Archive for October, 2005

Another example where conventional wisdom is wrong…

When you approach an intersection where the traffic light is flashing yellow…. You DO NOT treat it as a stop sign. Flashing yellow means caution, flashing red means stop. The radio announcers telling you to treat the flashing yellow traffic signal as a stop sign are not quoting Georgia law (or any other state that I have been in).

Flashing yellow means proceed with caution. Slow down, look, be careful… That sort of thing.
Flashing red means stop and yield right of way to traffic coming the other way.

I would love to know how this “everybody knows” error came into being, or if I’m wrong in some way… Anybody?

I’m still trying to figure out why the government feels it needs the ability to surveil your conversations without first obtaining legal authorization to do so.

Upon reading about the new “complain online and be suspended” policy, my first reaction is that this constitutes a violation of freedom of speech. Unfortunately, after a little thought, the school is a private organization, and freedom of speech does not include freedom from repercussion.

From Slashdot – “The Washington Post is reporting that recently discovered documents indicate serious intelligence violations by the FBI. This comes just months after the U.S. House voted to extend the Patriot Act, EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center) has obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act of thirteen cases of possible misconduct in intelligence investigations. The case numbering suggests that there were at least 153 investigations of misconduct at the FBI in 2003 alone.”

Link

Funny Ebay auction. Hurry before it goes away
Men’s Leather Pants

From The Onion…
Study Reveals Pittsburgh Unprepared For Full-Scale Zombie Attack

I’m sure they really needed the information to fight a terrorist or something…

I posted on this earlier, but it’s never to late to beat up on misuse of surveillance, search, etc…

Spam reinvents itself, starts assault on other internet services. Blogs fall first.

This Site will take your zip code and address and let you know what HDTV signals you can pick up with a simple antenna. They will even tell you what kind of antenna need and list the stations you will be able to tune in.

Since I have nothing of relevance to relay, here’s a picture of a big chicken burning down Popeye’s:

One sneaky rat…
Rat eludes capture for 4 months

Great puzzle game to keep those neurons pumping
Sodoku

Wave power does sound like a promising, easy to implement, technology.

Hopefully it will work out better than other green energy sources.

Funny, the argument that I hear from an “anti-Bush” friend is that Bush is refusing to pay the “going rate” for labor in post hurricane reconstruction. I believe the going rate he is referring to is actually termed the “prevailing rate” for labor. The “going rate” literally means the current market price for a commodity, the “prevailing rate” appears to be a composite number that is more influenced by negotiated union wages. If people are willing to work for $8 per hour instead of $9 per hour then that is the “going rate” for labor. The labor unions naturally have distaste for government work being handed out at the non-union “going rate” instead of the higher “prevailing rate” (Links here and here).

As far as I can tell the Davis-Bacon act of 1931 was a bit of racist legislation built to prevent black Alabamians from gaining employment on New York construction jobs, protecting the interest of the majority white union workers in the state of New York. (Links here, here, and here).

The statement I most commonly see from the Davis-Bacon supporters if that the additional pay will boost the local economy by boosting income in the area via federal funds (which will be borrowed by the government). Normally I would call this redistribution of wealth (welfare) by creating a higher tier minimum wage. Since we as a nation do not have the money to pay for any of the reconstruction, and will have to borrow all the money to fund it, I think I will call this redistribution of possible wealth, that will hopefully be made (the wealth) in the future by an younger generation which is already over loaded by the debt of their fore-fathers. The jobs themselves, being temporary, would have no long-term effect on area wages, since supply and demand will take over after the government reconstruction efforts end (and please nobody get me started on why our government should not be subsidizing people to live in a bowl by the sea by making the entire country pay for it).

People who wish to boost the local economy in Louisiana should think about the lowering of wealth in the rest of the country that has to support the reconstruction.

Just a special thought: There is a possibility that the construction unions will receive a rude introduction to “going rate”. People in many diverse professions are being introduced to “going rate” on the globalized labor market (doctors, lawyers, technicians, engineers, programmers, accountants, assembly line workers, textile workers, etc..). I’m sure there is a group somewhere on another continent that will figure out a way to compete for construction labor (or the economy might adjust other wages to the point that we can no longer afford to pay for any “prevailing wage” labor). But that’s for a future blog entry…

I do not consider myself as bad as many people I know, but sometimes my own compulsion to attend to my mobile electronic devices has put me in a position where I felt my actions were rude and apologies were necessary. I also find myself ranting at people while driving. Fortunately for my ego, the anonymity of living in a big city (coupled with the fact that the object of my rage cannot hear me) precludes the necessity of personal apology for the many times my rage is wrongly applied.

So I can see why the world thinks the modern American is rude and boorish.

Wow, unrest in the heartland.
I’m a little torn on this one. I’d hoped the Socialist Party, white supremacist movement, and the Klan had dried up and gone away. I’m disappointed to hear that they were feeling their oats enough to organize a march, much the same way I’m disappointed when I hear Farrakhan spouting his own “special” brand of racist diatribe. I am however, happy another opportunity to drive the first amendment home has presented itself. I wonder if the police action against the rioters, which would be required due of the riot, will do anything to cripple/constrain the gangs the Nazi’s were protesting. If so Nazi marches could be considered an effective tactic, and a good use of free speech. This even though I believe free speech is meant to prevent government censorship of ideas, not to specifically effect change via law enforcement measures taken because of a riotous response to free speech.

I did find a funny new English site “The Spoof”. They have a reasonably sardonic summation of the irony.
Photo Gallery

A nice little rant from John Dvorak regarding Microsoft charging for Anti-virus and Anti-spyware products to protect you from exploitation of flaws in their Windows operating systems.

I hope it’s true.

Ok, it looks like once again the US has not been keeping up it’s infrastructure….

Which really sucks, since I just bought a GPS for my bicycle…