Category: Rant

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rePost::Liberty, Self-Esteem and Self-Governance – Wendy Kaminer

This is both funny and scary in almost equal doses. Who watches the watchmen? Who determines what is not anti social. This is Fucked, In a world where things like women’s rights, minority rights, LGTB right’s were once considered non-sensical we have to go against things such as the one I quoted !

This is not harmless official maternalism: a government that concerns itself with the happiness or psychological well-being of its citizens is a government that will prohibit conduct or speech deemed psychologically harmful, or simply not conducive to happiness. Also known as a government actively hostile to liberty. In Britain, as Reason magazine reported two years ago, you can be served with an “Antisocial Behavior Order (ASBO) for engaging in conduct considered likely to cause others alarm or distress. This past year a woman subject to an ASBO was arrested for indulging in noisy, consensual sex in what is apparently no longer the privacy of her own home. I suppose you could call ASBO’s a form of democratization: what was once the prerogative of kings–the power to secure the arrest of people who irritated or “distressed” them–is now extended to peevish citizens who can invoke it against each other.
via Liberty, Self-Esteem and Self-Governance – Wendy Kaminer.

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Confessions of an IT pro: My nine biggest professional blunders

Nice list although I am really against no 9 certifications are for losers!

#9: Not taking advantage of free training and certification opportunities. Each time I have updated my resume in preparation for seeking a new job, I’ve regretted not having formal certifications to accompany my experience. This has been particularly irritating when the company I am trying to leave has a policy of paying for any classes the employees want to take, whether they’re relevant to the business or not. It’s kept me from applying to several jobs I was otherwise qualified for simply because they required possession of particular certifications.
Lessons learned? Take advantage of all free training opportunities, even if they have to be pursued out of business hours.
via Confessions of an IT pro: My nine biggest professional blunders.

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rePost:Rands In Repose: The Crisis and the Creative

Please Get A Life So You Don’t Have Enough Time To Screw Up Another

The Creative
The panic junkie is the person who is addicted to Crisis and, in the absence of it, will manufacture drama in order to create additional Crisis. Their intent was originally good; they wanted to get stuff done quickly and discovered that the umbrella of a Crisis removed traditional organizational roadblocks. Problem is, they’ve becoming addicted to the power and momentum granted to them by driving the crisis. As soon as the current Crisis appears to have passed, they deflate, thinking, “Blah, back to the normal,” and immediately start looking for another Crisis. If they don’t find one, they create it.
via Rands In Repose: The Crisis and the Creative.

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Opportunity Lost

I botched a Job Exam/Interview last monday.
I could make the excuse that I had less than 3 hours of sleep and my body ached all over and that I cannot concentrate with all the talking happening around me but the real reason is that I wanted to work there and that put pressure on me.
It was a programming exam and the problems were really simple, but being nervous made my mind blank for more than two hours. This was funny because the exam was for 2 hours and I spent about 3.5 hours on the exam.
Damn, I also realized that I have a problem with problem solving. The sheer number of ways that something can be done produces a paradox of choice state for me. I cannot start doing something because knowing the multitude of things , of ways something can be done starts my mind to doing seemingly intractable (at least using my very limited brain power) number of considerations.
This on quiet reflection has always been a problem for me, why I take a very long time to do seemingly simple/straightforward tasks, and why seemingly complex tasks require a minimum of time for me to do. The former because there are just too many ways to do it, the latter because of complexity reduces the possibilities to a point where I can make a decision.
I have to find a way to work around this. This has been holding me back for a very long time.

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rePost::Smartest Guy In The Room

