Welcome to the 05 Sep - 08 Oct archive of Stream - you can click the planet to the left to get back to Jimbo's World if you're lost.

14:44

And it's a royal pain in the ass.

You know, we all do things that aren't strictly for the betterment of our lives or our positions.  They're called "vices."   Drinking coffee to wake your tired ass up (or keep it awake), drinking booze to "loosen up" at a party, eating more than you should, smoking cigarettes, smoking "left-handed" cigarettes... the list goes on and on, and most of us don't partake of all of the vices out there, but we all inevitably partake in one or two.

Given that all these things have demonstrably negative consequences, why do we do them?  Well, because they're "fun" or they allow us to "have more fun", generally.  Okay.  Is that "fun" worth the consequences? ... well, that part's a tough call.   Considering what those consequences often are, you can logically state that being willing to pay them in return for the "fun" to be had represents a desire to escape the real world.

But if we don't like the real world, then shouldn't we be trying to change it?  After all, no matter how badly you dislike it, there's this one inevitable quality about it... fucking persistence.  Wish and dream as you like, if you don't make those dreams become real, you're eventually just going to have to return to that real world you hate so badly and want to get away from so much...

... and it won't have changed one motherfucking bit since you left.  That's because you were wasting your time idly bitching/wishing shit was different, and indulging in behaviors that, in the end, get shit done no more effectively than using a "check advance" place before every single paycheck helps you pay the bills.  Which leaves us with a rather Borg-esque tagline:

Escape is futile.  Resist or be assimilated.

But here's the part that makes me go fucking crazy: I've seen the other school of thought.  The ones that spend their time looking down on others for their "corruption" and "vice" and "lack of morals."   And, seen as a group, they're a bunch of grim, humorless bastards.   Worse yet, their ranks are filled with people who are indulging in their own vices in the shadow of their supposed "virtuosity": the use of attacks upon others to bolster their own failing sense of self-worth being chief among them.

What do you do when the slope is slippery on both sides?

The flippant answer would be "sell skis for a tidy profit."  But as for a real, meaningful answer?  Fuck if I know.

I guess that's why they call it a "crisis."

23:41

I only wish this was porn.  Well, that or that I had an airline ticket and a few language lessons.   Mmmm... exogamy.

21:58

18:56

You know, to be honest with you, I had kinda suspected that the point had arrived at which there wouldn't be any more mouseovered skank, any more pig's-butt-gnasty mpegs, et cetera.  I mean, shit... at this point grotesquely fat chicks in any pose the mind can conceive are old hat.  So are shit-eating Japs, shit-eating Germans, puke-swapping naked chicks, every conceivable form of bestiality, testicle torture, guys slicing their own cocks in half... man, I just didn't think there was anything left that could possibly disgust me to the point that it was shocking.  Sure, jappychicks making shit-and-egg omelets will always be disgusting, but shocking?

I think at this point we've all been pretty much desensitized.  Oh, sure, you could be amazed a little bit at one thing, and amused at that other one... but I don't know about you guys, but nothing ever really grabbed me by the balls and squeezed after a few months' worth of the Great Skank Explosion of 1999.

Until I saw this.

No shit is consumed.  No household pets or barnyard animals make an appearance.  There's no puking, pissing, farting, or even nose-picking.   What this video clip represents can only be described as... horrifyingly normal.

Click at your own risk... and don't say I didn't warn you.  (mpeg, 8.97MB)

20:12

This probably has something to do with the fact that I was only exposed to him via MTV, who of course consistently only picked the songs of his that did suck ass to play.  But lately, I've been rediscovering Napster... see, I quit bothering with Napster much a few months back because, well, having a decent paycheck, Napster, and a cable modem, there just didn't seem to be a whole hell of a lot of music that I wanted that I hadn't already either bought or downloaded.

But I got bored one night, and for some reason started downloading Tupac songs... and jesus fucking Christ, did I ever get hooked.   The man certainly wasn't perfect, and I strongly disagree with a lot of his political views... but he has/had such passion that his music made me understand where he was coming from even when I thought he was wrong.  It puts me in his shoes deep enough that even when I think he's flat wrong, I can understand why he says what he does anyway.

So anyway, here's some recommended listening:

Looks like the RIAA should be trying to shut down gay-ass MTV, not Napster.

22:19

OK, I just had to get that off my chest.  Jesus, what TV has turned into... bitches threatening you with colon cancer, anime bears wiping their ass at you and liking it, that irritating little Pepsi bitch... bah.

So about the motivational philosophy... well, the thing is, I've been realizing more and more lately that no matter how irritating and apparently drug-addled and unaware of the real world they are, the motivational speakers are right.   You really do make your own opportunities, you really can do damn near anything if you only work long enough and hard enough for it, and your own attitude really is one of the most important controlling factors in your life.

