Category Archives: Freakin’ Idiots!

July 17, 2013 · 15:36

Odds & Sods For Wednesday, July 17th

Item The First: That was an interesting little exercise out at the ISS yesterday! In case you missed it, a spacewalk scheduled for six and a half hours got cut short after a little more than an hour due to a dangerous condition with one of the space suits. The suit worn by Italian/ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano started to leak water (probably the water used for cooling, but too early to be sure yet) inside of his helmet.

The problem is that water in microgravity doesn’t act like water here on the ground – see this video and this video for recent demonstrations from Chris Hadfield of how water acts on ISS. Loose water tends to float around, clump into balls, and cling through surface tension to surfaces.

Surfaces like your face. Since you’re in a space suit in the vacuum of space, you can’t just wipe the water off. So the water will spread over your head and face. And fill your ears – which left Luca almost completely unable to hear his radio. And fill your eyes – which left Luca almost completely unable to see. And cover the inside of the face plate – which meant that even what he could see out of his eyes was blurred by the water on the helmet glass.

By the time they had recognized the problem, aborted the spacewalk, and got Luca back into the airlock, they had a couple of reports that the water was getting into his nose and mouth. They later reported that there had not been a significant amount of water (YET!) there, but did admit at a press conference that if the problem had gotten worse without getting him inside and the helmet off, drowning could have been a possibility.

Do you still think that space travel is boring and routine just because we’ve gotten pretty good at doing a nearly impossible thing? Think again. It’s not that space travel is ever going to be easy or routine. It’s just that the people we have doing it are really, really good.

Item The Second: I ranted a while back about the freakin’ idiots at the AQMD wanting to shut down the beach fire pits because of the “air pollution” they cause while I wondered about how much pollution there could possibly be, especially compared to the regular brush fires we get here.

On July 12th they voted and put restrictions into place. It’s not a total ban, but it still seems to be another idiot rule by idiot bureaucrats and idiot politicians who then have the gall to wonder why we think they’re freakin’ idiots (if they ever bother to think what the general public thinks about them in the first place).

Item The Third: In better news, after I wrote about the impending closure of the the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, I got a nice email from David Hunt, the Director of the Military Aviation Museum. He gave me an update and a link to a follow-up article, indicating that things aren’t quite as grim as first indicated. While the museum will be looking to sell a couple of its aircraft in order to raise some capital, there are no immediate plans to sell the entire collection, close the museum, or shut down the airport.

Great news! Still, if you’re in the mid-Atlantic area and you’ve got an afternoon (or a day) free and you like airplanes, go give them a visit! Tell the docents how great they are! Tell David I sent you! Buy some stuff from the gift shop to help out, they’ve got some great warbird Hawaiian shirts!

Item The Fourth: With a “like” by Otrazhenie on Tuesday’s Sacramento Roses post, WordPress now tells me that I’ve gotten 100 “likes” since I started WLTSTF. After three more people hit the “follow” button last night, there are now thirty-seven people following WLTSTF, and I think only three or four of you are folks I actually know.

I have no way of knowing if that’s good, bad, or otherwise, but it pleases me greatly just on general principles. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who read WLTSTF and take the time to comment, hit the “like” and/or “follow” buttons, make a Facebook comment, or otherwise participate.

I would probably continue to blather on just to hear myself think (and to get in some steady writing practice, which was the original reason for “draining the swamp”), but it’s ever so much more fun when it’s a dialogue rather than a monologue.

Item The Fifth: There was a quiz in Spanish class on Monday, as expected. I got 13/15, The Long-Suffering Wife got 12/15, which was great considering that she had missed class the previous work due to a work commitment. We also got to do the “Paul & Ronnie: A Cute Couple” show and further established ourselves as the class clowns. We also established that “It’s not easy being Pablo”.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Odds & Sods, Space

July 15, 2013 · 22:39

Jenny, Jenny, Who Can We Turn To?

The producers of ABC’s “The View” have decided that their latest hostess on their afternoon talk show will be Jenny McCarthy.

Ms. McCarthy has a couple of notable highlights to her career. She was a Playboy centerfold in 1993 and later Playmate of the Year. She has done some modeling. She has had some roles in some truly forgettable films and won a couple of Razzie Awards for them. She played a recurring character, a ditzy, buxom, blonde, on “Two & A Half Men”. (What a stretch of her acting chops!)

And she has become quite the spokesperson campaigning against childhood vaccinations, loudly and proudly pushing the completely false and discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.

Why is she now a hostess on a daily, mid-afternoon talk show aimed at the stay-at-home mom demographic? Her track record shows that she meets the definition of “pretty” used by Hugh Hefner and the mythical Charlie Harper. And…

That’s it. There is no second qualification that I can see.

