay Their Fair Share? HA!



Written in response to some person who thinks bike paths should be paid for by bicyclists alone, and not with HER money.

  • This bicyclist pay taxes, plenty of them, and bicyclist keep the air cleaner and the population healthier, as long as selfish roadhogging inattentive motorists don't bump them off. Trust me, you have plenty of lobbyists hustling for the other side already, and using My money, for purposes I could care less about.


  • You need to study the concept of "public right-of-way." Way back when, the motorcar and oil companies pushed to get the roadways, which belonged to ALL Who Traveled, paved, so that they could go faster and more comfortably, they did NOT pay one bloody cent to buy the land outright. Back then, visionary bicyclists, horseback riders, horse drawn carriage folks, were concerned that cars would steal the commons, and INDEED, it has come to pass. Note that the car folks never paid for the right of ways, they just paid for improving them to their advantage. For motorists to truly own the roads, they would have had to buy up the land, and start from scratch. They never did that. So Share the Roads! And give back what's been stolen to make Ford, GM, Exxon, and the rest richer than stink, and block mass transit, which is proven to be far safer per passenger mile traveled. 40,000 dead plus per year is just insane.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Summary of 2nd Amendment Arguments

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So far I have shown that a rogue government would collapse the economy, and put itself out of business. You have also shown that such a government would be toothless, as no American military of LE would fire on fellow Americans. 

But if said rogue government did function, this is not Vietnam of WWII Europe. There have been serious innovations, and those innovations live right next door to the targets, not on the other side of the planet. Much simpler logistics.

 I have shown that hordes from the city would quickly get creative and use Molotov cocktails delivered mortar style, where even 50 calibre machine guns can't reach them (just over a small rise), or would resort to 18 wheelers crashing into fortress stick frame house, to get at your can goods. 

 There are 37,000,000 Californians, which would swarm like the critters in the matrix, all over Mendocino and Gardnerville, etc. I've shown that the 500,000 deer in California are to be shot by stealth, not semi-auto fire, and will be very quickly consumed by 37,000,000 Californians. 

Also, you going to fire such a weapon when 37,000,000 Californians are looking for food? That's a "come and get it signal" to anyone within a half mile. Arrows would be much stealthier and saner. After al this you're still suggesting "you gotta have a gun that can kill 10 kids in 5 seconds? You are out of your cotten picken minds!

Friday, March 22, 2013

Your AR-15 will NOT Stop the Government Takeover that will NEVER Happen.

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Your AR-15 ain't never gonna stop no takeover that's never going to happen. The USA is not 1/2 a planet away like Vietnam. Our troops and all there supplies are right here, the logistics are vastly simpler. Jerkoffs with AR-15's in Memphis? Send in fighter bombers from Knoxville, less than a 1/2 hour flight away, and load them with napalm, or simple chlorine gas, or even more nastier stuff, or maybe LSD, and a smart bomb guiding device.  After all, if the rule of law goes out the window, so do the rules of warfare.

Oh guess what, do you think the Vietcong would have held out against today's technology, as compared to pre-computer cell phone technology? How many GI could have been saved with drones? Give that same kind of technology to Hitler, and see how well the invaded country, with all the rifles and pistols in the world, would have done?  Hmmm, yet another failed rt wing argument bites the dust.

 Ah, but it ain't never goona happen in the first place. Obama sends the order, "round up all the rightys!" Guess what, USA economy immediately tanks, bigtime, and Obama cannot meet payroll or provide food, shortest damn takeover ever, as no country would help him one damn bit, as they need the USA economy, dysfunctional as it currently is. 

Prove me wrong, wannabe Paul Revere's spreading access to dangerous toys, because of unresolved issues involving fear of eventual death, that is inevitable for all, old age it's called. 

 If air canons can blast 30 pounds of pot several hundred yards up over and across border fences, then maybe a similar device is what you need for home defense.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Chase Bank and Facebook have both been having Connect Issues.

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Last two days or so FB has been keeping me from posting, or keeping me from commenting, intermittently, never done that before.  I went into Chase the afternoon (Monday, March18,2013) and their system was down too.  We really do need an alternative to FB.

Here is a site you can use to find out what's up/down with Facebook:  http://downrightnow.com/facebook

Saturday, March 16, 2013

New USGS Earthquake Reports View Sucks.

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The USGS, normally one of my favorite places, is upgrading their earthquake reporting system, or at least they think they are.  For me, to see what I want to see, now takes a whole pile of clicks, where one click did it all before.

