Modern Website Templates Make Me Want To Bash My Head Against The Screen

OK, I get that outside of very niche specialized member sites, NOBODY is going to pay for access to a website. I also get that advertising and impressions and all that stuff are they only way they can stay in operation. But they're practically unusable.

I mostly get my content through RSS into Feedly, and when I do visit a site, it's usually a blog or alt-right site. But every now and again, I have a need to access a somewhat "mainstream" site. And it's usually a painful experience.

First, there are those stupid toolbars or whatever you call them. Some stay on the screen at all times, taking up screen space. Some will hide while you're scrolling down. But, have you ever scrolled and realized the last paragraph didn't register in your mind, so you have to scroll back up? Then the stupid toolbar comes back into play, blocking your view of the article. This is even worse on mobile. Breitbart not only has a top bar, but a bottom bar that pops up when you try to scroll back up a couple of lines. Then they have shit pop out of the left and right with "Here's some more shit you can read while you're here!"

Another annoyance is breaking an article up into multiple pages. You get five paragraphs per page, then you have to click a link to go to the next one. If it's even worth saving to something like Evernote, that's too much damn work. Forget it. I can scroll infinitely; why do you break a short article into 5 pages?

Now they're blocking you if you use an ad-blocker, the staple of the Internet user. Even if you disable the ad-blocker, you still can't access the site. I can't get to Forbes or Wired in Chrome, even though I shut off Ad-Block Plus for their sites. If I want to read one of their articles, I have to use another browser. I haven't reached the point where I HAVE to get to either site bad enough to troubleshoot any deeper.

Considering how prophetic South Park has been over its 19 years, I'm starting to wonder if their last season finale will come true in a few years. I'm glad I'm married. The last thing I would want to do is meet a girl, then realize I'm banging an ad.

That's why, for this blog, I've stuck to the same old template I've had since about 2007 or so. I've tried blogger's new templates, and they suck.

More Magazine Dishonesty

I wrote a couple weeks ago about how painful it is to do business with magazines, no matter how good and useful their content actually is. Their subscription models are dishonest.

To prove my point, in today's junk mail was a "bill" from Bloomberg. It's worded in a way to claim I owe them $30 for a subscription I do not have and never have had. But if you read it closely, it's worded in such a way to look like a super-special offer for a special guy like me. But in the upper left-hand corner, it still says I "owe" $30.

Not happening.

Food Banks and Douchbaggery

I'm seeing quite a few posts on blogs I follow about food banks lately. As our economy tanks, more and more people need resources from food banks. Many are seeing lines form early in the morning, and run out of food.

When I lost my job in 2010, my ex-wife started getting food from a food bank since my unemployment check didn't come close to matching my salary. She overheard some people in line talking about how they'd hit every food bank in the area, then turn around and sell the food.

While I'm sure this isn't a representative sample of the entire food bank "industry", I'm certain those in the area of Jersey where I lived at the time are not the only ones visited by people who take a free product meant for needy people and then sell it.

A proverb I often use is "Never underestimate the capacity of people to be douchebags." If the economy does in fact tank, we'll probably see a lot more of this kind of thing.

How Do You "Misremember" Not Being In A Helicopter That Got Shot At?

I pay little attention to the mainstream news, and I'm about 2 weeks behind in my independent media podcasts. But I've been hearing rumblings about Brian Williams taking himself off of NBC Nightly News over some scandal.


Vox Day has a post giving some details. He didn't source his quotes, so I'll just use the quotes in his post.

On Wednesday night, the world we live in became a confusing and unfamiliar place and most of us wandered the land not knowing what to believe when Brian Williams admitted that he was never in a chopper that was hit by RPG fire in Iraq in 2003. Brian was actually safely traveling in a different chopper....

 After getting called out on the lie he told, Brian said in Wednesday night’s broadcast of the NBC Nightly News that he “misremembered” the whole thing.