But she is passionate, if ignorant and terribly misguided, about telling other parents to NOT let their pediatricians give their kids immunizations for measles, polio, chickenpox, diphtheria, hepatitis, flu, mumps, pertussis, rubella, tetanus, and so on.

Others have been making a fuss over this far more eloquently than I can. For example:

  • The James Randi Educational Foundation in 2008 gave Ms. McCarthy a Pigasus Award for contributions to pseudoscience.
  • Phil Plait (“The Bad Astronomer”) has a great article on his Slate blog here.
  • Time magazine’s television critic James Poniewozik has an excellent article here.
  • The Anti-Vaccine Body Count is keeping score.
  • Google “Jenny McCarthy Vaccine” and just watch all of the news articles pop up.

Parents get to make choices every day on how their kids are going to be raised, and with a very few exceptions that’s the way it’s supposed to be and has to be. (Sorry, those exceptions – if you’re raising your toddlers with rattlesnakes as babysitters, for example, that’s probably over the line in my book.) Parents should always be trying to do their best to make informed decisions on behalf of their children, not just following anyone blindly.

But too many people can’t or won’t make a distinction between a medical expert that they see in the flesh every few months and a “celebrity” they see sitting next to Barbara Walters on an “entertainment” show every day. They take that celebrity’s word as fact, when it’s really 100% opinion, and an opinion that’s been repeatedly proven to be horribly, dangerously wrong.

In this case it’s even worse, because it’s not just the anti-vaxxers’ children who are going to get sick. When they get sick they spread the disease to others. Google for articles about the upswing in measles and whooping cough caused by the failure of parents to immunize in the past couple of decades, even though these diseases are almost entirely preventable. Judge for yourself the damage that has already been done throughout society by these misguided, inaccurate, discredited campaigns of fear and ignorance.

Do you think that having tens of thousands of kids with preventable diseases every year is helping to drive down the cost of health care for you and me and everyone else?

Who do you want to listen to when making life and death decisions for your children. Your doctor, who went to eight or ten years of medical school and is backed by tens of thousands of researchers and decades of data and clinical trials?

Or Miss October 1993?

What’s that old song by Tommy Tutone? “Jenny, I got your number… 8-6-7-5-3-0-9”

We always thought it was a phone number. Maybe it’s the number of children who are going to suffer and possibly die from completely preventable diseases now that ABC has given Jenny a pulpit.

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Entertainment, Freakin' Idiots!, Health

July 1, 2013 · 22:29

Flight Or Fight?

Have you noticed how often the “Politics” category gets flagged on the same post as the “Freakin’ Idiots!” category does?

Somewhere down the road in three years, five years, ten years, whatever, the Castle Of The Willetts will be relocating out of Los Angeles for sure, and almost certainly out of California. Ronnie’s still got her job here and career to finish out. I’m looking for my next job and for practical reasons it’s most likely to be in the area here (but I would take a decent job out of state in a heartbeat if it came along). But when the day comes for us to retire, it will be someplace else.

In looking at where that “someplace else” will be, I’ve been keeping track of places that seem to have a preponderance of freakin’ idiots, particularly in the political area. I would really prefer to not voluntarily move to some place where my first reaction to every move made in the state capitol is to go there and start yelling at folks and asking what kind of freakin’ idiot they think they are!!??

That could make retirement…unpleasant. For everyone.

But these days, it’s getting harder and harder to find places that aren’t full of freakin’ idiots, particularly ideologically right-wing, sanctimonious, Faux News watching freakin’ idiots. Whether it be Texas and their little thing about banning abortions no matter how many special sessions it takes, or Ohio today with their move to do the same no matter how irrational or unconstitutional, or North Carolina and Mississippi and other states trying to re-write the Jim Crow laws, or any one of a couple dozen states not being satisfied with simply denying marriage rights to a significant chunk of the population but instead insisting on making those rights actually illegal in the state constitutions – it’s getting tough to find anyplace that doesn’t suck from some political or social standpoint or another.

I’m not saying that California’s any better – it’s not! It’s not just the fact that more than 50% of the voting public allowed their common sense and their souls to be purchased by the religious right’s bullshit campaign and vote in Prop H8 a couple of years ago. The entire ballot proposition concept in California today is so totally corrupt that it’s not even funny, with 99% of the Props being corporate sponsored and corporate opposed and signatures gathered by political machines, to the point where any actual citizen-based reform via ballot proposition is almost inconceivable.

So many places look like such nice places to live, if you ignore the politics. I look at places like North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, and I would love to move (or move back) there for so many reasons.

Seasons. Small towns. Mountains and rivers and landscapes. Weather.

And then I see something about their politics or social mores that just infuriates me and I don’t see how I could ever live there.

Thinking about it today, I was wondering how other folks do it. For example, I follow and admire John Scalzi but I don’t actually know him. I know that he lives in Ohio and appears to love it there, yet he appears to feel like I do about the politics of the place. How does he do that? How does he reconcile that?

