Category Archives: Unfiled

You know, I’d be happy if they were plain old vanilla literate. I mean, what percentage of today’s high school graduates wouldn’t be able to spell "environmentally literate", even if you spotted them half the vowels?

–Tam, Religion in Public Schools

[The most depressing thing about how hilarious that statement is, it’s 100% true.  The intelligence of the American public is constantly being eroded.  Most viciously by the public school systems who create the voters of tomorrow.  Coincidence, I think not. –B]

Here’s another R700 from Boomershoot 2010 by Oleg. 

You thought I forgot it was Friday didn’t you?

Usually I usually give absolutely jack !@#%ing crap about Great Britain.  My family fought a war to separate us from those ass hats and their movement towards a forced victim populace has killed any remaining respect I have for them.  Huh, what do you mean I hear you ask.  Well lets just look at this shining example of unbelievable behavior from the UK.

Officers arriving at the scene were told that four men in dark clothing, some in balaclavas, had broken in via the back door before being repelled. It is not known whether they were armed.

A search of the area was quickly launched and within minutes police found the dying man lying on a pavement in Hospital Road, Salford.

Compare that to here in the states, where many of us enjoy castle doctrine, along with many other laws that strongly support self-defense.  For instance look at the incident in Ohio recently where a man was attacked by two individuals.  Out numbered and properly fearing for his life he shot one, causing the other to run away.  The police have ruled it a case of self-defense and no charges are being pressed.  If you think however the Brits don’t value the life of criminals over the law abiding look at these excerpts from the same article:

Greater Manchester Police later described the incident as “a tragic set of circumstances” and said they were trying to unravel precisely what happened in and around the Flanigans’ terraced house.

Coupling this with the end quote we reach the root and crux of the problem.

Asked what advice he would give local householders, he replied: “I would tell them to ring the police and to use reasonable force to protect themselves within the legal framework.

From all I can see there is no question reasonable force was used to protect themselves and their property yet they were arrested.  The laws in Great Britain have been twisted to the point where they protect the criminals from the law abiding, not the other way around.  Don’t believe me, look at the advice they give those with garden sheds, and the death of a man who merely tried to break up a fight.

Anyone who attempts to criminalize the law abiding, prevent the law abiding from defending themselves, all in the name of “safety” are nothing but Criminal Occupational Hazard Reduction Organizations.  Great Britain has been twisted so far, the law now attacks the law abiding and keeps the victims from fighting back.

So our fearless leader came out and said the following today:

“It’s about making sure our workers and businesses have the skills and the tools they need to compete better, faster and smarter than anybody else,” the president said. “That’s what we’re about. We’re America and we don’t just keep up with changing times, we set the pace for changing times.”

This coming from the same man who not even a week ago said the following:

“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM. You don’t go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking at the gate. So all these things have created changes in the economy.”

So first he attacks tools that are developed for automation of tasks. Then he comes forward and says we need to develop more automation and increase our manufacturing. Don’t get me wrong, we need to get back to manufacturing and building in this country. I work for a company that very proudly manufactures here in the states and does it extremely well. We do that through the same automation that he previously bad mouthed that also creates things such as ATMs.

The bottom line is humans make mistakes, while computers can they are much less common and infrequent. You can actually fix them so they won’t happen again in a computer. Having a human do the same thing over and over can result in quality issues. They may remember doing it on the current product, but it is actually the previous product they’re remembering. Automation even more than just promoting quality also allows the resources of humans to be applied elsewhere. Humans can do things that machines can’t most especially reason, think, and adapt. When something becomes automated there is usually new tasks that appear with the automation. These tasks are usually quite different than what was previously required.

It’s a matter of people leveraging the opportunities before them. Some are willing to move forward, do new things, and think outside the box. Others however would rather remain doing the exact same thing through their entire career. It is those people who are adversely affected by automation and what needs to happen is a strong lesson in the ability to adapt and overcome. Evidently they think we’re just hamsters in the cage and just listen to the talking heads our fearless leaders but lack any ability to remember anything.

Instead of educating the populace on river safety, King County has gone straight to enforcement.  The county is already stretched thin on law enforcement and now it is stretching it further to “protect” the people. 

"This Council sometimes thinks it’s everybody’s mom," said Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, who voted "no."

Life vests are not just for water craft any more.  If you want to swim or wade in the river, you have to wear a life vest, no matter how old you are.  Fishermen are exempt, though not initially. Someone pointed out that they were going to be hit up by this asinine law. How many others will be hit by this victimless law?

I’m glad I no longer live anywhere near that county.

I might be on hiatus for a bit.  I’m going much the way of Kevin. 

The Abyss overall has been taking it’s toll on me as late.  I mentioned it briefly over at Robb’s place this morning.  Seeing all the abuses and nanny state legislation the government has been doing as of late and the overall apathetic response of the general public and the media is depressing.  Looking deep into the Abyss (reading the gun blogs, watching what is happening, and the response or lack thereof) it has be come obvious that the abyss is equivalent to a black hole.  You see, hope and faith in your fellow man is sucked in to never be seen or heard from again.  The longer you stare, the more miserable and depressed you get.  No matter how hard you try, hope and faith are destroyed, squashed to a singularity so small it can never be seen again.

