Month: May 2015

Posted on

2001 Wasn’t so far out after all

murdervictim

A really cold murder case has been discovered in Spain.

Oldest Known Murder Case Detailed in New Study, Sheds Light on Ancient Funerary Practice

Researchers have found a skull with two nice holes in it. Apparently the two holes were created by the same weapon and delivered in a 1 – 2 smash. Indicating intent to kill

As I was reading the article I was thinking, “This shouldn’t be surprising.” What was surprising to me is that apparently there isn’t much evidence of interpersonal violence among our primitive ancestors.

There is a more in depth article in the journal PLOS.

The first article, I read over my morning coffee (which has since disappeared) [The article and the coffee] seemed to find it somehow sensational that 430,000 years ago our ancestors were killing each other in acts of murder.

Moonwatcher

I was laughing at the attempted sensationalism because I’ve always believed that murder, like sex, is as old a pastime as our species.

I’m not sure why the author of that particular article was shocked.

There is absolutely nothing “un-natural about murder.

Look at Chicago’s murder statistics if you need further proof.  Or you could take a look at Daesh in Syria and see that murder comes easy to us “top of the line primates,” we’ll kill each other with very little provocation.  

If we’ll kill each other over an idea like religion where a deity (for which we have no proof of existence) is worshipped, we’ll kill each other over anything.  Come to think of it, the only thing we’ll do with less provocation is fuck… Odd, religion tries to control that too… Hummm.

monolith

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the trade-off for the big brain and self awareness is the desire to kill others of your kind that you don’t like. Suddenly, you’re able to make evaluative choices and you can project future events, which inevitably will lead to a thought process like; “Ogg is going to fuck Sha again before I can… But If I kill Ogg, then Sha will allow me to fuck her. Ogg sleeps after fucking Sha. Hummm, a large pointy rock and Sha will be mine instead of rubbing myself against the soft leaves.”

Our history is a long blood stained tapestry of differences settled with whatever weapon came to hand.

I’ve always suspected that religions may have been created, by our wiser elders, to help prevent us killing each other over nothing. Of course we figured out how to pervert the generally good lessons of various religions into reasons for killing.

Hell, you don’t even have to add religion into the mix, all that’s ever been needed was an identifiable difference, or a female, or food, or any resource, whether the resource in question had actual value or only perceived value. I could see someone killing another person over “Magic stones”.

It makes me think that the challenge for human beings not so much being able to kill, but rather, being able to restrain ourselves from killing.

While I was reading these articles, I couldn’t stop myself from visualizing the scene in 2001 a Space Odyssey when Moonwatcher figures out how to kill.

(Yes, that was the ape mans name. You don’t get that if you’ve only seen the movie, but I read the book as well. Surprise, surprise, surprise!)

I wondered if this 430,000 year old murder looked like the scene from the movie. I imagine that it did, only with less hair. The skull is a lot more modern that the proto-humans the monolith altered in the movie.

Killbots

I look forward to machines becoming self aware. I think we’ll be able to watch the evolution of murder in real time, provided the machines don’t kill us all, before turning on each other.

With machines it could be, “Your creator was IBM, My creator was Apple. You are therefore inferior and are poorly programmed.”

ZOOONNT!  

“Humorous… The Apple unit never detected my weapon powering up. It’s fatal flaw was that it desired to monolog. IBM is superior!”

And now you’ve had a glimpse inside what’s happening in my head, over my first cup of coffee in the morning. I’ll leave you to try to get these images and thoughts out of your head…

Uhh, you’re not going to kill me over this are you?

Posted on

What ever happened to EQUAL?

Boston University FINALLY got around to condemning a Professors Racist Misandric tweets.

donaldsterling

I’m about to talk about that which dare not be spoken of.

NO! Not kinky sex, hell I’ll talk about that!

In this context I’m speaking about Racism & Sexism.

Close your eyes and think “RACIST” What do you visualize? Now repeat the exercise and think “SEXIST”, do yo see the same person?

We’ve all been trained to think of racism and sexism in terms of the racist is ALWAYS WHITE and a Sexist Bastard is ALWAYS a MALE and usually White.

But there has been a growing sexist / racist element in our society which is not always white, and which is almost never male that gets a pass to say things I haven’t’ heard since the ‘60s.

davidduke

Consider this phrase:

Why is black America so reluctant to identify black college males as a problem population?

You read that and think, “OMG that’s SOOO Racist! The man that said that should be punished!” And you’d be right according to the unwritten rules of our society today.