I don't get politicians and mainstream "journalists". I just assume they're all psychopaths and narcissists, but still, how do you "misremember" an incident like that? It's like a few years ago when Hillary claimed she'd been under sniper fire until people checked the facts and discovered that no, she wasn't.


It's easier to assume everything these people say is a lie, and that they can't be trusted.

So What Exactly Do Doctors Do All Day?

Recently, I wrote an anonymized case of a friend's hospital visit for pain. The pain was in my friend's neck. The hospital did heart tests, and deprived a diabetic of food for 24 hours. Then the hospital told my friend to consult primary doctor.

Friend goes to primary doctor. Primary doctor is late for scheduled appointment and spends less than 2 minutes with friend. Primary doctor thinks it could be muscle (this never occurred to hospital obsessed with heart) and says he'll prescribe a muscle relaxer. This was Monday. It is now Wednesday, and friend still does not have muscle relaxer. Let me explain:

• Doctor calls in muscle relaxer to pharmacy.
• Doctor does not include quantity.
• Doctor doesn't answer phone.
• Pharmacy can't fill prescription without quantity.
• Almost 48 hours later, friend still has neck pain and no muscle relaxer.
• Doctor finally calls in prescription with quantity.
• Pharmacy has to order because it's not in stock.

I used to think doctors should be protected from "frivolous malpractice lawsuits". But most doctors are so inept and lazy, I'm starting to come over to the side of the malpractice lawsuits. I can count the number of doctors I've dealt with who were halfway competent on one hand. Most of them probably shouldn't be doctors in the first place.

I used to have a list of professions in which I automatically assumed the person was lazy and worthless unless proven otherwise. One was Information Assurance (IA)/Cyber Security. Another was HR. I forget what the third was. I'm putting Doctor in spot 3. Pharmacist is going in 4. Why does it take an hour to count 30 pills and put them in a bottle? That's 2 minutes per pill. It still takes an hour for 10. That's 6 minutes per pill. Hospital Administrator and Health Insurance worker are going on the list too. You're all useless unless you prove otherwise.

The biggest thing that sucks in western medicine is, you may be the PATIENT, but you are not the CUSTOMER. Your health insurance is the customer. And you're not customer to your health insurance either, the government is. When it comes to the health industry, we're just pawns in a really messed up game.

Another Excursion Into The American Health Industry

I recently watched all 8 seasons of House. I'd forgotten what a good show it was. A brilliant doctor, surrounded by over-achievers solving complex cases while spouting highbrow humor.

In most of our hospitals, those patients would have died.

I get tired of hearing people say "We have the best health care on the planet." No, we don't. We probably have some of the best TRAUMA care on the planet, but the rest of it sucks. They can re-attach your arm pretty good, but they're clueless outside of that.

Case study:

Friend was admitted to the ER with pain. They run the standard tests, which of course show nothing. ER doctor decided friend doesn't look "happy" (is that a diagnosis?) and admits friend. It takes hours of waiting in the ER for admission to happen. Among the standard tests was an X-ray. Is pain supposed to show up on a picture that only shows bone? By this point, I figured I was smarter than the ER staff.

Wasting Time On The Internet Is Now An Ivy League College Class

It's true. Now you too can go thousands of dollars into debt in student loans and PAY to waste time on the Internet, something that is free for most of us.

Next semester at the University of Pennsylvania, students will walk into a classroom, pull out their laptops, their smartphones, their tablets, and sit there, for three hours, doing what they no doubt do pretty often: Waste time on the internet.

Or they could take classes that will benefit them in their careers, and waste time on the Internet for free.

"I'm very tired of reading articles in the New York Times every week that make us feel bad about spending so much time on the internet, about dividing our attention so many times," Kenneth Goldsmith, a world-renowned poet and the course's professor, told me. "I think it's complete bullshit that the internet is making us dumber. I think the internet is making us smarter. There's this new morality built around guilt and shame in the digital age."

