The USS Quad Damage

I’ve bit the bullet and joined facebook. A friend I haven’t seen in ages asked me to join, and I felt the pressure. After a little bit of coaxing I felt, it couldn’t be that bad, could it? I’ve had intelligent uni friends join it, workmates, etc. all join it and not really complain. Maybe this would really be an easy and convenient way of keeping in touch with friends.

It isn’t.

Facebook is the same as friendster and myspace. Maybe it’s even worse. It had the nerve to ask for my gmail password so it could take all my contacts from there. Firstly, vomit, secondly, fuck off. I’m not even in a secure session. I felt immediately constricted. Nothing I even remotely wanted to do was possible. There have been a bunch of people add my email to facebook. I expected to see their “add me as a friend” on there, but no dice. After adding Raji and a couple of others (with no way of knowing who’s on either waiting list) I went about looking for a feedreader, and I added this site.

You’re supposed to be able to edit your profile page. This is a lie. All the garbage that exists there is not removable. Your stupid fucking wall is not removable. It wasn’t until I deleted where I worked that I could remove my work details from the profile page. Luckily I could add the feed to the page, so anyone who passes by will know about the quad.

Then I looked for flickr. Found it, added it. Both these “applications” (which are little third party add-ons for facebook) are buggy as all hell. If you remove a feed without removing it from your profile, there’s no way to get rid of it from your profile page without adding the feed again, removing it from your profile, then removing the feed. The flickr application crashed on me as well.

After getting both of them working, I proceeded to remove everything from my little “mini-feed”, which is full of shit no one should care about, like all the minor changes you’ve made to your site. I mean, WTF?

I then changed my status to something appropriate, took a screenie for flickr, and posted this.

Ugh, I even wrote that like a livejournal entry. I think I’m going to be sick.

[Edit: Because I’ve decided to enter this den of evil, I figure I’d better join something good as well, so I’ve signed up to Fidg’t]

[Edit 2: So maybe Fidg’t is a mistake. Take a look at Plaxo instead. I’ve written stuff here.]

So, what’s your stance on Euthanasia? What about Abortion? Gay Marriage? Climate Change? What about Calculus? Some people are clearly against calculus. There’s a reason why I didn’t understand general studies in high school. It’s because it made no fucking sense.

What is delicious?

That’s not even a question. That’s an answer on Jeopardy:

Trebek – It is a chocolate coated in a candy shell.
Gabe – What is delicious?

You can’t have an opinion on “abortion” because it doesn’t actually mean anything on it’s own. It’s just too abstract a concept that needs some context with which to make decisions. What’s worse is, putting a complicated issue like “abortion” in a sound-byte gives people the impression they understand what’s going on when they clearly don’t.

So, unless you can write up a projection matrix, keep your mouth shut on Bioshock’s widescreen, idiot.

OK so I went to a Gym today and signed some form agreeing to their terms and conditions and started paying a monthly fee for it.

However I started reading the terms and they said that they could terminate my membership to the gym if I ever did anything they deemed against the spirit of the establishment and a bunch of other things. I guess that means they can cancel the contract when ever they want too.

Also they seem to be able to change the terms and conditions when ever they want. I assume they’ll let me cancel if I don’t like any new terms and conditions or increases in the monthly fee :\

Thats not the worst part either. I had to take a physical, get my fitness, muscle mass and fat levels tested and recorded. Apparently if I ever leave or they cancel the contract we have going I have to return to my original fitness, muscle and fat levels. They’ll get a court order and surgically “fix it” if they have to!

I asked about it and they said that they only offered usage of the equipment and an environment to socialise with others. Any fitness increase, muscle development or fat loss was theirs and I could only keep it so long as I was a customer.

Not only that but if any of my friends want to goto my new gym they’ll either have to pay for two memberships or suffer the same fate as me.

Lastly I’m not allowed to create a “competing” gym. Which apparently includes using my own at home weight set.

Man things were so much simpler before gyms had EULA’s.

My brother downloads Indian movies all the time. We watch them when they come out in cinemas here, or whenever we can get legitimate copies on DVD, but most of the times without seeing the final product buying an Indian movie without having seen it is a sure-fire way to waste your money. The problem is that the quality of Hindi film is extremely variable, and the reviews don’t really mean much. A “hit” movie could be a complete waste of time and a “flop” could be excellent. Even directors can make gems or garbage depending on the circumstances.

Perhaps it’s because they’re musical, but Indian movies are often didactic and over-done to Shakespearean proportions. Also, because they’re often so long, movies are often “two-parts”, where the two parts may as well be completely separate movies. The first part may be a waste of time, but the second part may be excellent, or a movie may have an excellent setup which ends up leading nowhere. Worst are the pretend “sophisticated” movies, or thrillers, or other movies which are really just re-done western movies with Indian settings.

To find a good Indian movie which is beautifully put together as well as having great characters and storyline is a difficult ask. To find a movie which touches you is near impossible. The last Indian movie worth it’s time was Dor. You still know well in advance how the story’s going to proceed, but it’s done extremely well. Khamoshi is brilliant purely due to Nana Patekar. In fact, Nana Patekar is so good, he completely eclipsed the fact that the movie contained Salmaan Khan, who is practically the Van Damme of Indian cinema.

