Spelunking the Universe
Rico Penguin
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Homepage: http://islesofscion.net
Posts by Rico Penguin
Rico Examines “Evolution and Economics”
Aug 30th
So I’ve been reading Richard Dawkin’s “The Greatest Show on Earth”, interestingly for a guy who is constantly described as condescending and downright mean his book thus far has been really well thought out and pleasant. He’s barely mentioned faith at all and seemed to make an effort to separate faithful from “those people” (Creationists/Young Earthers). He seems genuinely concerned with people trying to discount Physics and about a half dozen other sciences as being “other forms of faith”. But I digress, that is not what this post is about 
.
In the book Dawkin’s mentions something about rats, how through selective breeding in a matter of 30 or so generations (or even quite a bit less) you can generate rats who have far better dental than those not selected specifically to enhance those traits. Likewise you can make rats who get really crappy teeth fairly quickly. He mentions in this chapter, “Why if man can make a rat with awesome teeth can nature not? One would assume that long surviving healthy teeth would do nothing but enhance the survival rates of the hose animal.” Which was interestingly timed because I was thinking the same thing.
I had been wondering about all the monsters that folks create for movies, these apex predators with amazing senses, huge muscular structures, good bones, and many cases wings because obviously flying is badass. One would assume that these creatures should be inevitable in life, likewise the question arises even on a smaller scale, why if Human’s have gotten these fairly awesome brains have other animals not jumped on the bandwagon? They are sexy organic computers that have helped us to create super cool things. One would think that any animal would benefit, much like the rats from the fancy teeth.
To this question, that he assumed (rightly) would form from the discussion of that rat experiment, he responded with an Economics quote that I’ll paraphrase “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” The Calcium necessary for those teeth must come from somewhere, in lab rats it is simply supplemented with a seemingly endless supply of nutrient rich food. But in the wild the Rat would have to get that calcium from somewhere. It would be taking it away from the rest of it’s bone structure, or in females from the milk production, or any other process in the body that needs that Calcium. In the end, having slightly worse teeth for the wild rats might be beneficial because the calcium they’d have used in those teeth can then be used for other operations in the body that may actually extend their life even further.
Which brings me back to the human brain thing. I’ve read, long before this book, about the reason why humans are so gung-ho on fat and high calorie diets. Obviously being warm blooded is a big part of it, but beyond being walking waste machines (we do burn through energy really fast), we also have incredibly nutrient hungry brains. These big grey batches of yogurt are very big on the high fat high calorie diets that we take in, it makes them happier than a clam (both of which I don’t think actually feel happy, but you get my point). At a point in the history of our particular branch of the animal Kingdom there was a period of very high fertility in the land where our ancestors lived. This provided them with the resources they needed for a mutation of the brain to actually work, before that point HAD the event occurred the animal carrying that new brain would have not had the food supply to support the new infrastructure and would have likely died off.
It’s hardly a give-in, by stuffing animals full of vitamins and minerals for centuries we have no certainty that they’d suddenly get awesome brains and be able to help us fight the inevitable ape uprising. However it makes me wonder how many times in the past a really neat strain of an animal has arisen and died off because it couldn’t support the new workings of its body. Requiring perhaps more vitamin C than was available, or Vitamin D, or Calcium, or Iron. The only thing killing off it’s otherwise (subjectively) superior body was the environment not supplying it with the funds (so to speak) it needed to succeed.
We, long ago, hit a point where we begin a cyclical system of altering our environment to meet the ever (however slowly) changing needs of our bodies. We’ve reached the point now that any mutation we have can likely be met with environmental changes to help support it, providing us with an infinitely many versions of humans that can survive…at least hypothetically.
It’s an amazing moment personally, wondering just what has been lost or what could be gained in the animal kingdom given a sustained period of fruitfulness, however I find that the odds of this happening with humans around is quite a bit lower than it once was (we’ll utterly consume any place that begins to thrive). At any rate, it’s a neat bit of info. If anyone was ever wondering why animals don’t get X, the above is the basic reasoning. Every mutation requires resources and if those resources are taken away from even (for the moment) more important bodily functions that mutation will fail. It is only the mutations that result in a slightly longer lifespan (and thusly more chances to breed) that lead onto new strains of the animal, and those strains will only survive for as long as their needs are met by the environment. They could still vanish if the environment suddenly changes and their “inferior” cousins could end up returning to power.
