Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

Jumping To Conclusions

Before any facts about the perpetrators of the Paris attacks could be discovered many politicians here were already jumping to conclusions. The governors of 17 states jumped to the conclusion that the perpetrators were Syrian refugees and used that to declare their states closed to any refugees from Syria. But an investigation into the attackers turned up evidence that they were European nationals:

“Let me underline, the profile of the terrorists so far identified tells us this is an internal threat,” Federica Mogherini, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, said after a meeting with EU foreign ministers. “It is all EU citizens so far. This can change with the hours, but so far it is quite clear it is an issue of internal domestic security.”

My point isn’t that the attackers were carried out by European nationals. The investigation has just begun so other evidence could indicate the attackers were indeed Syrian refugees or trained members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) who snuck into France or shapeshifting lizard people from another dimension.

My point is that jumping to conclusions before an investigation has come to a conclusion supported by solid evidence is foolish. Be smart. Wait for evidence to be discovered before telling everybody what you think happened.

Baseless Finger Pointing

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. — Rahm Emanuel

Emanuel laid bare for us the way in which people descend like vultures on tragedies in order to push their personal agendas. Soon after the attacks in Paris hit the headlines people were descending on the crisis. Most were using it call for the dead of Muslims, even before any details of who perpetrated the attacker were known. But some used the crisis to call for the head of Edward Snowden:

In the years since Snowden revealed the vast surveillance and spying done by Western governments, strong encryption has become an increasingly popular way for people to shield their Internet activity from prying eyes. Encryption is used by everyone from e-commerce websites and human rights activists to American soldiers and Islamist terrorists.

It’s the latter group’s adoption of strong encryption in particular that has attracted so much fiery rhetoric.

Fox News hosts Greg Gutfeld and Dana Perino, George W. Bush’s former press secretary, took to Twitter to directly blame and even curse at Snowden.

How did Snowden’s act of leaking slides from National Security Agency (NSA) presentations allow the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to thwart surveillance to successfully pull off the attacks in Paris? It didn’t. Those who think it did are making to incorrect assumptions.

First, they are assuming a massive surveillance apparatus would have thwarted these attacks. Even before the Snowden leaks the NSA’s surveillance programs failed to thwart a single terrorist attack. How could this be? Easy. Massive untargeted surveillance isn’t an effective means of discovering planned future events. When you collect everything you end up with far more noise than signal. In fact the amount of noise is so large it drowns out the signal. The only thing pervasive surveillance is useful for is gathering evidence post facto when you have a target.

Second, they are assuming ISIS is the Middle Eastern version of the three percenters, which is to say they are assuming ISIS is an uncoordinated ragtag group. This is a notion everybody needs to get over. ISIS didn’t rise to prominence through luck. It rose to prominence by waging a successful war against rival nations. Waging that war required military tactics, equipment, and coordination that is only possible with a lot of very capable people working together. People need to stop looking at ISIS as a loose terrorist group and acknowledge it as a fully fledged nation state. And it didn’t become a nation state by letting its enemies read its communications. It became a nation state by utilize effective means of concealing communications. That requires experts, which isn’t something somebody can become by reading the slides Snowden leaked.

Mass surveillance was useless before Snowden leaked the NSA’s dirty laundry so there are no grounds to claim it would have thwarted these attacks had Snowden not blown the whistle.

An Incompetent Government Is The Best Government

I’m going to quote a comment I came across on Facebook and I want you to guess what it reminds me of:

It is a shame that he isn’t perfect in his support for human rights issues, but the reality is that he is the only major candidate that would work proactively to drastically address climate change, fraudulent corporate financial activity, worker’s rights, education, single payer health care, mitigating the surveillance state, implementing Keynesian economic programs that actually target the middle class and the impoverished, and restoring balance to corporate and individual taxation.

We need an educated society in order to aim for utopia, and Bernie’s policies are the best of the realistic candidates in this election cycle to move towards that goal. Sucks that he isn’t perfect, but then, who is?

If you guessed it reminds me of Rand Paul supporters you are correct! This quote was in response to somebody who pointed out that Bernie Sanders, like Hillary Clinton, wants to put Edward Snowden on trial, which is inexcusable. But this loyal Bernie supporter had to swoop in and explain how Bernie, even if he isn’t perfect, is still the best choice available.

What amuses me about this is that the “left” and “right” think they’re the opposite of each other. If you put them together in a room they’ll heatedly debate one another because they believe they’re on opposite sides. But when you boil it all down both sides are mirror imagines of each other.

