I'm feeling fairly solid at this point. I haven't yet seen some obviously incompetent defeat some more obviously capable person.
Episode 1, So Kim and Joaquin proved to be untrustable (hopefully permanently) and So got sent home.
Episode 2, Vince showed too much attachment, plus or minus, and repelled a number of others.
Episode 3, Nina tried too hard to play the victim. She may not realize that she's playing that role. She got voted out, and may finally realize that it was because she played a role that was unwanted.
Episode 4, Meh. Lindsey got removed. I didn't hate her, but I didn't love her.
Episode 5, Max was a bit of a weirdo. Things were in a considerable bit of flux. The instability he represented was something that others had a responsibility to redact.
I can hope that the rest of the season makes sense. But after last season, I'm trying to restrain my hopes. Last season really poisoned me on the series.
2015/03/19
2015/03/06
The Curse of Knowledge
Sadly, I'm starting to develop a habit of recoiling in horror at having to learn things because to learn it means that sooner or later, I'll have to cite the source of the damned thing. My memory is vast, but I CAN NOT remember every stupid source for every stupid fact or opinion which I absorb. I could take some machine I have and make it a database of "where I got [x] from" thinger, but that's totally unrealistic. Maybe I could push that database into the cloud (and then pay for that ... monthly) but again, that's wasteful. What is the purpose?
Is wisdom intended to be only held for a short term and then destroyed?
I tend to buy books, not necessarily because I intend to read them again, but because it is a story that I really love. If I later pass those to my nieces and nephews am I doing a service or a disservice by expanding their knowledge? If that child, which I love, then says (or types) something that they got from some book that I passed them, will they then be accused of plagiarism? Will I be culpable in causing grief and possibly permanent damage to the reputation of a child which I love? Is my responsibility then to keep the child ignorant of things I know? Further, is it my responsibility to keep myself ignorant of as much as possible because to learn things can cause irreparable harm later? Should I shield instead of exposing my extended family to Piers Anthony, Robert Heinlein, R.A. Salvatore, and Stephen King because some idea or phrasing may "look like" something that they may formulate on their own later?
The species seems to be in flux and day-by-day, ignorance seems to be heralded as a virtue while wisdom seems to be shunned. Is wisdom no longer wanted? Is it the goal to be an ignorant sheep that does what it is told, and no thought is applied?
(side note: I somewhat equate wisdom and knowledge, though they're not exactly the same. Intelligence is something else which isn't strictly necessary. Some unintelligent people make some very good decisions regularly because they know who/what to listen to and who/what to not listen to. Some "intelligent" people make some really dumb decisions, REPEATEDLY because they're using "facts" that are entirely false. You get some real facts to penetrate those craniums, and those people will either recoil in horror at what they've done, or they'll embrace the dark side and keep going.)
2015/01/30
Death, retort
Every time an apple is opened, a quantity of seeds is exposed. A
number of these seeds, that are all viable, are effectively killed
because I put them in the trash. Because of this, they won't ever grow
to any useful fruit, others die on the spot because my knife cut
destroyed them. I do not feel bad about any of this. I cannot feel bad
about this. This is the nature of things.
Sadly, humans are the same. We're on a higher level. We "feel". So we have the in-built desire to not destroy our "fellow apple" or "fellow seed". That needlessly complicates things more than uncomplicating things. Death is inevitable. Some just have longer timelines than others. Trying to sugar coat this causes needless harm to the thinking of fellow humans. A death sentence is in-built on birth. Dancing with why or why not some person's timeline shouldn't be being abbreviated is too much playing-god to me.
I tire of some of these worn out "what-if" scenarios. If I'm sentenced to death, wrongfully, I'm likely to not ask for any appeals. I'll accept death and be done with it. I know what faces me, for good or for bad. Let's be done with the second-guessing. It bores me. Enough is enough. I'm a tired apple.
Sadly, humans are the same. We're on a higher level. We "feel". So we have the in-built desire to not destroy our "fellow apple" or "fellow seed". That needlessly complicates things more than uncomplicating things. Death is inevitable. Some just have longer timelines than others. Trying to sugar coat this causes needless harm to the thinking of fellow humans. A death sentence is in-built on birth. Dancing with why or why not some person's timeline shouldn't be being abbreviated is too much playing-god to me.
I tire of some of these worn out "what-if" scenarios. If I'm sentenced to death, wrongfully, I'm likely to not ask for any appeals. I'll accept death and be done with it. I know what faces me, for good or for bad. Let's be done with the second-guessing. It bores me. Enough is enough. I'm a tired apple.
2015/01/24
Android confusion
WTF?
