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Ignorant, Stupid or Just Plain Liars?

Over and over and over again, the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind utters completely false (or torturously-deniable?) statements simply because the lies agree with the Hivemind narrative on a topic. The example that spurred this particular gripe?

“…hydrofracking, a relatively new process of extracting natural gas by breaking up rock with pressurized water…”

See? It all depends on what the writer can later claim was meant by “relatively new”. In terms of the typical lifespan of Americans or the average readership/audience of Hivemind organs, “relatively recent” is an outright lie, since it’s been a commonplace oil-and-gas-field technique for over 60 years, just another tool in the toolbag of oil and gas developers. Heck, I* can recall conversations on the topic with friends, acquaintances and clients in the oil industry 30 years ago, myself.

Now, of course the lying scumbags (I almost typoed “scumbarfs” *heh*) in the Hivemind pushing this “relatively recent” meme can always say they mean relatively new in human history (or geological time frames or whatever) in order to deny it’s a lie, but then they’ll just lie about something else, as well.

“Relatively new process” MHWA…

But hey. This sort of easily refuted lie is just common fare with the Hivemind, and the illiterate, aliterate, self-lobotomized sheeple just eat this toxic waste up with a spoon and then say, “Please, may I have more?”

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Richelieu Is Running the “Feddle Gummint Bureaucrappy”

…and likely your local city government as well.

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.” —Cardinal Richelieu

Just search for “too many laws” (don’t use Google unless you want your searches used against you… just sayin’. Use scroogle.org or some other proxied search engine). A moment’s thought pre-search will avert any surprise at what you turn up. *heh*

Anarcho-tyranny*, much?

Continue reading “Richelieu Is Running the “Feddle Gummint Bureaucrappy””

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Say What?

I don’t know exactly what it says that my only downloads on Tuesday were Holst’s “The Planets” (performances by an orchestra I’d not heard before) and the Kama Sutra (Kindle format, ‘cos I can’t locate my hardcopy).

Oh, wait. I forgot Knox’s Irregulars, borrowed from the Kindle Library.

Reaching for eclecticism, O I guess. (I loves me some typos in the morning, I does indeedy.)

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Macwarz Redux: Android vs. iOS

So-called “smart phones” and tablets are just another area of computing, one where, once again, Apple fanboiz-and-gurlz (in and out of the Hivemind) claim all kinds of Apple magic. In one area, the vaunted (and debatable) OS stability area, once again reality takes a bite out of the Apple. As of last June, iOS and Android reached a more-or-less parity of distribution among users, despite the phenomenal sales record of the iPhad (15 million in 2011, according to industry figures, still not quite as many as Apple had projected, but phenomenal). I haven’t find any current estimates, but the 6 million, or thereabouts, Kindle Fire’s sold in Q4 of 2011 (yeah, Xmas! *heh*) may have twitched the ratio a tad.

But, stability? Pretty much parity.

Apple’s iOS is the more misbehaved mobile OS, according to Crittercism crash reports from November and December.

Of course, that’s only part of the story. There are a lot of Android and iOS devices in users’ hands, and the various devices run different versions of the OSes. A wee tad more depth shows,

Apple’s iOS 5.0.1 was the most crash-inclined version of all, accounting for 28.64 percent of crashes between Dec. 1 and Dec. 15. iOS 4.2.10 accounted for 12.64 percent, iOS 4.3.3 for 10.66 percent and iOS 4.3.5 for 8.9 percent.

Among Apple devices, the great majority of crashes were logged on iPhones—74.41 percent—followed by the iPod touch, at 14.87 percent, and the iPad, at 10.72.

The most crash-prone version of Android was version 2.3.3, with a 3.86 percent share of the iOS/Android crash pie. Looking at only Android crashes, version 2.3.3 accounted for just shy of one-fourth of all Android crashes, followed by 2.3.4 with also nearly a quarter of the Android-only pie.

With so many different iterations of OS versions out and about, it’s really something of a wonder that there aren’t more application-caused crashes.

Still, no kudos for stability to Apple over Android, though with The Monolith Apple Empire vs. the Fragmented Android Gaggle, a parity of user base numbers isn’t translating into a perceived parity between the platforms. If even one major player differentiates itself from Apple in multiple areas–so-called “smart phone” and tablet both, say–and offers content and user experience that’s even comparable, at more affordable pricing, Apple’s share of this area of computing would go in the direction it did in the desktop area when it priced itself down to 5% of the total PC market there.

It’ll be interesting to watch, although since I have alternatives that work well for me now, I don’t expect it will impact me all that much.

Of course, readers here know I regularly use various versions of Windows, Linux, BSD and now Amazon’s modded Android (on the Kindle Fire). We run a place that’s pretty much free of Apple’s Evil Empire* here. 🙂

Continue reading “Macwarz Redux: Android vs. iOS”

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Spies

OK, so maybe it’s all innocent. Maybe tere’s nothing at all sinister. I really DGARA. It bugs the crap out of me to have nosy parkers spying on me anyway. When I visit a web page and Ghostery notes 16 other sites trying to track my visit, it just kind of chaps my gizzard.

Ah, screw ’em with a rusty hammer. At least Ghostery blocked ’em.

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Super What?

I had a guy call me this afternoon with a problem installing a printer on an Ubuntu box. Somewhere in the midst of it all he asked me what I would be doing for the Super Bowl.

