Concerning my love of cars

Don't get me wrong. I love supercars, some of the hypercars are interesting, but my love of cars comes from something completely different than what many would think.

Second only to the firearm, a car represents freedom.

Without a car, your options from anywhere are as follows:
1. Walk/bicycle. 80-150 miles a day on a bicycle if you're a monster. Less than a quarter of that walking.
2. Public transport. Basically, you are relegated to where the line will take you, when it will take you. That line may or may not be on time, full, or otherwise out of service with or without notice.

With a car, you are liberated from both of these limitations. You are free to go where the road goes... when you wish. If you're adventurous, get a large off road vehicle and make your own path. Even to the North Pole. It's been done, in a heavily modified Toyota Hilux.

So even if I have to drive a Trabant for the rest of my life (God, PLEASE forbid), I will be happy, and I will love it. I will have the cheapest form of freedom that can be bought: The freedom to go. Where I wish, when I wish.

Well... in a Trabant, it's kind of iffy, but you get my meaning.

Randall Munroe of XKCD strikes again

I do this all the time, except for the IPod part: http://xkcd.com/337/

Because I like to give links and props to things that pull my ass out of the fire, part 3 in an ongoing series.

One of the problems that I've had with my current server is that it's a laptop. This, generally is a good thing, but I have 2 problems with my current unit:
1. There's no battery, so when the power flickers, I lose power to the machine. This wouldn't be such a problem if...
2. There's no "power on after power fail" setting available on the BIOS of the machine.

So what happens is that the power hiccups at my apartment, and I have no access to the machine until I get home.

Umm... No. Not really a nice thing, especially when I store some notes and stuff on said machine so I can access them from anywhere, as well as have a 3rd box from which to test connectivity items.

Skip ahead, my boss brings back an old iMac G4 from a customer. It has a dead hard drive, and the machine is old enough that it's not really worth fixing to the customer. He says "I want it out of my office". No one else says anything, so I grab it and throw it into my car.

I get it home and take it apart... a procedure that has a 2 week delay because they used torx screws to hold all the guts inside the base, and I don't have the right bits to take it apart.

After wrestling with it for an hour or so, I managed to get a 120GB drive in the case. I downloaded a Ubinto 7.04 iso for powerpc and go to town. To my surprise, everything works. It even sees the wireless card.

However, I still don't have a machine that will deal with a power failure gracefully, and I still don't have a battery to get me through the brownouts. Damn.

Google to the rescue! This post discusses how to turn the G5 Mac Mini's "server mode" setting on, which tells the machine to automatically reboot after a power failure. I know from experience that the firmware on the G4 and G5 are similar, so I try what is described in the article. It works great! Thanks to Raam (the post owner), mwnovak (from who Raam got the information), and Rich Johnson, maintainer of AutoBoot for pointing mwnovak in the right direction.

This is going to be a car related post...

I've been getting into the BBC2 show "Top Gear" as of late. Jeremy Clarkson is an absolute riot to watch and hear. He's doing what I picture Jay Leno doing, if Jay wasn't doing his variety show: Witty, scathingly honest reviews about cars that he can get his hands on.

I know I've written about this before, but I must do so again: The Bugatti Veyron will be the finest piece of road going machinery we will probably ever see in our lifetimes. I think it can deserve another few paragraphs of gushing.

In 2005 and 2006, Top Gear ran a couple of shows with information about the Bugatti Veyron. Michelle will tell you that if money were no object, I'd own one of these in a heartbeat: A gorgeous body, wrapping up a monster of a turbocharged heart. The w16 with it's 4 turbos generates 1000+ horse power, and can drive the car up to a electronically limited 253 miles per hour. That's outstripping everything but drag cars at that point, and considering that it's an amazingly civilized car (according to Clarkson (who drove the car for 13 hours straight from Italy to London), and one of his co-hosts, James May (who took the car up to it's top rated speed of 253 MPH on a controlled course)), the car is an engineering feat of staggering proportions. Clarkson states "This is concorde [I assume that this is a reference to the Concorde SST. Not being from Europe, I get a bit hamstrung on some of the colloquialisms]. Not just the best car that's ever been made, but possibly, the best car we'll see in our lifetime."

This make me a little sad, as I'll probably NEVER even SEE this car driven in person, much less be able to touch or DRIVE said vehicle. At $1.7 million US, it's a bit out of reach, not including whatever one has to do to actually get to where you can drive one. To bring one over will invariably require some sort of Federal intervention, as you're not going to want to give the DOT 5 or 10 of these to put through their wringer. While it's probably an outstanding track car, who really wants to drive something like this only on the track and on the show concourse? The other option is to relocate to somewhere in Europe. Not quite my speed, as while I have my beef with the Feds, it's genuinely better here than anywhere else. Also, it costs VW (Bugatti's parent company) something along the order or $10 million US *EACH* to produce, so it will be a very limited production run. No, that's not a typo... the car is "a technical exercise". Perhaps that number will go down now that the engineering is done (I don't have a cost breakdown as to where the $10mil is spend), but I still expect it to stay firmly in the realm of "completely unattainable".

