Tag: Things Having Nothing to do with Anything

My First Apple Computer

I guess being in the technology field I should have expected the immense amount of news regarding Steve Jobs’s death to flood every channel of communications I have available to me. This news has actually interrupted my process of finding, reading, and writing about various articles of interest so you’re dealing with less than optimal posts today. In luie of having normal A Geek With Guns content to post I’m going to perpetuate a meme that’s been going around, I’m going to talk about my first Apple computer.

While others can talk about their experiences with an early Apple II or one of the first Macintoshes, I only jumped on the Apple ship after they shipped OS X 10.4. Before that I really had no use for Apple computers as I found their operating system lacking and the available software sparse. When 10.4 shipped I finally believed the operating system to be a competent and fully featured UNIX system and I had been looking for a good laptop running some flavor of UNIX for some time by then. At the time Linux was still unusable as far as I was concerned for laptops (suspend never worked correctly, battery life was usually half of what you could get in Windows, driver support for various Wi-Fi cards was non-existent, etc.).

Needless to say I ended up buying a PowerBook G4. My first PowerBook was one of the last in the line (model identifier was a PowerBook5,6) and came equipped with a measly 1.67GHz processor and an 80GB hard drive. The bloody thing ran though and gave me few headaches. I used it for most of my school work and eventually it filled the role of everything except gaming (which I used to do far more of when I was young). While I still own the machine it really is of little use considering how woefully underpowered it is. Still, it’s fun to bring it out of storage once in a while and power it up for nostalgia sake.

Still, from that humble laptop I eventually purchased the first model Mac Pro to replace my aging desktop. While I spent most of my life vehemently hating Apple computers the quality of their new operating system and hardware won me over. Now most of my machines are Apple manufactured and I can say they have given me far fewer headaches than previous machines I have owned. Hell Apple won me over in the phone market even though they perform practices that I find detestable (yet their phones do what I need which is what is really important in my opinion).

And Here I Thought It Was Just Because I’m an Asshole

I think I now know why nobody reads my blog:

Online traffic is one of those things you’re not supposed to talk about.

But anyone who writes online and proclaims, “I don’t care if anyone reads me,” is a liar.

If you didn’t care if anyone read you, you wouldn’t write online. In fact, you wouldn’t write at all.

As I always say this sit is here to amuse me although I’m glad others find my self-amusement entertaining enough to read. I will agree though that anybody who blogs and says they seriously don’t care if anybody reads what they post is likely lying of delusional. The people who don’t care if others read their material are usually in their bunker writing out a manifesto. Those of us who enjoy having an audience write blogs. But let’s see why nobody reads my blog:

1. You’re boring.

Damn… got me there. It’s hard being exciting when you’re a computer programmer who spends his off time reading or at the firing range. Then again that’s why I usually don’t write about myself.

If your idea of being interesting is writing about complex tax codes, what your cat ate for breakfast (unless it’s Maru), or how much you bench pressed, you may be boring. It all depends. The fact of the matter is that it’s not the thing, it’s the relationship to the thing, and when it comes to writing, it’s not the subject, it’s your relationship to it.

I believe this is something many new bloggers should take note of. For every topic out there you can expect about ten thousand bloggers are already covering it. You need to give people a reason to read your blog. Some people derive their traffic from being content curators while others try to get traffic by writing opinion pieces (which is what this site does). Neither method works though if you don’t actually care about the subject you’re writing about. For example if I were to start writing about horseback riding this site would become even shittier than it already is because I’ve never ridden a horse before. On the other hand I have a deep pasion for personal rights and the philosophy behind those rights so I can write about the topic all day (as evident by the existence of this blog). So what other reasons are there explaining why nobody reads my blog?

I could make a list of all the various personality characteristics of which I am not a fan, but waffler is really up there at the top. Sometimes women are wafflers, even more so than men, because it’s easier to be nice. Actually, it’s not easier to be nice. It’s easier for everyone else for you to be nice, but it’s harder for you, because you never say what you really think, and nobody ever knows, and then you want to go home and saw at your wrists with a dull bread knife.

I have may problems but not saying what I think isn’t one of them. Next:

Sure, you can think of women who are controversialists, but I suspect it’s easier to be a controversialist if you are a man than if you are a woman. To be a controversialist on the internet, you have to deal with writing things that other people don’t want you to say, and you have to deal with all the criticism that gets launched at you, and, after all that, you have to do it again, and again, and again. It’s like pissing in the wind, and there’s a hurricane.