Him don’t know me vewy well, do he? *heh*

I asked him when it was going to be. He said 5:30. I then asked what day. He said today.

*heh* Who’d-a think it?

Super Bowl? I DGARA.

If I wanted to watch football, I’d look for one of these games:

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Fortunately, I Don’t Run in Those Circles

I know of a few people–dhimmicrappic leftards, one and all*–who have lost very nearly amazing amounts of weight using the “HCG diet” that uses a combo of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin hormone, a hormone naturally produced by human embryos, and severe calorie restriction (500-800 calories/day) to achieve weight loss. You noticed, of course, that I italicized “weight” in that statement. That’s simply because the amounts of muscle mass lost in this diet is excessive. If one is too fat, then fat loss is a good thing. Muscle mass loss is not, for more than a few reasons. Here, let me just quote a Mayo clinic page on the topic:

“…HCG is used mainly to treat fertility issues. HCG is not approved for over-the-counter use, nor has it been proved to work for weight loss. Companies that sell over-the-counter HCG weight-loss products are breaking the law.

“So why has there been so much talk about the HCG diet? Perhaps it’s because the diet recommends severe calorie restriction — typically just 500 to 800 calories a day. People who follow such a very low calorie diet are likely to lose weight, at least in the short term. However, that level of calorie restriction has risks, such as gallstone formation, irregular heartbeat, and an imbalance of the electrolytes that keep the body’s muscles and nerves functioning properly.”

BTW, I have seen the page I just quoted from excerpted and used in support of the HCG diet. Of course, those who do so are liars, deliberately misrepresenting what was said there in order to promote this dangerous fad diet. So far, every case I’ve seen of such misrepresentation has strangely (NOT!) failed to link the actual page… I have no doubt that the reason is simply to obscure the fact that they are twisting the material they carefully excerpt.

Of course, the target audience of such lying screeds is likely too lazy and stupid to follow a link to the “rest of the story” even if it were provided… and likely too lazy and stupid to understand what’s there, anyway.

Oh, and that “*” earlier? Here it is: I know I run the danger of committing an argumentum ad hominem fallacy by making the association: dhimmicrappic leftards—>dangerous, irrationalbehavior. I’m not actually making that argument by noting that only persons I know who are stupidly abusing their bodies with this dangerous fad diet are the dhimmicrappic leftards mentioned above. The stupid dhimmicrappic leftards I know who are committing this self-abuse are simply data points in a broader correlation I see between dhimmicrappic leftards and many other cases of unthinking (or simply stupid) abuse of self and others. In every case, the unthinking (or simply stupid) abuse of self and others involves blind acceptance of “authoritative” misstatements of fact (or outright lies) and a complete lack of forethought combined with a stupid embrace of “quick fix” solutions to difficult issues.

Just sayin’ It seems, from my observations of the passing scene, to be much more common–though not exclusive to–the left than the right.

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Delicious

Sometimes, I run across a bit of descriptive narrative that is so tasty that I am compelled–compelled, I say! *heh*–to savor the thing again and again, eating the self-renewing tidbit up in tiny bites, over and over. This is the meat of one such tasty tidbit:

He’d never been in this room before; this was where they took people who had done things that were just short of murder or robbery, a darkly somber room that left no doubt in the prisoner’s mind that he had trespassed on at least five of the Ten Commandments.

…just short of murder or robbery, of course. *heh* But that still leaves eight commandments…

That’s just too good. Economical, evocative, expanding the scene on multiple levels. Fun.

Update: ‘nother one; this one is from a John Lambshead short story, As Black As Hell:

Chaos theory insists that a single flap of a butterfly’s wing in China can change the direction of a hurricane in the West Indies, sparing one island to devastate another. This may or may not be true. Certainly Chinese butterflies continue to irresponsibly flap, giving absolutely no thought to the welfare of their relatives in the Americas.

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Yet Another Cavil, Gripe, Grumble, Complaint

Full Curmudgeon Mode, I suppose… *sigh*

Something I’ve noticed more and more recently–and even worse, found myself unconsciously influenced by!–is a growing occurrence of sentence fragments used in the place of complete sentences. It doesn’t seem to matter what the genre is, either. I’ve seen it (of course *arrgghh!*) in the simperings, whinings and blatherings of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, in academic writing and in fiction. The use of sentence fragments that are nothing more than prepositional phrases in place of complete sentences is especially pernicious.

I suppose some may be excusable in casual writing as some sort of contemporary method of adding emphasis to a preceding sentence. Maybe. But it’s seeming to become pervasive, invasive and influential as it corrupts clear, concise writing.

It’s irritating, especially when coming from the pens of otherwise capable, competent, effective writers. Are they simply trying to write for the ADD/ADHD crowd, those whose attention spans can’t grasp the use of commas, conjunctions, semi-colons and other means of joining independent clauses, and who even stumble over the simple addition of a prepositional phrase modifying or expanding upon an independent clause?

Thankfully, my writing style does drive off those whose grasp of English falls within the parameters of “Me, Tarzan. You, Jane” or “See Dick. See Jane. See Dick run. See Jane run.” I really don’t want or need anyone reading my screeds who’s too lazy, inattentive or stupid to understand sentences longer than three or four words…

Oh, well. It’s not as though I gave a rat’s patootie; it just chaps my gizzard a wee tad.

/rant off