Seriously. Am I supposed to be annoyed at how Android works? Am I supposed to be annoyed that it is downloading "updates"? If the answer to either is "no", then someone has failed, badly.
I'm supposed to not-notice background crap. When a game auto-pauses because it sees that it was superseded, that's a hide-in-the-background fail. I've removed the download manager's ability to generate notices, and the Play Store may soon follow if the stupid "background" notices don't stay in the background like they should.
If the UI would stop annoying me, I'd not be annoyed.
2015/01/20
Daft federal government, sigh
How does the federal government not comprehend that it only has one group it can grow? The federal government can't "grow from the middle class out" (which is the new, unfortunate narrative).
The federal government can only grow the poor. Every time the federal government takes money, it is from taxpayers. Then because it would be "unfair" (gag me with a spoon) to distribute that set of taken (stolen, but some hate that word in relation to government) resources to anyone but the poor, Only the poor benefit, but not in individual quantity (more to you) but in total zombie count.
If you're thinking about benefiting yourself, you then you want to be poor, to get "free" goodies. Of course, you'll have to partially subsist, but such is the cost to join the zombie horde.
If you're a taxpayer, you're just plain screwed. The government will take what you have sooner or later. Give up. Game over. Join the horde. That's the plan anyway, so quit resisting. The government horde is the Borg written in flesh with no technological boost to reign in the stupid. Resistance is futile.
The federal government can only grow the poor. Every time the federal government takes money, it is from taxpayers. Then because it would be "unfair" (gag me with a spoon) to distribute that set of taken (stolen, but some hate that word in relation to government) resources to anyone but the poor, Only the poor benefit, but not in individual quantity (more to you) but in total zombie count.
If you're thinking about benefiting yourself, you then you want to be poor, to get "free" goodies. Of course, you'll have to partially subsist, but such is the cost to join the zombie horde.
If you're a taxpayer, you're just plain screwed. The government will take what you have sooner or later. Give up. Game over. Join the horde. That's the plan anyway, so quit resisting. The government horde is the Borg written in flesh with no technological boost to reign in the stupid. Resistance is futile.
2015/01/19
Robin Hood and the Red Herring
Recently the annoying question of "Would you steal bread to feed your starving family?" has come back up, yet again. This question annoys me to no living end. Right from the top, the whole thing is a red herring masquerading as a valid question.
First, there's the tragic case that it is assumed that God has nothing to say about the scenario. With so many continuously noisy atheists running around nagging people about how even talking about a god is offensive, it's not surprising that most people quickly give up on trying to talk about that. God has a plan, and maybe his plan is to perform a miracle whereby the potential thief is soon to be gifted with a quantity of food out of the kindness of someone's heart. But God sees that the potential thief is going to take law or lawlessness in their own hands and "remedy" the "unreasonable situation". So, God cancels the planned miracle. Maybe the would-be altruistic neighbor witnesses the theft and decides that feeding a family supported by a thief would do more harm than good. But, since God is so unpopular, we'll set this possible resolution aside.
The question pre-assumes that every other option has been exhausted. This is patently nonsense.
There are lots of charity groups whose stated goal is to prevent people from starving (or even simply being hungry) by providing them food. Yes, there is humility that must be exhibited in going to these charity groups and asking for help. It is probably not even necessary to beg for help. Begging would still be appropriate if the situation is "dire". There are many charity groups that can be asked or begged for help. Refusing to make the effort of trying those options before choosing to steal shows a serious flaw of priorities. Clinging to pride instead of embracing humility is probably one of the worst character flaws, especially if it is to the detriment of loved ones. Even if every charity group reports an inability or an unwillingness to help, there are still other options.
If family, friends, and neighbors are unaware of the situation, they may not know that there is a need. Informing family, friends, and neighbors may prompt them to supply food, money, or offer to take the potential thief to a store and buy food for the family. Again, telling family, friends, and neighbors about the situation and its seriousness requires a degree of humility. Again, if pride defeats humility, that counts as a serious character flaw.
No matter how much I hate the food stamp or SNAP programs, those are still options. The problem with the programs is that the asking person doesn't really have to exhibit humility since both the asking person and government think that the person "deserves" help because of "circumstances beyond their control". Unfortunately pride, which likely led to the situation in the first place, is one of those "circumstances" and isn't properly treated as the character flaw it is. So, the character flaw is reinforced instead of being addressed and replaced with proper humility.
