Tag: Random Awesome Shit

Perks Of The Job

What’s the best way to fight the State’s war on drug users? Apparently by becoming part of the State and working from within:

A former Massachusetts drug-lab chemist was high on the job nearly every day for eight years, according to a report from the state’s attorney general. The report said that the chemist, Sonja Farak, was under the influence of drugs like crack, meth, LSD, and ketamine as she testified in court in drug cases and while examining drug samples in a crime lab between 2004 and 2013.

The report from AG Maura Healey also said the chemist cooked crack cocaine in a crime lab at night while working overtime.

Anthony Benedetti of the Committee for Public Counsel Services said that “thousands” of drug prosecutions were imperiled. “Anything that went through that lab while she was there is in question,” he told the Boston Globe.

I’m being a bit humorous here. It would be far better if those drug users were never imprisoned in the first place. But it is amusing that a large number of prosecutions may be jeopardized because the lab technician was herself doing drugs.

I wonder if she every had to testify in court immediately after dropping the acid that was taken off of the accused? It would be hard to keep a straight face in that situation. Either way, she deserves some credit for being high at both the lab and in court for eight years without anybody noticing. That’s impressive.

The New Twenty Dollar Bill

The Treasury has announced that Andrew Jackson will be replaced with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. And this is hands down the best possible design for it.

hariet-tubman-twenty

Harriet Tubman holding one hand out as if to say, “Come on you son of a bitch, do you want to be free or not?” and holding a pistol in her other hand to demonstrate she will not be fucked with.

Too bad the Treasury won’t use this design in all likelihood.

Some Inspiration For You

Those of us living under the boot of the State — which is to say almost all of us — need a little inspiration from time to time. Fortunately, many animals seem less willing to accept their chains that humans. Last week two heroic animals reminded us that freedom is something to always be strived for.

First up was Inky the octopus:

By the time the staff at New Zealand’s National Aquarium noticed that he was missing, telltale suction cup prints were the main clue to an easily solved mystery.

Inky had said see ya to his tank-mate, slipped through a gap left by maintenance workers at the top of his enclosure and, as evidenced by the tracks, made his way across the floor to a six-inch-wide drain. He squeezed his football-sized body in — octopuses are very malleable, aquarium manager Rob Yarrall told the New Zealand website Stuff — and made a break for the Pacific.

Next up was Cha Cha the chimpanzee:

A chimpanzee named Cha Cha escaped from a zoo in Sendai, Japan, and led police and zoo staff on a dramatic two-hour chase through a residential neighborhood, according to NHK, Japan’s largest broadcaster.

cha-cha-vs-the-man

I have a similar reaction when somebody tries to cage me.

Unfortunately Cha Cha was recaptured. But failure usually precedes success so there’s still hope.

Simulation Of The Titanic Sinking

I spent the evening working on my submission for the Agorist Writers Workshop so there isn’t much in the way of content today. One thing that I did come across that was rather neat though was a realtime simulation of the sinking of the Titanic. I admit that I jumped around as I didn’t have two hours and forty minutes to watch a ship sink but it was still neat.

Facebook Trolling The United Kingdom

In general I find Facebook to be one of the creepiest surveillance corporations. But in this case I’m willing to give the company a pass. Facebook has announced that it is giving each of its United Kingdom (UK) employees a $1.1 million bonus in order to avoid paying taxes:

Facebook is to award bonuses of £280 million ($396 million) to its U.K.-based staff over the next three years in a bid to offset the amount of tax it has to pay to the U.K. Treasury.

Each employee will receive an average of £775,000 ($1.1 million), which Facebook will list as a taxable expense.

This raises an interesting question. Who will win between the statists demanding Facebook to pay more taxes or the statists demanding Facebook pay its employees more. Since the same people are often demanding both this is probably causing some severe headaches.

But that’s not all! In addition to this trolling Facebook also threw in an additional complimentary troll:

The new tax blow is all the more frustrating for the British government after data emerged recently to show that the Treasury pays more to Facebook for advertising placement than it receives in taxes from the Silicon Valley giant.

Why is the UK Treasury paying Facebook for advertising? What does a State have to advertise? It makes its services compulsory for everybody. Either way, it’s nice to see Facebook draining some wealth away from the State. While Facebook’s employees will likely have to pay income taxes on their substantial bonus the amount the UK will receive will likely be far less than if Facebook paid what was being demanded of it directly. It also sends a terrific message.

Education Has Never Been Cheaper

While the Republicans beat on the fear of illegal immigrants drum the Democrats have been beating on the free shit drum. One of the things many Democrats claim should be free is education. In fact they go so far as to say the costs of education are unreasonable. This is nonsense.

Education today is cheaper than it has ever been before. Knowledge has been liberated from the ivory towers of universities and made openly available to the masses. Gone are the days when you had to be extremely wealthy to become learned in anything outside of a trade.

Do you want to learn a language? Duolingo and Memrise have your back. Do you want to learn how to program? Codecademy and Khan Academy have you covered. Do you want to learn history? Khan Academy and MIT are there for you. Do you want to learn mathematics? Khan Academy, MIT, and iTunes U will help you out. Do you want to learn history? Khan Academy, MIT, and iTunes U are all ready to fulfill your desire. Do you want to learn about economics? The Mises Institute has more economic knowledge available than a majority of universities (unless you subscribe to the fantasy economic dreck of Keyes, Marx, and other people who should never have been taken seriously).