Bah…I’ll end up bantering on about how neat this is to me. So I’ll just leave it at that. More to come I’m sure.
Weddings and WTF?
Aug 27th
For those curious about the last update, I’ve just been really tired with the incredibly up front racism that’s been on a few 24 hour news stations and the internet at large. Even my facebook has its fair share of “Snicker, Muslims==murderers&&rapists&&terrorists.” That sort of stuff is disheartening, you don’t want to think that your friends are retarded, I of course mean that in the willing sense as opposed unwilling handicap from birth and genetic defects. They can be hard to distinguish but I’m making that separation. I try to convince myself that they are just being sarcastic and I missed it, but at this point in the evolution of the internet the [/sarcasm] tag has become standard enough to be expected.
Today is my last day in California for over a week! I leave for Washington to get married and I must say that overall I am getting more pleased by the day. About the only unfortunate thing right now is that I have a nasal voice from that cold, it really put my throat and nose through a harsh loop. Hopefully I’ll be fully vocal and normal by September 4th. I’ll be investigating any sort of “cures” for this issue that don’t involve half a pound of over the counter medication…wish me luck I suppose.
So yes, short update. I hope my last one wasn’t hyper nationalistic sounding, I’m not necessarily saying Americans are the best people ever because that conflicts with many of the psychological and philosophical beliefs that I’ve explained on here. But when you proclaim that you are a people of higher moral standards, of stronger will, and of greater overall stature then you should damn well act like these things or at least one of them. Many of these people involved with the entire anti-middle eastern movement are none of them and yet they don’t get laughed out of the country like the scabs they are.
It’s a darn shame. A shame that I won’t be thinking the least about on the 4th 
. But until then and possibly after then it will bother me. Only because you would hope that within something like ten thousand years you could get people to at least a 98% “Head not-in-ass” state. Maybe science will invent a cream that you can rub on your temples and it’ll dissolve all the stupid that gunk up for these folks.
Admittedly it is still a very small part of the country, but any percent that is not itself a percent of a percent is too much. The anti-intellectual movement is troublesome and benefits nobody, not even the people pushing it.
Time to Decide: Do you love America?
Aug 24th
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
- Thomas Jefferson (Source)
I’ve gotten tired recently of something that has been out of hand since 2001. A small contingency of men set out to terrify an entire nation, and do you know what happened? They did it.
This is bat-shit retarded, there is no reason that we should be changing the way we live for a group of people so separated from us that they are nearly inconsequential. What they did required a very important fact to be true it had to have never been done before. That’s it! They weren’t masterminds, they don’t have any other amazing schemes in the plan for the future, they just got lucky. No jackass before them had ever thought to try it before them and so when they hijacked those planes nobody stood up and beat the ever living crap out of them. Had those people realized that they were going to die none of these planes would have got to their destination, they’d have all ended up either landing or-tragic still-ending up like Pennsylvania.
Would I ever want anyone dying for any reason? No. Ideally there is no reason anyone should have to die, life should be a matter of choice. If you don’t want to live anymore you just flip the switch. But that’s a talk for another day.
What should have happened after the attack on the US is a full scale attack on Afghanistan and the very second that we knew he had crossed borders we should have demanded entrance to catch him. He was likely present during the Battle of Tora Bora in 2001 and we failed to capture him. I don’t blame a single US soldier for that, the fact that they fight for this country is a huge deal. They are all deeply respected by me (and I’m sure most of the country). However the fact remains that he got away.
He should have been captured, tried in court, just as every terrorist or extremist that has been caught. They should be shown that our systems work and that justice will be served. The entire nonsense of holding people eternally without ever trying them is a black stain on this nation and an example of what happens when people don’t really care about the values of their nation.