North Carolina seems to be a lovely place, lots of nice mountains, a good climate, some great places like Raleigh. I have a high school friend who’s a lawyer there and she loves it. But I know her political views and I see things like North Carolina passing constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage and passing laws in their legislature that make some incredibly bone-headed and backwards educational choices – and I don’t know that I could live there despite all of the other good things. So how does Maria do it?

While turning all of this over in my mind today a new thought occurred to me. Kind of like the revelation that the Grinch had as he heard the Whos singing in the village below him.

Maybe if you find a place that you really love except for some facet of outlandish and outrageous political or social disconnect, the trick is to live there anyway and fight to change the things that you find wrong about it. Accept that no place is perfect and even that there may be a major issue, but embrace what is good and then with determination and confidence and courage stand up in the minority for the things that you believe in and try to change things.

OK, so if the “major issue” is something like cannibalism, perhaps you need to keep looking for a starting point that’s a little closer to your own position. But if it’s the fact that 55% of the legislators are boobs who are trying to legislate pi to equal 3 just because, or legislate that third graders be taught that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, then perhaps you can work to get them replaced with better legislators. Maybe?

Is that the answer? To realize that Nirvana doesn’t exist and you can’t fly far enough away to ever find it, but that you take your best shot and fight to make it better? Or do you avoid the angst and grief that lies in that fight and keep flying, hoping that Nirvana or Shangri La is just over the next horizon?

It’s a thing to think about.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Freakin' Idiots!, Politics

June 23, 2013 · 20:20

Morons Behind The Wheel

I’ve heard it said that in other countries, particularly in Europe, specifically in Germany, it’s not anywhere near as easy to get a driver’s license as it is in the United States. Does anyone have any experience with that data to either refute or confirm? Regardless, any time spent on the roads is likely to leave me wondering, “Why is it so easy for complete morons to get a driver’s license in this country?!”

Almost any trip on our nations streets and highways, no matter how brief, can expose you & your loved ones to folks driving while on the phone (illegal in many states including here in CA), driving while texting (ditto), running red lights and stop signs, speeding way in excess of what’s safe (let alone the posted speed limit), pulling out into traffic and blocking lanes to make illegal left-hand turns, failing to pull over for emergency vehicles, turning right across railroad or bus tracks when there’s a clearly marked “No Right On Red” sign and a red right-turn arrow showing, driving without wipers in the rain, driving without lights at night…

As a card-carrying father, I’m especially fond of parents whom I see driving like freakin’ idiots with their kids in the car. They’re a special breed of stupid, and I hope for two things when they die causing a multi-vehicle, multi-fatality Sigalert while being freakin’ idiots. First, I hope that the kids are at home that day and don’t have to pay for their parents’ arrogance and ignorance. (“Are you ignorant or arrogant?” “I don’t know and I don’t care!”) Secondly, I hope that there’s a special level of Hell reserved just for them and their ilk.

Last week I saw a woman stopped at a light (Victory Boulevard, eastbound, near Pierce College), texting, and completely ignoring what was going on around her. The light turned green, she didn’t notice, and sat blocking traffic until folks behind her started honking. (Not me, I was happy to be in the lane next to her.) She then sped off like a demon, until she had to stop at the next red light, this time stopping in the left turn lane. Again she started texting, again ignoring her surroundings, again not noticing that the (short) left-turn light had turned green. Again folks behind her started honking and she finally noticed – but by this time when she floored it, the left-turn light was turning red. She sailed off right through the red light, now dodging oncoming cars (who now had a green light), leaving them honking at her and wondering what kind of freakin’ idiot she was.

For the record, she did all of this with two kids in car seats in the back seat.

I’m sure that there are a lot of folks who believe that having a driver’s license is a basic right, along with the freedom and independence that go along with it. But it’s not a right, any more than anyone has a “right” to own a house or a “right” to go to MIT or CalTech. It’s a privilege, one that has to be earned and maintained.

I have no hope at all that we will ever make people more responsible or make it more difficult for the incompetent or ignorant to get licenses. We can’t even get convicted drunk drivers off the road, repeat offenders!

So let’s hope that high tech finally gets to the point where it overtakes human stupidity and irresponsibility, especially behind the wheel. Let’s hear it for Google’s self-driving cars and all of their competitors.

I can’t wait for the day when the only way to get a driver’s license is to prove that you can do a better job than the built-in autopilot, and only about one in a hundred folks even bother to try. Let the masses get carted around by the robots, and they can tweet, talk, and text to their little heart’s desire.

Meanwhile, when driving, stay safe!! Assume that 99% of those around you are not paying attention to what they’re doing and may do something unexpected, irrational, and dangerous at any second. Your fellow drivers (at least in the US) won’t disappoint you often by driving safely.

