Bluedepth's Journal

Thoughts & Opinions

Neo Pangea To Launch Intern Abuser Website

Posted on September 5, 2012 by bluedepth

Neo Pangea To Launch Intern Abuser Website.

I saw this and instantly thought of the Milgram experiments and thought about an expansion to his basic study which might reveal more about humanity. The basic Milgram experiment was to deliver a painful electric shock to an actor who was pretending to react to the shock. The person in the experiment was the subject with the control board – to see how far they’d go.

Milgram touched on so many parts of the human condition in his experiment but there are drifting outliers that bear study. Putting a sadist on the panel, or putting a masochist there for example.

Of course, tongue-in-cheek a part of me idly wondered if you were in a Milgram type experiment and you were told that there was a politician on the receiving end of the control box would that change the resistance level of the subject to escalate? I think that the experiment would display a certain measure of class warfare or even have a kind of respectability-quotient attached to it. What if you had a salesman, a politician, or a lawyer on the receiving end of the control box? How would you progress through the various levels of simulated sadism of the Milgram experiment?

I get to laughing about this entire idea. Not because torturing people is funny, but there is a part of me that would skip all the controls and go for the lethal one at the very end and just hold it down and savor the howling screams of agony – for salesmen, politicians, and lawyers.

🙂

What We Already Knew About The Tea Party And ‘The Newsroom’ Finally Said Out Loud | MoveOn.Org

Posted on August 31, 2012 by bluedepth

What We Already Knew About The Tea Party And ‘The Newsroom’ Finally Said Out Loud | MoveOn.Org.

It takes a fictional show to do more truth-telling and honest true journalism than anyone that currently is sitting before a camera mugging for the masses. It’s the media’s inaction which, above everything else, will secure the wrong leadership coming to power in the United States of America.

To all the “Journalists” out there, this actor has outdone each and every one of you. Through this fictional work, this show has effectively emasculated each and every one of you. We don’t care for you, we do not respect you, and if you want to know what the people truly want, we want you to quit your jobs and do something else. Let others who are stronger and more passionate take your place. They will do it better. It has already been done, in fiction as it should in real life. Shame on you, “journalists”.

Every Sperm Is Sacred

Posted on August 30, 2012 by bluedepth

So I was wandering Facebook, as I do, and I found a great image – but I can’t really link to where I found it because Facebook is a PITA. So, here’s the image:

And then of course on Facebook I left some comments, as only I could:

Technically life begins at spermatogenesis. If body temperature kills sperm, and men who wear clothing usually keep their body temperature high in the region where these cells are being grown, then any man who is currently wearing pants is a mass murderer?

If so, then the world will suddenly get much funnier and more awkward, especially for places of business that will have to extend their “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” to also include the phrase “No Pants”. Plus we’ll have to rewrite public indecency laws. And then we’ll need to talk about what we’re supposed to do in the winter – because if those parts get too cold, then we’re back to killing babies again. So, do we outlaw any place colder than say USDA Zone 10? In that case we should start all moving to the southern tip of Florida and as far south in Texas as possible – because that’s really the safest place… for… babies. The rest of the country? Little more than killing fields of dead children. Either baked or frozen to death.

DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN. 🙂

I suspect I may anger some people at my flip comments, but, that’s the problem with statements like these. If you go that far, why not keep going? Why artificially limit yourselves to stopping at the urethra? I mean, as a Republican there isn’t any problem with a transvaginal probe, which arguably would be much like a catheter or sounding rod used on a man. If you expect women to give up their privacy to their own internal organs so the government can protect the blessed unborn, then why not spelunk into the penis? I mean, yes, it’s unpleasant and uncomfortable, but what is good for Jill is good for Jack, am I right or am I right?

If the government is going to get all bent about ovaries and vaginas then I say it’s high time we men put our testicles and penises on the line with the women. It’s fair is it not? I mean, it’s certainly equal!

Yeah. And that may be all I need to assert that as a Democrat I believe in equality, AKA the Golden Rule. I do not want anyone intruding on my urethra so ladies, you can keep your vaginas nice and private and I won’t seek out laws so the government can intrude on your internal organs as I would not want them intruding on mine.