The plaintext version… sorry. — Chris You are smart. No one else knows much. In fact, most people are pretty stupid. Everything except what you’re doing *right now* is stupid. Django is stupid. Zope is stupid. Twisted is stupid. Setuptools is stupid. The GIL is stupid. Pylons is stupid. TurboGears is stupid. Guido is stupid. PJE is stupid. Ruby on Rails is a total hack. And oh my god, all these people in IRC are clearly mentally challenged. Why do they keep arguing with you? I get it: it’s not easy being a genius. So, if you don’t mind, I have a request. Given that it would certainly not tax you professionally, because it’s all so simple and obvious, do you think that you could contribute something to Python or some Python-related project that demonstrates your immense base of knowledge and helps other people? Ah but wait! You have. I’ve seen that one package you keep talking about that you wrote and released six months ago. It has a couple of users, even. But look… uh… oh dear.. this is awkward. I don’t mean to be negative here. But there’s a couple problems. You may be a genius, but at 33% test coverage, you better be almost omniscient. I’m personally not a genius, so I need to rely on something so banal as package test coverage metrics to make decisions about what to use. Look. Let’s be frank. I know you were the smartest guy in your high school class. I realize that in your circle of peers, you are the one who most often actually knows what he’s doing. I get the fact that you like puzzles, and you’re good at solving them. I realize you believe you are hot shit, and a few other people might too. But if I may be so bold, here are some suggestions: – Shut the fuck up. I mean this in the kindest, and gentlest of ways, as maybe a friendly uncle might tell you to “shut the fuck up”. – Work on your capacity to talk with other people without being a complete, utter cock. We’ve already adjusted our expectations, with you being a programmer and all, we realize you’re constitutionally straightforward. But there’s a difference between being straightforward and being a dick. Your profession and your history as “the smartest guy in the room” doesn’t excuse you from displaying basic courtesy. – You don’t need to prove anything to me or anybody else. I could care less. It’s not always about you. – Write some code that works all the time, every time that lots of people find useful. Maintain that code for 5 years. At this point, you will have something to be proud of. Thank you.
via .

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rePost::Palace to do repacking only; long lines irk Arroyo – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Palace to do repacking only; long lines irk Arroyo

And they wonder why everyone who doesn’t benefit from their largess hate them. Didn’t they learn this in politician school. Plastic 101: how to convincingly show fake compassion.  Although if this article wasn’t about the fake president I suspect that this would have been labeled a better press corp please. A Big FU ma’am. I have Nightmares just thinking about how you sleep at night (Do Vampires sleep?).

By Christian V. Esguerra, Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 03:17:00 09/30/2009

Filed Under: Ondoy, Flood, Disasters & Accidents, Government Aid

MANILA, Philippines—She ordered the Palace thrown open to the common folk, and was annoyed at what she saw.

A long stretch of impoverished Filipinos peeking through the gates of the Kalayaan compound under the intense afternoon heat was the sight that greeted President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a day after she issued her unprecedented order.

It was apparently the closest that her staff could get to the planned National Relief Operations Center on the Palace grounds to help victims of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana).

The President beheld the scene when she arrived at Kalayaan Hall at around 1:30 p.m. from a Cabinet meeting in Camp Aguinaldo. Her face turning sour, she ordered the Palace guards to immediately let the people in.

Hermogenes Esperon, Ms Arroyo’s chief of staff, tried to downplay his boss’ annoyance, saying: “She just didn’t want to see the people lined up outside.”

About an hour later, the number of people expecting relief goods swelled to around 500. Many of them were women and kids dressed in tattered clothes and slippers.

An old man in a wheelchair fell in line, at the end of which volunteers distributed nothing more than hamburger buns.

via Palace to do repacking only; long lines irk Arroyo – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

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rePost::Palace to do repacking only; long lines irk Arroyo – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Palace to do repacking only; long lines irk Arroyo
And they wonder why everyone who doesn’t benefit from their largess hate them. Didn’t they learn this in politician school. Plastic 101: how to convincingly show fake compassion.  Although if this article wasn’t about the fake president I suspect that this would have been labeled a better press corp please. A Big FU ma’am. I have Nightmares just thinking about how you sleep at night (Do Vampires sleep?).

By Christian V. Esguerra, Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:17:00 09/30/2009
Filed Under: Ondoy, Flood, Disasters & Accidents, Government Aid
MANILA, Philippines—She ordered the Palace thrown open to the common folk, and was annoyed at what she saw.
A long stretch of impoverished Filipinos peeking through the gates of the Kalayaan compound under the intense afternoon heat was the sight that greeted President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a day after she issued her unprecedented order.
It was apparently the closest that her staff could get to the planned National Relief Operations Center on the Palace grounds to help victims of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana).
The President beheld the scene when she arrived at Kalayaan Hall at around 1:30 p.m. from a Cabinet meeting in Camp Aguinaldo. Her face turning sour, she ordered the Palace guards to immediately let the people in.
Hermogenes Esperon, Ms Arroyo’s chief of staff, tried to downplay his boss’ annoyance, saying: “She just didn’t want to see the people lined up outside.”
About an hour later, the number of people expecting relief goods swelled to around 500. Many of them were women and kids dressed in tattered clothes and slippers.
An old man in a wheelchair fell in line, at the end of which volunteers distributed nothing more than hamburger buns.
via Palace to do repacking only; long lines irk Arroyo – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