After, or rather during, this series of events we should have rebuilt the world trade center. We should have shown the entire world that the US does not fear anyone. That we are a people united, our dreams are endless and we will overcome every challenge, that is what should have happened. Those that died would receive a wall with their names and any other symbolic memorial that we can surmise at the base and I feel the top as well. There names could then glow beneath the warmth of the sun for centuries to come.
What we should have never done was increase security in airports like a bunch of terrified children. The people of the US are informed, diligent, and when the time demands it Heroic, the one aircraft that knew the danger they were facing confronted it like heroes. The next time some idiot would have stood up and tried to hijack a plane he would have likely been beat to death before the plane even landed. Think that is farfetched? It’s happened already (though not killed). That’s just one incident, there has been at least one other where the man was beaten by the passengers.
People know what is going on, this sort of bullshit will never occur again without some serious armament on the aircraft. The truth of the matter is, if someone really wants to use a plane as a weapon, they will…period. But that’s not really what happened, they are opportunists, they saw a tactic that hadn’t been utilized and was thus available. They knew that the largest boundary between them and using those planes was the belief of the passengers that they would live. That was it. That’s the only way any criminal gets away with a victim, when a person knows they could die the situation rarely pans out favorably for the criminal.
Worse still, we’ve had these nonsensical color coded terror guides that have been used for no other reason than to keep people in an endless state of terror and paranoia. They are useless. As I said, we are American’s, much more we are human beings, we should be above this. We don’t need a color code, screw these idiots, if they try anything in the US the 2nd Amendment crowd will blow them to hell and back. People are always diligent, there are areas with bad crime yes, but generally when crimes go down folks report it. If a crime looks like it might go down people report it. We don’t need a rainbow to show us how we should be feeling (though I do like rainbows…refracted light for the win).
We should also not have been targeting Muslim’s in the US. Does nobody remember World War II? What the hell happened. So we see how foolish we were treating the Japanese American’s like shit and so how do we respond the next time a similar situation arises? We do the same damn thing. Telling Muslims or Middle Eastern People that they cannot walk somewhere? That they cannot worship in a country that was founded on the idea of Freedom, of Speech, of Belief, or Dream. We are a nation of Equals, regardless of what Capitalistic inequalities may be scarring us we are an idealistic nation of equals and should be acting like it. Every single American who treats another Law Abiding American like shit hates America.
That’s what it comes down to. Do you love America? Do you believe in the values that this nation was founded on? Regardless of them being hypocritical at the time of there founding, we have moved forward, we have evolved and moved closer to the dreams that we all deserve. This Ground Zero Mosque Propaganda, the Mosques all over the US that are being protested, that’s all bullshit. These protestors hate America, period. If they loved America they would be welcoming other American’s to pray to whatever god they feel is their own. We should be showing the rest of the world that no shit stain extremist can turn us against each other. Not running around swinging signs and harassing other people because of the color of there skin or the faith they follow.
And no, Muslims are not Terrorists, Terrorists are terrorists, If we are going to start judging entire religions by the actions of there worst then we’ve just entered a very slippery slope where every faith is evil. So either drop your faith before you bash there’s or start supporting them because this bullshit is entirely un-American and everyone involved should feel like a complete and utter disappointment.
Terror Babies and Anchor babies are just another flavor of Racism and Bigotry, congratulations to everyone who believes in any of this nonsense, you are De facto assholes who wish your asshole bigotry was Law.
To everyone else, the vast majority of American’s who actually love America and humanity as a whole, you all are awesome. Thanks for visiting and I hope that you at can do the right thing and make sure that all these hate mongers are ignored and treated like the complete jokes they are.
Nothing like ranting at 12:39 in the morning
Forums and Retention
Aug 22nd
I’ve been thinking, mostly today, about adding a forums back to the website. We get enough unique visitors a day that if one was captured out of every 10 then there would be a noticeably community in a short period of time.
It’s a matter of retention, my updates aren’t nearly as frequent as I’d like them to be. Illness, stress, and just general forgetfulness leave this space with an emptiness that I don’t think is fair to it. Sure, in essence, it is merely another blip in the galaxy of the internet but it is my blip. Much like the Earth means so much to humanity (most of it) because it is our own blip, in the whole it is utterly inconsequential but for us it is incredibly important.
