Kinect is amazing, so why are so many people douche bags?

I'm having a rough week. I've worked my poor little fingers to the bone, and burned the midnight oil about as much as I can. So today I've been spending the little down time I've had reading about Microsoft's new gadget Kinect. If you haven't heard about this, I don't blame you. I've been so focused on work, family, and dirtbikes, that it took my brother Matt telling me about it. Sure, I'd heard about it, but I hadn't done the smallest amount of reading, and didn't really understand what it did.

Now I have, and I'm blown away. Basically the Kinect is a sensor that you put above or below your television, and plug into your Xbox 360. Then you play games similar to the games using your body as the controller. Nope, that wasn't a typo, your body is the controller. I never bought a Wii, and only played on one a couple of times. I've never even touched the Playstation Move. Of course I haven't played with the Kinect yet either... but I will be buying one.

"Why?" I'm glad you asked! Because even with it's current limitations, it is a giant leap into the future of user interfaces. You don't have to hold a controller, it senses your arm (and leg) movements. Depending on the distance from the controller it can also detect hand movements. It does facial recognition, and can automatically load your profile when you get on your console to play! This is a fundamental re-imagining of the way we will interact with technology in the future. This is motion capturing that is light years beyond the techniques used in creating The Matrix!

So on to part two on this post. I've read three or four different blogs, tech articles, and reviews today. In each and every case there is at least one moron in the comments section bashing Microsoft. Why? I'm no Barack Obama fan, but if he did something brilliant (like reduce federal spending, or reduce tax rates across the board), I wouldn't be the first to sing his praises. It seems that there are some people that can't put partisanship aside for anything, be it politics, or gaming consoles.

Here are some of the most ludicris complaints I've read, and my reactions to them;

"I guess it's cool, but $150! and M$ is making almost $100 per device in profit!"
Umm, were you stupid enough to think that Microsoft is a charity? According to EEtimes the Kinect costs Microsoft only $56 to produce. OK even if that was the case, I'd be completely fine with it. However the EEtimes article is completely misleading. The $56 price tag is what it would cost to buy all of the parts. It doesn't account for assembly, shipping it to the local Game Stop, or "gasp" the R&D that went into determining what combination of $56 worth of parts it would take in order to achieve the results!

The original prototype cost Microsoft $30,000 to build. They have spent an estimated $500 million in advertising to get people on the Kinect bandwagon (obviously it didn't work for me). But this is all part of the larger problem, and until we start teaching the younger generation that people deserve to get paid for their work, it's going to keep getting worse.

Mike

A Note on Christopher Hitchen

It’s a strange world we live in, and from time to time we are affected by people, in ways that make no logical sense. For example I want to talk to a person that I respect in certain areas, and view as a side show freak in others. I don’t know how many people reading my blog will recognize the name Christopher Hitchens. He is an author and journalist who has a long and heady history of defying conventional norms.

Like many other people Christopher went from being an avowed socialist, to a free market capitalist, all the time staying a fan of Marx. He believes that Marx’s revolutionary ideals are a good thing, and that if Marx had truly understood the revolutionary nature of capitalism, then he would have been a fan. I’m not convinced.

Politics however is not what I want to talk about. Mr. Hitchens is an atheist, and one of the founders of the “New Atheism” movement. Feel free to read the Wiki on it, but the down and dirty sum is, New Atheism is a religion. Basically a religion, whose key precept is to reject the notion that there is any God.

His writings are not just of a questioning nature; they are a categorical denial of God. He has made statements impugning men because they have some sort of faith, saying that he believes, “All religious belief is sinister and infantile”.

Now Mr. Hitchens is fighting for his life. In June he was diagnosed with Metastatic Esophageal Cancer. The prognosis isn’t good, and Mr. Hitchens has stated that with prodigious use of alcohol and cigarettes, you “make yourself a candidate”. Many people all around the world are praying for him to recover from this dreadful disease. And that makes Mr. Hitchens mad, very mad indeed.

Well Mr. Hitchens, I am here to give you solace. If you want to reject the prayers being directed at you, then that is your prerogative. One of the things that believers like myself do is pray for those that we care about. It’s not that weird, actually it’s kind of nice. Maybe he should take the advice of fellow atheist Penn Jillette (Warning - Language, but since when did Penn say anything that didn’t have curse words in it?).