So do what I do. Don't read the New York Times, or any other disconnected source of elite opinions.

As an intimate object, the Internet is what you make of it. You can use it to make yourself smarter, or you can mindlessly click on Buzzfeed articles and get dumber. It's all about how you use your mind.

I can't speak to this guy being a "world renowned poet". I've never been able to get into poetry, but I'm sure most modern poetry is as bad as modern art. About all the poetry I can stand is centered around limericks "There once was a lady from Venus..."

So, his students will explore what, exactly, wasting time even means. Is it a waste of time to tap out some forum posts or internet comments? Is it a waste of time to gchat with your friends? Is it a waste of time to click through YouTube videos? Can we consciously or even unconsciously channel the things we do on the internet to make a work of art or the next great American novel or an autobiography? 

His students will be tasked with trying. For much of the class, they'll be wasting time online, sure, but at some point, they're going to have to take the raw material of all that time wasting—browser histories, text messages, screenshots, who knows what else—and turn it into a "compelling and emotional work of literature."

A "compelling and emotional work of literature"? I'm sure being forced to read most of the output of this class would make me cry.

At this point, I'm almost forced to conclude that it's not the Internet that makes you dumber. It's college. That's why it's time for the majority of red pill, conservative, or libertarian men to abandon the modern university. Stop giving them your money. Do something to enrich your own mind and your job prospects. You can CLEP out of most of the lower level "Internet Time Wasting" and English classes and focus on the core curriculum for your field of study (which should be STEM). Or learn a trade through trade school or an apprenticeship.

This class is offered at UPenn (Ped State).

NYT Bestseller Status Means Nothing

Mainstream authors make a huge deal out of being "New York Times Bestsellers". I don't know if this metric ever actually meant anything. It means nothing today. For one thing, NYT book reviewers are mainstream elites who are largely divorced from reality. At least, the reality most of us live. They don't reflect our values and preferences. It's been years since I've given any weight to "NYT Bestseller" status of a book or author.

All that aside, the NYT Bestseller list is far too easy to manipulate. I've seen plenty of authors do it. Whenever an author with a sizable social media platform releases a book, they work hard in advance to drum up pre-sales and get the word out so the day the book releases, the numbers are large enough to register. Many promise "bonuses" to pre-buy the book.

I found a video in Mark Dice's archives about how Mark Driscoll, megachurch pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, used $200,000 of his church money to buy copies of his own book to manipulate the NYT Bestseller list:


I had no interest in Mark Driscoll's book. I've read enough Churchian marriage books to break a horse's back if you dropped them on him all at once. Very few are any good at all. Most totally suck. I think "His Needs, Her Needs" was the most useful of all of them. At least it doesn't blame all marriage problems on the husband.

I listened to Mark Driscoll's sermon podcast for a few years, until I stopped. Partly, I'd heard pretty much everything he had to say. Partly also because in my own dissolving marriage, I was tired of him using his pulpit to bash men. All the problems in your marriage are your fault! If you were a better Churchian, your wife would love and respect you. Because women (especially churchian women) have no moral agency or accountability for their own actions. And pastors don't have the balls to hold women accountable. Most of them are run by their wives and the elders' wives. So bite it, Pastor Driscoll.

I'm not surprised by Pastor Driscoll's corruption. But then again, I don't put people on pedestals. I know that all men are as fallible as myself. We all need accountability to keep us from going off the rails.

I'm not sure what he did with the books. He probably used his congregation's money to buy his books to sell the books back to them in the church bookstore, so they could pay twice. Or to give them away to cronies, or burn them to heat his house. In any case, his parishioners lose.

I'm sure he'll give a tear laden repentance and be forgiven, if he hasn't already.

And the NYT Bestseller list is pretty much useless.

Health Insurance/Care Sucks

Since our voters and politicians can't seem to differentiate between health care and health insurance, I guess I shouldn't either. But I can't help it.