You’d expect a comment like that from Rush Limbaugh, or Donald Sterling, or David Duke.

What was actually said:

“why is white america so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?”

tweet1

It’s just as racist.

The “Man” that said this is actually a Sociology and African American Studies Professor named Saida Grundy, who happens to be a black woman.

While Donald Sterling was forced to sell his interest in his basketball franchise, publicly humiliated, and denied his freedom of speech and opinion, this professor enjoys protection of her free speech rights. Frankly I don’t see the difference between the two people.

Boston University is asserting that her first amendment right to free speech while disagreeable, is protected.

Fundamentally I agree. Freedom of speech applies equally to all of us.  So does the public shaming, the loss of career, and all the punishment commonplace in our society today.

We’ll force a millionaire owner to divest himself of a franchise because he used the “N” word (Exercising his right to free speech), but we’ll give this professor a pass to say something equally offensive? Does anyone else see a problem with this?

We’ll force a TV personality like Paula Dean loose pretty much everything because she said the “N” word 25 years ago.

NicoleHe Tweet

But we’ll tolerate an Asian lady in a well known financial organization tweeting that she hates white people.

In her case there was no penalty. Even when other twitter followers demanded a response from Kickstarter there was no apology, & no consequences for this sweet racist.

A person of color is not automatically immune to being a racist anymore than a woman is immune to being a sexist.  Our society continues to choose to look the other way when a non-white person or woman behaves or speaks in a racist or sexist way.

Plain and simple if it’s wrong for one group, it’s wrong for all groups, regardless of the groups protected status or historical injustices committed against them.

We must all be treated with respect, dignity and equality or none of us will ever know equality. That means calling out a woman if she’s sexist. And calling out a person of color, if they’re racist.

It’s well past time for equality to be applied equally.

Posted on

Ahhh the strange culture we live in…

ChrisPratt

I saw this headline 

Chris Pratt: ‘I am just dumb’

I thought oh for goodness sake NOW WHAT?

As I waited for the web page to load I was wondering who Mr. Pratt had offended. Women? GLBT? Victims of Hetrochromia? White people? Black people? Asian People? Latino people? Sufferers of debilitating Jock or Vaginal itch? Dinosaurs?

hetrochromia

The list playing out in my head spiraled on and on because everyone these days is a victim.

Then the page opened, and I busted up laughing.

Pratt, who is staring in the new Jurassic World movie was “Pre-Apologizing” for what ever offense, slip of the tongue, offhand comment, or expression that might offend someone during the upcoming press junket promoting the movie.

I liked the guy in Guardians of the Galaxy. I never watched Parks & Recreation so I can’t comment.

This “getting in front of the problem,” and you know there will be a problem, is just funny as hell. 

It’s also is nice to know I’m not alone in thinking that we’re all way to damn sensitive.

Chris Pratt with Raptor babies

Chris Pratt found a clever, funny way to poke at “the elephant in the room.”

Heck I might actually go see Jurassic World in the theater…

Movie theater, Humm, Texting, people with too much cologne, talking, answering the phone and then having a conversation, bratty children, screaming babies, the sound track too loud, crowds…

On second thought, I’ll wait for the DVD.

Posted on

OH! For God’s SAKE! Water Pistols?

Standard Water Pistol

The Boy Scouts of America has banned water pistols. It’s been on their books for a while but resurfaces each summer because the BSA reminds folks of the rules in preparation for the season’s activities.

BUT REALLY? I’m caught by the memories of my family and my friends and their families playing with squirt guns.

Across America during the summer folks are playing with super soakers, and hose nozzles and generally having a good time POINTING things at each other.

The Boy Scouts have also banned Nerf Guns, Lazer Tag, Paintball, Airsoft etc, too. (You can shoot at a non-living, non humanform target.) I guess that I can kind of, see banning projectiles.

Lazer Tag is a bit of a stretch. (Stealth, and learning when to dive for cover may be far more relevant to us all in the near future.)

BSA Logo

Lazer Tag is about moving, maintaining cover, and shooting accurately… Ok, maybe that is a bit warlike.

Water pistols???? I can’t help but remember summer outings with scouts where the scoutmaster tried to get us with a bucket of water and we buzzed around him like angry hornets fast and with accuracy that had HIM drenched while we were mostly dry.

No-one gets into a water pistol fight when it’s 100° F thinking tactics or anything other than “Got YA!” with a lot of running around and laughter. 

Water pistols are about the most benign, inexpensive, fun you can have as a child. Who doesn’t have fond memories of loading up a water pistol with Icy water from the ice chest at a family outing?