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Distracted Driving, Freakin' Idiots!

June 14, 2013 · 23:17

Alex From Microsoft

Yesterday I got a phone call from “Alex From Microsoft”.

Really! I couldn’t make this up! Alex! Alex from Microsoft! He called me! Personally! On my very own phone!

Despite Alex’s rather heavy accent (he sounded a lot like Kunal Nayyar), I didn’t hang up and move on with my life. Instead, I said, “Really, Alex? You’re from Microsoft? The one in the United States?”

This is normally the point at which these phone calls mysteriously get cut off. Given the news of the last week, I now suspect that the NSA has some ‘bot listening in and it deliberately interferes with my ability to get professional computer help directly from the font of wisdom and benevolent guidance that calls like Alex’s represent. But that’s just a working theory.

Alex however did not get cut off, and insisted that he was indeed from Microsoft. Furthermore, they had detected an error on my computer and were there to guide me with help in correcting it.

Since our call had not been terminated at the first sign of my skepticism about Alex’s true identity, I now had a new insight into Alex’s nature. Thinking that Alex might be a trainee of some sort, I asked him if his English language lessons had progressed to the point where he knew what the term “bullshit!” means.

Alex had apparently not heard that term, but assured me yet again that he was from Microsoft, there was a problem they had detected, and he wanted… If I didn’t know better, I might have thought that Alex was repeating the same rote script, starting over from the beginning every time that I interrupted him.

So I interrupted him again.

I asked Alex what version of Windows this “problem” was impacting, since I might not be using that version. He said that he was Alex, he was from Microsoft, there was a problem they had detected… (“HODOR!”) I asked him to stop and again asked which version of Windows this problem affected. Alex said that the problem was with “THE” Windows program, saying it like Buckeye pro athletes pronounce “THE Ohio State University”.

Again I called bullshit on his explanation and explained to Alex that I thought that this call was a bogus scam and asked him who he worked for and how stupid did he think that I was?

Again, our call was not immediately terminated, confirming in my mind Alex’s rookie training status. But my comment did prompt a flurry of conversation in the background on Alex’s end in a language that I did not recognize. It must have been Canadian – the Microsoft offices are somewhere up near Canadian, aren’t they?

One more time Alex told me that he was with THE Microsoft and that they had detected that I had six computers running with this problem… I cut Alex off and asked him if he would like to guess again about the number of computers I had running Windows. I also suggested to Alex that he ask someone in the office with him to explain what “bullshit” meant, especially if he was going to be spreading so much of it in his chosen career.

Now things got weird.

After more conversations in a foreign language in the background, someone else came on the line (who also sounded a LOT like Kunal Nayyar’s second cousin) and identified himself as Alex’s supervisor. He insisted they were with THE Microsoft and had detected a serious error in Windows on the laptop computer that I was using. They were there to help walk me through a procedure which would solve my problem and fix my computer.

I pointed out that  the computer I was using at that moment wasn’t a laptop and wasn’t using Windows. But for all of our sakes, could he please teach Alex what “BULLSHIT!” means?

Now the NSA ‘bot cut in and disconnected me from Alex and his supervisor. I must have gotten too close to the wisdom.

Let’s hope that Alex learned his lesson.

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Filed under Computers, Freakin' Idiots!

June 11, 2013 · 21:59

Tech “Support”

Back home for two days before going off on the second phase of the Great 2013 Graduation Tour, one of the little life details that needed to get taken care of was a smog check. No worries.

While there, my iPad starts popping up requests to link to the local cable company’s Wi-Fi Hot Spot. These spots are all over, they’re advertising heavily, we get something about it all the time by e-mail and in our bill. But I’ve never been able to sign in.

So again I read the instructions, put in the account information for my cable account just like it says, and get an error message that says that I need to have internet access on my cable bill in order to be eligible to use the Wi-Fi Hot Spots. Since we have a high-speed T1 account for our home Internet access through that self-same cable company, why is this a problem?

Almost 50 minutes later while talking to my third agent at tech and sales support, I’m ready to scream. What a bunch of freakin’ idiots!

When I get home I double check the cable company’s web site, and it’s quite clear about their account ID username and password being used for online account access (which I have), using the iPad and iPhone apps to control the home DVRs (which I have), using the iPad and iPhone apps to watch on demand stuff like HBO (which I have) and sports (which I have), and access to the Wi-Fi Hot Spots (which I’m trying to get). Figuring maybe it’s a different account ID username and password that they’re using the same terminology for, I try to sign up again specifically for a username and password for the Wi-Fi Hot Spots. The system says that I already have one, and confirms that it’s the one that I’ve been trying all along.

Now I try to get in touch with tech and sales support using their Live Chat function. An hour later, I’m again ready to scream. WHAT A BUNCH OF FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!

