Just get it over with, restrict everything

Everyone has something they’re hung up on.

Some pet project or pet crusade.
Everyone else is failing you in X and X ways and you obviously have the solution.

For instance everyone has their ideas about driving, some are absolutely right and some are wacky and the rest are in between.

What gets me is: the solution I think people run to too willingly is… Make a Law.

I mean making tons of laws is great!!! Laws about anything and everything that could and possibly could concern me or you!

Making a law solves all our problems, doesn’t it?

Sorry I don’t have the time an engery to write this all organized and stuff – but follow along with the blog post and you’re in for a fun ride.

I can make a list right here and now of a bunch of examples of said issues people crusade around.
BUT … then each of you waltz in and grab on to their own issue and start standing on the soap box in defence of their champion.
Some of you are dead set you’re right and every possible thing to restrict that thing from happening is seen as a positive in your book.
Well maybe you’re right that there is a problem… but existence of A Problem does NOT equal allowance of ANY solution!

So let’s take your cure all potion and lump it into one ridiculous situation, we’ll keep it on a driving theme.
Silly string should never be allowed in cars!

I seriously could make arguments as to why silly string is dangerous, I could come forward with scenarios.

Find that 5 people have deployed silly string in the car while driving and it’s caused an accident once.
Of course I wouldn’t tell you how the results were decided I would just say silly string causes accidents at a rate much higher than drunk driving (because that tugs at your heart strings) it’s more dangerous than reckless teenage drivers (because we all hate them and reckless is such a charged word)

I mean heavens sake silly string diving is 20% wreck probability … that’s a crazy high percentage.

Now maybe I’m mistaken on my assumptions of how few people use silly string while driving… in which case I would decide to Not focus on low percentages instead on frequency.
Maybe millions of people do it every single day without problem and yet there are a select few that have a problem (we’ll disallow other things like perhaps they were drunk, or following too close behind, or bad drivers… we won’t look at their driving record or anything else) we’ll simply count up the numbers of any of them that happened to use silly string at some point in time near to their accident. Count up the numbers to get the largest possible. If 10 accidents occurred in a 10 day stretch and there were 11 during that same month stretch we’ll of course use the 10 in 10 days… This is a CRUSADE after all…
It’s all about our RHETORIC isn’t it? Anything to win the crowd to our side.

So silly string causes 100 accidents a year!!!! Kills more people than sharks.
60 people last year died because of silly string that’s more people than died of drunk driving in Utah all of last year!

We can compare it to all previously established vices and oft-perceived No-Nos of our society. (If it works to prove us right)

where does it stack up against Drugs, prostitutes, guns, mass murderers, violent video games, putting on makeup while driving, cutting people off.
If it works to our advantage flaunt it, if it doesn’t, change the criteria or pick another subject. Stretch things.

People these are your TIPS I give you!

This is how you can pick your very own pet crusade and make everyone feel like scum and attack their arguments when they don’t agree.

BTW most people probably agree with you about how deploying silly string is not a good practice while driving, they know it doesn’t increase your driving abilities.

For some Stupid reason they just don’t like it when you restrict so many things and/or the way you do these restrictions. (Babies! and/or illegal immigrants)
They don’t like it when you spend time and money on issue after issue after issue after issue in a never ceasing flow of regulation.
We’ll just call them fricken libertarians wanting their freedom and liberty… but we know better, when it comes down to it, they are just baby killers willing to rape your child because being able to do anything is all they want… they’re all bad people because they don’t want our perfectly valid restrictions.
They want chaos and anarchy. So let’s just ignore them and pigeon whole them with labels they’re all terrorists!

Let’s compare our cause to something that would make them look like monsters if they didn’t support.

Silly string while driving is akin to riding a roller coaster you knew had track missing… you wouldn’t allow an amusement park to operate such a ride would you… ergo we should restrict silly string right?

Then there’s that pesky situation of all those millions of people using silly string while driving… what do we label them?
Do we convince them with percentages and possibilities… and then prey on fear… tell them crashing if not dieing is immanent.