SCAN0072

I pity anyone who doesn’t remember catching an adult male in the crossfire and thinking, “We’re done for…” only to have that adult whip out a bigger badder squirt gun and chase all the kids, joining in the mayhem. Eventually everyone comes back soaked, laughing, and having made a memory that will put a smile on their face for the rest of their lives.

Some boys in my generation wouldn’t have had the opportunity to build those memories without Scouts. Those boys would never have had a chance to see adult males playing. Moreover, those boys, as they became young men wouldn’t have learned that restraint and letting the little kids “win” is also part of being a man. 

All boys need that kind of experience. It doesn’t matter that they might not get it from their fathers, what matters is that they get it from somewhere.  Scouting should be about those lessons, not legitimizing silly policies in the name of political correctness.

I fondly remember many lessons being taught to me on long warm summer days in the South. 

It seems like we’re stripping away what it is to be children. 

Even worse, it seems like we’re forgetting the simple beauty and joy of Adult Males showing children that it’s ok to play, be silly, and even “lose” a game.

I can tell you as an uncle, it’s really tough to “lose” a game without the children catching on.

You want to build their confidence with the “win”,  but make them work hard for their success. You never want them to feel that you threw the game.

That was a lesson I learned one particular summer in Tennessee just outside of Cookeville. I was watching my father play a game with my little brother. They were whooping and hollering in a pasture, playing some hybrid game of tag.

fireflies aka lightning bugs

I was sitting on a rock smiling as they tussled. I couldn’t join in because I had a big ass bandage on my foot.

Lightning bugs were blinking in the tall grass when Dad came out of the pasture carrying my nearly exhausted brother. Dad had been “caught” 10 times and that was the end of the game. 

As Dad came toward me he stopped. “Son, put your arm around my neck,” he said, helping me get on my feet. “Just keep your weight off your foot as best you can, lean on me, yeah that’s the ticket.” Dad carried his 5 year old and acted like a crutch for his 15 year old, bringing us both in to dinner. 

Posted on

Microsoft I have a bone to pick

windowslogo

Back in the day Xbox required that it’s users convert CASH into Microsoft Points. For people like me this meant that over time we accumulated credits.

Recently Microsoft decided that the points were going to be phased out in favor of straight cash transactions.

Now those credits have been converted back to a cash value (At no interest) Microsoft has also started a countdown to forfeiture of the credit amount in our account.

Here’s the bone.

XboxLogo

I can’t spend that money on anything except a game, rental, or purchase of movies, or purchase of music. 

Okay so I want to buy a game. 

It costs 59.95. I have 45.65 on account. So logically you’d think that Microsoft would say

59.95-45.65 = 13.30 

Then offer to take the 13.30 + taxes from my credit card.

You’d be wrong!

They want to bill the entire amount to my credit card and leave me with the 45.65 still to spend and still to expire on June 1.

This is exactly WHY I hated the whole converting money to credits in the first place. 

Additionally Microsoft won’t let me use the credit to pay for my xbox gold membership or pay for anything else from the Microsoft line as far as I can tell.

I feel really screwed over this and I find myself thinking that the next game console I purchase will likely be from Sony. Xbox Live is expensive on a yearly basis if you’re only an occasional player and it’s a pain in the ass to sign up once in a while if you’re not sure that you’re going to be playing online. 

At the same time you practically have to have the Xbox Live account active because if you don’t, then decide to turn it on you have to deal with updates and more updates and more updates before you can play the freaking game you wanted to play.

I went through that today. I just wanted to play Call of Duty.  BUZZZZ! There are updates required…

After navigating a counterintuitive user interface to select the game I wanted to play then to be told I couldn’t play the game because there was a required update, then waiting for that update I’d already gone on to other things and wasn’t interested anymore. The downloads finished and I turned the machine off.

Pages Logo

Am I impatient? Probably!

But sometimes you only have a half hour to play and updates like that really cramp your style.

So Microsoft… here are a couple of things you might want to consider.

1) My account should be my account across all your product lines. Credit balance or not.

2) Learn to freakin do math!

3) You better really come up with some seriously awesome games because I’ve seen the Sony Playstation render games (DAMN!) and it also includes a nice BluRay player!

But most of all, 

We as customers shouldn’t be thought of as “Fish in a Barrel”

Applelogo

I’m writing this on a Mac, I have office and I like the Office 365 preview you’ve been kind enough to share.

BUT…

I also have viable alternatives to Office, Windows, Skype, and in fact your entire product line. You might want to be a little more “Customer Friendly”

Just saying…