Using introspection to understand my own limitations

I wrote up this draft in 2018 and (clearly, nerd) didn't post it. Here it is, mostly unedited, for your potential enjoyment/derision. -Ed.

I often tell this story when ferrying people around and the subject of jobs come up. A long time ago, I used to get really mad at people who didn't follow through on their commitments. In consulting and IT work, my targets would often be vendors and service providers. I would angrily tell them how they were violating the terms of their contract and, due to their incompetence, were costing my client money for every minute they continued to fail at their singular job.

Needless to say, most vendors didn't like me. Shocking, I know. 

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Dumpster Fire: The Bed!

Despite being deep inside the artificially warmed folds of Holiday Happy-Ganda Season, I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1st. If the image above wasn't enough to convince you of the sheer janky-ness of this "concept", check out the lede from the official press release:

A leading platform for fandoms and online communities has partnered with an independent bedmaker to create the ultimate ‘TV Binge Bed’. The ‘TV Binge Bed’ includes self-cleaning sheets, a ‘Netflix and Chill’ setting, and for those who don’t want to leave their bed at all, an optional built-in potty. The expected retail price of the bed is from $14,999 (£11,321). The unique product is being developed after the platform found that the amount of time individuals spend in bed bingeing their favourite shows has increased by almost a third (31%) since 2020*.

- The offending Press Release, 2021. Word for word...

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Amazingly Powerful Music for the New Year | #BLM

I originally posted this music video back in 2016 when I was still using PostHaven. I was on an brief two year anti-Wordpress kick seeking simplicity while the platform was still in transition to the more stable environment it is today, but imported this post when I went back a few years ago. It didn’t translate well, and I’m lazy so I’m just getting to it now.

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Universal Basic Income in the Post Space Age


I originally wrote this piece in 2017 and am reposting it now because I believe the idea is critically important to the future of humanity and the survival of Earth and humanity. -Ed. 

We should come to grips with the idea as soon as possible. We are, after all, heading for a rather dramatic shift in human thinking. We need to figure out how we humans are going to formulate our societies as soon as we have self-driving vehicles of all stripes, artificial intelligence running everything, smart grids that deliver all manner of clean energy, and robots that deal with all manner of work. We will be living in a version of the dystopian we’ve all seen in movies, but it won’t be quite so dystopian.

It will be a world without work.

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iPhone cases & an important charity for Peruvian children

Phone cases are a dime a dozen. 

Well, not literally. They cost real money, but they’re available everywhere for all kinds of mobiles and at every conceivable price point. When it comes down to it, consumers will select the style and price that fits their circumstances and financial wherewithal. Hell, a lot of Chinese phone makers include a (cheap) case in the box that I’m sure a handful of people around the globe actually use.

When I received a press release from Illusion Photograph offering me a review sample of one of their phone cases, I told them up front that they should focus on getting samples to more visible outlets. They insisted, so I did some research and, after learning their story, acquiesced.  They sent me a Route 66 case for my iPhone 12 mini, and this, in a way, is a review. So, here it is…

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Taking a break from my broken hosting service...

I used Bluehost for well over a decade, and that was after six years being hosted on a friends server. Over much of that time, my small collection of web sites were pretty stable, you know, online. Some of you might even remember PDA Handyman (2001-2011) which got hacked at one point and I had to rebuild. For various reasons, I chose to leave Bluehost, so I chose Rootpal. 

That might have been a mistake.

They've been... incompetent. That's not hyperbolic. The sites I've moved from Bluehost have dropped out regularly, and after one particularly stupid mistake on my part (I imported my wife's site into my site's directory) I discovered that the backups weren't working and lost three months worth of posts. So, yeah. Not the greatest experience, but after the investment I made, I was willing to give them time to sort their shit. 

As you can likely infer from the fact that you're reading this from my alternate site hosted on PostHaven (fantastic service, if you just want to blog at only $5 a month for up to ten sites), things aren't going well. 

I'll be posting here for a while, at least until I am assured Rootpal has finally gotten their act in line, and then I'll go through the painstaking process of manually migrating whatever I've posted here into Wordpress.

whee.

Where’s the rage? | Pandemic Edition

Sandy Hook gun lawsuit moves forward in Connecticut Supreme Court - CNN

Where is it, the rage? We should all be really, quite upset. Why aren't we marching in the streets, demanding accountability for the endless stream of corruption and criminality that has been unveiled on an almost daily basis for quite a few years? The French? Fuck, they're out in the street if anyone, anywhere sneezes on their rights! The Yellow Vests? You might have heard of them? 

The criminality of all involved is simply astonishing...

Today as I am writing these words... the Nassar child rape case that alleges this one asshole raped potentially hundreds of young gymnasts for decades with the apparent support of the Olympics committee people, U.S. gymnastics, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. 

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Greenland (2020) | Film Review

Good GOD, what a pig. Sure, Gerard Butler was a staple in mid-budget action flicks, but this dumpster fire isn’t one of his better ones, and it’s not going to inject any enthusiasm into prospects for his ongoing career.

BUDGET: $35 million BOX OFFICE: $47.5 million (worldwide)

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Chris Sparling, this schlocky disaster flick wannabe already instills a sense of dread before you cue it up after seeing that the movie poster proudly proclaims the movie is from “the” producer of the John Wick franchise, The Town, and Clash of The Titans (that monster hit… get it.)

When was the last time you were excited to see the latest film from your favorite producer?

Look, I’ve tried to write a simple summary of the plot, but it doesn’t make any sense. Gerard Butler’s insipid delivery as structural engineer John Garrity fares as well as expected when joined by the phoned in crap from Morena Baccarin (wife Allison) and Scott Glenn (Allison’s father Dale) and the obligatory kid, played by Roger Dale Floyd. There’s nobody else of note in the film. I’m rather surprised that these three agreed to sign on, but such is the lack of quality in Hollywood these days.

The basic rundown is as follows: John and Allison are in a bad way, but it’s not made clear why. We also learn that a comet is going to just barely miss Earth, then some of it’s going to hit, then all of it’s going to hit. That’s when John gets a call from the government that tells him he’s been selected to survive if he can get his family to a nearby military base before the end of the day. A lot of stupid shenanigans ensue, they get separated, and they get back together, and they survive. The end.

Big whoop.

Simply put, it’s a waste of time. The pacing is acceptable, but there are a lot of story elements that just feel slapped on, like generic tropes strung together to approximate an actual story. There’s zero recognizable character development, especially for Gerard Butler’s role. He’s not developed as a real, feeling, engaging, desperate human. His life circumstances bring no stakes. He’s not redeemed in the end. He doesn’t learn any harsh lessons. He’s just an unadorned avatar. The same applies to Baccarin and Glenn’s characters.

Multiple planes in the sky are clearly copy-pasted. The fires in the neighborhoods are way too big. The compositing is sloppy. Shots throughout are amateurish. All of it lacks any real energy, something I’m pretty sure is necessary for a disaster film. Hell, I’d bet real money that the Greenland shots are stock.

The Takeaway: Don’t bother.