Christopher, you don’t mind if I call you Christopher do you? Has it ever occurred to you that there are many people who are as passionate about their faith as you are about your lack there of? Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and convert you, us Mormons send out young men in white shirts and blue suits to do that ;-) What I am going to do is try to talk to you on a human level.

It does not hurt you when others pray for you, and there is nothing you can do to stop the people who love you from praying for you. They are giving you the most significant gift anyone can give, bandwidth. Sorry if you don’t understand, I’m a Network Engineer, and I am putting this in terms that make sense to me. You see everything has limited bandwidth. Think about a water hose, the amount of water that can be pushed through that hose is limited by the diameter of the hose. The same goes with computer networks, and people’s lives. There is only so much that we can fit into our lives, only so many things we can think about in a day, and only so many mentions we can make in our prayers. If someone has decided to include you in one or more of those things, then they have given you the greatest gift they can give you.

As precious as that gift is, does it really matter what form it comes in? Do the prayers tear away slowly at your atheism? Some people would swear that they can feel the prayers of others strengthening them. I know you would never say that you can feel them like a burden, since that would make your stance against them null, but honestly other than fodder for your articles what does it matter to you if people are praying for you health and well being?

Mike

The Vaccination Debate

I will admit that I am reflexively turned off by a few different things, multi-level marketing, and big-government are in my top three. However, there is one that tops them all. It's not easy to define because it ranges across political affiliation, religion, and all other demographics. What is this issue? Well, it's not an issue it zealotry. Every once in a while I am confronted with someone who is so insanely devoted to their little idea that they have ceased to think rationally. They accept those who build up their fervor un-questioningly, yet shun anyone who dares to question the veracity of their claims. This ugly little monster has reared its ugly head again, and I decided to spend my lunch addressing the issue.

For most people vaccinations are a nothing, something that we don't spend a lot of our mental energy thinking about. Most of us look at it as a given that we will have our children vaccinated against deadly diseases, but look at a flu shot as something that we may or may not get each year. It's not a terribly sophisticated position, and that's because it means so little to us. Unfortunately there are people among us who get worked up into a frenzy over the slightest mention of vaccination. Since I am aware anyone in the latter category has passed beyond the point of reasonable discussion, this is for those of you who are wondering what the issue is, and want to understand some of inner workings. I have taken the most common objections to vaccinations that I have heard and done some research. I am disregarding any unsubstantiated claims, all the numbers I get will be backed up by data from reputable institutions.

1. So let's get started with this claim: Vaccinations are not the life saving medicine we have been told. I've heard this claim a thousand different ways. Some state that even though diseases died down after vaccinations were created for them it wasn't the vaccinations that did that it was the change in climate, or change in hygiene of the population. I'm sure that modern hygiene has gone a long way to curbing diseases, there is definitely something to be said for sanitary living conditions, and proper nutrition increasing our resistance to disease, but numbers from every institution that I searched showed that immunizations have done a much greater job then hygene. Here is a graph showing the reported incidents of measles from 1920 to 1995.
   

In 1963 the vaccine for measles was licensed for use, and by 1965 is was in wide production and distribution. Does anyone notice what happened after that? Well that cliff isn't conjecture, this is according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and if you find them to be to biased a group I can't help you. This is one example, anyone willing to do a little research will find that this is not an isolated case, the same story has been told in relation to rubella, pertussis, and diphtheria.

1. Claim: Vaccines have more severe side effects than the disease itself. Many people who say this have bought into some very dubious claims made by the anti-vaccine groups. Most of these claims rely heavily on the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) and seem to believe that every issue reported to VAERS is directly linked to the vaccine. As with any medication there are some possible side-effects. If you get a shot you may experience muscle soreness in the limb to which you received the shot. Of course the anti crowd will cling to the worst reported events, even if they cannot be laid at the foot of the vaccine. Here is a sampling of some typical vaccine related health risks, against some of the typical risks of getting the disease itself. I think it speaks for itself (numbers are combined from the CDC, and US Public Health Service).
   