The best part was when we had gone over the problem over and over and over and they finally decide that the solution is to set up a Road Runner email account for me to use as an access ID. Tech support ignores the fact that this was already my Plan B, and my notes show that I set up that Road Runner account last August (trying to solve this exact same problem) and it doesn’t work either, it just gives me a different set of error messages.

I repeatedly go to the web page they specify in order to sign up for a new account – I repeatedly get an error message saying that the page can’t be shown due to a “Registration Error” and I should call the cable company to fix it. I repeatedly get told that’s impossible and I should try it again, the assumption on their part being that I’m too stupid to go to this web page. When I’m simply clicking on the link that they’re sending to me – error message. When I type it in myself – error message. When I open a new browser or a new tab – error message.

At one point the guy starts spelling it out to me, “h – t – t – p – s – colon – backslash – backslash…” “Dude, really, I know how to type in a secure http address!” ERROR MESSAGE!

The next try they simply start typing the step-by-step instructions faster than I can tell them that it’s STILL not working and I’m STILL getting the exact same error message. But now they’re assuming that I’m done and it’s been successful so they tell me I should have a new email address such as “abc@rr.com”. When I AGAIN explain that I got the exact same “Registration Error” page as before and there’s no “abc@rr.com” address to work with, I get a lecture about how the “abc” part isn’t literally true, that’s just an example…

Really? Gee, in over forty years of programming, tech support, hardware & software installation, software training, hardware maintenance, system administration in CP/M, Unix, Linux, Windows, Apple OS, I’ve never, ever figured out that I really shouldn’t use “abc” as my email address in that process.

F – R – E – A – K – I – N’  I – D – I – O – T – S ! ! ! !

When it got to the point where the only option they had to suggest was that I reboot my computer, reboot my cable modem, shut down my home network and disconnect the router and wireless, then start powering it back on with just one computer attached to the cable modem and then try again to reach that address at “h – t – t – p – s – colon – backslash – backslash…”

I just closed the chat window at that point. That’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back. They had the nerve to then send me a customer satisfaction survey – on a scale of one to ten, I gave them straight ones, and that was only because I couldn’t give them zeroes.

And they wonder why I never got a Road Runner account to begin with!

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Filed under Computers, Freakin' Idiots!

June 1, 2013 · 19:17

Mother Nature vs Coastal Commission

In Southern California, brush fires are a way of life. This year the fire season has started early and looks to be bad.

The Castle of the Willetts is close enough (a half-mile or so) to some open brush and parkland areas that we’re occasionally packing the critical documents, computers, and irreplaceable items and making sure that the cars all have a full tank of gas should we get the order to bug out.

There’s currently a big fire burning up north of the Santa Clarita Valley, about twenty miles due north of us. Here’s how it looked on Thursday afternoon at 1,000 acres (from the KTLA helicopter):

2013-05-30 Powerhouse Fire

And here’s a picture of the smoke cloud going up to about 40,000 feet, as taken from our front yard this afternoon, now that the fire’s up to 3,600 acres (and it’s over 100 F out there):

2013-06-01 Powerhouse Fire

Note that those aren’t normal, water vapor clouds – it’s all soot and smoke and ash. Billions of cubic yards of it I would think, if not more.

On a related note, a controversy here in Southern California surrounds the beach fire pits that have been iconic landmarks for decades here in Southern California. Several cities, particularly Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, are trying to get the beach pits shut down. The reason given by the California Coastal Commission is that the smoke from the beach fire pits is a source of pollution.

Does the Coastal Commission want to know why the average Californian think’s they’re a bunch of freakin’ idiots? (I’m sure they don’t know and really don’t care, but let’s go through the math anyway.)

Look at those pictures of the natural brush fires. Look at all of that smoke for days and days and days, and multiply it by the dozen or two dozen or three dozen or more fires per year.

Now let’s think about how much smoke can ever possibly come from the beach pits, even if every single one of them is used (they aren’t) every single day (they aren’t) for six or eight hours a night (in reality it’s less).

As an order of magnitude comparison, the total amount of “pollution” by the beach fire pits has to be a tiny fraction of a fraction of a percent of the 100% natural “pollution” being caused by the brush fires. It’s a drop in the bucket, a teeny-tiny squiggle in the data, a blip lost in the noise, statistically insignificant.

So why are our tax dollars being spent on this political kerfuffle?

Buried in the articles are comments from the local beach residents about how they are being exposed to the smoke from the beach fires. The people complaining to the politicians are the multi-millionaires who live along the beach in Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Santa Monica, Malibu, and Santa Barbara. The people who will be unable to enjoy a BBQ on the beach are the middle and low-income families who occasionally get to visit the beach for a day.

Obviously the Coastal Commission can’t get any support for banning the beach fire pits base on that obvious truth, so they spin the argument into one of “pollution”. Yet they do it while clouds of smoke from brush fires rise up over the horizon and think that we can’t or won’t notice.