Each side focuses on different details but their prescription is the same: absolute control by the “best” people is the only way to “save” this nation. I’m not entirely sure why anybody would want to save this nation, or any nation for that matter. What value is there is continuing a system where a handful of people hold absolute power over everybody else? Even if we pretend this nation is worth saving, how does giving the best people absolute power assume to accomplish that? Rand Paul supporters believe giving Rand Paul absolute power would save this nation because they believe he is the best candidate. Ditto for Bernie Sanders supporters. But the only way one can really save a nation is to have the most incompetent government possible, which requires having the worse people in positions of power.

Because the presidency comes with executive orders the holder of that position actually enjoys some modicum of power. That being the case the best person to appoint would be somebody who is illiterate, uncharismatic, and is entirely without drive. Rand and Bernie, as hard as it may be to believe, are both literate, charismatic enough to have followings, and driven to push their agenda down the throats of Americans. So they’re both capable of writing executive orders, have a big enough following where their executive orders will enjoy at least some praise, and driven to issue executive orders.

Only under an incompetent government will the people of a nation get along well enough to properly call them a nation. This is because having a competent government means everybody will try to use it to force their beliefs on everybody else. So long as the threat exits fear will divide the people. But having an incompetent government means few will see it as an effective means of forcing their beliefs on everybody else and therefore won’t try. The handful of people who still do view it as an effective means will try to utilize it but it will be a futile effort. In other words people will be able to go on with their lives and not live under constant fear of their neighbor’s agenda.

When Tradition Watch Manufacturers Treat Smartwatches Like Traditional Watches

There has been some buzz (at least in horology circles) about Tag Heuer’s smartwatch. It is, after all, the first serious attempt by a traditional watch manufacturer to release a smartwatch. But things weren’t off to a good start when the initial price of $1,400 was announced and things only looked worse when Tag Heuer announced a price increase. While there are a few models of the Apple Watch that exceed that price range most smartwatches come in far under what Tag Heuer is asking.

Now the price is settled at $1,500. What does $1,500 get you? You’d think it would get you some of the most cutting edge technology a company could cram into a smartwatch. Instead if gets you the same internals you would get for $150:

There was always a question of how much technology you would get for this $1,500, and unfortunately, it seems that the device has mostly normal smartwatch guts. There’s a 1.5-inch, circular 360×360 (240 PPI) LCD, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of storage, Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi (802.11n) and a 410mAh battery. The one unique item is the processor: a 1.6Ghz dual-core Intel Atom Z34XX. It’s hard to not be disappointed by the LCD when the $350 Huawei Watch clocks in at a superior 286 PPI.

Here’s the problem I see with traditional watch manufacturers trying to enter the smartwatch market. Traditional watch manufacturers are used to selling a luxury product that can last a lifetime. $1,500 can get you a really nice mechanical watch that you will probably pass down to your children. Smartwatches aren’t mechanical watches. Whereas you still have a functional mechanical watch after five years a smartwatch after the same period of time is likely to be little more than a pile of outdated circuits connected to a dead battery. You may pass it down to your children but only because you don’t want to give them something valuable until they’re old enough not to break it by falling off of a jungle gym.

I think it’s going to be difficult for traditional watch manufacturers to enter the smartwatch market without changing up their business model a bit. Why would somebody want to fork out $1,500 to Tag Heuer instead of 1/10th of that to Motorola for basically the same thing? With the exception of people who have brand loyalty to Tag Heuer they’re not. That’s because they’re going to dump their smartwatch in a year or two for the newer model with more powerful and power efficient hardware.

There’s certainly room for a premium product but what qualifies something as a premium electronic device is different than a mechanical watch. When people pay a premium for an electronic device they tend to expect more power, features, and attention to details. Graphics cards are a great example of this. You can spend a lot of money on a graphics card but when you reach that premium top tier you’re getting some cutting edge hardware that you can reasonably expect to run the latest games at ridiculously high resolutions with all of the fancy features turned on. Apple products are an example where users will pay a premium for attention to detail. Making a laptop body out of a solid brick of aluminum, designing a professional workstation in the footprint of a cylinder, and releasing an all-in-one computer that’s almost thin enough to cut paper is appreciated by enough people to command a premium.

So what can a traditional watch manufacturer offer the smartwatch market? To start with their bread and butter: attention to detail. Let’s consider the watch face, which is arguably what most smartwatch users will be looking at throughout the day. Tag Heuer decided recreating watch faces from its mechanical lines was the way to go. But, in my opinion, it was done in a half-assed manner. The watch faces look like a Dashboard (because it’s all but forgotten, Dashboard is a layer in OS X where users can add small widgets) clock widget. For $1,500 Tag Heuer could have included motion sensors sensitive enough to know the wearer’s exact orientation. Combining that with location and time information obtained form the phone and you could add in realistic outdoor shadows under the watch hands and from the side of the case to create the illusion of depth. Assuming the user is inside the watch could use light sensors to detect where light is coming from and provide a similar illusion. Another idea would be to use a series of backlight LEDs instead of a single LED. Theoretically they could allow the watch to only turn on the LEDs behind the parts of the watch with lume to provide a similar night lighting to an actual watch. Of course all of this would look much better on a high resolution screen, which should be doable at that price point.