Disease-Related Risks	Adverse Effects ofVaccination
Measles Pneumonia: 1 in 20 Encephalitis: 1 in 2,000 Death: 1 in 3,000 Mumps Encephalitis: 1 in 300 Rubella Congenital Rubella Syndrome: 1 in 4, (if woman becomes infected early in pregnancy)	MMR Vaccine Encephalitis or severe allergic reaction: 1 in 1,000,000
Diphtheria Death: 1 in 20 Tetanus Death: 3 in 100 Pertussis Pneumonia: 1 in 8 Encephalitis: 1 in 20 Death: 1 in 20	DTP Vaccine Continuous crying, then full recovery: 1 in 100 Convulsions or shock, then full recovery: 1 in 1,750 Acute encephalopathy: 0-10.5 in 1,000,000 Death: None proven

1. Claim: Vaccine preventable diseases have disappeared from the US, so there is no reason to vaccinate children.
   

I took this verbatim from Quakwatch.com because it said everything I wanted to say about this issue

"It's true that vaccination has enabled us to reduce most vaccine-preventable diseases to very low levels in the United States. However, some of them are still quite prevalent—even epidemic—in other parts of the world. Travelers can unknowingly bring these diseases into the United States, and if we were not protected by vaccinations these diseases could quickly spread hroughout the population, causing epidemics here. At the same time, the relatively few cases we currently have in the U.S. could very quickly become tens or hundreds of thousands of cases without the protection we get from vaccines.

We should still be vaccinated, then, for two reasons. The first is to protect ourselves. Even if we think our chances of getting any of these diseases are small, the diseases still exist and can still infect anyone who is not protected. A few years ago in California a child who had just entered school caught diphtheria and died. He was the only unvaccinated pupil in his class.

The second reason to get vaccinated is to protect those around us. There is a small number of people who cannot be vaccinated (because of severe allergies to vaccine components, for example), and a small percentage of people don't respond to vaccines. These people are susceptible to disease, and their only hope of protection is that people around them are immune and cannot pass disease along to them. A successful vaccination program, like a successful society, depends on the cooperation of every individual to ensure the good of all. We would think it irresponsible of a driver to ignore all traffic regulations on the presumption that other drivers will watch out for him or her. In the same way we shouldn't rely on people around us to stop the spread of disease; we, too, must do what we can."

http://www.quackwatch.com/03HealthPromotion/immu/immu06.html

1. 
   
   Claim: Vaccines cause Autism. Autism is a chronic developmental disorder characterized by problems communicating, socializing, and limited or repetitive interests. No one knows the cause of autism, and the parents of autistic children deserve all of our sympathy and support. Boys are 3-4 times more likely to be autistic, and though most autistic children are mentally retarded, about a quarter of them are not. The experts believe that autism is a genetic disorder, and studies have found brain abnormalities in structures that start to grow during the first few weeks of pregnancy.
   
   
   

   
   

   
   

   Let me ask you a question, and be a little bold about it. If you were the parent of an autistic child, and knew that your child would never get to live a normal life. Never get married, have children, and that you would be taking care of them for the rest of your life. Would it be easier to a) Accept that you or your spouse passed down this genetic defect to your child, or b) blame the MMR vaccine…? I think the answer is obvious. I don't blame these parents, I blame the people pushing this nonsense. If they really cared, then they would put their energy into autism research, not scare mongering.
   

   
   

   
   

OK, I've given four and there are a lot more, but the real issue is that people are spreading this nonsense. There are many people who will believe anything, I like to call them the 12Percenters, statistically 12% of people believe in insane theories. Pick a conspiracy theory and you will have 12% or less of the population that believe it is true. Case in point, 12% of the U.S. population believes that Elvis is still alive, and I bet we'll have similar numbers for Michael Jackson.

So who exactly are the people waging the attack against immunization? I think the term "the usual suspects" works here. Most of them are practitioners of homeopathic or allopathic medicine. These are people who don't believe in 90% of western medicine, and think that herbs or moon stones are better at treating cancer than chemotherapy and other "traditional" methods. Of course their real claims are that if you lived the lifestyle they suggest then you never would have gotten cancer in the first place. While these people may believe their hype, and honestly believe what they are preaching, most of them have a degree from a correspondence school. This is about the same as getting religious guidance from someone who became a minister after sending $500 to an online church. I believe the most important thing to do is research yourself, research the people who are making the claims also. Remember, not all M.D.s are created equal. Also, ask your DOCTOR questions, if the doc thinks you don't deserve to have your questions answered, find another doctor. Above all, ignore youtube videos with outrageous claims. I could make a video that would star Mother Theresa as Jiminy Cricket, it doesn't mean she was.

Mike

P.S.

