Rants

Currently, in Boise, we have a problem brewing - More and more cyclists are being hit by cars.  Alot of people have weighed in on the issue, and there are people on both sides of the table.  After carefully watching cyclists over the past few months I've noticed the following:

• Cyclists zip in and out of lanes and traffic, around cars, often completely coming out of nowhere and causing drivers to panic
• Cyclists blow right through red lights with no concern for the fact they're cutting off cars/trucks, and putting themselves smack in the middle of an accident waiting to happen.  Nothing creates a pile up better then a bike cutting off a car, forcing the driver to slam on the breaks, and then the next car in line plowing into the stopped car.
• Cyclists making moves like they are about to cross the street, hesitating, allowing the car to start across the intersection, then zipping out in front of the car they just faked out.
   

So yeah, we've got a problem - the cyclists think that they are a car, and that they don't have to follow the laws.  I applaud the police in Boise for citing the cyclists.

Okay, so, rant time again!

Tammy and I went out for burgers tonight to one of those greasy but oh so yummy goodness burger places in Boise.  Well, when we got there, we find that half the place is taken up by a few adults and half a dozen kids.  Now, I'd be lying if I said that these parents knew how to control their child.   It didn't take long before the fun began.

First, there was this creepy young girl who was wandering around the dining room going every which way doing everything and looking at everything.  Finally, she eyes Tammy's orange crocs.  In a must have moment, the little girl gets down on her hands and knees and starts playing with Tammy's shoes.  She tells the little girl, "No, mine, go away." and tries to swipe at the kid like you'd do to a dog trying to hump your leg.  The parents finally took notice, and pulled the girl away.  All the while, what we believe is the father is giving Tammy dirty looks for yelling at his child.

About 10 minutes later, a different child wanders over to a recently vacated table and walks off with the waitresses' tip.  All the while, the parents are completely oblivious and not paying any attention.  Finally, the mother notices when the child walks up and hands her the $3 she had just swiped.  Still clueless, the woman turns to me and asks where her kid took it from.

Needless to say, it was a very unfun dining experience with the kids making noise and causing utter havoc throughout the dining room.  The waitress did not seem pleased with the fact she almost lost her tip to a child with sticky fingers.  What happened to parents teaching their kid that it is inappropriate to steal?

What is the big deal with Fantasy Football? Or Fantasy Baseball? Or any of the other many Fantasy sports?

I did some googling to try and help figure out why I exactly think these Fantasy games are so stupid, and came up with a pretty plausable explanation:

Fantasy Sports are designed for the same people who play Dungeons and Dragons.

I never liked D&D, thought it was a huge waste of time.

I'd rather play the Final Fantasy games, which are hugely enjoyable usually and very engrossing, and don't have nearly the level of stigma that D&D players do.

Yes, I know alot of people will hate me for saying this, but really, get a life. Stop being a dork. Same goes for real life - stop running around in a forest with a sword and cape pretending to be your character.

Women aren't impressed by that type of thing. They don't want to know your hit points, or how many times you've rolled to get the perfect character, or that you have the elite helmet that blocks all sorts of magic.

There are people out there that don't understand why hate laws are needed in the USA. I've used a rather straight-forward way to explain to them on a level they might be able to understand.

Hate laws only need to exist because people do not know how to treat others with respect and tolerance. In fact, we probably wouldn't need any kind of interpersonal interaction laws if people would be more responsible.

The people who complain about hate laws are usually the same ones that create an environment where those laws are required.

[sarcasm] God forbid we should give LGBT individuals jobs, and allow them to live in happiness! [/sarcasm]

HELLO! You ARE the reason why the laws were passed moron!

While browsing this article, I found the most interesting quote...

"Well, we want to run over HTTP today, but we want to run over TCP tomorrow."

Okay, now, this comment annoys me greatly - its part of my larger aggrivation of people thinking that the Internet == WWW.

It's not, people.

For those who aren't familiar with how the Internet actually works, there are many underlying technologies and features, such as SMTP, DNS, POP3/IMAP, PPTP, NFS, etc that also run over the Internet. The web only refers to one specific aspect of the Internet - HTTP.

Now, to get back to my original rant, it seems this person didn't bother to check his facts. HTTP runs over TCP. HTTP does not run alongside TCP, UDP, ICMP, IGMP, etc - it runs on TOP of the TCP transport layer.

The way you connect and transmit data over the internet and over LAN technologies such as Ethernet is using the OSI model. The OSI model defines 7 layers. From lowest to highest layers, they are Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, and Application layers.

TCP and UDP are examples of the transport layer. HTTP is the application layer, not a transport layer. HTTP can not run by its own without layers 6 and below.

So, he probably should have checked what he was saying and rephrased it similar to:

"Well, we want to run over HTTP today, but we want to run over our own proprietary application layer using TCP or UDP tomorrow."

Ok, so I'm going to give my standard warning for anyone who wants to read this article:

If you are a highly religious individual who can not take criticism or accept the fact that you may be stepping over the line in your fight to destroy evolution in favor of your Intellegent Design theory (which by the way, as never been proven or backed in scientific facts), you should not read this post. Also, if you are a republican, reading my blog in general may piss you off.

Now, with the standard disclaimer out of the way, lets get to the meat of this article.

I woke up this morning and found that my blog ads had been infested with Intellegent Design (aka: creationism) advertisements - pewforum.org, 1cosmos.org, creationdesign.org, and others.

Now, for those of you who missed my previous post on Intellegent Design, or just don't know what it is in general, its considered junk science by most of the Scientific community. Basically, its a new spin on the old idea that God created everything and anything - but without actually using the word 'god'.

So, let me pose this question to the people who are putting up these ads:

Why, if your theory is so sound, solid, and unrefutable, why do you feel it necessary to boost your views by advertising on Google?

You don't see advertisements trying to shove evolution down people's throats (perhaps because evolution is an accepted theory that is based in fact rather then the bible...). Is this just more desperation? Rather then trying to prove Intellegent Design with actual facts, use a crow bar to ram it down on people while completely dancing around the truth?

No offense to the people who read this and believe in Intellegent Design or Creationisim - but come on. Can we please grow up?

I've been watching various things unfold over the past few months in regards to the increasing attacks and intolerance against the GLBT community by the far right religious fanatics and fundamentalists.

It disgusts me highly to see how casually these people attack and cause hate, then use the bible as their shield. I remember back in 2001 right after the WTC attack, Jerry Falwell and his right wing fundamentalists blamed the attacks on the GLBT community, feminists, ACLU, etc (for those interested in more about Falwell, Rotten.com has a bio here).

Matthew Shepard's death was justified by the fanatics and killers as being dictated or required by the bible.

More recently, we have the case of Gwen Araujo, having been killed by several individuals because of who she was.

So, here in 2005 we have new laws that are being written to try and protect members of the GLBT community - however, there are a large enough group of people blocking these efforts, in an obvious attempt to make sure their future hatred and attacks against others won't be considered hate crimes (and thus face longer jail time/punishments then otherwise).

People need to stop using their religion as a way to justify attacks, killing, and hate. It's too bad most of the people who claim to be Christians or similar don't bother to actually follow some of the things the bible says. Following it only when convenient seems to be popular these days.