Timmerov's Blog
the truth
the truth is just what colin powell said in february 2001. sanctions were crushing saddam's ability to develop banned weapons. they were crushing his ability to project power into neighboring countries. the truth is that iraq's gonna be democratically taken over by the shi'ites. the same group that runs things in iran. so if you want to know what iraq's gonna be like, just look next door. the truth is we didn't defeat a bad man. we made the axis of evil stronger. and its leaders will be elected democratically. so they'll be able to claim legitimacy. go us.
junk cds
ever wonder what to do with those junk cds you get from aol? we've made mobiles, moon rovers, robots, etc. our next project is to build a
spectroscope.
exercise machine
i've bought a couple of exercise machines in my life. might have used them a couple of times.
this one looks interesting. for only $14,615 and 4 minutes a day i can have the bod that's the envy of all that lay eyes on me. hmmm... dear santa...
plumber pants
the fashion is to wear jeans that ride really low on the hips. i wonder if they'd quietly go out of style if it was known they're called plumber pants. when you call a plumber to come fix your sink some fat guy shows up at your door. he gets down on his hands and knees and sticks his head under the sink. his shirt rides high and his pants ride low. invariably he wants to talk to you from this position. the absurdity level reaches the danger zone. i'm tempted to drop trou, grab both cheeks, flap them together, and converse ass crack to ass crack. so ladies, when you notice the guy ogling your sexy jeans - now you know what he might be thinking.
fiscal precedents
it's kinda funny that one of the most fiscally irresponsible presidents ever followed right on the heels of one of the most fiscally responsible presidents ever. i wonder if the next president will be responsible or not.
netbank
usually i swear by netbank. but i haven't been able to pay bills online all week. i'm going to have to find some stamps. wonder if remember how to address an envelope. heh. it's been that long. update: seems to be a safari thing. grumble grumble.
movie bans
apparently some conservatives won't let their kids go see harry potter for fear that they might want to practice witchcraft or play qidditch. it's a movie. it's fiction. it's fantasy. it's not real. apparently, right wing nut jobs can't tell the difference between reality and fiction. that makes sense if you think about it. they believe the bible literally. so it seems they really can't tell the difference between reality and fiction.
religious card tricks
pat robertson apparently has warned a town of god's wrath. heh. it's not a bad ploy. most likely nothing will happen. and the prophesy will be forgotten. but if something does happen then hoo boy are people going to be impressed. and line up to convert. i have this card trick i do. i hand someone a deck of cards and say, pick a card, any card. then i say it's the queen of clubs. usually, i'm wrong and i make a joke. but 1 time in 52 i'm right and the audience goes apeshit trying to figure out how i did it.
happy anniversary
i've been blogging for over two years now. wheesh! where has the time gone? some of my old posts are pretty funny. and way way way too long. good posts are short. and daily. keeps people hooked. the problem is i usually have a queue of 7 to 12 waiting to be posted. which means sometimes they're kinda stale. ah well.
c++
c++ sure does have some really sucky features. like c++ stream io is many times slower than c stream io. great. i just profiled some of my code. turns out it was spending 20% of its time doing nothing. literally nothing. it was calling a constructor and destructor that didn't do anything. over and over and over and over. neato. and no, it wasn't setting up a virtual method table.
sony
it seems that sony's made a colossal error. they've shipped anti-copying software on their music cds that is functionally equivalent to spyware. in addition, malware can hide in the security holes sony made. idiots. ed felten has pretty much covered the topic here:
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. don't play sony music cds on your pc.
patent
some dorkwad has been issued a
patent for an anti-gravity propelled spaceship. what? do patent clerks get paid by the patent? did they go to high school in kansas?
torture
bush says we do not torture. i think he's lying. let's torture him until we get the truth.
special election
in most elections we usually end up having voted with the minority. this year was different. have people started to think for themselves? or have they switched from 'i'll vote for whatever my group says to vote for' to 'my group really cocked it up last time so i'll vote against whatever my group says'?
calling machines
it's election time. seems everyone's got a calling machine set up to call me and tell me how to vote. i hate the darn things. this one called. it politely identified itself as a calling machine. but regretted to inform me that it was too busy to take my survey right now. but it may call back later. oh. um, okay. truth is stranger than fiction.