My biggest disappointment in this was the relationship between Chiropractors, and the anti-vaccine movement. I've respected the Chiropractic profession for years, but their throwing in with this nonsense is very disturbing. Read more Here.

Chicago’s Out, Obama’s Done

Who could have seen this coming? This time last year Obama was golden, he was going to re-define the world's view of America. Today he has officially become the Jimmy Carter clone that many of us said he would be.

Let me be clear (to borrow his phrase), Obama has trounced upon this country in every venue he has been to. Maybe the fact that he didn't have a strong family unit played into this. You see, all of us who grew up with siblings know that no matter how badly we talk about our brothers, and no matter how many times we fight with them, it is never acceptable to allow others to do the same. My brother and I used to beat the stuffing out of each other on a regular basis, but it was never acceptable for anyone else to do so. The world feels the same way, I'm sure the French talk about their countries flaws amongst themselves, but if Jaques Chirac were to do that on the national stage his countrymen would turn against him in a very decided manner.

So when he shows up at the IOC and starts to talk about his country (more himself than his country, but hey his ego is bigger than Alaska and Texas combined), and makes little back handed jabs at our society it doesn't sit well with other people… even the ones who agree with him. Here are a few ways he could have spent his time more productively than going on a fun run to Copenhagen.

1. Give General McChrystal a call. You have only talked with him once since you got into office, maybe you should actually listen to the man who is in charge over in Afghanistan. He has said that more troops are needed or the mission will end in failure. In case you missed this line from the job description the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces; that means YOU are supposed to make them a priority above paying back political favors to you Chicago friends.
   
2. Remember the "Stimulus" that you said was needed immediately or else unemployment would hit record highs, and the U.S. economy would continue downward? Well, you got your wish; congress gave you what amounts to a $182,000,000,000 check (CBO numbers including the "tax cuts" to people who don't pay income tax anyway). Nine months later only 10% of the stimulus has been spent, and unemployment is at a record high 9.8%. Either stop the spending of the stimulus or, get on with it. If it was cancelled Wall street would have a banner week, and if it was actually spent then there would be a short term boost. Either way pick a path and get trucking.
   
3. Address the ACORN issue. In case you've been hanging out in the bunker for the past month, ACORN has been exposed as the criminal enterprise it has always been. Your campaign paid $800,000 to ACORN for their Get Out the Vote efforts, and you have past affiliations with them as a trainer and community organizer. I know people largely gave you a pass in the last election on your dubious connections (Rev. Wright, William Ayers, ect.), but your shine has dulled. If you plan on running for re-election in 2012 then I highly suggest you stop blaming everybody else, and get out in front of this scandal. We all know that this ACORN mess is going to just get worse as the investigations go on. You were willing to call a white cop's actions stupid when you didn't know the facts of the case, why aren't you willing to call ACORN out knowing a lot more about them?
   

I wasn't coherent when Carter was president. But I do remember the lame duck status of Bill Clinton's second term. Right now this President Obama looks just as lame, but even more so due to his arrogance. I can see a swing in both houses of congress next year, and someone else in the White House in 2012 (if I were a Democrat I'd be looking for someone else to run for the Presidency in 2012). It's going to take a lot of work to save this presidency, and I don't think President Obama is good at actual work, he is the empty suit stereotype incarnate.

 

Mike

A Great Escape

I know that the calendar says today is Tuesday, but let's be honest for a moment, it's a Monday. The tasks are typical Monday fair, and the feeling of running in quicksand is distinctively Monday.

That being said, it was a great weekend. On Saturday Janika the twins and I hung out with Steve and Lori. We went out to breakfast at Norma's, looked at musical instruments at Murphy's Music, and then went to Silverlake Marina on Grapevine Lake. Steve and I both love to look at boats, and since we were in Grapevine we decided to go to Bass Pro and look at the boats there. While we were there I decided I wanted to look at the archery equipment.

You see, one of my fondest memories is saving up $12 to buy a bow and arrow set. Once I had managed to save up the money, my parents took me to the feed store to get a bale of hay to use as a target. I remember shooting it at the football field across the street, and being very proud of the accuracy I was able to produce. Sadly, once that bow was gone I didn't pick one up again seriously until this weekend.