So how do I want to modify my blip? That’s the topic of debate I’m on right now. Do I want to invest in a forums (I cannot stand PHPBB, perhaps because of my job), or do I want to invest in advertising? Which of these things will bring me the most bang for my buck? It’s an interesting point of discussion that I may bring up to the marketing manager at GC.
Our Marketing Manager is one of those people who “gets it”. She explains topics succinctly and generally seems to know what the heck she is doing. It’s a rare trait that I admire professionally, it isn’t often I get to work with people that don’t make me want to just grab two beers and jump. I don’t drink, but I think you get my point.
I love talking with people, it is something that fills me with a large amount of joy and helps me to better understand the human condition. I don’t enjoy talking with personas as much, if I want to see a falsity manifested I could do much better with a book. When I mention personas I’m generally talking about the negative ones, there are players in HIS that have very pleasant creative role-plays that keep me entertained and I appreciate them.
So what I’m left with really is what will get me the highest retention. I would like the largest quantity of people I can to be centered here so that discussions can be fruitful and multiply (as they say), but I also don’t want to invest more than what is necessary because I am deeply entrenched in the quazi scam that is student loans.
It’s a conundrum and one I hope to solve soon. Because I love working on forums, I love working with people (not so much personas), but I can’t stand working on forums that are run by a persona. So I think this would be a good project. I could perhaps even use a section of the forums for support. Let folks bring up issues and work out fixes for things in my free time, since it would be offsite it wouldn’t necessary be my job which would make it a little more entertaining (I know…weird mindset).
Food for thought, we’ll see where this goes.
Note: I’ll be consolidating tags in hopes of getting fewer, more relevant tags.
Rico the Grumpguin: Weddings and Noses.
Aug 16th
I think from time to time, when I’m feeling extra grumpy, feeling a few decades older than I actually am that I’ll post what I like to call a “Rico the Grumpguin” talking about what makes or is making me grumpy. These are basically “rants”. These are extremely loosely written, they’ll likely be written when I’m tired, sick, or sick and tired. So feel free to skip any of these when you see them.
Firstly I’ve had a sore throat for days now. Why? Well quite simply I fell asleep on my back a few nights back and my nose leaked into my throat. My nose is basically a bastard, an added change to my face that does little more than break out and clog. It does these things in no particular order and sometimes likes to do them at the same time en masse. It’s existence is little more than to a blight in my life and I have never had a moment where I thought “Oh thank the heavens…I can breath through my nose.” It is such an unlikely scenario that I feel I merely gave up on the hopes of such a thing long long ago.
So with throat raw, swallowing endless, and head aching I start thinking about part two of what makes me grumpy. Now honestly, Marriage for me will be extremely easy. I have been with the same person, if you can call her such and not be downplaying the awesome that is she, because I can be upset with a person, I can indeed hate a person, I can go so far as to not care if a person ceases to exist. But she is something of wonder and her very existence in my life makes it all survivable and complete. Marrying her is merely putting a legal stamp upon something that I had known from the second I was afraid to say “I love you.” Why afraid you might ask? Every single person I was not related to that I told those simple 3 words left me almost immediately (There is 0 hyperbole in that). The fear of losing her gripped my heart tightly and threatened to kill me outright.
College is like a Frat Boy…
Aug 14th
…in the sense that it’s single mindedly trying little more than to screw you. Though admittedly the college is looking to screw you financially, which for some is a whole lot more dastardly than a one night stand with “Chad” (Yeah we all know what you really want Chad).
College tuition has been routinely increasing at a rate far higher than that of inflation (or any reasonable estimate of actual future costs). You might think to yourself, “Awesome! Now the professors are finally making the amount of money they deserve!”, but unfortunately this is not the case at all. This money isn’t going towards professors, it is going towards the amenities of the school, new pools, new gyms, random sculptures, and largely to the school President.