And that’s just another hypocrisy of the Republican party. Fine with invading vaginas but leave the penises alone! Republicans, filthy gonad hypocrites! Genital Bigots!

🙂

Father Benedict Groeschel, American Friar, Claims Teens Seduce Priests In Some Sex Abuse Cases

Posted on August 30, 2012 by bluedepth

Father Benedict Groeschel, American Friar, Claims Teens Seduce Priests In Some Sex Abuse Cases.

Filling up holes, not withstanding on this article I have only one real solid comment to make, and that is a question I would like to pose to the dear Father:

“Sir, in these situations, is there an adult present?”

So, is there? Because if there is an adult present, then they should have the grace and capacity for restraint and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT RAPE THE CHILDREN.

I mean, ahem, Father… You seem to be casting your own fellow priests as victims when… OH LOOK WHO GOT RAPED BY FATHER FLANNIGAN! Ahem… I’m sorry dear Father, but I apparently have a terrible case of bullshit-induced tourettes.

I once thought that if I were Christian, and I was in that mindset that I would be, quite possibly, Franciscan. It is clear to me now… FINE! RAPE THE SHEEP AND COWS BUT STOP RAPING THE CHILDREN… ahem…

Damn Tourettes…

When mice are put into enclosures with limitless resources, their social behaviour degenerates dramatically. – Science – Aug 11, 2012 – Interesting Facts and Fun Facts – OMG Facts

Posted on August 29, 2012 by bluedepth

When mice are put into enclosures with limitless resources, their social behaviour degenerates dramatically. – Science – Aug 11, 2012 – Interesting Facts and Fun Facts – OMG Facts.

I love these studies! They prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that without space travel Humanity is pretty much doomed. I can’t help but think of Star Trek. In that fictional universe there is no want, no need, Earth is a literal paradise. I wonder what would happen to that Universe if you kept everything else the same but eliminated warp travel from the story.

You’d have Universe 25. It wouldn’t be pretty. HA HA HA.

So what is the most important thing in the Star Trek Universe? Warp Travel. Beyond everything else. LULZ.

Man booted from airplane for wearing anti-TSA shirt — RT

Posted on August 27, 2012 by bluedepth

Man booted from airplane for wearing anti-TSA shirt — RT.

What the TSA provides is twofold:

Security Theater
Technology Recycling

For the first part, the Security Theater, that’s exactly what it is. It’s a big show to make people feel safe. Not actually safe, but just the impression that someone seriously is quite serious and taking a serious look into serious things that seriously bother serious people. Seriously. But it’s a sham and we all know it. So we take off our shoes because they could be bombs and somehow in some world liquids smaller than three ounces couldn’t possibly be a hazard. Then we are invited to walk into a machine that is supposed to scan us for security threats on our body. A machine that uses radiation that has not been proven by the FDA to be safe for use. These machines are provided to the TSA by the minimum quoted provider. Who is to say what that machine actually does! Do you see an FDA seal on it? Do you know it’s safe? Do you really trust people who are putting on a show to actually know what the big plastic metal machine does? I always (and always will) elect for the enhanced pat-down. I understand it’s part of the security theater and I don’t want to get in the TSA’s face when it comes to rubbing their noses in it, but come on people! What it really comes down to is the ultimate failure of permanent vigilance. You can’t remain permanently vigilant. You can see it popping up left and right. Guns geting passed through X-Ray scanners, TSA agents falling asleep on the job, TSA agents leaving detectors unplugged for half the day. You can’t eliminate accidents or stupidity. No ruleset exists that people come into contact with that ensures 100% compliance all the time. Human beings aren’t built that way. We get bored, we get lazy, we get sleepy. After millions of old ladies, dudes, toddlers, and regular folk – it all tends to just blend together. You look down and notice the bright blue uniform and remember, oh yeah! You’re supposed to be serious!

Then we get to the second part. The technology recycling services the TSA provides. How many people have put expensive bits and pieces in their checked luggage, luggage that the airlines now charge you to carry no less, only to arrive at your destination finding your expensive bits and pieces are now gone? If you are lucky you get a length of TSA tape that indicates that some mystery bumpkin was pawing through your belongings. That’s why, when I fly, I fly with carry-ons only. Everything worth anything is in my backpack and that never leaves my sight, ever.