We had been in Bass Pro looking around for a while when I headed over to the archery department, and started browsing through the bows and various accessories. I thought it would be fun to shoot as a hobby, and then use my bow for hunting as well. So I looked at bows, and then left the archery department to find the rest of my crew. They were in the clothing area, and Steve was trying on some very spiffy shirts. Janika was looking through the clearance racks, but I knew what I wanted, and I couldn't wear it.

As adeptly as possible I strung my fellow travelers over to the Archery department, and proceeded to pick up the bows that I had determined to be the best options for my goals. Matt, the associate who helped me, talked me through some of the finer points of modern compound bows. I settled on a Fred Bear Showdown, and they proceeded to adjust the sights, pull and all of the other bow dynamics for me. The gentlemen at Bass Pro were great. Not only did they set up my bow, they gave me some advice on proper form, and how to use the equipment I was buying.

The bow I bought had a front sight, a rear peep sight, and weird things like a "stabilizer" and a "whisker biscuit". I also had to buy a release, arrows, and a target. Once I had purchased all of this, (to the silent, peaceful resignation of my wife) we headed home. I was excited, and posted on Facebook that I had bought a bow. I was amazed at the speed in which the conversations started. My brother Matt has a very similar bow to mine, and we started talking shop. Soon he was posting videos of him shooting, and the bug became too much. I grabbed my gear and headed out to the back yard.

Honestly I was a little scared, it had been many moons since I had last fired a bow, and now I was dealing with a completely foreign sighting system, release system, and style of shooting than I had ever know. To amplify the new factor, I was shooting in my back yard. After a couple of shots I was in love. Using a release is almost a Zen experience compared to using your fingers. Add to that the sighting system, smoothness of pull, and balance of a modern compound bow and it was incredible. I continued shooting until my shoulders and back where sore from using muscles that hadn't seen work in years.

I love my family, and over the years regret that my relationship is not stronger with my closest (age wise) brother. The fact that there is something like this that we both thoroughly enjoy makes me hopeful for future days; Possible hunting trips, and getting together to enjoy a great sport together.

Mike

Go Green Death!

Volunteer soccer coach Michael Kinahan is a volunteer, and now he is coaching no longer. Why? As we all know if must have been a very malicious act to get him to resign his post. Was he a pervert? No. Was he abusive? No. He was funny, but not funny enough it seems to save his position.

Before the season began he wrote an e-mail to the parents of the precious snowflakes he was going to be coaching. It was an insane rant that would have had everyone cracking up, had Will Farrell done it. Alas, Michael has never been an SNL cast member. So instead of the standing ovation he deserves he got parents complaining to the league. So he resigned, and now these little snowflakes will get another coach. Will their new coach have the passion and love coaching that Michael had? We may never know. What we do know is that these little girls missed out on being coached by comic genius.

Here is the letter of death that Coach Kinahan wrote;

Congratulations on being selected for Team 7 (forest-green shirts) of the Scituate Soccer Club! My name is Michael, and I have been fortunate enough to be selected to coach what I know will be a wonderful group of young ladies.

Okay, here's the real deal: Team 7 will be called Green Death. We will only acknowledge "Team 7" for scheduling and disciplinary purposes. Green Death is not a team but a family (some say cult) that you belong to forever. We play fair at all times, but we play tough and physical soccer. We have some returning players who know the deal; for the others, I only expect 110 percent at every game and practice. We do not cater to superstars but prefer the gritty determination of journeymen who bring their lunch pail to work every week, chase every ball, and dig in corners like a Michael Vick pit bull.

Some say soccer at this age is about fun, and I completely agree. I believe, however, that winning is fun and losing is for losers. Ergo, we will strive for the W in each game. Although we may not win every game (excuse me, I just got a little nauseous), I expect us to fight for every loose ball and play every shift as if it were the finals of the World Cup. As I spent a good Saturday morning listening to the legal-liability BS, which included a thirty-minute dissertation on how we need to baby the kids and especially the refs, I was disgusted. The kids will run, they will fall, get bumps and bruises, even bleed a little. Big deal; it's good for them (but I do hope the other team is the one bleeding). If the refs can't handle a little criticism, then they should turn in their whistles. My heckling of the refs actually helps them develop as people. The political-correctness police are not welcome on my sidelines. America's youth are becoming fat, lazy, and noncompetitive because competition is viewed as "bad." I argue that competition is crucial to the evolution of our species and our survival in what has become an increasingly competitive global economy and dangerous world. Second-place trophies are nothing to be proud of. They serve only as a reminder that you missed your goal; their only purpose is as an inspiration to do that next set of reps. Don't animals eat what they kill? (And yes, someone actually kills the meat we eat—it isn't grown in plastic wrap.) And speaking of meat, I expect that the ladies be put on a diet of fish, undercooked red meat, and lots of veggies. No junk food. Protein shakes are encouraged, and while blood doping and HGH use is frowned upon, there is no testing policy. And at the risk of stating the obvious, blue slushies are for winners.