Traditional watch manufacturers can play in the smartwatch market but doing so seriously will require more than releasing the same product as everybody else with a different name attached to it.

Rightist Victim Culture

Rightists have been having a field day poking fun of the leftist victim culture. According to conservatives, neoconservatives, and a lot of libertarians the left has become a bunch of overly sensitive special snowflakes who are incapable of being anything but perpetually offended. What makes these accusations funny is that these rightists are some of the most sensitive, easily offended special snowflakes out there.

Many people on the left have a list of words they would rather you not say because they’re offensive. Rightists like to point at these lists and scream about the left’s attend to censor free speech. After they’re done with their censorship tirade they like to head over to the local Applebee’s and forcefully censor people who are speaking something other than English. I can already hear the rightists screaming out, “Not all rightists beat people up for not using English!” But it’s pretty hard to deny that a lot of rightists get really offended whenever somebody uses a language other than English. In fact a lot of them support passing a law to make English the official language of the United States and requires English proficiency to be a requirement before somebody can immigrate. If that’s not the very same censorship the right accuses the left of I don’t know what is.

Speaking of easily offended, we’re getting close to Christmas, which is the rightists’ time of year to be perpetually offended. How many rightists have you heard bitch about people saying “Happy holidays,” instead of “Merry Christmas?” Failing to greet many rightists with their preferred religious blessing severely triggers them. And it’s not just blessings that trigger them. Failing to use the appropriate Christmas imagery on your merchandise will trigger them as well. Starbucks is the first major offender this year because it’s going with a minimalist theme on its coffee cups this year. The coffee chain’s decision to use red coffee cups instead of cups with snowflakes and other Christmas designs on them has greatly offended a lot of Christian rightists. Not only is this offensive to rightists but some go so far as to claim it’s oppressive. You see, this is just another chapter in the evil leftist atheist’s sinister war on Christmas that is oppressing good rightist Christians everywhere! It’s a war that’s trying to erase the reason for the season!

Evil leftist atheists aren’t the only group oppressing the majority Christian population. Muslims are waging a jihad against them! Immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, as with immigrants from Latin America, are offending a lot of rightists. Their solution has been to take a page from the leftist’s book and try to implement safe spaces. Rightists, however, are trying to crank the idea of safe spaces to eleven. Where the leftists generally want a room at a college that can serve as a safe space the rightists want to turn entire cities and even entire countries into fortified safe spaces capable of repelling all who would trigger them.

I find a great deal of amusement in hypocrisy. With the recent rise of what the rightists like to call social justice warriors I’ve been greatly amused. Everything rightists have been accusing social justice warriors of is something they themselves do. Rightists are in a perpetual state of outrage over people who speak different languages, are from different countries, and believe in a different religion (or fail to believe in Christianity the same way as they do). Triggering them is as simple as using the wrong greeting during December. And one of their biggest desires is to turn entire areas into fortified safe spaces for themselves. It’s goddamn (sorry I forgot to add a trigger warning for the rightists before dropping the g-bomb) hilarious.

Anyways I’m off to get ready to celebrate the reason for the season: Odin.

Art So Bad Only Government Would Fund It

I’ve often wondered who funded modern abstract art. When I look at a bunch of random colors splashed on a canvas I ask myself, “Who the fuck would buy this? I could do this and I suck at art!” As it turns out modern abstract art, like so many other terrible ideas, was secretly funded by the United States government:

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art – including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko – as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince – except that it acted secretly – the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

[…]

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.

The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the “long leash” – arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.

This is why the history of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was titled Legacy of Ashes. Only an agency as stupid at the CIA would promote something like modern abstract art and call it a viable strategy against the Soviet Union (which must have been laughing its ass off when we used modern abstract art as proof of American creativity).

Not only did this strategy accomplish nothing of value but it also inflicted us with, well, modern art. I feel as though we’ve all suffered greatly because of this CIA idiocy.

Minneapolis Public Schools Solve Violence Issue Once And For All

Minneapolis Public Schools have had issues with violence. But after a student brought a .38 caliber handgun in the administrators decided enough is enough. Measures have been taken to ensure violence never again bothers the students and faculty of Minneapolis Public Schools:

Promoting positive learning environments for students begins with ensuring the schools are safe, MPS said. Tedmon said the district’s schools are currently the safest place for kids, and they’re going to keep it that way.What do you think?

“Alongside families and community partners, MPS is declaring our district to be a weapon-, violence- and gang-free zone. Together, we can let everyone know: Not in our schools,” MPS said in a press release.