It doesn't matter. Both of them suck.

Let's look at a typical case study from the HEALTH CARE industry. This happened recently.

Friend gets admitted to ER with pain. The absolute best of 21st century technology and allopathic medicine leave a doctor standing there, shrugging his shoulders and essentially saying "I dunno".

If Society Can Sink Any Lower Than This, Well, I Don't Know What Else To Say

You have to see this to believe it. I have to issue a language warning, of course, and a warning that adult topics are discussed.

A foul mouthed, obese stripper. Complaining about discrimination.

"Fat acceptance" has gone too far, and we need to bring shaming back into the equation.

Government Layers Contradict Each Other

I've considered myself a libertarian for many years. I'm slowly drifting toward being an anarchist.

I've never understood why people feel they need a large government to "feel" secure. Especially when all available evidence shows government is the LEAST EFFICIENT way to do anything. It is large, it is wasteful, it steps on toes, and exists only to perpetuate itself. It does not care about you. It makes you THINK it cares about you so you'll vote, but it truly doesn't care.

For those of you who fall into a category I refer to as "Green-tards", here's a good one. OK, so we should all drive hybrids or something "for the planet" or "for the environment". But wait, there's more!

So you're driving a hybrid, and using less gas and supposedly creating less pollution. BUT... you're no longer paying your fair share of federal gas taxes, so now Virginia (of which I am a resident) wants to make up for it by charging you $100 a year for driving a hybrid. You know, because while you're all busy "saving the planet" you're not paying your fair share of gas tax.

I have decided I will not listen to a single argument by a greenie weenie or greentard who does not support the maximum telework possible for people in jobs in which telework can be done. Like every job I've had since I left Lockheed Martin in 2004.

But then, if I were able to telework (and as such not have to pollute) I wouldn't be paying my "fair share" of gas taxes either. You know, because government is entitled to it or something. To pay for the large and inefficient programs that make the rest of you "feel" secure or "feel" like they "care" about you, or about something you "care" about.

So now, on the one hand, government wants you to not pollute and use more gas, but at the same time, government wants you to continue paying the gas taxes it has come to depend on.

How does this make any sense to anybody?

The Most Read Blog Post I’ve Ever Written

I am, by definition, an amateur blogger. Nobody pays for for this. While I was on TypePad, I actually paid to be able to blog. I’ve love to go back to TypePad. Eventually, I’ll get back.

I’ve written close to 850 blog posts. I can’t tell you how many hundreds I haven’t written, or started writing and never finished. Those 850 or so blog posts were written over more than 6 years. I’ve written in spurts. Last year, when I found myself out of a job, I was posting four to six times per day in an effort to drive traffic and launch some kind of freelance writing career. Then I stopped posting. Sometimes I have a lot to say, and sometimes I have nothing to say. I’ve authored at least 7 blogs. All of them are still up. Four of them are duplicates of each other as I struggle to decide which one will be my main blog.

By far, the most read post I’ve ever written lies here: Sundance Vacations- Is There Really Value in Buying 30 Vacations Wholesale? I wrote that post in April of 2007, almost four years ago. And I still stand by it.
I’ve gotten a lot of comments on this post over the years. I lost most of them. I was using a service called HaloScan for a few years, but it went down and I was unable to recover my comments. Not all were positive. I’ve gotten quite a few comments with ad-hominem attacks and other dishonest debate tactics. I’ve gotten email about this post.

If you’ve been contacted by Sundance Vacations, I welcome you to read about my experience, and the tips I’ve provided to evaluate their offer. Or any other high-pressure sales offer.

UPDATE: I was looking through my drafts, and saw this post set to draft with 12 views. I have no idea why that happened. I'm republishing it.

Do Rules, Regulations, and Standards Really Matter?