You can think of the School President as your own personal Lawmaker, they don’t actually do anything that benefits you but they get paid obscene amounts of money. If you question them on this, as my college did (Western Washington University) they will tell you that “The cost is a small price to pay for their expertise.” Which is entirely poppycock (a term I don’t use nearly enough), you could teach basically any person how to run the college with the same level of efficiency and at a fraction of the cost. Considering how much most people make this would still be a huge increase in pay for them.
Colleges are becoming, if they haven’t already, resorts. These institutions no longer have the graduation of their students in mind and it’s not even a priority, the worse a student does the longer they stay and the more they invest. The college has no motivation to lower prices because student loans are handed out with reckless abandon, you might ask yourself why they are so easy to get. The answer to that is simple and falls back on my previous topic of politics.
Both Federal Student Loans and Private Loans are non dischargeable in bankruptcy. This means that if you go into debt trying to get an education you are screwed for life unless that education suddenly earns you a job that can pay off the loans (Protip: It won’t). Why would such laws be put into place instead of requiring loan agencies to actually vet their clients? Well simply put it gives them complete control over the situation, they can hand out a million dollars this year and know with certainty that they’ll be able to milk it out of someone, be it the person they give the loan to or the family of that person, or if in the future that person dies then to that person’s kids. The problem lies in the logic that there will always be money to steal from somewhere.
College no longer exists for the same reason it once did, much like medicine cannot properly function as a for profit industry (as it has shown almost across the board) so too can the educational industry not function as a for profit industry. The idea that any society would let either fall into that model is so outlandish that I wouldn’t believe it in a story had it not already existed in reality.
Colleges are going to start failing, perhaps not all at once, but certainly all will if this current model does not change. It is another bubble formed from multiple levels of failure from the public level all the way to the political level. A perfect storm of greed, ignorance, and greedy ignorance (I see what I did there). The good news is there is no reason to worry about it, because too many people will fight for it to not change that it will stay the same.
Instead just make sure that you save up for your children, that if necessary you send them to a college outside of the country. Don’t take out loans, don’t let your friends or families take out loans, and make sure not to give this new model of College Resorts be a successful one, it is a blight on our society and it must be killed with one of the few tools left “Financial Atrophy”.
I would like to cite NakedLaw. They mention much of what I have above with sources and with eloquence that only a lawyer can provide. Though much of this was discussed Ad Nauseum in the school newspaper during my years in college. The President of the school basically (using flowery terms) called the entire school population ignorant and made sure they knew that only he could lead with any level of quality .
(Which was bull: Almost nobody on this planet can do something that anyone else couldn’t do with a fairly unchanging amount of training (10,000 hours). The trick is having the money to have the time to do the training . It’s little more than that. For those wondering you have 5,840 hours each year of time you spend awake. The reason most experts become experts very young in life is that they most likely don’t have a job, not necessarily because they are youthful.)
The Reality of Modern Day Politics
Aug 13th
I’m only pleased about this video for two reasons only (everything else about it disgusts me), one it helps visualize exactly what happened to me on the phone a few days ago.
The second is that Anderson Cooper appears to be an actual reporter, I admit that I need to see more of his work before I make such a statement but at least in terms of this interview he did an amazing job.
This is unfortunately the reality of today’s politics :/. I am speaking partially from ignorance as I have only lived 24 years (as of the 28th of this month), so perhaps much of my life and much of politics has been about Demagogues capturing power through lies, hate, and seemingly unstoppable ranting. I know the few times I’ve watched representatives argue that is immediately what it devolves into. “Those guys don’t care if the whole country dies but we do.” Which is nothing but slander, a universally untrue statement that I’d be more than happy to defend.
I’m sure, while his own personal gain was (as is with likely most politicians) the priority, even Nixon would not have wanted to see America or Americans hurt. It is not something any right minded person desires, though I suppose watching this video that at least Louie Gohmert is anything but right minded (all jokes about Right and Left aside).
There is no such thing as Terror Babies, though nobody reading this needed to be told that, there is also no such thing as Anchor babies. Now you may argue “But Rico! There have been dozens of cases of illegal immigrants using their children to gain citizenship.” I would not fight that point and folks are probably right, I’m sure there are dozens, I bet that a tenth of a tenth of a percent of all the illegal immigrants living in the US today are using that strategy. But the point I’d make in response is that the amount of people doing this is so ridiculously small that it is unimportant.