How stupid do they think people are?

 

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Filed under Castle Willett, Freakin' Idiots!, Politics

May 30, 2013 · 16:53

Can’t Make This Stuff Up!

JC Penney Tea PotJCP Media Inc

What does this look like to you?

It’s a teapot. Specifically it’s a picture of a teapot on a JC Penney billboard next to the 405 Freeway here in the Los Angeles area, down around the LAX airport, somewhere in Studio City.

Anything odd or unusual about it?

I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if I had seen it (which I haven’t). It’s a teapot. Chrome. Shiny. Bronze bell of some sort on the spout. Black handle.

Apparently other folks don’t think so. There were a few complaints about it, apparently starting with Twitter and Reddit. Now the media’s caught on to it and the story’s made the newspapers and TV news. Apparently there are no other more newsworthy stories to report. (I’m thrilled to hear that the damage in Oklahoma has been all fixed, there are no murders or terrorists acts to speak of, the wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all over, poverty and hunger have been solved…)

The “offensive” item has been removed from JC Penney’s website. The billboard has been taken down. The “offense” a handful of folks are complaining about?

They say the teapot looks like Adolf Hitler.

Yep. Couldn’t make this up. If I could, I would be writing for Saturday Night Live or David Letterman. I’ll give you a second to scroll back up to look at the picture, squint a little, maybe have a couple of stiff drinks to help your eyes unfocus.

See it? Yeah, just like the “Jesus in the burnt toast” or “Mother Theresa in the broken Dorito” images you see on the Interwebs. It’s called “pareidolia“. Google it for hundreds of examples, images, and explanations.

The folks with the overactive and malfunctioning pattern-recognition lobes in their brains are offended that JC Penney would sell a teapot that they say looks like Adolf Hitler and they raised a ruckus. Now they’re getting news coverage and action. They even got the mayor of Culver City to say that he was “outraged” and “offended”, in part because he’s Jewish. Even the Anti-Defamation League got into the act, although their response was less inflammatory than the mayor’s. There were initial reports that advertising executive(s) at JC Penney were getting fired over this, although following up on it this afternoon I can’t find confirmation of that story.

There’s the part that pushes this beyond farce and into mind-numbing stupidity. If politicians and corporations like JC Penney are so cowed by the societal pressure to be politically correct and 100% non-offensive with every breath, even when they’re dealing with something that’s totally imaginary & straight out of La-La Land, how can they be considered leaders?

Where is the leader in our society (corporate or political) who, when faced with this sort of low-grade psychotic nonsense, will stand up and politely but firmly say, “It’s just a teapot. We’re not sorry – we haven’t done anything to be sorry for. As for the news media, we’re happy to let you know that you can go back to covering Lindsey Lohan and the Kardashian de jour. This is not a news story. It’s just a picture of a teapot. Move along. Get a life.”

At least someone at JC Penney’s Twitter account had the common sense to put out this:

JC Penney Response To HuffPost

Let’s hope no one got fired for this tweet.

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!

May 23, 2013 · 18:47

Unintended Benefits

Aaaaaaaaannnnnnddddd… (wait for adrenaline rush to subside)

As proof that decisions can have unintended benefits as well as unintended consequences, I give you the Great Tire Decision of 2013.

When last we left our plucky hero he was going ever so slightly looney tuney waiting for the Long Suffering Wife’s fancy Volvo convertible to get serviced. Then the service guy came out with “that look” and wanted to talk about brakes & tires.

Seems that the brake pads were fairly worn and probably should be replaced. The good news was that they are covered under warrantee; the bad news is that replacing them might mean pushing our time deadline to get out of there.

The tires were more problematic. They were wearing unevenly and had worn down nearly all the way to the threads on the insides, even though they only had 30,000 miles on them. Not a warrantee item, nearly $1,000 to replace, and it would really make the deadline a challenge. However, if I wanted it done but had to leave for my late afternoon appointment before they were finished, they would give me a loaner car.

I really didn’t want to spend $1,000 today. Could it slide a bit longer? Only 30,000 miles on some pretty fancy, big-brand name original equipment tires? Really?!

If we were only going to be driving around town, we might be OK for another 3,000 or 5,000 miles. Maybe. He really couldn’t recommend letting it go if we were planning a long trip over the holiday (we’re not) or driving a lot a high speeds (we do). In the end, the fact that it’s Ronnie’s car and I didn’t want her to get stuck someplace with a busted car persuaded me to get the new tires and brake pads.

They did a great job and got it all done on time. They even got it done early enough that I could grab an unhealthy lunch and go over to the Van Nuys Airport observation area and watch student pilots practice touch & go landings while I ate.