All of this is just security theater. I know it is so from direct experience. After recently flying and passing under the watchful always-vigilant eye of the TSA I have noted three discrete incidences where the TSA is just putting on a show. What have I done? Nothing dangerous or hazardous, so don’t get your knickers in a twist, but they did miss several key points which do concern me, in that it shows them for being about as vigilant as my cats are. Here’s what the TSA ignored twice, once at a little airport and once at a big airport:

4 ounce container of underarm deodorant. This is a gel and therefore falls under the three-ounce rule. Nobody is paying attention to this any longer. I decided I didn’t care if they threw a fit and tossed out my Old Spice deodorant, it was half-gone anyways and I’d be inconvenienced a whole $2.50. Alas, I wasn’t inconvenienced, beyond noting that the three ounce rule is hokum.
1 Liter Stainless Steel Hydroflask. It passes under X-Rays and it’s STAINLESS STEEL. Nobody has ever asked me to open my bag and show them the flask, or even open it to demonstrate that it’s empty. It is empty, but that’s not the point. The point is, that vigilance is taking a nap.
20 ounce convention flask. This also passed under X-ray without even a single notice. It too was empty, but what if it wasn’t? That’s 20 ounces of mystery fluid… vigilant, just like my cats.

So what this comes down to is that we are very sold on the notion of McSecurity provided by the TSA. It’s a huge government program that eats up huge government dollars and gets all these companies huge government contracts to build machines that nobody double-checks for efficacy or safety. They look at me, they measure me, they find me non-threatening. I’m just another schlub with a backpack, a roll-aboard, and worn-looking brown shoes. I approach with my United States Passport and I don’t make eye contact. I don’t say anything and my answers are affirmative grunts. All of this is theater. We have a role to play, to be pleasant, pliant, obedient schlubs just shuffling through the great machine being as plain, gray, and uninteresting as possible and their role is to pretend to run big complicated machines and seem strong, superior, and always exude an air of serious menace. That somehow being cold, officious, dour, and oh-so-serious somehow impresses on us all that when we get into a poorly-maintained aircraft with angry poorly paid stewardpeople and pilots that are overworked drunk bus-drivers-in-the-sky that somehow the TSA makes everything oh-so-right.

It’s all pretend. It’s all a big show. It’s nice that they behave the way they do, the way they are told to behave. But the bullshit is thick and smears everything. The fact that airplanes don’t just drop out of the sky all the time is more of a testament to luck than anything else.

When it gets right down to it, when we have to ultimately decide between war, food, and medicine then we’ll see what’s what. When the money runs out to fund this magic McSecurity theater program called the TSA, what then? Will these oh-so-serious, oh-so-dour, super-stalwart, always-vigilant (giggle) watchmen of the folken work for free?

They better work for free. Because Americans are fear-addled pussies who couldn’t possibly handle risk. So we sacrifice our dignity and our honor on the altar of McSecurity Theater. What a wimpy pussed-out lot we are. Seeing demons everywhere. Little brown-skinned demons wearing turbans. Yeah, that’s what it’s really all about. Anyone who says differently probably has stock in the company that builds those cancer scanners they say keeps us all “safe”.

HA HA HA.

Twitter / CHRISMAL0NEY: A word of advice to @BarackObama: …

Posted on August 27, 2012 by bluedepth

Twitter / CHRISMAL0NEY: A word of advice to @BarackObama: ….

The picture attached to this tweet was in my Instapaper queue and I got a chance to look at it. As I saw the picture I noticed something really quite entertaining. The text of the tweet takes the President to task for misspelling Ohio. If you look at the way the four people, with the President in position 3 are standing, each one of them is making a physical gesture which is supposed to show a letter of the alphabet, to spell out Ohio; Each of them are in the correct placement if you read from right to left:

O-H-I-O

It is because the cameraman is standing opposite them and nobody was spending any time thinking about a 180 degree rotation of the horizontal plane. So, beyond what amounts to being a gaffe of position, the order is correct.