The old site I sure is fully automated, and could be left up to run indefinitiely, but no, they're gonna kill it off, so they say.   You can even send them a convenient note about the switch, so I made use of their "report a quake our sensors didn't catch" to send them the following:

Since you have a, "here's the new way to report earthquakes  for us, forget the old one we're gonna kill it sometime soon" and there is no place to make public comments about this one sided process, I just wanted you to know that I loved the old map, one click shows all of California in a VERTICAL format.  Did you notice that California is taller than it is wide?  Your new format messes with the natural shape and requires resizing of window.  Also, your default 2.5 quake magnitude setting is a pain too, yet another click required to get into that I want.  Why are you trying to make me work so hard?  I have you on my toolbar, one click, and I see 99% of what I want to know.  Now you've turned the site into and underwater maze, filled with jello.   Let that old one be. It's fine, it costs nothing to run, it's automated, let the consumer decide.

thanks,

Doug

PS, if you kill the old site, I will be visiting far less often.  Or maybe that is what you had in mind.  "See, look at all the clicks and page visits we are getting, since we upgrade, please give us more money, Washington, we be popular.,"  BTW, posting this to my blog, farstars.blogspot.com

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Why Pay for Advertising When You Can Make Something Viral?

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Rather amazing story here:  http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/pingpong.asp

Sunday, March 10, 2013

How the Rich Wreck Education

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http://www.alternet.org/education/chomsky-corporate-assault-public-education?page=0%2C2&paging=off

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Guns and Cars Have a Lot in Common, but Which Is Really Safer?

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Gun and cars do have a lot in common, they both have firing chambers, a space in which a propellant is ignited and the resulting increase in gas pressure causes work to be done. I rather suspect then, that a fair comparison between the safety of cars and guns, needs to be done by examining the number of firings before a fatality occurs. Since cars have engines that typically fire many many times a second, I suspect that despite the higher number of actual deaths, cars are tremendously safer based on the number of times the cylinders are activated safely every year in this country. This is indeed an original thought, and you saw it here first, aren't you lucky!. ©Douglas Keachie, 2013.

For those who need to brush up on the laws affecting gases, try this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY9VGS2eXas&feature=player_detailpage

The Stock Market and How It Grew, Like a Balloon in a Blackberry Patch

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Is there anyone other than me who wonders if the recent runup in stock prices really just represents the next level of micro instant stock buys and sells? We already know that folks have gotten filthy rich designing programs that watch for tiny shifts to make decisions to buy and sell, often within seconds from new ownership to sold.  These buys and sells have probably absolutely NOTHING to with the real value of the company, and yet respresent as much as 70% of the trading, according to some sources.

Does this new level include some grand manipulations affecting the entire market? We know for a fact that large brokerage houses know collectively what their customers as a whole and individually are going to do and under what conditions. That how you set up your buys and sells, you have to tell them the conditions under which you wish to do either, so they have a huge advantage in guessing what's going on. Have they now learned how to massage the customers to produce this record rise? If so, when does the weasel go POP?!?!?


http://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

Monday, March 04, 2013

How Tihart Emasculated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, for the NRA

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Too important not to post:  One of Jon Stewart's best reveals.

http://forum.huskermax.com/vbbs/showthread.php?44078-ATF-Powerless-to-Regulate-Firearms

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Corporate Goldilockism, an Astronomical Metaphor for Free Market Capitalism

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The other day I wrote this, which needs a bit of rewriting, which I will be doing as time permits.  The spirit is accurate and concise.

"Corporate Goldilockism is the eternal quest for the perfect blend of maximum profit from a population maintained as a balnaced porridge of poverty and ignorance of this state of affairs, and with total contempt for them as fellow human beings."
Further evidence for Corporate Goldilockism: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-france-workers-idUSBRE91J0OF20130220
Or try this one:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/17/digital-capitalism-low-pay?CMP=SOCNETTXT6966 
 
When it comes to companies, "You'll never get rich, unless, you own, the son of a bitch."
 

Sunday, February 10, 2013

How to Fill the Offerings Basket

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That is the message being heard from some leading evangelicals in the United States. After decades of promoting traditionally conservative causes like opposition to abortion, many evangelical leaders are now wielding their formidable influence to persuade Republican lawmakers to back one of President Barack Obama's top priorities.
With Hispanic attendance at their churches rising, these evangelicals are among the loudest advocates of a U.S. immigration reform. A group of pastors has launched a 40-day campaign to have churchgoers pray, read scripture passages about welcoming the stranger and lobby their members of Congress, many of them in the conservative South.
"We have pastors preach in pulpits to parishioners in Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas - in all the wonderful red states across America," that aiding immigrants, illegal or not, is a Christian duty, said Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, one of the country's most prominent Hispanic evangelicals.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Dehumanizing Via "Chat" Customer Service

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More and more companies are going to chat as their only means of customer interaction.