All of this available help still doesn't help in the cases where a person already suffers the mental error that says that stealing from the "rich" is a virtue instead of the crime it is. This mental error has been growing more and more recently with people choosing to view themselves as a Robin Hood character. It doesn't help that too many in government have continued to push the false narrative that the "poor" are the victim of the "rich" instead of the truth that both the poor and rich are victims of a government grown far beyond anything resembling a reasonable size. It is easier for government to keep both sides in check by continuing the narrative that the two sides should be fighting each other instead of fighting the government like they really should be.
Long story short, don't come to me with the question of, "Should someone steal to feed their family?" The question and the premise are broken. Humoring the possibility that maybe theft is reasonable, is actively harmful to individual thinking and to the future of society in general. Stop asking the question. Asking the question in any serious manner without "No!" being the only right answer just makes you look foolish.
First, there's the tragic case that it is assumed that God has nothing to say about the scenario. With so many continuously noisy atheists running around nagging people about how even talking about a god is offensive, it's not surprising that most people quickly give up on trying to talk about that. God has a plan, and maybe his plan is to perform a miracle whereby the potential thief is soon to be gifted with a quantity of food out of the kindness of someone's heart. But God sees that the potential thief is going to take law or lawlessness in their own hands and "remedy" the "unreasonable situation". So, God cancels the planned miracle. Maybe the would-be altruistic neighbor witnesses the theft and decides that feeding a family supported by a thief would do more harm than good. But, since God is so unpopular, we'll set this possible resolution aside.
The question pre-assumes that every other option has been exhausted. This is patently nonsense.
There are lots of charity groups whose stated goal is to prevent people from starving (or even simply being hungry) by providing them food. Yes, there is humility that must be exhibited in going to these charity groups and asking for help. It is probably not even necessary to beg for help. Begging would still be appropriate if the situation is "dire". There are many charity groups that can be asked or begged for help. Refusing to make the effort of trying those options before choosing to steal shows a serious flaw of priorities. Clinging to pride instead of embracing humility is probably one of the worst character flaws, especially if it is to the detriment of loved ones. Even if every charity group reports an inability or an unwillingness to help, there are still other options.
If family, friends, and neighbors are unaware of the situation, they may not know that there is a need. Informing family, friends, and neighbors may prompt them to supply food, money, or offer to take the potential thief to a store and buy food for the family. Again, telling family, friends, and neighbors about the situation and its seriousness requires a degree of humility. Again, if pride defeats humility, that counts as a serious character flaw.
No matter how much I hate the food stamp or SNAP programs, those are still options. The problem with the programs is that the asking person doesn't really have to exhibit humility since both the asking person and government think that the person "deserves" help because of "circumstances beyond their control". Unfortunately pride, which likely led to the situation in the first place, is one of those "circumstances" and isn't properly treated as the character flaw it is. So, the character flaw is reinforced instead of being addressed and replaced with proper humility.
All of this available help still doesn't help in the cases where a person already suffers the mental error that says that stealing from the "rich" is a virtue instead of the crime it is. This mental error has been growing more and more recently with people choosing to view themselves as a Robin Hood character. It doesn't help that too many in government have continued to push the false narrative that the "poor" are the victim of the "rich" instead of the truth that both the poor and rich are victims of a government grown far beyond anything resembling a reasonable size. It is easier for government to keep both sides in check by continuing the narrative that the two sides should be fighting each other instead of fighting the government like they really should be.
Long story short, don't come to me with the question of, "Should someone steal to feed their family?" The question and the premise are broken. Humoring the possibility that maybe theft is reasonable, is actively harmful to individual thinking and to the future of society in general. Stop asking the question. Asking the question in any serious manner without "No!" being the only right answer just makes you look foolish.
2014/12/18
Survivor 29, apathy
This is a first. In general, I enjoy Survivor (the TV series). In spite of how much I hate the direction that a season is going (including knowing where a season is going because it has already aired), I tend to follow it.
This season is an exception. Midway through the finale episode, Keith was voted out. OK. That happens. ... The problem is that the three jerks (I'm trying to be kind) that were left were all people that I care nothing about.
I aborted out of the episode (seriously, I did) because one of the three a-holes will get the $1m. I don't care at all which a-hole it is. I don't care about the great dramatic BS that the Survivor crew bothered to put them through to make it look like they earned it. I proactively don't care.
None of them deserve it. They voted off the one guy that did.
Screw this season finale. I won't watch.
Screw the reunion. I don't care.
What's worse, this season has poisoned my interest in following seasons.
Oh well, I've got better things to do anyway....
This season is an exception. Midway through the finale episode, Keith was voted out. OK. That happens. ... The problem is that the three jerks (I'm trying to be kind) that were left were all people that I care nothing about.