If a movie as good as the ones I’ve mentioned comes about once a year would make it a good year for Indian cinema. This year’s masterpiece is definitely Chatri Chor (Umbrella Thief), or it’s english name “Blue Umbrella”. In fact, I’d put it as the best of the best. The storyline is so simple, the characters so well put together and so well acted (for the most part) I cannot fault it. The more I think about it the more brilliantly well put together the movie seems. It will appeal to everyone, bar none. Watch it, or else you suck. When it comes out on DVD, I’ll be getting it.

It seems that, by the end of the year, John Howard will be replaced as Australias Prime Minister.

But how will the nation remember him? A few have stated that he’s done nothing and will be remembered as the Prime Minister who did nothing. Or the person who took us to war in Iraq. Or even as that guy with the really big eye brows.

I however disagree. I believe. No I know, he’ll be remembered as the Man who lead Australia into the 20th Century.

Think about all the great things he’s done. Reintroduction of xenophobia, removal of trade unions power, keeping us safe from legalised gay marrige, abortion and stem cell research.

I ask you. Who else since the late 20th century has done so much to prepare and lead the way into the 20th century than John Howard?

Sure a few whiney intellectual types may cry that he’s actually supposed to be leading Australia into the 21st century. However at the end of the day whats a century here or there in a few thousand years time? By then John Howard will be seen as a visionary, for being so far ahead of his time in the late 19th and early 20th century.

I’m about to make another achievement in the world tomorrow if my farcical graduation ceremony is anything to go by. I’ve successfully completed my training college studies and have progressed to the on-field portion of my probationary employment.

I am a little excited, but more so for my colleagues than myself… I’ve seen them develop alongside me and can share in their joy and sense of accomplishment. But I don’t particularly feel the customary jubilation for my own achievement.

So I started to wonder why… and here are my thoughts to date:

1. I do have a real distaste for being given acknowledgment by a certain body (especially a self appointed one that I may not personally respect or hold in high regard). I can gauge my capabilities quite accurately in most circumstances (academic primarily) and I love gaining knowledge and expanding my understanding on different matters, but to then have to prove that to a governing agent(cy) and to have them present you with their ‘certification’ does rub me the wrong way. I dislike being expressed as a non-entity and given worth on their designed and quantified scale. Yes, I am aware of the many ironies of judgments and scalings we all use in our daily lives… I still find it irritating (rebelling against authority?).

2. I need a major event to be of importance. I need to care for it myself, and to a very real degree I need the important people in my life to care for my acknowledgment. Does it really matter if a random person or entity congratulates me? I am tediously weary, and irrationally aggravated by ingenuity and social games that people play. I don’t want words or actions which don’t have a truthful meaning behind them.

3. Moments of actual innate joy and appreciation are extremely personal. No one can truly appreciate the many small intricacies in your life and the trials and tribulations you may have undergone to reach a conclusion that invokes these feelings within you. At times like these, perhaps because of my lacking nature, I feel an intense desire to share my happiness with those that have affected my life in a positive way in achieving this fleeting euphoria. Can I give my memories life by sharing them with my loved ones? If I should forget, can I relive it in their eyes? In their re-telling of that moment? In that reminiscent joy that they express for me? Who should I burden with such a heavy responsibility?

So what does that leave me with? Buggered if I know.

From wired.com Courts Turn Against Abusive Clickwrap Contracts.

It may come as a supprise to the companies/lawyers who draft click-wrap and shrink-wrap contracts. However for the rest of us the act of buying a box, being told by said box that should we open said box we’d be bound by the contract contained within said box hasn’t made the slightest logcal sense ever.

I’m not going to retell the points that someone else clearly more knowledgable and experienced on the subject from a legal point of view has already writern. Simply take the link above. However I will add some of my own thoughts.

If a click-wrap/shrink-wrap contract costs more in legal fees (actual or otherwise) to write than it does for the product. It should be invalid.

Look at it this way.

Say you have a $100 product. Your company expects to sell a million units of said product. Each sale will net you $1 profit. Thus your total profits are $1 mil.

Then lets say each unit comes with a contract which cost you $1000 in legal fees to produce so you don’t get “screwed” by your customers. Lets assume the actual writing of it was seperate.

Thus it is expected that your customers would be required to spend $1000 in legal fees to make sure they aren’t going to get screwed.

Thus your customers have four choices. Spend $1000 for no product. Spend $1100 for your product.

Thus a customer is likely to simply spend the extra $100 for your product irrespective of their legal advise.

I said they had four choices and here’s the other two.

Using the above they can assume that if they pay for legal advise they’ll ignore it and pay for the product. Thus a single choice. Pay $1100 for your product and ignored legal advise.

However if they don’t pay for legal advise they have two choices. They can have no product for $0 or your product for $100 and use their own judgement of which is more than they had with ignored legal advise and inability to use their own judgement.

In effect by drafting an expensive, comlicated contract far in excess of the cost of purchaing your product, you encourage your mark customers to ignore it when purchasing your product and in effect have never sold your product with the contract but in the absence of it.