MyATMPinIs1234

Hard Work Required

I think it was the invention of the microwave. That is what taught Americans that there are shortcuts to hard work. Just put your food in the magic box and it will be hot and ready to eat with a button press.

And now it starts at an early age. Remember all the stuff we did in elementary school that was unpleasant but probably taught some valuable skills? All that has been replaced with some button pressing (I assume, because it's not like I hang out and watch elementary schools). You can't really blame them, because if you can't google it, wikipedia it, or punch it in your graphing calculator, it's probably not worth knowing anyways.

Recently an acquaintance of mine confided that they wanted to lose a little weight around the gut area, so I figured I'd proffer some unsolicited advice. But the 2 minute workout and the 3 minute breakfast I suggested were summarily dismissed as being "too much work" (btw, your times may vary).

Curious as to how this person thought they were going to lose weight without any effort, I did the natural thing -- a semi-hostile interrogation.

It turns out, they had replaced the morning coffee and donut with a muffin, but that was not working so they were going to just start having one of those healthy fruit smoothies.

	Dunkin Donuts Glazed Donut	Dunkin Donuts Blueberry muffin	Jamba Juice Chunky Strawberry w/ Omega3 & Granola
Calories	230	470	570
Protein (g)	4	8	17
Carbs (g)	30	73	91
Fat (g)	10	17	17

Yes, I know you were told there would be no math, but based on the information presented above, do we think this person's work & sacrifice avoidance diet plan is going to work, or not?

I think not. Because maybe some day, far far in the future, they will invent a video game where you can just stand on a board and do exercise in front of your TV, but in 2008 getting fit still requires hard work.

* Sources:
http://www.jambajuice.com/menu/nutrition101#/smoothies/
https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/nutrition/Product.aspx?Category=Donuts&id=DD-530
https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/nutrition/Product.aspx?Category=Bakery&id=DD-791

Housekeeping

I see that one or two of you are still visiting my site on a regular basis. I'll let you in on a little secret. Use a feed reader. It will let you know when I write something and keep track of what you've already read.

If you are so busy at work that this is the only blog you check regularly and don't want to use a reader, do yourselves a favor and get Firefox 3. It is a major upgrade to version 2, and totally blows Internet Explorer away. And it has thousands of add-ons that you can download to make it even better.

Organized Labor vs. The Children

In case you missed it, the Wall Street Journal (page 1) today broke a story about how labor unions hate the environment.

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA.

Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary conclusion: "That just doesn't exist."

Ditto for the baseball caps. "We have a union cap or an organic cap," Mr. DeMasse says. "But we don't have a union-organic offering."

Here are some other facts about labor unions and their anti-environment activism:

Many cars are made by labor union members. Cars cause the planet to overheat and flood.

Coal causes a lot of carbon emissions. Most coal is buried harmlessly underground until it is extracted by members of labor unions.

Labor unions frequently protest with large cardboard signs, which require many trees to be needlessly cut down (by other union members).

Facebook Advertising FAIL

In an episode of "The Wire" I was watching yesterday, a gentleman named Omar and his gang have been robbing the drug dealer's stash houses. The drug dealer finally decides to do something about it, and they conceal a few gunmen in the top story of the house. The plan, apparently, was to wait until the next robbery and then open fire from above.

Which they did. At the designated time, they kicked the boards off the windows and started blasting away with their pistols. They managed, by great luck, to pick off one of the robbers, while Omar and two others got away.

What I don't understand, is if you are going to go through the trouble of setting up an elaborate trap and arm a half a dozen men, why not spend the extra five minutes to teach them the Weaver stance, instead of having them wildly shoot pistols with one hand and the gun turned sideways?

Or better yet, why not have two snipers on the roof across the street with some decent rifles? A hundred year old bolt-action rifle from WWI could've ended the standoff almost immediately. The .30-06 Springfield can put a 7.62mm round down range with a muzzle velocity of over 2700 fps and an effective range of over a kilometer. The 90 year old M1 Garand was called by General George Patton, "the greatest implement of battle ever devised."

Omar had a shotgun, so I know it's possible to obtain and conceal long guns. Their reliance on inaccurate pistols and zero training is puzzling.

Arbitrage Opportunity

Coffee: $.50
Ice: $0
---------
Iced Coffee: $2.00

In a previous post I talked about meta-cognitive dissonance, which is the gap between a person's talent level and their self perception of said talent level. I still don't remember whether I stole or made up the name for this, but it turns out it does have a name -- the Dunning-Kruger effect.

In other news, I think this is one of the most entertaining blogs on the internet.

I just finished reading a book about Fundamentalist Mormons (the polygamists), and although it was very good, in case you don't feel like reading the whole thing, I'm going to summarize the difference between them and everyone else.