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Rant::50 Cent's 10 lessons for success in business – and in life – Times Online

This is our culture now, people trying to be something they are not. (Which is similar but really opposed to aspiring to be something, as opposed to aspiring to be someone). You see this in our celebrity cult, the way people are manipulated by the media to be SHEEP, just fucking SHEEP. You hear it in the conversations that people have, the clothes they wear, even the coffee that they drink. Fuck That Shit.

‘The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own—what makes you different. I lost that fear. And once I felt the power that I had by showing the world I didn’t care about being like other people, I could never go back.’ 50 Cent
via 50 Cent’s 10 lessons for success in business – and in life – Times Online.

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rePost::The Gonzalez protocol: Worse than useless for pancreatic cancer : Respectful Insolence

This should have been a snarky post, suffice to say, if stupid people continue to be swayed by advertising into buying useless tablets with no approved therapeutic claims, giving testimonials. Damn these people are earning barrel loads of money and they can’t afford to fund a study showing their supplements work, fuck them. Preying on the weak minded or probably people who have nowhere else to go to, extracting the money of i suspect people from the middle and lower classes. Do these people have no shame. This ended in an angry note, Why don’t the Philippine Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical companies (probably because they couldn’t care less or they have their own supplements) fund studies that would expose these snake’s oil salesmen for the charlatan whacks they really are.

It is the very deadliness of pancreatic cancer and the lack of effective life-saving or life-prolonging treatments for it that make pancreatic cancer a ripe condition for quackery. Rising above most other quackeries to attract a lot of attention about a decade ago is a quackery known as the Gonzalez protocol. It is described on Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez‘s website as involving dietary changes, supplements, the replenishment of pancreatic proteolytic enzymes, and “detoxification,” including coffee enemas. It is not an easy therapy to undergo. For example, Dr. Gonzalez states:
Overall, cancer patients will consume 130-175 capsules a day, including nutrients as well as enzymes. Non-cancer patients might consume in the range of 80-100 capsules a day, the exact number depending on their health status and medical problems.
I know of no science-based cancer protocol that requires a patient to consume 150 pills a day. There are also the dietary alterations that can be quite hard to follow, as well as the frequent coffee enemas. All in all, the Gonzalez protocol is an arduous regimen for a debilitated pancreatic cancer patient to follow. Still, for some reason, it gained some popularity in the “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) community, so much so that, based on poorly designed case series of eleven patients, Dr. Gonzalez managed to get a clinical trial funded by the NIH to study his method versus standard chemotherapy, a sordid story that Dr. Atwood has chronicled in detail in a long series of blog posts. That trial ended in 2005.
via The Gonzalez protocol: Worse than useless for pancreatic cancer : Respectful Insolence.

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Best Read:Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Paul is dead

I see people playing rockband with an intensity that could split a hair in half and I weep. When (I believe it was an MIT lab) created rockband they thought they were bringing music to the masses, what they brought was another way to to fool ourselves that we are doing “something” while the world beckons to be changed. I love technology , but I sometimes act like a Luddite, Its simple,  I see people playing rockband and the like , what 1-3 hours a day, time better spent on learning an instrument or the like.

Given that our culture is fundamentally consumerist, every countercultural movement is by definition anti-consumerist, a quixotic attempt to create an imaginary space that exists outside of and in opposition to the marketplace. Counterculturalism is a doomed attempt to maintain innocence in the face of the market’s all-consuming cynicism. Once the Beatles, and particularly John Lennon, became aware of their power, they dedicated themselves to sustaining the countercultural dream of the sixties, even after the dream had evaporated. Rock Band in general, though especially the Beatles edition, makes a particularly good vampire. The blood it sucks is the blood of the innocent.
via Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Paul is dead.

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