It would be like arresting all white middle aged men because a percent of a percent have been arrested for rape. Well obviously if a small percent are doing it then it must be a problem for the entire population of that group.
Well over 90% of the illegal immigrants in this country stay here without requiring an Anchor baby, just as Anderson Cooper mentioned about terrorists (and in no way do I want you to equate either of these groups to each other!), the extremists do not need help getting people into the country, they don’t need a 20 year plan, and they don’t need any sort of tricks frankly. If they want to get folks here to kill Americans they will do so. I’m not trying to alarm anyone, neither am I alarmed (I have faith in people that might be unwarranted), I am merely backing Cooper’s point.
The only reason Politicians (I think all Republican but I’ll just say Politicians) are making this argument is because of Immigrants. They want to tighten security against something as ridiculous as “Terror Babies” so that they can begin to encroach on their real goal. Purifying the US of “Illegal Immigrants.” Sure most data shows that Immigrants are helpful for the economies of the states they are in, sure the crime rate in areas populated with illegal immigrants are no different than any other US area with similar per capita classifications, and sure the vast majority (enough to say all) are incredibly hard working and incredibly great people (as most people in the world are), but that doesn’t change the fact that they have another language they widely speak and it doesn’t change the fact that they are quite obviously different.
I’ve explained racism before, why it isn’t exactly surprising, and I’m not going to do it again. I’m also not going to act like White people are special in being racist, they aren’t. But in the case of these laws, they are being pushed for the sake of comfort and for the cause of racism. The use of fear to make these laws happen is terrible and the people involved should be removed from office and lambasted nationwide. Of course those who voted for these people should certainly rethink their personal life styles as well.
There are no terror babies, immigrants aren’t a problem, and this man needs some serious help. That’s pretty much the gist of what I’m trying to say .
An Attire for any Age
Aug 12th
I am not a Historian, nor am I an editor, both of those things should be infinitely clear just by reading this update (only one being a joke on my behalf). I am finding a very large hurdle in the descriptive side of my story and that hurdle is just how I wish my characters to dress?
It’s not something that originally bothered me, I’ve seen the trick in most stories, using ambiguous terminology and only worrying about it later if your book becomes a film or television show. Even then it generally is taken care of by a group of incredibly bright people who know about fashions across all the centuries. These people make me envious at this space in time.
But it is not a terrible hurdle, not like those ones that exist in the real world and mock me at their slightly above waist height positioning. This hurdle is one I look forward to greatly, examining the fashions of a few different epic periods in Human history and seeing how I can mesh them to create something at least slightly unique. A Firefly mixture, where instead of cowboys and space, I will take perhaps pieces from Greek and Roman Culture and mix them with attire from the Renaissance? I don’t know yet, likewise writing this late at night when I’m utterly exhausted leaves me anything but creative.
I wonder if this is why so many popular tales that I’ve been told to read or have read over the years have been within the last century. Special exceptions to characters like Tolkien, but in general I am reading either a story of recent people’s or future people’s who dress like current people’s. Should I have even used ‘s there? It will remain a mystery until the morning I am sure.
I just ordered a new book for the month after this, The Good Soldiers, hardcover because more-often-than-not I find myself in love with the feel of a hardcover book. Possibly for the same simple reason that I find myself buying collectors editions of certain games (that themselves come with hardcover art books). A special exception being the collectors edition of LittleBigPlanet 2, but that one comes with Bookends. To think…buying games for accessories to use in my book collection, I am truly turning into a weird human being.
The Customer is (not) Always Right.
Aug 11th
I’m sure a million and one places are discussing the actions of one Steven Slater, a man who has immediately become the embodiment of something I’ve been dreaming about for years (not with my current job but certainly previous ones).
Don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of customers are nice people, they admit when they are ignorant, they try to get a good deal and they are civil. But at least once a day you get a prick, a person so rude and utterly uncivilized that you know even death would be too good for them (and certainly a punishment for whatever exists in the afterlife).