Fundy Mormon Dude: "God, my neighbor's 16 year old daughter is so hot. I want to make her my wife."
God's Response: "Have at it, Elmer."

Normal Dude: "God, my neighbor's 16 year old daughter is so hot. I want to sleep with her."
God's Response: "Bob, you are a laugh riot. Maybe -- and I mean maybe -- I'll let your 16 year old son sleep with her, if you buy him a nice car. As for you, your wife is on the way home from Walmart with Lubriderm. I already gave you two hands. Have at it."

Do you ever feel like your workday is something to be killed off, like an interminable 5 minute power play?

Oil costs a lot of fucking money. Does anyone else wonder why?

Current prices have caused a drop in demand (people stayed at home on Memorial day, and if they went out left the SUV at home). Supply is stable or growing, due to companies bringing online all kinds of sources that make sense at current prices. Normally reduced demand and increased supply leads to lower prices, but that is not happening, because (you heard it here first), we are in the middle of a huge fucking oil bubble.

Prices are going higher because people think they will be even higher in the future. Not surprising, because after recent equity and real estate meltdowns, investors need to plow their easy money somewhere. But lets face it -- we are not using THAT much more gas (even with china) than we were in 1999. And we're not producing THAT much less oil.

Remember during the dotcom boom when blairwitch.com tried to acquire General Motors? Oil is the blairwitch of 2008.

What are the key takeaways? First, don't make any long term decisions premised on extremely expensive oil. Second, the $2 tip you were generously giving cab drivers last year ISN'T A GOOD TIP ANYMORE.

First Donation To Be Made by My Family Foundation

Underwrite the inclusion of an external LCD display on the next NASA deep space probe, playing Rick Astley on a continuous loop.

Idea For Charity Auction

Wanda Sykes goes with you to all office meetings for a week and tells people how it is.

We're From the Government, and We're Here to Help

Some of you might've heard about this sub-prime mortgage debacle. A large part of the problem was that the ratings agencies, who are in charge of judging how risky a bond is, don't have any idea what they are doing. But at least they have to compete with each other for business.

"Now, while more than one ratings firm reviews most deals, not all of them always rate the deal and get paid (WSJ 6/4, C1)."

Fine, it's clearly not an ideal system, since de-facto, the government only allows 3 ratings agencies, and there are some conflicts of interest... but don't worry, the government has a solution for fixing it!

"Under the Cuomo settlement, which would cover the hardest-hit portions of the mortgage market, the firms would get paid for their review, even if they didn't end up getting hired to rate the deal."

His bright idea is to just pay everyone! Hurray! Thanks for fucking up, here's your huge payday! So now, the ratings agencies still don't have to be competent but now they don't even have to compete with each other.

Btw, the Cuomo in question is not Mario, the former NyGov. It's Andrew, his son, the Attorney General of New York (AGONY), who got the job because of his intellect and experience.

"In a statement, Deven Sharma, S&P's president, said the firm `is pleased to work with New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo and other rating agencies on these important measures, which we believe will help ensure our ratings process continues to be of the highest quality.'"

No shit he's pleased. He just Jedi Mind Tricked the FUCK out of AGONY Cuomo.

A short but incomplete list of things that are more efficiently done on the Internet, might include:

- buying books
- composing and sending mail
- buying wedding presents
- viewing pornography
- doing school research
- obtaining maps and directions
- finding a new job
- finding a date
- garage sales

This is going to take too long. Perhaps it would be easier to make a list of things that are less efficient on the internet. According to most experts, this would include:

- advertising
- That's it. Only advertising

We know this because on the Internet, we have some crude tools to judge the effectiveness of advertising, and it's not that great. You can also tell this is true, because the growth of email spam and banner ads have been really slow over the past decade, while they can't build telemarketer call centers or launch new magazines fast enough. Oh wait... telemarketers and magazines are getting crushed, while the volume of spam is increasing exponentially.

Huh, that's weird. Could it be possible that advertising isn't the only thing less efficient on the internet? Could it be that IRL (that's "in real life" you fogey) advertising is even worse but we have no good way of measuring it and the assumptions are wrong?

No really, I'm asking. I know zip about advertising. I mean, other than that you get to work with models and there's no way to judge your performance.

It's plain to see that the trend in fashion, going back more than a century, is towards more casual attire. From the ornate costumes of the Victorian era to suits and bowler hats of last century to the fact that today we can wear jeans in fancy restaurants, the march continues. Not too long ago, dungarees were for laborers and we had to wear suits to work every day.

So why is it, while otherwise aiming for accuracy, science fiction movies always put people of the future in weird jumpsuits, instead of how they will probably really dress -- like Richard Simmons.