The wife still remains unemployed thanks to the ass hats at her previous job.  She had a decent job in Moscow, but quit that one and took a job in Pullman mainly because the commute was better and no income tax for a state we don’t actually live in.  After 4 weeks they fired her abruptly stating her disability as the excuse.  I actually think it was the union that had her fired.  She was the first one to ever challenge being forced to join the union.  Couple that with how oddly abrupt the termination was:  She was informed on Friday that she would be receiving training on Monday, Monday morning after being there for 2 hours she was told her services were no longer needed and she could either work the rest of her shift or leave immediately.  No notice, no warning, nothing, it wasn’t even her boss who delivered the news.  The person who did has since left the company along with many others.  We’re squeaking by, but it’s stressful and infuriating.  We’re paying her student loans on two degrees that have proven to be worthless.  We have tried to find a lawyer to talk to about it but to no avail. 

Couple that with the fact I’ve been starting to stress over a project at work.  I’m the sole sap they got to “volunteer” for the project.  More specifically they made it look like cookies and candy to a small kid, but the deeper I get into the project the more I’m discovering it was a “ruse”.  The project idea is awesome, I love the potential, their solution and route sucks.  I’m now spending time and effort to try and make what’s best for all parties involved happen.  Let’s just say this involves me expending a lot of effort and doing things well above my pay grade without any promise of compensation.  Worse yet my whole effort can just be brushed aside and deemed the irrelevant work of some inexperienced engineer.  It is de-motivational at times to say the least and some of the people I used to work with are starting to notice my frustration.  It’s the classic business managers can’t see or understand why doing X would be better in the long run, instead they want to copy Y since that will leverage our existing work.  Y was developed by another group and never intended to work in this role. 

So all this extra stress has finally done something that I don’t remember ever happening before.  Within a month I have gotten sick a second time.  Normally I will only get sick maybe once a year.  Last time I really got sick like this was just before my dad passed away.  When I started getting sick this time it is quite familiar in feeling and I’m reasonably sure I am having a Mono flare up due to stress.  I was struggling to stay awake today and mid-last week I had some other symptoms that I ignored but it all fits together now.

So there it is, I have a trifecta of stress that is at this point literally causing me to be ill.  As I can control the first one, albeit only somewhat, I can do things to help limit the stress created by it.  There’s not much else I can do about the other two.  I like writing stuff up, but lately I find myself getting angry and frustrated as I do so.  I’ll try and put up unrelated stuff but I make no guarantees.

You engineers are it.  You will be the ones to create the next big thing.  It’s done by seeing a problem and solving it.  Very rarely if ever is it a businessman who has an idea of what problems exist or how to solve them.

I was told this while in my senior design capstone while finishing up my degree.  He nailed it exactly on the head.  I’m seeing it at work right now and even more so in a couple of pet projects that just started up here at home.

If the pet project works I’ll blog about it after it’s first successful test.  I have questions of if it will really work or not since absolutely no one else has done it.  I also have a realization that those in the field are probably trying to get people to fully upgrade than just buy a box to make their current equipment just as capable.

I hope this will help enlighten people to the state of affairs within our country.  However it is becoming more and more obvious that the philosophy of the American public is apathy unless they are directly affected.  Most view the above not as the innocent casualties they are, but as someone who “had it coming”.  They believe that SWAT teams are only used when absolutely necessary, not with the reckless and unnecessary abandon they are used today.

SWAT teams have become the excuse for police agencies to no longer do their job or their homework.  Instead someone convinces a judge to sign a warrant and they kick down the door endangering everyone within.  In Maryland there are 4.5 SWAT raids per day.  Of those, half were for misdemeanors or non-violent felonies.  If the SWAT team invades the wrong house they are immune from prosecution.  If they use false information to obtain the warrant, don’t do their homework and terrorize innocent civilians and children, that’s ok because:

Police usually enjoy "qualified immunity" from lawsuits even when they make mistakes, as long as they were carrying out their duties responsibly, he said. Entering a residence without probable cause, however, would strip the immunity away from those officers.

In the case discussed there, the officers secured a warrant claiming the subject lived there even though they had moved out month’s earlier.  The bottom line is the police have gotten lazy, no longer do their job, and then kill innocent people in their homes and get away with it scot free.

If you’re just now arriving, Welcome to the Police State.  Too many innocents have died because of this.  One is enough to enrage me beyond belief, but look at this:

View Original Map and Database

The blue bubbles do not upset me, everything else on that map though is someone who was killed, injured, or terrorized by the police who had no cause to be.  This crap needs to end.  I would rather 1000 guilty men go free than have one innocent person killed because the cops kicked down his door.

H/T: to Uncle on the Video.