Recently, I was listening to an interview with James Randi. James commented on why he stopped visiting high schools. One reason given happened at his last visit to a high school. He commented to the principal that the clocks were several minutes fast. The principal said that's because if they set the clocks to the right time, the students would all be late to class.

It made me wonder two things:

1) Do the students have adequate time between classes?

2) Does it actually matter that they get to class on time?

This came back to me recently. I was watching a documentary on coal last night. It mostly takes place in West Virginia. In one scene, a lawyer from an environmental group said that every time they try to sue the coal companies for being in violation of a law, the Bush administration changed the law so they weren't in violation of it. (This documentary was apparently finished in 2006). What the...?

This documentary is free to watch for Amazon Prime members.

So again, does the rule matter? Why would we put rules in place if they can be changed whenever somebody breaks them?

On the coal issue, I'd say the rule damn sure matters. Same for nuclear power, another industry in which the rules are changed every time somebody fails an inspection. Then when a meltdown happens, people will whine and cry about how "we need rules! If only the government made us follow rules, this never would have happened!"

For the high school, again, if being on time to class actually matters, then enforce the rule. My high school tried a policy once where as soon as the bell rang, the doors were shut and locked. If you weren't in a classroom, you had to go to the office and get a pass. If this happened too often (like 2 or 3 times), you got detention.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Why It’s Not Cute To Deny Knowledge of Technology Anymore

Obviously, I’m writing this post as an IT professional. I have a degree in IT, I’ve spent years working in IT, and now I manage IT professionals. I’m getting tired of people complaining about technology. I’d like to remove the excuse in most situations.

A few months ago, my car was acting up. I had to take it to the Kia dealer to be looked at. I spent 8 freaking hours stuck off to the side of the showroom with a TV locked onto a channel playing The View, Real Housewives of New Jersey, and some crappy soap opera. The dealership did have wi-fi, but it didn’t work. I brought my work laptop in the hopes of getting some work done, but wi-fi didn’t work. My iPhone and laptop both saw a network, but it wouldn’t allow me to connect. That typically means the router needs to be rebooted.

Why Do Networks Like To Kill Good Shows?

I know little about the business of TV networks. I do know when I start to enjoy a good show, and it’s suddenly killed. I also know when I think a show is totally moronic (Friends?) and it seems to last forever.
Somewhere shortly after Sep 24, 2009, my wife (Christina) DVR’ed a show called “Flash Forward”. She insisted we watch it together. I love my wife. It’s been 10 1/2 years since we married on Feb 3, 2001. Yet we have so few shows we enjoy together. I like shows like Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch, Ghost Hunters, Cities of the Underworld, Stargate: Universe, Kitchen Nightmares, and Hell’s Kitchen. She likes Big Brother, True Blood, whatever that teen vampire show is called, and Young and the Restless. So in Sep 2009, she somehow talked me into watching a new show on ABC called “Flash Forward”. It took me a couple of episodes to really get into it. By the time I realized I liked it, the show went into a 6+ month hiatus. Somehow, our DVR caught it when it started back up, and the first season finished. Although the show had a great initial viewership, since ABC put it on hiatus for so long, and didn’t promote the last half of the season properly, the season ended with a HUMONGUS cliffhanger and silently died. The freaking deadbeat loser network moved nights, didn’t promote it, and seemingly did everything possible to kill a loyal viewership, and let the series die. Bastards.

The Return of Micro-MAN-ager

I joined the Navy right out of high school. I served from 1992-1998, from the ages of 18-24. Then I got out and got a “real job”. I’m glad I served, and I’d do it again, but I’m also glad I left active duty when I did. I have a lot of reasons for that.

The military seems geared toward micromanagers. I ran into a lot of micromanagers. I don’t know if it’s just the personalities that stay in the military long enough to make it into managerial positions, or if it’s just the culture. Maybe the military trains its managers to micromanage. Also, I’m willing to bet that the fact the military is made up of younger individuals with little experience plays a part too. I’m sure it’s a combination.