Don't get me wrong, there are many other great cars out there, that are great in their own right. The Ford GT, The Opel Speedster, Caterham Super 7, Ariel Atom, Chevrolet Corvette C6, Dodge Viper R/T10, Saleen S7... the list could go on. Many on that list are (with a bit of saving for a few years), actually something that many of us could actually have in our garage if we so chose. But nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, comes close to the work done on the Veyron. It's as inspired as German/Italian/British engineering gets.

Morally retarted... proudly.

Of all the innane things to complain about your tax dollars going to, supporting our military should NOT be one of them. But hey, lemme quote this guy here...

But to answer the question, what I mean when I say I support our troops is that I actually pay for their food, their ammo, their upkeep, transport, everything. I pay for all of it.
And I do that not only because I’m a patriotic American, although I am, but also because they take 35% out of my check every week and if I don’t pay it I will end up in jail.
That is what I mean by ‘I support our troops’. I mean I am involuntarily, under threat of prison, forced to pay for their support. Now do I resent that?
You’re damn right I do. Because it is stupid as hell. Other countries pay taxes, but they get something for it, like health care. What do I get? I get to kill a bunch of Iraqis. Whoopdeedoo.

Let me also inform you that most people in other countries pay more than 50% of their income to taxes. Please do some research before you run your mouth.

Now, as to the title of this post, same blogger:

I resent my support for the killing of Iraqis for which I get not even a memento or trophy. But do I still support the individual men and women who have given so much to serve their country?
No. I think they’re a bunch of idiots. I also think they’re morally retarded. Because they sign a contract that says they will kill whoever you tell me to kill. And that is morally retarded.

I can't make this stuff up. Someone actually posted this.

This person actually thinks that our boys (and girls) over in the sand box have no moral compass. The insanity of that statement just leaves me dumbfounded.

The thing that the person making these statements doesn't get is that our troops are trained to be warriors: That training does NOT remove their moral compass. It equips them to deal with the violations of that compass that is required by being a warrior. There's a huge difference between "warrior" and "psychopath" (Google define entry), which is what this guy is describing.

If we lived in an ideal world, warriors would be a dying breed. The thing is that we still have a bunch of people on this planet who hate us for existing.

On a side note, aren't liberals supposed to be known for "compassion". I don't hear compassion in that statement.

If I were Kim DuToit, I'd be heading to the firing range.

Concerning the ownership of firearms

I use StumbleUpon as a time killer on the net, and I stumbled upon a blog post that advocates a worldwide firearm registry. The poster was from the UK, so they have some different views than we do over here in the states, but the poster seems insistent on attacking the gun lobby for not wanting a registry, nor wanting to slow the sales of firearms.

I put some thought into this, and while the following opinion didn't get posted as a reply (I went into left field tangent mode), I thought it'd be good thinking fodder for anyone who happens to read this blog.

The problems that the "evil gun lobby" in the states has with a registry like you propose here is that it violates the spirit of the second amendment.

The second amendment was placed in the constitution for the express purpose of allowing the people of the US to keep their government in check for the inevitable time when it grows far to big and powerful for it's own good. Some posture that this has already happened, but this is beside the point.

A register like you suggest would inevitably lead to abuse and the disarmament of the citizens that the government deems "dangerous". While it sounds like it could be an ideal thing, eventually the entire population would be deemed "dangerous", thus stripping the right to keep our government in check.

Votes are just pieces of paper. When there is no check on power, those pieces of paper can be safely ignored, and thus the US representative republic now becomes some sort of sick dictatorship. It won't happen overnight, but entropy reigns every system, including political systems.

And finally, in a somewhat tangential point, firearms are just tools. Just like your car, the set of kitchen knives you prepare food with every night, the pen you jot down quick notes with, and the air powered nail gun that roofers use to put shingles up. Every single item mentioned can be used to hurt and/or kill someone, as well as it's designed task. The firearm's designed task was to allow a person to hunt for food, and defend their own lives, both of which are noble goals. You mock this in your post, but when the balance of power is no longer in your hands in a situation (say bear attack, or your friendly neighborhood tweaker that's lost his mind with a knife), you look for a way to correct that. When your, or your significant other's, life is endangered. the firearm is the great equalizer. Ask your friendly neighborhood police officer: In the hands of a competent, trained, and practiced person, the firearm is a great tool.

All tools can be used for noble and evil purposes. Please don't assume that all guns and sidearms are evil, or only used for evil purposes.

Concerning the recent developments in the UK:

I really wonder how many people are going to trust the health care system over there anymore. Really.

I mean, there was essentially a cabal of people in the medical field over there that basically took it upon themselves to break the Hippocratic oath for a religious cause. The problem that I see here is "how long until they infect their patients with something really nasty to infect the populous with?".