Hawthorne

Posted on August 24, 2012 by bluedepth

While running my SupportPress system for several months now it dawned on me that the MySQL database that lurks just behind the scenes is collecting quite a bit of accidental detail on my coworkers that use the system. Nothing that would endanger anyones privacy, so quickly put that notion out of your head. What it does do is record the datestamp of when people enter tickets into the system. Generally people enter tickets right after they’ve identified a problem, of if they come to us, we start the ticket as the first thing we do, so again, the initiation of a ticket is in a general sense linked to just after the problem was detected and brought to our attention. For the remainder of this post, I assert that the datestamp on the ticket is when the problem occurred.

So with a middling amount of database skills and analysis under my belt I decided to run some aggregate queries on the data. Here’s what I found:

When I aggregate all the days of the month together and count how many tickets were initiated on which particular days I discover four notable days where things seem to on-average, go haywire: The 1st with 81 tickets, the 6th with 66 tickets, the 12th with 56 tickets, and the 23rd with 79 tickets. What’s really interesting about this dataset are the dates on the opposite side. The least haywire day is the 31st, with 11 tickets then the 28th with 20 tickets and the 3rd with 28 tickets. So now I can say, in general, that the 1st, the 6th, the 12th, and the 23rd are “Days That Suck”. The best day is the 31st.

I ran the same analysis but instead of days of the month, I used hours. In general the mornings are where people seem to have the most problems. 14 tickets at 7am, 201 tickets at 8am. At Noon the tickets drop by a hundred, then from 2pm to 4pm it rises gently but nowhere near the morning values and the afternoon peak comes between 4 and 5pm. After 6? The rush of tickets just stop. People don’t report problems when food is on the line. 🙂

The last analysis I did crossed day and hours together and counted the tickets. This had some interesting data in it, since I was just looking for any notable outliers. Hours and Days where the ticket level was say, more than 20 for that hour. Here’s some of the “Problem Days and Hours”: The 1st of the month at 10am and the 23rd at 10am.

What is to be determined from these really general findings? There are some cursed days at the office apparently. The 1st, the 6th, the 12th and the 23rd are really quite troublesome for people. Mornings are rough but on the 1st and 23rd, at around 10am the shit hits the fan.

SupportPress collects this data for as long as it runs and I’ve no intention of stopping so the further we go the more (or maybe less) pronounced these interesting bits of information will get. Those that work with me that also read my blog might have some insight or they may just find some of this helpful if they have spare vacation days to spend and are looking for some reason to not come into work.

SupportPress At Work

Posted on August 24, 2012 by bluedepth

Several months ago I became aware of certain workplace changes that were going to only be a problem if I chose to ignore them instead of doing something about them. There’s always been a part of my job that I’ve been kind of awkwardly ignoring. I lacked any kind of real instrumentation to one of the major aspects of my job, in fact, it’s the part of my job that I regard as being truly central and my “first hat” and that would be the Advancement Services Help Desk. First and foremost I go to work to help people use technology. That I didn’t have any online structure in which this fit has always bothered me. I always rationalized it as “My shop is too small to need such things.” or “It’s too expensive and I can’t prove that the ROI will justify the price.” but all that changed when given a purpose by a workplace change that was coming, and me discovering SupportPress.

SupportPress itself is a WordPress theme for a WordPress.org installation. We already had a hosting company that we had a great relationship with, [iPage](http://www.ipage.com]. It struck me that while we had a site with the host I certainly wasn’t making the most use out of our investment as I could. After a long while I logged into iPage and noticed their SimpleScripts service off their Control Panel. SimpleScripts is an interface to install very popular LAMP-based scripts that add features to a hosted website. Various scripts include WordPress.org, Drupal, and a gaggle of other ones including some eCommerce scripts that I really couldn’t care more about. WordPress.org is the free-to-use DIY version of WordPress.com. WordPress is a wonderful blogging platform and it serves as the bedrock that SupportPress runs on. So setting up the WordPress.org site was exceptionally easy. It was a click and some typing, followed by a few more clicks in SimpleScripts and it was done just like that. A fully featured and functioning blog running on my web host. After that, I looked at SupportPress and discovered that the theme sold for $100. One payment and you get a license to run it on as many blogs as you like. It wasn’t a subscription, just a straight simple sale. After buying the theme from WooThemes I downloaded it in it’s native form, one single ZIP file. I opened up and logged into my WordPress.org blog and navigated to the administration side of the system and right there, as easy as you please is “Install Themes Here” and the preferred option is “Install Theme from ZIP”, which I had exactly! So I uploaded the SupportPress Theme ZIP file to my newly made WordPress.org blog and when I applied the theme and went out to my blog, everything was functioning as promised! Everything! A fully functioning Help Desk Support System was running without any extra tomfoolery. I didn’t need to muck about with source files, fiddle with settings or update anything to get things to work as they should. This software, all of it, from end to end is what writing ELEGANT system code looks like. It works without guff, simply, directly, and elegantly. After that, all I had to do was create user accounts for all my clients, assign a few as “Administrators” like my assistant at work and I was done. I had the entire project from plan to finish in about an hour!