Five minutes later I’m on the 405 Freeway heading south. Between Victory Boulevard and Burbank Boulevard I had moved over to the far right lane to take the transition to the 101 northbound. Traffic was light, we were all doing about 65, and I was following maybe fifty or sixty feet behind a (presumed) dingbat who was on her cell phone (illegally) and who had had her right turn signal on for the last mile. (“What’s that clickin’ noise?”)

I could see that up ahead there was something partially blocking the lane. It was a big neon orange traffic cone, about three feet tall. It had fallen off of some truck, I guess, and was sitting upright nearly on the lane divider between our lane and the lane on our left, but maybe two feet into our lane. Everyone else in our lane was just shuffling over a foot or so to the right in the lane and shooting past it.

Not Little Miss (Presumed) Dingbat.

She apparently never saw it until the last second, presumably because she was holding the phone up to her ear. (Did I mention that that’s illegal in this state? And stupid? And dangerous?) Caught by surprise and not focused on driving to begin with, she then didn’t bother to do the smart thing and just hit the cone, which at most might have dented her grille or busted a headlight. At 65 MPH, she cut hard to the right onto the shoulder and hit the brakes hard…

…and then cut back hard left into our lane. But now she was on the debris on the shoulder and hitting the brakes had started a skid. As she overreacted back to the left (steer INTO a skid – bad move) she fishtailed, started to spin, got almost completely sideways, went into the lane on our left (at least no one was there to hit her or be hit by her), came back to the right across our lane back onto the shoulder. At this point I think she may or may not have hit the small curb there – something bounced her back into our lane, still almost sideways, tires smoking like crazy. I was sure at this point that she was going to roll and I had time to wonder if she was stupid enough to be not wearing her seatbelt, which would cause her to be ejected through a window and crushed to death if she rolled. But somehow her car started to come back around to face about 3/4 forward and she finally stopped, about 90% in our lane, 10% in the lane to our left.

Meanwhile, behind her, I had moved over about a foot to miss the cone and then stood on the brakes. FULL STOP, MR. SULU! ALL ENGINES BACK, FULL!! BRACE FOR COLLISION! MR. SCOTT, I NEED FULL REVERSE AT WARP NINE IN HALF A SECOND OR WE’RE ALL DEAD!! BRAKES! BRAKES!! BRAKES!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to say that the Volvo C70 handles very, VERY well under those circumstances. Very solid, no pull, it tracks straight, it brakes well. But does it brake well enough?

Little Miss (Presumed) Dingbat had stopped very fast with with all of the friction from her locked up wheels skidding sideways and being converted to smoke. I came to a stop with my anti-lock brakes less than a foot, maybe only six inches from her driver’s door. She was still holding her phone with her right turn signal blinking.

She started to shake, but pulled it together to pull over toward the shoulder. I wouldn’t doubt that her car has flat spots on all four tires, and if she bounced off of the low curb by the shoulder she may have messed up the alignment of her front end, but she didn’t get any body damage or flat tires, so she should have been good to go, except for possibly her nerves and the need for clean pants.

I do wonder if she’ll make the link between driving while distracted by the phone and how close she came to being the latest fatality statistic. If she makes that link, will she change her behavior?

Once I got past her and back on my way, my first thought was about the $1,000 I had just spent on new tires and brake pads. How much stopping distance and safety margin did I gain, if any, with that repair. Six inches? Twelve? Twenty-four? More?

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Filed under Distracted Driving, Freakin' Idiots!

May 16, 2013 · 17:56

Hot Buttons & Two Tiny Bits Of Common Sense

Looking out at our big, beautiful, and exciting world and the multicultural, multifaceted, and multidimensional society that we’ve built on it, one occasionally sees that there are spots of ugliness.

Some of these spots of ugliness are “natural” in the sense that we have little or no control over them. For example, tornadoes ripped through north-central Texas last night with little warning and at last count at least six people were dead, hundreds are hurt, thousands are homeless, damage is in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Here in Los Angeles we’re no strangers to earthquakes. Other parts of the world have blizzards, tsunami, hurricanes, floods, and so on. As a society we do what we can to give warnings to those in danger when we can and to be ready to aid when disaster strikes, but generally there’s not a lot of “evil” associated with natural disasters.

Some spots of ugliness in the world are the result of what the majority of us can all mutually agree on as “evil”. World War II comes to mind, as do countless other wars and conflicts, terrorist acts, genocides, atrocities, murders, rapes, and so on. Lots of nastiness, evil should be fought at every turn — but that’s not what today’s rant is about.

For me, a couple of real “hot button” items are the spots of ugliness caused not by “evil” people but by stupid, misguided, ignorant, irresponsible, and sanctimonious people. The sort of ugliness that Phillip K. Howard referred to as “The Death Of Common Sense” (an excellent book, highly recommended).  In the last couple of weeks, two of these incidents in particular have hit the news and the best thing I’ve heard today is that both of them appear to have been resolved with common sense carrying the day.