I was genuinely surprised when I heard the words "doctor", "terrorist", and "explosives" in the same sentence. I believe the people in the medical field have access to things that are so much more insidious, more horrific, and more panic inducing than explosives. Hell, we've seen what we do with suspected Anthrax and Eubola samples. I'm not saying our reactions are not justified. They are, as these two items are huge on the list of destructive potential, but what about stuff that we haven't seen or heard much of? How about a manipulated strain of Necrotizing Fasciitis? I do not believe these things are not out of the reach of modern medicine. I also believe that items needed to facilitate work on stuff like this were probably available to at least a few of these physicians.

Then again, I just might have too much time on my hands for my brain to work.

Mel Martinez, you're fired.

Mel is "dissapointed" about the defeat of the latest amnesty bill to cross the Senate floor. I'm sorry that you felt it necessary to vote for it in the first place, Mel. Deeply sorry.

I must admit that after I heard about the first successful cloture vote concerning S. 1639, I was a bit livid. I was disappointed that our Senate would say "Well, the existing laws weren't enforced properly, but by God, we will make shure that the resources are available to enforce these!" and actually expect us to believe that the enforcement would happen differently than it has in the past. I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, I'm not buying it.

These are my desires concerning illegal immigration currently:

1. Seal the borders. With a fence and concrete car barriers. Make shure that it's prohibitively difficult to get in. No cameras, no UAVs. FENCE and CONCRETE. This will be passed in an independent bill with simple language that will have no more than a few pages to it. All other legislation concerning immigration will be put on indefinite hiatus until this first provision is resolved. We work hard to keep tabs on those arriving by plane or boat, placing huge checkpoints in those points of entry. Why should the land border be any different?


2. Make it easy for employers to verify identifying papers that people present for employment. I'd be happy with a 10 business day turnaround for verification. This should be plenty of time to search a database for a green card/Social Security number/work visa. This process will need to be streamlined over the next few years to bring the turnaround time to less than 5 business days.


3. Penalize the crap out of employers that give illegals jobs, after number 2 has been enacted. Make it painful to get caught employing illegals. Extremely painful. Something on the order of a significant percentage of the company's gross income.


4. Require existing illegal immigrants to contact the US Embassy in their country of origin IN PERSON to get a work visa. Limit the number of these visas to the number of employers asking for employees from this labor pool. Each of these work visas will have the employee's sponsor's name attached to it. The work visa shall be valid for 1 year, renewable indefinitely annually by the visa's sponsor. If the employer does not employ the number of people requested for a minimum of 1 year, slap a stiff fine on them. If the employee finds work for another employer, it will be the responsibility of the new employer and the employee to have the sponsor name changed on the employee's work visa. These work visas will be cataloged in the database mentioned in number 2. If it is discovered that the employee is gaming the system, or shell corporations are being set up to bring people over, all of those involved will be brought up on racketeering and human transport charges. Immigrants convicted of these charges will be deported immediately, with no hope getting another work visa or hope of returning. Natives will spend a very long time in a Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, with all assets seized.


5. One of the primary requirements of attaining a work visa will be a semi-fluent grasp of the English language. We are not going to conform to your society here. You are being welcomed into ours. The phrase "When in Rome..." applies here.


6. One of the primary requirements of attaining a work visa will be a clean criminal record in your country of origin. Those who break their society's mores are not welcome here, as you will probably be breaking ours as well.


7. Those getting work visas shall be held to the same standard that the rest of us are: Obey the law in their area. Anything more than a misdemeanor charge means they lose their work visa and are deported back to their country of origin with no hope of getting another work visa or no hope of returning.


8. Illegal immigrants that refuse to leave in a timely manner after the passage of the legislation above shall be arrested and held in a local Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison until another group of deportees are being escorted out of the country. This should help with the cost of deporting people by doing it in groups rather than individuals. Deportations will happen by bus if the deportee is going to Mexico or Canada. Deportees to other countries would go by boat. Pending approval of the Pentagon, in the brig of our U.S. Navy ships. Forgoing that, other means would have to be worked out.

I believe these steps will be a great start to meaningful immigration reform: Control the flow of immigrants. Make it difficult for illegal immigrants to get work and many will go home. Those that don't get arrested and held until they get to ride home with several of their closest friends. Regulate the number and quality of those coming back. There are probably loopholes (some may be gaping) in my statements above, and I would hope that people smarter than me would help us find and close them, but I feel that it's a good baseline to start with.

Mel, this bill didn't do any of that in any sort of meaningful way. You can point to provisions that hinted at it, but most of those provisions are on the law books already. This sir, was the last straw. You have lost my vote in 2010. Have fun in the private sector. Hope you liked being a lawyer.

Big damn (motorcycle) hero

The movie "The World's Fastest Indian" is a great psuedo-biography of a motorcycle racing legend: Burt Munro.

Burt was a genius and a madman. Read more here.

Then watch the movie. I highly recommend almost family friendly movie.

QFT

In the context I'm using it, Quoted for truth. Nothing else better applies to the following: KXCD for 2007-05-07. I'll be damned if Randall Munroe didn't just hit it on the head.