In any event, I resented the micromanagement. There’s a difference in being told WHAT to do and being told EXACTLY HOW, STEP BY STEP to do it, especially if it’s a task that you’re already familiar with.

Why Are Job Descriptions So Poorly Written?

This is something that has always baffled me. When companies need to hire somebody, don’t they want to hire an experienced and talented person? If so, why do they make it so darn hard to figure out what the job actually is?

I like to keep an eye on what opportunities are out there. I wish I’d lived in a time when an employee could expect to stay with one company for an entire career. I don’t. While I do appreciate the company I currently work for, I’m under no illusions that their relationship with me can’t end at any time and for any reason on their part. Loyalty is a wonderful quality, but should not be misplaced.

TUAW: iPhone 30% Profit Share of Apps, 30% Dropped Calls

According to The Unoffical Apple Weblog, AT&T's dropped call rate for iPhones in New York City are the exact same percentage as Apple gets in profit sharing from apps sold in the App Store: 30%. I'm not sure what AT&T's overall percentage of dropped calls is in New York City, but for the iPhone it's 30%. Wow. Not surprising though.

Ever since I got my iPhone, I've always said that AT&T is the weak link in the iPhone chain. I guess you can't say that I have any objective evidence from which to back that up. My previous few phones were Windows Mobile. You can read my rants on Windows Mobile in my archives. Windows Mobile is such a piece of crap that my phones never really ran well enough to notice whether or not I was having problems with AT&T. Once I got my iPhone, and I finally had a phone that ran stable enough, I noticed all kinds of problems. My work-issued Verizon BlackBerry didn't seem to have the same problems, although "the network" isn't without it's issues.

Reader's Digest Is Filing Bankrutcy? I'm Happy

My title might be a little bit attention grabbing. I came across an article stating that Reader's Digest is filing bankruptcy. Please keep in mind that bankruptcy does not mean "going out of business". It simply gives the company some court protection to rearrange finances and try to come out from under financial problems. Some bankrupt companies actually do survive. Remember when K-mart filed bankruptcy almost 8 or 9  years ago? They came out of it stronger and bought Sears. All they had to do was get rid of the idiot criminals who were running the company into the ground.

So why does Reader's Digest filing bankruptcy sort of make me happy? It's a fine magazine, but when I did business with the company, I came away from it with a horrible taste in my mouth and a vow to never again let my money fall into their hands.

I was a sailor once. I think it was about the time when I was 23 (around 1997). My poor ability to handle money left me with more month left at the end of my paycheck. I paid all my bills and blew plenty of money, but I never got ahead. I was feeling the pinch one particular month. I used to buy Reader's Digest, and I enjoyed reading it. I normally had a copy on the ship to read. Sometimes people would send them to me, and some of my shipmates read it so I never lacked a copy.

When Surveys Get Pushy

I can remember back to the days of the last NJ Governor's election in 2005. Let's see, it was Demonican John Corzine vs. ideological duplication Republicrat Doug Forrester. Seriously, if I were voting AGAINST Corzine, what was my point of voting FOR Forrester, who came out at the last minute and basically said "I am Corzine!" Anyway, that's not the point of this post. I don't care about Demonicans and Republicrats.

During the course of the election, I had a knock at my door. It was a woman with a clipboard wanting to know who we were planning to vote for, and insistent that it be Corzine. I said I wasn't likely to vote for either of the carbon-copy party candidates, and I would either vote Libertarian, or since voting anything BUT Demonican in New Jersey doesn't count, maybe the New Jersey Weedman. He's a stoner candidate. This woman wanted to know for sure who I was committed to. I don't remember the exact date, but the election was somewhere between two months and three weeks away. Caleb was born that August, so he was between 1 and 3 months at the time. Neither of us got adequate sleep, but Christina took more of it. I decided to be nice and go back to the family room to ask her. When she said she didn't care. I went back to the door.