These people are sick and twisted individuals who can’t see, or just don’t care, that the person they are dealing with is just that “a person”. They treat them as a means to an end, a tool to get what they desire, the treatment is only better than that of sweat shop workers because laws do not allow them to beat the employee. If they could, they certainly would, for those that don’t believe this true I would suspect you haven’t worked retail. In the US the only difference is they threaten to have you fired instead of threatening you physically (which I admit is a massive difference).
This lady should have been tazed, as I think any nightmare customer should be, I’m not a fan of violence but there is a certain level of stupid and crass nature that deserves little more than a prolonged shock. It might just stop them from ranting at you about the place you work for a half hour, at some point you wonder if they think they are actually changing anything…I fear they might.
The argument that he could have hurt someone is largely being blown out of proportion by lawyers who are trying to make a name for themselves (as this case has gotten big already), anyone at anytime could cause harm to someone with any action, however the likelihood is generally extremely low, what he did had a very low likelihood of hurting anyone and that’s painfully obvious (to even the judge).
What he did do was become the personification of hundreds of thousands of collective years of pent up disgust and rage that employees have together garnered against a small group of people who only exist to consume and be blights upon the surface of the earth and human society itself.
Between this guy, and recent news I got, I do think that bullying may finally start getting acted upon. Customers should not be convinced that they are always right, nor that they are invincible, because this sort of hubris leads the already unstable down a path of endless irritation.
I can’t say this moment is as sweet as when the store manager at Circuit City announced he was calling the police to arrest a man (who was shouting across the store because he demanded we sell him all the Wii’s, no joke) but that is only because I wasn’t there. I wish this had been taped, what he did deserves a pat on the back at the very least.
We all have our short comings and the fact that we are in a setting where we have a wallet and the occupied structure has things to sell does not erase that fact. The only shame of this whole situation is that this lady is getting away without her name being known to the world. I find that to be a shame.
To those that say “But why not shrug it off, you have 200 customers a day and only 1 bad one, why let that get to you?” Lets say you have 100 people walk past you today, only one falcon punches you in the testicles, sure the other 99 left your scrotum unbruised, but you expect that of them and it has no real impact on you one way or the other. That one tooth shattering blow to the balls however will completely turn your world upside down, emotionally this is what is happening to people. They have 99 folks walk up, smile, and walk by. Then one guy comes running at them at Mach 5 and then fires off a fist of fury straight into their sac.
The shit bothers you for days at the least, it’s only through desensitization that any one event goes away.
Operation 52 – Week 12
Aug 9th
Another book down, 40 to go, I begin this week (right after I finish this post) another great Epic. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, an 832 Page Tome of all 5 stories (with one extra) of Douglas Adams’ famous series. It had a movie made about it believe, I never saw it but I’m interested to read the book. I’ve also recieved “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution” and already own “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.” So I’m merely waiting on Week 14’s to get moving!
America (The Book) was a very interesting read, a interesting take on US History, Politics, and even Geography. The Teacher’s Edition had corrections made by a US Professor (whose name is unfortunately eluding me) and thusly gives you some exquisite gems of information that you would likely never otherwise have known.
Okay, maybe not you, but I certainly learned a thing or two. Plus to watch the quazi battle of Jon Stewart and Co. vs. The Professor was quite pleasant and made the entire journey easy to swallow. Much easier to take in than that new beard of his I must say 
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Not much else to say in this case, I’ve spent my entire day’s worth of typing on the last few posts. If you enjoy History, Political Theory, or just want to be reminded that not every television personality is a soulless idiot I’d highly suggest taking a gander at this book. You can grab a copy for as little as 10 dollars quite easily . If not much cheaper with a little rooting around.
Unrelated but this is probably one of the best ideas in Coffee.
Month 4:
Week 13: The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (832 Pages / 119 Pages Nightly)
Week 14: Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?) – Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw (264 Pages / 37 Pages Nightly)
Week 15: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution – Richard Dawkins (480 Pages / 69 Pages Nightly)
Week 16: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason – Sam Harris (256 Pages / 36 Pages Nightly)