Them crazy rational folks probably want ONE or very few encompassing laws to contain all our many many laws.
They’re probably all concerned about protecting disturbing the rights and safety of others.
But they don’t think about how we can protect them from themselves.
I don’t think they realize that we own them and their actions and if they try to cause harm to themselves they’re actually hurting the IRS and therefore the rest of us.
A dead man can’t pay our social programs… therefore restrict him from doing things that has been known to lead to death.
But what that really is, is just an attempt to take all our fun away.
They say, not following too close behind will solve half of these issues. But they’re just ruining our fun.
We want to entangle the system with our bills our petitions… heck we can get fake politicians Elected on some of these projects and crusades… they don’t even have to be good or have logic they can just trump up the issue d’jour and we’ll all vote.

We’ve got to get the cops new ticket books with a new check box, something else to park on the streets in watch for… another reason to stop us, because there are still a few loopholes where people can drive past without the ability to be stopped by our caring cops, who after all just want to protect us from the wyles of silly string.

I propose let’s just get it over.

Write down your pet cause, trump it up, let’s start a movement.
Whatever you put on here we’ll try to create a bill and a law and large fines to outlaw.
On some of these we won’t stop at out-lawing… we’ll work to Demonize these people!
Because for some reason tickets and fines don’t seem to always work.
But dehumanization does help… heck that’s what we did to the people that used cheese whip in a can… they are now monsters for doing so and silly string is so similar.

I’ll help you… write down your cause and I’ll work on our strategy. Let’s flood the system and once and for all let’s show America that we just need to get all things restricted and under police control.
If we just let them enforce what each cop thinks is no-good then they our fine trained men of the badge will be able to keep us all in line and safe of course.

But be weary of those that sell their snake oil… saying that present laws can be tweaked… we need new ones, new fines, new commercials from ad councils.
We can’t say something like this: No act that distracts your direct sight from driving responsibilities can be performed while within 3-4 seconds of another car (front, back, side)

Because then that would allow cars stuck in stand still traffic a chance to use silly string, or at stoplights, or country roads with no other cars in sight… we need to regulate country-side like it were the city and cities sometimes like they were the country-side.

Plus really what fun would it be to make ONE law for all these crusades… when we could have a bill and a law and separate legislation and training on every single issue.

This is what preventative stuff is all about for us… why go through the hassle of proving innocence and guilt when we can just decide what percentage of people will do something wrong with act X and if the percentage is high enough charge them for that future Probable crime they will or might commit.

I’m seriously done with the old rules… it’s preventative measures from now on!!

Restrict all things that have caused problems and it only stands to reason that no problems will occur… and if you don’t believe that you’re a drunk driving, child porn, drug dealing D-Bag who hates America and obviously voted for Bush and or Supported Clinton’s affair!

You’re welcome for the Tips now go and find your soap box! It doesn’t matter How right you are… if it can cause a problem we need to nip this thing in the bud!!

You all are on the band wagon with silly string.

I would like to introduce you to the Sin of being outside in storms.
Storms are known to have lighting and lightning can hit people and hurt them, disable them and even kill them!

Stand up and stand with me to create new legislation … harass your politicians and tell them why they’ve been slacking and how we won’t vote for them if they don’t get the job done and illegalize being outside in storms.

Who’s with me!! Don’t let the terrorists win!!

In the good old days…

Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem

Principled Voting for a Principled leader

I’ve disliked McCain for a while.

I’ve disliked McCain since I first saw him.
Which was at the republican debates or maybe it was before that on the Daily Show. There was something about him that I couldn’t quite put into words.
I’ve tried.
The best word i’ve come up with was “Snarky”. 

Besides the fact I don’t agree with a lot of his actual positions.
(I suppose I agree with more of his positions than a more socialist type president.)

But civil liberties and the overeaching of the government is probably the main concern and high profile republicans have become the main opponents of those rights.

Which is wierd because their platform and actions of the past used to be on the side for good on many of our rights and a smaller less corruptible government.

Changing their minds or what some call Flip-Flopping

But that aside it’s sad that so many good republicans who once vowed they would never vote for McCain during the primaries… are now “flip flopping” and saying they will indeed vote for him.
I was so excited because I thought they were gonna take a stand for something.
Make a statement.
Follow their heart and their principles.
Now it looks like they aren’t.