Finally! Now they can hand signs declared their schools violence-free zones right below the very effective signs declaring them drug-free zones!

Because of the ineffectiveness of gun-free zones most of us who advocate for the right to self-defense have jokingly said that places should just declare themselves violence-free zones and be done with it. Apparently our joke was heard by a school administrator who failed to recognize the subtleties of sarcasm. This person must have also missed the fact that drugs are pervasive in schools even though they’ve been declared drug-free zones and that kid with the handgun managed to go right past the signs indicating the school was a gun-free zone.

What should be concerning though is the people in charge are making our parody reality.

Cyberfailure At The Cyberdepartment Of Cybersecurity

Do you ever get the idea China’s ability to breach United States’ networks isn’t so much due to their skill as to their adversary’s incompetency? After the breach of the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) network it was revealed that government networks are woefully out of date. In fact China was focusing its efforts of non-milistary federal agencies. But even though other federal agency’s network security is lackluster we were told time and again that the Department of Defense (DoD) is held to a higher standard. That wasn’t true either:

The United States Department of Defense is still issuing SHA-1 signed certificates for use by military agencies, despite this practice being banned by NIST for security reasons nearly two years ago. These certificates are used to protect sensitive communication across the public internet, keeping the transmitted information secret from eavesdroppers and impersonators. The security level provided by these DoD certificates is now below the standard Google considers acceptable for consumer use on the web.

Few things amuse me more than when one federal agency, in this case the DoD, fails to abide by the recommendations issued by another federal agency, in this case the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This shouldn’t be surprising though, the DoD’s e-mail servers don’t even support STARTTLS so any e-mails traveling between their servers are being sent in the clear. If the DoD can’t even take basic measures like that why would anybody assume they would utilize secure certificates?

We keep hearing about the coming cyberwar. When that finally comes the United States is going to be taken out in the initial volley. Every bit of news we hear indicates the computer security capabilities of the entire federal government are nonexistent.

The Source Of Venezuela’s Economic Woes

It’s no secret that Venezuela’s economy is in the same place every other socialist economy ends up: the shitter. But unlike its predecessors, Venezuela has identified the source of its troubles! That source is none other than a website operated by an evil American capitalist pigdog:

Venezuela’s central bank has filed a lawsuit at a court in Delaware against the US-based website DolarToday.

It accuses the website of cyberterrorism and says its managers are sowing economic chaos in Venezuela.
The central bank requested both an injunction and damages, accusing the site’s managers of fanning inflation in the country.

DolarToday tracks the black market value of the Venezuelan currency, the bolivar.
It values the bolivar at a far lower rate than the official one.

It values the bolivar at a far lower rate than the official one.

I’m always amused by faltering socialist nations. Their leaders always blame their nation’s economic collapses on evil capitalists, speculators, and the black market. On the one hand they claim socialism is the ultimate economic systems while on the other hand claiming their economies are so pathetic that any capitalist can destroy it.

Expect the Venezuelan government to lash out and anybody and everybody as it collapses under the weight of decades of centralized controls. And expect to hear socialists around the world try to argue why Venezuela wasn’t socialist enough, evil capitalists sabotaged the people’s economy, and other commonly heard excuses for the inevitable failures of socialism.

When You Want To Be A Ninja But Live In California

Some people become cops because they want to beat people without suffering consequences. Other people become cops because they believe the uniform and authority will help them pick up chicks. And there are those who become cops because they want to become ninjas but live in California:

ANDERSON, Calif. – The Anderson Police Department will start using nunchucks as a way to forcibly restrain suspects.

Though nunchucks are not new to law enforcement, they are making a come back in Shasta County.

They originated in Japan and have been used in martial arts for years. APD said they want to start using them because they are a multipurpose weapon.

Nunchucks are illegal for citizens to own in California; however, police can be certified to use them within the state.

Emphasis mine. Also, as an aside, nunchucks originated in Okinawa. Anyways, in the no-fun zone of California the only way one can become a true ninja warrior is to become a cop. And wanting to become ninjas is the only reason the Anderson Police Department could justify learning to use nunchucks because they serve no practical purpose. Nunchucks are basically batons combined with an almost infinite chance of failure if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing (and knowing exactly what you’re doing take more than some idiotic police certification program). Like a baton, nunchucks are striking weapons. Unlike batons, nunchucks work on the same principle as flails and therefore the end you’re striking somebody with is moving really fucking fast.

If the Anderson Police Department actually wanted to improve the ability of its officers to forcibly restrain suspects it would teach them something practical like judo, aikido, or Brazilian jujitsu. But empty hand martial arts are as sexy and don’t stroke the ego of attention whores the same way two sticks tied together with rope do.