This is sick.

And stupid, in several ways.

Oftentimes what is needed is custom service.  If I could have found the switch in the online catalogue, yes, I would have just done click click to order it.  Turns out, there is no exact match in the catalog, so I need to talk with someone whoo knows the product line.

The last thing I need is to be type chatting with someone in a foreign country who doesn't speak English well, who is dealing with three other customers at the same time (interminable waits), who is merely duplicating my search through the same damn catalog I've already gone through!

Also, I miss the flavor of the human on the other side of the country, and interesting side paths for each of our days, that I guess the shareholders and CEO and CFO find as frivolous.

The message being sent by corporate is as plain as the bank bailouts, "we could are less about our customers, just send us the money."

Here's another example of poor service by another writer:

" Hughes Net is having trouble with beam 19, which covers our area. I have spent hours on the phone with them. The first level people have you jump through hoops that are set up merely to make you feel like the problem is your fault and that you are actually being taken care of. I finally had to contact Corporate and threaten to file a complaint with the FCC. They are very aware of the problem and are working on it. I'm paying for 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload, and I'm only getting 2 Mbps down, and 0.1 up. I got my bill reduced by $10 for three months, and also a credit for $180. Go to speedtest.net and see what your speeds are. Keep a log of your speeds and your interactions with the company. Demand compensation for your troubles."

And yet another:

"fyi: I've now been on hold for over 41 minutes with Dell Customer Care attempting to get a return tag so I can mail this POS XPS Laptop (with Windows 8) and get a 100% refund. Governor yersefs accordionly."
 

Why We Can't Fix Guns.

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Apparently the "systems approach to things" involves picking and choosing what you will and won't measure, and thus use as factors in your analysis. 

"Clever people and grocers, they weigh everything," ~Zorba the Greek~

As long as Group A says, "Use this, not that,"  and Group B says, "Use that, not this," you've simply added one more layer of BS to the discussion.  "Piled Higher and Drier," comes to mind, and Walt, my friend, that's the long form of PhD in some circles, in case you didn't know.'


"Should the metric for assessing the efficacy of restrictive gun laws be the gun homicide rate, or violent crime rates in general?  ~Gregory Goodknight at George Rebane's Blog~

It just might be that the efficacy of restrictive guns laws is zero, regardless of which rate is used.  You may be altogether asking for the wrong solution, to a problem of stress and psychosis in our dog eat dog, no holds barred, kick them when they are down, capitalist free market society.  Could it be that holding those values as core to the USA culture, is the real source of gun violence?

System analysis in simple and even somewhat complex engineering situations, where all is determined by physics, works most of the time, but the Japanese loosened their safety standards to get those batteries packs on through, and like the O rings on the shuttle, the desires of humans led to failures in the real world.  The desire known as boundless greed, has short circuited the safety of the social fabric, and until you fix that, you are going to have your 10,000 plus murder rates via gunfire nationwide, forever.  And with it, more Sandy Hooks.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Solar Technology Gets New Twist; It Turns.

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http://cleantechnica.com/2013/01/24/v3solar-spin-cell-cones-cheap-solar/

Bad news foe those who say solar will never be cheap enough.

George Rebane's Pet Potty Mouth is Off Leash

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Saturday, December 22, 2012

NRA is Both Impractical, Expensive and has Already Been Proven a Failure!

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Among full-time and part-time public school teachers in 2007–08, some 76 percent of public school teachers were female, 44 percent were under age 40, and 52 percent had a master’s or higher degree. Compared with public school teachers, a lower percentage of private school teachers were female (74 percent), were under age 40 (39 percent), and had a master’s or higher degree (38 percent).
In addition, among both males and females, 83 percent of public school teachers were White, 7 percent each were Black or Hispanic, 1 percent each were Asian or of two or more races, and less than one percent each were Pacific Islander or American Indian/Alaska Native in 2007–08.
Source: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28

In addition you have c. 98,000 public schools, c. 33,000 private schools, and 6700 institutions of higher ed.
Source: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84

So, one cop per school would be roughly 137,000 additional cops, if one cop per school was enough. Assuming worst case scenario, how long does it take a very healthy cop to run from the main office to the library at NU? Do you suppose the med student who did the Aurora cinemas, wouldn't have had the brains to set up a diversion at the oppposite end of a campus, if that was his target?
If I'm not mistaken, that number 137,000 would be about one quarter the total number of folks in all our armed forces, no? How much is that going to cost? Will you pay those taxes?

Columbine had an armed guard.

Viginia Tech had a police department.

And Fort Hood was an army base!

Far cheaper to fence the schools and have tightly controlled access, with video cams with motion detectors to check for fence climbers.