And you know what else?  The things that you work for - really work for - are the things that happen in your life.  It's not about the things that "just fall into your lap" - those are few, fleeting, and rarely even important when viewed from a long perspective; their effects tend to be very quickly damped out by your own day-to-day routine... unless, of course, you change that routine.  And if you do that, and stick to it, you'd have wound up making the same changes to your life anyway eventually, even without the catalyst that "just dropped right in your lap."

Well, there have been a lot of things that I've wanted all my life.  Things that I've managed to convince myself I worked or even slaved for at times, but that really - if you take an impartial view - I just, well, heroically tolerated the lack of while I muddled along and waited for fate to drop them in my lap.  Unsurprisingly, I don't have any of those things... still.  But you know what?  Over the last few years, there have been a lot of things that I have worked for - really worked for.  Not "tried, but not hard enough to look stupid if it didn't work", but by god no bullshit put-your-chips-on-the-table worked for.  And you know what?  Those things, I got.

Imagine that.

But it makes you think, doesn't it...?

Okay, we've had a buzzkill and a motivational moment.   So what's the second buzzkill? 

In spite of my full realization over the last few weeks that your attitude governs your lifestyle, that what you work for is what you achieve, and all the rest... I've also realized that the basic loathing I hold for the incompetent motherfuckers that surround us all is not only unchanged, but it's working its way around into a resurgence.  In fact, it's slowly working its way up to a strength it hasn't seen since my ridiculously melodramatic, over-angsted teenage years.

You know how you look at those old crusty TV shows from the 50's and 60's and you just can't help but think how fucking STUPID they are?  Maybe you enjoy it because it's campy, or it reminds you of some good old days, or just because when you're that damned stoned human stupidity elicits giggles in gargantuan proportion... but along with the enjoyment, there's the amazement that anybody ever made anything that fucking stupid.  That people produced that stuff, not as "total camp" but as "mainstream entertainment."  That they expected everyone around them to take that stuff seriously.

Sometimes, lately, I look at everything our society does... from our government, to our entertainment, to our culture, to our shitty-ass pop music.   And I can fucking well see the folks twenty years from now looking back.   In their world, the production values on the soap operas are better than the ones in our Hollywood movies.  The music is more complex.  The government is more logical and effective.  And they look back at us and wonder "why the hell did those idiots live like that?"

And you know what?  I can't answer that question.   I don't know why the hell we've let ourselves get maneuvered into a two-party political lock where the candidates both have the precise same platform, and couldn't find anything better to debate before election than debating procedure.   I don't know where our educational system went so fucking wrong that the average man on the street prefers socialism to responsible liberty.  I don't know why we tolerate entertainment media "stars" who make orders of magnitude more money than well-educated and highly productive people, but make poor entertainment.   (Jesus Christ, if we're going to pay you to entertain us, can't you manage to deliver something aimed at a fucking IQ higher than seventy?)  I don't know why we decided it was perfectly okay to ask our professional athletes to play rough contact sports on concrete covered with a thin pad (astroturf), I don't know why we tolerate a chokingly inefficient and downright nonsensical tax system, and I don't know why we not only allow but encourage people who aren't productive taxpayers to vote.

What the fuck is wrong with us?

It's not that I want to go to sleep and wake up fifty years from now... it's that I don't want people to drag their heels, kicking and screaming, fighting as hard as they can to keep things as fucked up as they can for decades until progress finally drags them with a great moaning and gnashing of teeth into the light.  I want them to get it the fuck over with and start doing things right!

And you know, the funny thing is, if you squinch your eyes real tight and look at the last few paragraphs real hard... they're optimistic.   I could be wrong - maybe the Will Of The People will express itself so clearly over the next few decades that we will be living in the socialist police state they're clamoring for.  Of course, that'll stifle creativity sufficiently that the standards in entertainment and technology will decline rather than improve, most likely.  So maybe everything will Go To Hell In A Handbasket instead.

But that's hardly less of a buzzkill, is it?

07:51

So what's the upshot of all this?   Yup, you guessed it, before long people will be loading their Palm Pilots down with shitty, bug-ridden "antivirus" applications that chew up all the system resources and in general make the system behave like it already had a virus.  Can't expect users to just exercise a little education and common sense and just not load executables from dubious sources, oh no!

Sadly enough, being a computer professional responsible for several networks, I can tell you from personal experience that you really can't expect users to exercise any common sense.  No matter how much training you waste lavish on them.

:: sigh ::

16:58

22:14

> Do you know anyone who can say for certain whether or not it's beneficial to
> buy premium gas for your car if it's not explicitly recommended?
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Funkster

Well Funkster, first we need to cover some basics.   Premium gas differs from regular gas mainly in octane rating.  (The types of additives present in the fuel may also change, but they won't make any real difference in performance.)  Octane ratings are a measurement of gasoline's resistance to burning - a higher octane gasoline ignites at a higher temperature than lower octane gasoline. Thus, higher-octane gasolines will tend to be less likely to produce "knocking" and "detonation", which are caused by gasoline flashing to ignition due to contact with hot metal rather than being properly ignited by the spark plugs.  High compression engines, like you find in most sports cars, can produce more power per cubic inch than low compression engines - but they require higher octane fuel in order to avoid the dreaded "spark knock."