I aborted out of the episode (seriously, I did) because one of the three a-holes will get the $1m. I don't care at all which a-hole it is. I don't care about the great dramatic BS that the Survivor crew bothered to put them through to make it look like they earned it. I proactively don't care.
None of them deserve it. They voted off the one guy that did.
Screw this season finale. I won't watch.
Screw the reunion. I don't care.
What's worse, this season has poisoned my interest in following seasons.
Oh well, I've got better things to do anyway....
2014/12/05
Where'd my Nexus 7 Face Unlock go?
Last night I installed the Android 5.0.1 upgrade for my Gen2 Nexus 7. There's some stuff I like and some stuff I'll have to get used to. But the first thing I noticed is that Face Unlock appears to have gone missing.
With some research, I found that from [Settings] -> [Security], you could enable "Smart Lock". But the problem was that I couldn't find that on my Security screen. After some looking around, I scrolled down to the "Advanced" section (near the bottom), and found "Trust agents". Tapping into that, I found "Smart Lock (Google)" which was defaulted to off. I tapped that on, and then went back up a level. Suddenly, "Smart Lock" appeared right where it was supposed to just below "Owner info".
Hopefully this tip will help some that haven't yet figured out where their Face Unlock feature has disappeared to.
With some research, I found that from [Settings] -> [Security], you could enable "Smart Lock". But the problem was that I couldn't find that on my Security screen. After some looking around, I scrolled down to the "Advanced" section (near the bottom), and found "Trust agents". Tapping into that, I found "Smart Lock (Google)" which was defaulted to off. I tapped that on, and then went back up a level. Suddenly, "Smart Lock" appeared right where it was supposed to just below "Owner info".
Hopefully this tip will help some that haven't yet figured out where their Face Unlock feature has disappeared to.
2014/11/24
Username Identity Theft
Well, once again I find myself getting to a new site/service "late" again. This time, the site/service in question is Twitch.
My continuing problem is that when I arrive late to the party, some ignorant, uncreative jackass will have already registered with my username, killermist. http://www.twitch.tv/killermist shouldn't have been allocated, because as of the time I tried to register, I hadn't yet registered an account. In order to report the user for identity theft, which is what it amounts to, I had to register a new username (realkillermist), which isn't MY username.
The last thing before this that had that problem was Kik. They seemed to totally not care that some user was engaged in identity theft by stealing my username. So, I don't have much choice but to not use their "service" and to badmouth them to others because of their utter apathy for protecting my online identity. Even worse, someone may initiate a chat with the jackass that is using my username and not realize that the user isn't me. This has put Kik on my disavowed and shunned list. Their administrators and policy enforcers don't care about identity theft? OK. They'll just get plenty of negative word-of-mouth.
Depending on how Twitch chooses to handle this bit of identity theft, they may become a service that I use, or a service that joins Kik on the disavowed and shunned list, forever to get nothing but negative word-of-mouth out of me.
Fortunately, since I'm killermist on Google, that solidifies my online identity on everything that Google provides or that authenticates via Google. So, the moronic jackasses can't take over those identifications.
My continuing problem is that when I arrive late to the party, some ignorant, uncreative jackass will have already registered with my username, killermist. http://www.twitch.tv/killermist shouldn't have been allocated, because as of the time I tried to register, I hadn't yet registered an account. In order to report the user for identity theft, which is what it amounts to, I had to register a new username (realkillermist), which isn't MY username.
The last thing before this that had that problem was Kik. They seemed to totally not care that some user was engaged in identity theft by stealing my username. So, I don't have much choice but to not use their "service" and to badmouth them to others because of their utter apathy for protecting my online identity. Even worse, someone may initiate a chat with the jackass that is using my username and not realize that the user isn't me. This has put Kik on my disavowed and shunned list. Their administrators and policy enforcers don't care about identity theft? OK. They'll just get plenty of negative word-of-mouth.
Depending on how Twitch chooses to handle this bit of identity theft, they may become a service that I use, or a service that joins Kik on the disavowed and shunned list, forever to get nothing but negative word-of-mouth out of me.
Fortunately, since I'm killermist on Google, that solidifies my online identity on everything that Google provides or that authenticates via Google. So, the moronic jackasses can't take over those identifications.
2014/11/20
Driver Behavior
Today, I was pleasantly surprised that IndyGo driver #3030 bypassed a person that was waving for the bus, but wasn't at a proper bus stop.
I can already hear some complaining, "You're so heartless. It's cold out there."
That isn't the driver's fault, or mine either. I make the effort to be on the bus stop where I should be. He and his groceries can too.
I'm glad that the driver followed the proper protocol and didn't pick him up. Picking up from any random location encourages that same behavior from others.
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