What I’ve listed here is just a tiny sample of all the resources available to you to further you education. All of the ones I’ve mentioned above are freely available to you (which is not to be mistaken for free, somebody is footing the bill on these things) and of fantastic quality.

The cost of education has plummeted. What has gotten ridiculously expensive is a university education. More specifically the degrees they issue. But a degree is not synonymous with an education. We don’t need free education, that already exists (again, free to you). What we need is for people to use this knowledge to further their entrepreneurial goals and to help employers understand a Github repository makes a better programming resume than a university degree.

Sometimes You Just Have To Have Fun

I’m an oddity in that I don’t really enjoy playing most of the Metal Gear games. They’re great titles but stealth has never been my thing. Of the series Metal Gear Rising is the only one I’ve played through multiple times, which I’m pretty sure qualifies as heresy amongst the Metal Gear community. But I really enjoy the characters from the games and I’m not alone. Most fans of the series are happy simply dressing up as the characters for cons but one guy decided to replicate some of the gun slinging shenanigans of Revolver Ocelot and it’s goddamn impressive.

That guy obviously invested a lot of time into learning how to do that so it was inevitable that somebody would come along and shit all over his accomplishment. Of the people I shared this video with most thought it was amusing but a couple had to comment about his violation of the four rules of gun safety and the fact that those skills aren’t practical.

I think we all need to take a moment to reflect on the fact that sometimes it’s OK to have a little fun. Firearm safety isn’t something I take lightly but I’m not even sure if those revolvers are real. If they are they are single-action revolvers so the chances of something bad happening, even if they’re loaded, is pretty minimal so long as the hammers aren’t cocked. While I won’t go so far as to say it’s totally cool to fling real guns around like toys I’m also not going to get too worked up over it.

And what he’s demonstrating certainly isn’t practical but who gives a flying fuck? I don’t know about everybody who shoots but I certainly spend time doing things with firearms that have no practical value. Sometimes you just need to have some fun. Yeah, I get it, time spent learning impractical fun tricks could be better invested in practicing practical skills. But sometimes you just need to enjoy yourself, which is why there are impractical things like televisions and movie theaters.

Some people seems to have a propensity for shitting on anybody they’re jealous of. If you’re on of them and feeling jealous of somebody why not spend the time you would normally take to bitch about them to learn how to do what they do? It would be a lot more productive and far less annoying. Who knows, you might even have a bit of fun.

The moral of the story: there’s no need to be so serious all the time.

Everything Is Made Easier Thanks To The Internet

In high school I took two semester of German and in college I took two semesters of Japanese. Unfortunately my knowledge of these languages has deteriorated to such a point where I can’t read, write, or speak anything intelligible in either. This is mostly because I’ve had no real means of maintaining that knowledge.

Some time ago a friend pointed me to Duolingo, a website that focuses on helping people learn languages. I’ve been playing with it for a few days and I must say that it has impressed me. Sadly Japanese isn’t available but German is so I’ve been relearning a bit of that.

I’ve also been working on Esperanto. Why would anybody learn a manufactured language? Because a surprising number of people in various anarchist communities, including the ones here in the Twin Cities, know it. And because I’m not terribly good with human languages because I lack an understanding of basic language concepts. My hope is a manufactured language that is consistent in its rules will help me learn the concepts enough to make learning other languages easier.

In both cases I’ve been surprised at how well Duolingo works. The fact that it gamifies language learning helps motivate me to keep with it (I’m a sucker for imaginary Internet points). But the fact that it has you translate phrases both ways and, in the case of German, speak some of it helps.

What amazes me is that it wasn’t that long ago that the only practical way to study a language was to enroll in a language class at a university. Now there is a website that offer the basics for free and gamifies it to motivate you to keep studying. I’m constantly in awe of this future we live in, especially in how it makes access to previously scarce information widely available.

I’m Available For Performing Electronic Exorcisms

As many of you know I’m a discordian pope. In addition to that I’m also an ordained minister by the Universal Life Church Monastery. With rock solid credentials like that I’m totally getting into the electronic exorcism business:

But if you truly think your electronics have been invaded by an evil spirit, there’s someone who will take your call — Reverend Joey Talley — a Wiccan witch from the San Francisco Bay Area who claims to solve supernatural issues for techies.

[…]

“Most people want me to protect their computers from viruses and hacks,” she told SF Weekly. “So I’ll make charms for them. I like to use flora.” And when there are problems in office hardware, Talley turns to “Jet,” a black stone that serves to block energy. In extreme cases, she casts protection spells of her own over the entire company.

[…]

Talley’s services do not come cheap. She charges $200 an hour (though a phone consultation is free).

For $200.00 per hour — hell, for $100.00 per hour I’ll exorcise the daemons from your systems (at least the daemons that aren’t supposed to be there). My e-mail address is to the right of this post, feel free to contact me for your free exorcism estimate!