These are my views and not necessarily the views of the league (but they should be). I recognize that my school of thought may be an ideological shift from conventional norms. But it is imperative that we all fight the good fight, get involved now, and resist the urge to become sweatxedo-wearing yuppies who sit on the sidelines in L.L. Bean chairs sipping mocha-latte-half-caf-accinos while discussing reality TV and home decorating with other feeble-minded folks. I want to hear cheering, I want to hear encouragement, I want to get the team pumped up and know they are playing for something.

We are all cognizant of the soft bigotry that expects women, and especially little girls, to be dainty and submissive; I wholeheartedly reject such drivel. My overarching goal is to develop ladies who are confident and fearless, who will stand up for their beliefs and challenge the status quo. Girls who will kick ass and take names on the field, off the field, and throughout their lives. I want these girls to be winners in the game of life. Who's with me?

Go Green Death!

Amen…

My problem with Apple

I'm a geek, we all know that. I want the latest greatest machine, overflowing with hard drive space, memory, processing power and the latest GPUs (the more the better). I am also a fan of slick styling, remember looks cool is cool. There are few companies that have accomplished this last objective better than Apple. Their devices look like they were designed by the coolest aliens of all time, and their operating system is a great blend of functionality and fun. Someday Microsoft will start throwing in music editing software with their OS. However it is really hard for me to swallow the crap and what I think is getting really close to lies on their commercials. Every time I hear Justin Long start talking about how Macs don't get viruses, and are unlimitedly stable I want to throw my iPhone at the TV.

I know there is a perception that Windows machines are inherently weak and virus prone, but that is not the case. Let's say for a moment that you are writing a piece of malicious software that you want to use to wreak havoc on the computer community. Are you going to write that virus to attack 10% of the computers or 85%? The simple answer is that you are going to write it to the largest audience available, and that is why there are so many more viruses targeting Microsoft OSs than Macs. Even with their underdog status, there have been plenty of viruses that target Macs. One of the fun ones was called Oompa Loompa, and spread itself via AIM/iChat. The amazing thing is that no one seems to want to talk about this. If Macs were "immune" to viruses, then why do Symantec (and others) make a Mac version of AV software? The fact is that most Mac users are so pathetically incompetent on a computer that they wouldn't know they had a virus until it had almost shut them down.

On to stability, there are people who claim that Macs are more stable. They may be right, but for one very big reason. Mac writes the software, specs and sells the software, writes the drivers, and takes care of compatibility as one unit. On the other hand if you have a Windows machine, your Operating System is made by Microsoft, your chassis (read case) was made by one manufacturer, your video card, sound card, hard drive, hard drive controller, network adapter, and every other device that you have on your computer were made by someone else, and then all the drivers were made by other people too. Sure, HP, Dell, ect. take try and ensure driver compatibility, but three months from now if you update your network adapter driver, you may be hosed. Is that Microsoft's fault?

Well the truth is, maybe. You see it's really hard to tell. Microsoft wrote the kernel, and the GUI, but nVidia, Intel, HP, Dell, and thousands of other manufacturers wrote the drivers, and other software that you have running on that same system. So you have your choice; pay three times as much for a Mac, and you will get a system that is marginally more stable, and has less exposure to viruses, or buy a PC that will cost you a lot less, but may develop issues after software updates (very rarely in my experience), and of course a great AntiVirus will set you back $30/year.

I don't know what laptop I am going to buy my wife this month, but the more Mac commercials I see, the more likely it won't be a Mac.

Mike

Reverse Proxy and Me

I am starting to learn that I am not the big fan on Microsoft that I once was. I still don't think they are the great Satan like most Macophiles do, but am becoming frustrated by the number of security issues that are being discovered, and the patches that are required to fix those issues. Also, I wish that some of additional functionality would be included with different pieces of their software.