But don't make the error of thinking "if it's good enough for the hot rodders, it's good enough for me" - since higher octane gasoline DOESN'T ignite until a higher temperature, the engine will end up operating at a higher temperature than it would normally.  (Keep in mind that the temperature gauge in your car measures coolant temperature, not actual engine temperature - just because that gauge doesn't go up doesn't mean that your engine isn't getting hotter.)   High engine temperatures tend to "burn" your motor oil, making oil and transmission fluid changes necessary more frequently, and also significantly shortening your engine's overall lifespan. So you really DON'T want to run any higher an octane of fuel than is necessary to make the engine run without knocking.

The simple answer to your question is, if you don't hear any engine "knock", you don't need to increase the octane of your fuel - but as your engine gets older and crankier, if you *do* start hearing engine knock (and you can't fix it with a simple tune-up), higher octane fuel may very well help reduce or even eliminate it.

20:41

20:34

I mean, up to that point it's only vaguely bizarre.  (In particular, getting the slightly-obscured view of a bear shitting all over a tree seems like a rather odd way to promote a product.)  But in general, it's nothing that really turns the head of a jaded internet veteran...

...at least, not until the bear wipes his ass while staring into the camera and this ultra-orgasmic smile of loathsome pleasure spreads across his face like a particularly bad case of happy acne, while the voiceover announcer enthuses smarmily about how it just feels so good to wipe.

What... the... fuck?!

20:41

I do have an amusing net savvy tip to share with you though: this one comes to you courtesy of my cow-orker, Steve.

If you should ever decide to try to get your sainted grandmother to connect to your webcam via NetMeeting, be aware that she may very well be defeated by the technical complexity of it all and give it right the fuck up.

If this should happen, and you just happened to title your NetMeeting channel "Grandson Waiting For His Grandma," close the fucking channel immediately after Granny calls and tells you she's quitting.  Don't leave the channel open in the background for the next hour and a half... because eventually, somebody will ring it.

And you probably are not going to want to look at the goods she's got to show you.

21:12

Imagine that you work with a woman in middle management who, at any opportunity, will tell you that all men at the company you both work for are liars, cheats, thieves, and backstabbers.  (If you are a woman, it's rather important for the purposes of this exercise that you imagine yourself to BE a man.)  Also imagine that she makes no allowances for you personally, even when you protest.

Further imagine that this woman proclaims loudly, also at any possible opportunity, that anyone who is successful within the company is a "crook".  (This leaves you the option of being either a loser or a crook.)

Beyond that, imagine that this woman forces her assistant to do every last shred of her work every day while she spends the entire day on personal phone calls to family members, a large part of which is spent discussing how crooked and awful all the people are at the company where she works.

Visualize her pressuring said assistant not only to leave the company, but leave the state as quickly as possible, once she realizes that it is becoming obvious to everyone around her that her assistant is doing all of the work and is perfectly capable of doing it without her.

Further imagine her simultaneously targeting her supervisor, utilizing such tactics as holding "hate meetings" with her employees about how awful said supervisor is, how badly he wants to fire all of them, how crooked he is, and how he will make them all jobless.  Also imagine this woman going to the VP above said supervisor at every possible opportunity and whining and scheming and backstabbing in the attempt to get him fired, thus leaving literally no one in the company capable of performing the job that she should be doing, but isn't.

Imagine her reaction upon said upper management person who she's targeted finally quitting in exasperation and taking a job elsewhere, where he won't have to put up with such utter crap - and if you imagine it as "happiness", please re-imagine it as an angered phone call to the home of the assistant who she had already driven away two weeks ago... the reason for the angry phone call being that the assistant (who knew nothing of the upper management quitting) "held out on her" and didn't tell her in advance that the upper management was going to quit.

Finally, imagine that our hypothetical female middle manager has been tracking down your girlfriend every time a female businessperson calls you, informing her that "so-and-so called for him... again" and giving her an owlish, expectant stare afterwards as she waits for your girlfriend to "make the connection."  Also imagine she's been telling your girlfriend bald-faced lies about how you've been "telling stories about her at work, and stopping as soon as I come in the room," and that she also has the nerve to aggrievedly complain to that girlfriend that "he never talks to me anymore at all!"

And, of course, now that she's managed to drive away everyone else with any possible ability to cope with the hideously proprietary system she manages, imagine that she will probably be there forever, regardless of how insanely negative she is, of her deliberate attempts at character assassination of management, employees, VPs, and the company itself, and of how utterly incompetent she is at the actual job itself.

And imagine being stuck there with her, supporting that piece of equipment, and sharing the blame when she fails to make it produce half of what it should, even when she deliberately does the opposite of anything you say the equipment requires...

I am Jack's festering hate.

08:12

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