I also have no problem writing things that other people don’t want to say. So over all I guess the only reason nobody reads my blog is because I’m boring.

Seriously though if you’re a blogger read that article. It’s short and offers a good deal of incite for writing a blog that people may actually chose to read.

Apparently Making Pistols Isn’t the Only Thing Gaston Glock Knows

It seems building damn fine pistols isn’t the only thing Gaston Glock is good at, he’s also good at picking up women younger women:

Gaston Glock, 82, founder and owner of Glock g.m.b.H., has married Kathrin Tschikof, 31, after a seven year relationship. Kathrin is the CEO of the Glock Horse Performance Center, an equestrian organization owned by Gaston Glock.

Not bad for an 82 year-old man. It is my firm belief that Mr. Glock needs to write a book, I’d read it.

It’s Good to See the FBI Handling the Really Important Cases

With all of the violent crimes happening in the United States I’m glad to see the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are putting resources into the really important cases:

The FBI is investigating computer hacking attacks on celebrities after photos which appear to show Scarlett Johansson nude were posted online.

The images, apparently taken by the actress, follow the leaking of naked photos of stars including Jessica Alba.

The FBI said it was investigating “the person or groups responsible for a series of computer intrusions involving high-profile figures”.

Something tells me that if I took nude pictures of myself and they ended up being stolen by some malicious computer hackers that the FBI wouldn’t be performing any investigation. I guess I’m just not important enough to utilize their stretch-thin-as-it-is resources.

I Guess It’s a Matter of Perspective

I guess boring is really a matter of perspective. The last question of the CNN Tea Party Debate was an inquiry about what personal thing each candidate would have brought to the White House. Bitter over at Snowflakes in Hell found Dr. Paul’s response rather boring:

Paul – He’d teach economics classes. And give boring as hell answers to personality-driven questions.

Heh, what she finds boring I find exciting. I attend a couple of liberty oriented gathers a week and the topic of Austrian economics is often discussed. Two weeks ago I attended a debate between Austrian economics Robert Murphy and Keynesian Karl Smith. Much of my free time is reading literature on Austrian economics. Needless to say having good economics classes at the White House sounded like a pretty good time to me.

The differences in peoples’ interests has always amused me.

So what would my answer to that question had been if I were running for the presidency? My reloading bench and a good stockpile of components. Why? Because the image of me sitting in the Oval Office reloading ammunition makes me smile.

Wristwatches

I believe I’m one of only three people left on the plant who still wears a wristwatch regularly. For several years now I’ve been sporting a rather awesome Tissot T-Touch stainless steel watch. For anybody who is unaware of the T-Touch line (which I expect is most everybody) it’s a wristwatch with a built in compas, chronometer, alarm, altimeter, barometer, and thermometer. Why do I need all of that in a watch? Because it’s there!

Sadly the butterfly clasp on the band finally broke. As a guy who spends a great deal of time shooting I know the drill when something breaks; find out what broke, find out what part you need, search online for somebody who has the part, and finally have it shipped to your home. I’m learning that wristwatches are nothing like that. Due to the way the band attaches to the physical watch I can’t just go to any jewelry store and get a new band (I’ve already tried that). Even the authorized Tissot dealer in my area couldn’t repair it but instead gave me the number of the United States repair center for Tissot. It seems the only place on the planet to get wristwatch parts is from the manufacturers.

So it looks like my only option is to call the repair center and hope to Thor they will simply send me the part I need instead of making me send the watch in. As it sits right now I have no watch and thus am rather confused when somebody asks me what time it is. I wasn’t aware of how much I depend on a wristwatch in my daily life until now.

Tips For New Bloggers

Did starting a blog suddenly become the in thing to do? I’m asking this because several of my friends have started their own blogs within the last few months and one of them actually believes he’s going to make money on his writing endeavor. Although I feel my friend’s profit seeking mission will end only in failure I thought I’d try to help him out as well as any other new bloggers out there. In this post I will post my findings and observations as far as blogging is concerned.

First let me explain why those getting into blogging should take what I say about blogging seriously.

1. I’ve been blogging for a couple of years.
2. I’m now raking in thousands of dollars off of this site.
3. Respectable companies now give me products to review and look forward to my findings.
4. As you can see I’m an expect on webpage design.
5. My opinions are respected throughout the world due to this very site.