SupportPress has two distinct interfaces. The first interface, the one I use is the “Administration” interface. It very closely resembles the “User” interface but has a lot more options. If I need to perform anything more in-depth I can always call up the WordPress.org administration interface itself (which supersedes the themes administration console, wrapping around it actually) and I’ll show off both interfaces in this blog post. The system is organized on the management of Tickets. A ticket is a self-contained event that requires help from me to my clients. A ticket could be anything from a lost password to a report that a copier is malfunctioning. A ticket in SupportPress has a title, a description, a status, a type, an owner and an assignment. As an administrator I can see every single ticket and manipulate every single ticket. I can change ownership (the client), the assignment (who is to help), the status (which all new tickets start as new), the type which indicates what category the ticket belongs in and I can add comments and attach files, anything that can be done in email, except it’s logged in a database. The best way to describe it is to show it:

SupportPress Administration Screen

SupportPress New Tickets

SupportPress New Ticket

This administration interface is a full-view while the next few screenshots show what the client sees. It is much more direct:

SupportPress User View

The system is a pleasure to use and goes so far as to suggest top-ranked KB articles for clients as well as displaying all the clients tickets and their statuses with two buttons that are clearly marked for starting new tickets. When clients type in a title for a new ticket the system will automatically (while they type!) scan for relevant KB articles and display them. Eventually as the KB becomes more robust users will start to discover fixes in the KB on their own and in some situations actually be able to help themselves. When a user submits a ticket, the administrators get an email notification and the ticket resides in the system as “New” and assigned to “Anybody”. Any of the administrators can log in to the SupportPress system and look at these tickets and assign them either to themselves or other administrators.

When an administrator makes a change to a ticket, that change is sent as an email notice to the client. Everything you do to a ticket ends up being sent in an email every time you submit a change. So if I see a ticket, assign it to myself, set it’s status to “Open” and change it’s type to “question”, for example, the user will get an email showing what category was changed, the old value, and a graphical arrow pointing to the new value. If there is a comment or attached file, the client is sent an email indicating as such with the comment sent along in email so the client can read the update.

Tickets go from New to Open, then either to Waiting or Pending, then to Resolved. Sometimes tickets go into “Researching”, “Recurring”, or “Limbo”. The last status, “Limbo” are for those tickets where the situation is beyond waiting, but we still want it to hang around for some reason.

If all of this wasn’t exactly what I was after, the cherry on top is that this theme comes mobile-ready as well. It renders beautifully on an iPhone and iPad, and technically any mobile device as well but those are the only two devices I have to test the site with. Technically anyone can have an account on the site and anyone can submit tickets. I really like how clients are insulated from each other and only see community information in the KB. For admins, it’s all open and available. I really like how that’s structured.