In the first incident, it was reported May 7th that a Northville, Michigan parent was calling for the banning of Anne Frank’s “The Diary Of A Young Girl” from schools in Michigan due to “pornographic” content.

I’ll just wait here for you to pick your jaw up off the floor. (*whistles for a bit*) OK?

I’ve read “The Diary Of A Young Girl” of course and knew what the mother in question was talking about. Anne Frank was a young teenager, writing a diary in hellish conditions, while also going through puberty. There is a passage of a couple of paragraphs in which she describes her self-exploration of her own body and the changes happening to it. The mother in question told the local press, “It’s pretty graphic, and it’s pretty pornographic for seventh-grade boys and girls to be reading.”

Interestingly, she also said, “It doesn’t mean my child is sheltered, it doesn’t mean I live in a bubble, and it doesn’t mean I’m trying to ban books.” I’ll repeat, she said this as she’s trying to ban a book. A book which is considered by almost everyone else on this planet to be a classic piece of literature, especially for teenagers. I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree on her claims about what her complaint means and doesn’t mean.

Perhaps we could review what “pornography” means. Mirriam-Webster defines it as “the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement”. Assuming that the parent in question had actually read the book that she was complaining about, can she explain to us what part of the passage in question was “erotic” or “intended to cause sexual excitement”? I would use words like “clinical” or “descriptive” but never “erotic”.

Anyway, I tried to get over this last week and move on. This morning word comes that common sense has reared its ugly head in Michigan and the school committee in question has voted unanimously to keep the book in the school curriculum. I, for one, would like to commend Robert D.G. Behnke and the Northville, Michigan school committee for their actions, particularly for the unanimous vote and for the thoughtful letter they sent to the local parents. Their letter is just awash with other common sense suggestions, such as getting the parents to be more involved in understanding what their kids are reading and learning and giving them choices if they have objections.

You rock, Northville, Michigan!!

Meanwhile, down in Florida, Kiera Wilmot was suspended from high school and arrested on two felony counts of discharging a destructive device and possessing a weapon on campus. What was her crime? She tried a simple science experiment on campus (admittedly without authorization or a teacher’s guidance), mixing a common household cleaning product and aluminum foil, which generated gas and caused the top of a plastic soda bottle to pop off.

How many people were hurt? None.

How much damage was done? None.

What was the total effect of her curiosity? A sound like a firecracker and a plastic top from a plastic soda bottle flew a few feet through the air and hit the ground. (That demon gravity will get you every time!)

By all accounts Kiera is an excellent student, never been in trouble. So what should be the common sense response to this event by the authorities?

I might suggest a stern warning to not do it again without having a science teacher supervising, and enrollment in an advanced chemistry class so she can exercise her curiosity. Maybe an honors class so she can stretch herself academically. Maybe a science fair project under the help and supervision of the high school science teachers. Maybe mentoring her in case she needs help getting a freakin’ scholarship, acceptance to a good college, and a career as a scientist?!

Nope.

The Florida authorities, including the school administration (which I always thought was supposed to be helping her to LEARN) suspended her from school, started expulsion proceedings, and called the police. The police arrested her, led her off campus in handcuffs, and charged with two felonies.

Again, go retrieve that jaw of yours, you look silly with it hanging down like that. I’ll wait.

Fortunately, in today’s electronic and instantly connected world, this story hit the tech / nerd / science / geek community pretty hard and pretty fast, so there was plenty of righteous indignation expressed by those far more well spoken and influential then I am.

One of my first thoughts when I heard about it was Homer Hickham‘s story, told in his book “Rocket Boys” and turned into the movie “October Sky” (a truly fantastic film, highly recommended). In the late 50’s Dr. Hickham and his high school friends were growing up in a small town in West Virginia where the only career path open to them was work in the coal mines, just like their fathers and grandfathers had worked in the coal mines. The Rocket Boys wanted more and did self-taught experiments in rocketry that led them to winning local and national science fairs, getting scholarships, going to college, and in Dr. Hickham’s case,  to working for NASA training space shuttle crews.

It turns out that Dr. Hickham heard about the story of Kiera Wilmot also – he’s providing her with a scholarship. [18:15 Update – For clarification, Dr. Hickham has offered to pay Kiera’s fees to go to Space Camp, not a college scholarship. A fantastic and generous offer!]

But as good as that news is, word comes today that, again, common sense has reared its ugly head and the charges against Kiera have been dropped.

It may be that the school administration and local district attorney are doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Or perhaps they’re simply bowing to the weight of the scrutiny, criticism, and embarrassment that has been brought down on them by the news coverage. Considering that their first reaction (prior to public scrutiny) was to suspend Kiera and press for felony charges, I’m kind of leaning toward that second explanation, but that might just be me.

Two tiny triumphs by common sense in one day? Maybe it’s a sign — but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!