faster than light
i learned today that there are things in the universe traveling faster than the speed of light. there are at least ten really distant quasars with a red shift greater than 1.5 which puts them eff tee ell. no chance of building a warp drive though. the red shift is caused by the expansion of the universe.
hash tables
in 25+ years of writing code i've never had an occasion to use a hash table. every instance where i've seen someone use one they could have used another scheme that would have been just as small and just as fast. i'd pretty much come to the conclusion that they're useless. until today. i had o(n) things. and i wanted to temporarily create o(n) new things using two of the old things. a table would be o(n^2) in size (ugh!) but could be searched in constant time. a list would be o(n) in size but searching is also o(n) time (ugh!). the hash table turns out to be o(n) in size and nearly constant time to search. well, what do you know.
serenity
i was all excited about this movie. then i accidentally saw a spoiler. so i knew it was going to suck. the characters acted improbably. lines were delivered adequately but without the inspiration that made the tv series great. there was very little nuance to the performances. kaylie was too skinny. inarra didn't glow. book had cornrows. nobody was funny. they were always in a fight. most often amongst themselves. jayne never mentioned his pecker. secrets were laid bare like a whore. at one point somebody says the story's over. it's a meta line. the firefly story is indeed over. es tut mir leid.
stratford
apparently they don't have bathrooms at bennett's school. you'd think with the tuition that they charge they'd be able to afford some. nice ones even. every day bennett crashes through the garage door and sprints down the hallway to the pot. where he stands for an impossibly long time. several minutes later alisa arrives home. i guess he starts his sprint from the end of the block. kids. sheehs.
cold weapons
i tried to buy some cold medicine at the grocery store the other day. crikey. it's easier to get a semi-automatic weapon. that's just wrong.
bush
bush's administration is taking some heat. i'd give decent odds of him folding. quitting. opting out. just because it's not any fun any more.
ejected!
so i got ejected from a hockey game. for fighting. that's a first for me. it was pretty dumb. their bad guy decked our best and smallest player for the second time. this time with a stick to the nads. i got in a push, a whole whoppin' push, before two refs jumped me. i think they should have shown the same enthusiasm for protecting my teammate as they did for the cheap shot guy. pah. 3rd man in is an automatic ejection. well, i learned my lesson. if i'm gonna get ejected i'm gonna get in more than just a push. ;->
biblical laws
bible says adultresses should be stoned to death. join my gang. we'll go "test" women to see if they're maidens. the "test" involves having sex with them to see if their hymen is ruptured. it's the easiest and most sure way. if they're not married and not virgins then we stone them to death. in accordance with the scriptures. if they pass the test then we send them to the end of the line to be tested again later. i am so going straight to hell.
rapture
rapture's over. the 144,000 true believers vanished into heaven. now we've got 7 years of tribulation. so if you're still here you have to change religions. 'cause whatever it was you were is wrong. 'course all the other religions still around are wrong too. so find the one that's missing. quick before armageddon. it's like a treasure hunt. failure means eternal damnation. so don't fail. send checks to me.
happy box
buy one. right now. you know you want one.
bible teachings
i think the bible should be taught in school. literature classes would be enriched if students had the appropriate background. but before the class the teacher should read a thing saying: 'this is a work of historical literature, not fact.'
intelligent design
the basic premise of intelligent design is that the world is too complex to be explained by natural means. i have two questions: explained by whom? and explained to whom? certainly, it's too complex for dogs and pigs. likely too complex for stupid people. but can a person of average intelligence realistically claim it's true for someone of exceptional intelligence?
oops
the server's under my desk. i was about 1 hour into a 3 hour upload to work. i took a nice leisurely stretch. and kicked the restart button. oops. start over.
co2
i shouldn't make fun of obese people. they're doing their part for global warming by sequestering carbon in their bodies.
brilliant bush
i think george bush is a brilliant leader. he just plays the moron. kinda like jessica simpson. he's disrupting the flow of oil from the middle east. in iraq by war. in iran by threatened war. in saudia arabia by pressuring them to over pump their fields and ruin them. we will be forced to conserve. he's succeeded at something that no green tree-hugging liberal has been able to do.