Currently I am addressing the lack of Reverse Proxy in IIS 6 (that is Internet Information Server 6 for the uninitiated). It seems like re-directing port 80 hits should be simple, yet it's not. I am going to have to utilize another piece of software, and while there are hundreds of options, it seems to be either open source or $1500 pre-packaged solution. Frustration runs deep in these veins.

Mike

And now it can be told

Yesterday I did my normal reading, checking out interesting news stories and editorials from around the internet. One in particular made me want to drop kick a hamster, but I got over it. Then this morning I read Steven Crowder's indictment of Hollywood's leading Beta males and it all came back to me.

Let me start off by saying that I don't have a problem with people creating their own wedding traditions. I also don't have an issue with people deciding to do away with formal proposals (I've never made one). I do have a problem with people acting like they are somehow wiser than all of us lemmings for having done it the way they wanted to.

I see modern feminism as one of the most damaging institutions to our families and women. Yep, you heard me correct, OUR women. You can't get mad at that right? After all Hillary Clinton wrote a book called It Takes a Village, so we are one big tribe! While I take exception to her message I agree that we should take care of our own. That includes the next generation of women.

Let's start this conversation by defining what feminism is (you noticed the small "f" right?), and what modern Feminism is (capital "F" now). The traditional feminism acknowledges the difference between the sexes, and understands that the different sexes have different inherent attributes. Men tend to be physically stronger than women, and women tend to be more compassionate than men. No men can give birth, and no women can get pregnant without a man. Generally men make better firefighters, and women make better mothers. There are exceptions, and since we live in a free society those exceptions usually are able to work through the natural cycle.

Modern Feminism teaches that men and women are the same. The only difference is genitalia. Only a moron can believe this, bless their hearts. If you have children you have no doubt noticed that boys gravitate to more masculine, and girls to more feminine, toys. One of the famous quotes of the new feminists was "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Of course if you are like me and believe that the human race needs to continue on, then a woman needs a man, if just for simple pro-creation. If you believe that a healthy family unit is important to society, then you will believe that a man needs a woman, just as a woman needs a man.

We have taught a generation of women that they will only get ahead if they behave like men. In return we have ended up with women who have buried natural instincts in favor of outward actions that convey more machismo.

Let me be very clear, women are our moral compass. Men if left to their most base desires would not be faithful to a woman, and would sow their oats in any way possible. The reason men behave civilized in modern society is because women have expected them to do so. When women stop making it clear that they will not throw sex in for pizza and a movie the behavior of men changes, drastically. I have known, and still know, women who are very free with their most personal gifts. They are constantly being hurt by men who use them for that, and then leave them. Because modern feminism has taught them that they have a right to act like men sexually they have done so, but their natural desire for love, understanding, and commitment has gone un-answered. Even more devastating is that they know they shouldn't feel this way, so they are conflicted at a level that most of us don't understand.

Men face a similar challenge, but have been taught to deal with it in a more productive and dynamic way. Our base instinct tells us to procreate, seeing a desirable woman on the street starts a natural hormonal reaction. However we know what the cost is if we pursue that course. We understand that we have given up the stag life for a more rewarding life with our wife and children. Additionally we understand that if we stray from the life that we have chosen, then we will risk losing what we currently have.

Because of this, weaker men play a mind game with themselves. Using lawyer like reasoning they figure, "If I don't get married, then I can't be un-faithful." Society has shot this down and now expects men to behave well even in dating relationships, but the theory still remains. When a man tells a woman that he doesn't need a piece of paper to legitimize their relationship, what he is really saying is that their relationship doesn't need to be tangible. Ladies, you wouldn't buy a car without getting the title, so why would you give something more precious than any amount of money without getting a contract?

I have three daughters and two step daughters; they scare the crap out of me. I want everything for them, and I hope that they will make wise decisions. My oldest just turned fourteen, and is a beautiful young woman. On top of that she is brilliant, I know that someday I will be paying for an Ivy League education. I also know that no matter what school she goes to she will have professors that attempt to indoctrinate her with leftist and feminist propaganda. With just as much conviction I know that there will be a long line of young men vying for her attention. Some of those young men will be of strong character, and others will not be. If she behaves like a lady and lives up to the standards that she has been taught, then she will end up with the former. However, if she abandons those standards the chances are she will end up with the latter.

Mike

All behold the iPhone

I have been neglectful of my blog for a long time. My wife nagged me into dowloading a blogging app for my iPhone, so I guess you'll have to start reading again!