OK so only one of those five things is actually true (hint: the first one). But I believe blogging for a couple of years is as much as you can hope for when it comes to blogging credentials. These are my tips for making a successful blog.

Nobody cares about your personal life. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. Unless you’re a fucking Navy SEAL nobody is going to read a website that consists primarily of posts about your personal life. The reason for this is simple; your life is boring. Although there is no problem with slipping in some information related to your personal life once in a while it shouldn’t make up a majority of your posts unless your goal is to have a readership that is mostly made up of friends and family.

Update regularly. If you want people to visit your website then you need to give them a reason. Somebody who updates his website a couple of times a month isn’t likely to develop a reader base beyond the size of that local communist newsletter put out by the liberal arts student working in the basement at the A/V department of your college. My goal is to write a bear minimum of four new posts every weekday although I strive for more. This gives my meager readership something to come to my site for beyond the giant checks I send them to artificially inflate my numbers (note: if you’re not currently receiving a check then you’re not in the club and you’re not getting in so don’t ask). Overall I think this is the most important thing when creating a blog.

Express your opinion on the topics you write about. I know a lot of people complain that news in this country is too biased. Have you have stopped to ask yourself why such biases exist? It’s because nobody wants to watch, read, or listen to completely unbiased news. If you want to understand what unbiased news would be like pick up a scientific research paper and read through it; that’s as close to an unbiased news sources as you’re going to get and it’s damned boring. When people just want the news they can go get it elsewhere, when people want an opinion they turn to blogs. Be outspoken about your opinion because that’s what runnings a news sources is all about, just ask Benjamin Franklin.

Have fun. Seriously your blog shouldn’t exist to make money but for your personal amusement. If you aren’t having fun then you’re not going to update regularly and you’ll never establish a consistent readership base. Without a consistent reader base you’ll never be able to brag about the size of your e-penis which is really the only reason anybody posts anything on the Internet.

Don’t listen to other bloggers. Yup I made you wade through that entire series of text just to close by saying that you shouldn’t listen to me. Why is that? Because only you know what you want to do. Your blog should be fun for you and that means doing what you want to do. I’m also well aware of the fact that I’m an asshole, there’s no need to let me know.

I Love Driving a Truck

Although I was rather foolish in my youth and decided my Ford Ranger had to have the biggest engine on Thor’s Earth there are some great advantages. My truck guzzles gas at a rather alarming rate giving a mear 17.5 miles per gallon (regardless if I’m driving on the highway or in the city which is strange). But it has a few advantages that make it worth driving.

The first and most obvious advantage is the fact that is pisses the greenies off. It makes me feel good driving a truck that makes every Earth first fucker out there hate my guts and want nothing more than my immediate demise. Those self righteous bastards need to be pissed off more often in my not so humble opinion.

The second advantage is the fact that I can actually get under the vehicle without the assistance of a hoist. Being I live in an apartment complex the facilities I have available to perform regular maintenance on my truck are limited. This isn’t that big of a problem because I can actually crawl under the truck without having to elevate it in any way and perform simple tasks like changing the oil. I did try the whole let-somebody-else-change-your-oil thing but that only resulted in the wrong oil filter being placed upon my vehicle. I’m usually the first to decry zero tolerance policies but when it comes to my truck I have zero tolerance for incompetence. The old phrase, “If you want something done right do it yourself.” rings just as true today as it did when the phrase was first stated. Likewise having somebody else change you oil is fucking expensive. I think I save the money I pay in gas on the ability to change my own oil.

I don’t think I even need to mention the fact that Minnesota winters are much easier to deal with when you have a vehicle that can go through everything Mother Nature throws at you. During one of the major blizzards last year I had no trouble traversing the snow covered roads while some of my friends had to call into work and tell their bosses they were unable to come in that day.

So even though trucks guzzle gas, which is getting more expensive by the day, I don’t think you’ll ever find me in a car. They may be fuel efficient but if your ride isn’t pissing off the greenies then you ride sucks.

I Made the Secret Gun Blogger Blacklist

I was complaining yesterday that even after two years of blogging I’m still not getting invited to the secret gun blogger cabal meetings. Well Joat pointed out in the comments that I at least made the gun blogger blacklist.

I’m moving up in the world! Linoge also pointed out an article on Weerd’s blog that sums up the whole drama llama episode involving Mr. Farago.