Sometimes clients ignore that we now have SupportPress and elect to get our attention other ways. If they email us, I simply copy the email into a new SupportPress ticket, and set the owner to the person who sent the email. I love that I can create a new ticket on behalf of a client as if they sent it! Any other method of communication that isn’t SupportPress now gets a ticket for each event. If it’s a knock on our door, a ticket. If it’s a phone call, a ticket. If it’s an iChat, a ticket. Everything I do for a client gets a ticket and that way not only do I instantly document everything but the client can see everything about their tickets in one convenient place anytime they wish. They can go into old tickets and see who responded, when, and what they did about the issue. I’ve also started to use the standard blogging features of the WordPress.org site that still exist. SupportPress shuffles that off to the “Blog” menu item. If ever there is something I wish to record, I just send the SupportPress blog an email with the contents of whatever it is I want to record and it ends up being placed in the Blog section. I like to think of that as my “Captains Log” which lets me write odds and ends about the function of my office in one central place. If ever I need to refer back to it, search on it, or print something off of it, there it is. One handy place.

The hosting was inexpensive, the installation of WordPress.org was free and took about seven minutes. The cost of SupportPress was $100 and took about five minutes to install. It took about thirty minutes to set up all the clients and after that we were on the ground running. So for $100 and less than an hour I went from having no help desk infrastructure to having a damn nice one. Nobody has complained and so I count that as votes of approval. Some of my clients have started to adopt SupportPress directly and others have not. I don’t care since I stop people before they get going when it comes to in-your-face interactions to tell them that I first have to create a ticket for them.

I couldn’t imagine going back to the way things were. This is so much more convenient and safe for me in general. It keeps everyone feeling good, feeling honest, and provides a huge amount of CYA if ever a problem of help desk performance should ever pop up. Each ticket contains date and duration stamps which clearly display how each issue was handled. There is no he-said or she-said, there is only the ticket and what it says. Objective, clear, and rational. Again, I couldn’t imagine running a help desk any other way.

TOP 5 VILLAIN DEATH SCENES IN SCI-FI HISTORY | geekleagueofamerica.com

Posted on August 23, 2012 by bluedepth

TOP 5 VILLAIN DEATH SCENES IN SCI-FI HISTORY | geekleagueofamerica.com.

These five selections are indeed all excellent, however I must admit to my personal preference being the death of the final Alien in the rather poorly done Alien Resurrection. For all this films slogging along the last action scene in the film really is quite (and literally!) visceral to watch. After you witness the “birth” of the hybrid Alien, and after it knocks it’s Alien mothers head clean off it tries to show affection for the blended Ripley. The way she cuts herself on her “child” and then throws her acidic blood at the viewport out into space you can see right from this point where the film is going.

I think that this scene takes the cake for me because it’s quite disgusting to watch, essentially the hole into space with the pressurized atmosphere in the ship leads to an inexorable drawing in of the closest objects to that orifice leading out to space. Then the FX team toy with you, maybe the Alien Hybrid will make it in it’s escape away from the orifice of doom, but we all know that the movie wouldn’t be able to move forward if that was the case, so the hybrid has to die. So it gets sucked towards the orifice and in one very small moment it’s greasy flesh is protruding out into the vacuum of space and then, well, like a rollercoaster it’s all downhill from there. It’s screaming and growling at being betrayed by Ripley is the first bit, then as it gets progressively hoovered out into space through a very tiny hole, the screaming and growling become more of a surprise leading to a kind of painful pleading for help. There really isn’t any help possible, because as the events unfold, a majority of the creatures internal organs are being crushed, blended, and evacuated into space. Then quite gratuitously they show the hybrids literal disemboweling. The keening scream and pleading cries get more pronounced and I actually feel a sense of sympathetic panic for the hybrid. Then, and at the end where it gets really quite awful, the screaming stops because the hybrids pulverized lung tissue is now a gel being pushed out into space and you see just it’s head, then the skin gets hoovered off and the skull. Little waypoints of disgusting horribleness the whole way along.

I vote for this villain’s end because it wasn’t really technically a villain, it was an unwanted maybe-hero as it’s only real action was to kill the true villain, the Alien Queen that “birthed” it. But it had to be disposed of, and this particular approach, well, it reaches in deep and grabs you in the gut and twists and toys with you. Much like witnessing a car doomed to a very horrific collision, you can’t really respond, you just watch in a kind of sickened awe.

It’s the kind of scene that none of my squeamish friends should ever witness. The entire sequence is exceptionally gory, visceral, and the sound effects just push it over the top for me. What a way to die – blenderized and hoovered out into space. There is no playing dead and surprising the “hero” from that point!