They’re gonna fall into the pernicious evil that tells us that it’s alright to choose evil… as long as it’s less evil than the other evil. Talk about going down “by degrees”

 

Some better things to talk about

The issues of our time that we should be talking about aren’t being talked about:
We accept where are country has gone, we do not question the actions of our past leaders.
We do not fix past problems the way we should. We accept that someone installed a poor economic system and only resolve to keep it afloat rather than change it or restore it. We patch the education system with programs like the no child left behind. Instead of changing it to a principled based system. We insist that no one should be allowed to fail.
If you’re LDS that philosophy might sound familiar. There was a certain someone that once proposed a plan that I find very similar about how no one would fail with him at the helm.

We also allow ourselves to be duped to believe that preventative wars and messing in the affairs of other countries is just fine because of safety. We also allow ourselves to give up our liberties (ex. privacy, speach, unreasonable searches, bare arms) to have more safety. We don’t hold to our principles that inspired founders and the constitution taught us. When we give up liberty for safety we will have neither. There are many muddled affairs and it’s hard to know the best things to do. The challenges of our leaders are difficult. They analyse and hold strong to their analysis, but what they don’t understand is that living by a principled truth is much better and much easier.

Principles to live by in my opinion

• Do not give up our rights,
• do not be the agressor,
• do not grab for power,
• do not forget our god,
• don’t lead by fear,

 

“Give me liberty…” this should be above Health Care, money, agressive wars, or even dare i say it education.

So many patriots of old believed it to be so important that it was first even above their own lives. 
It was their own abusive government they were fighting btw.
(Heaven help us that it doesn’t come to that once again.)
 

The constitution is the inspired wisdom that was set in place to protect what was most important. It was not created to make sure the chinese or the french or the iranians took away our liberty. It was made so we ourselves wouldn’t do it.

Obama

And as for Obama. 
What principles guide him?
Because then we can understand how his policies will go down.

Does he want no one to fail?
Are those 5 bold points among his donts?

Will he bring us back our lost liberties?
will he lead the saftey of our country in a principled way?
will he turn our hearts to god (without telling us or forcing our hand)?
will he try to lead through fear?
will he make sure no one person or persons gets too much power and maintain a system of checks and balances?
Will he protect the citizens from the government like the constitution intended?
Will he make people stand up on their own… or will he force them to stand up?
How about the stand on principled economics? How about the national debt? 

 

Only principled politics will lead us to great things.
Patching the holes on a sinking boat is not the answer.

EA screwed it up with Spore!

I aint talking about the actual game which appears to not have delivered to its hype.
I’m not saying that it isn’t a fun game. Not for serious gamers it appears. But then again I’m not a serious gamer.

What I’m talking about is how EA made a bad move and now it is paying for the consequences.

Aside from wether you like the rights management system that EA used to “protect” the game… the problem is “gamers” did not!

Casual gamers buy some games from time to time.

Frequent gamers by a lot – and they’re speaking out, and they’re making headlines.

The best article so far that I’ve seen is an ars-technica article

Where are these unhappy potential customers speaking up?

Amazon

And they are also digging the ars-technica article massively as well.

Spore

I haven’t really been interested in a video game for a while.

I played a couple of games last year that my roommates were into because it was fun to do stuff with them.

So I heard about this interesting game for a long time now, and like many others been awaiting it’s arrival.

I will try to follow some of the early reviews and share my findings until it comes out.

PC.IGN.COM – Lots of reviews of each stage… even well done videos on each stage.

IGN UK review – 9.1 Score (It sounds like a good score and they seem to like it… but they do warn it’s not as amazing as we all hoped it would be, so don’t get too hyped)

Spore Revolution – parts of reviews of Spore put into one article

CNET – This is where the CNET review will be when they are able to get the game and review it.
Price is apparenty about $50

Gamespot - They will have their review and other info here in 2 days

Posting from iPhone

Well I just thought I’d try typing up a blog post using my iPhone. I have downloaded the wordpress app and set it up very quickly and easily. In fact I was surprised at how easy it was to get going. Props to them.
And in fact I’m not too bad at this iPhone typing thing. Maybe I’ll get as fast as I was back in the day with my trek.
The thing I really like about it is that it’s a one touch think and I’m up and writing.
Not having pictures in the post is probably not as affective for my photo blog. But it’s good for pictures you take from your own iphone.
And doing links will probably suffer.
The application also let’s you save your drafts easily so you don’t have to retupe things. Because you don’t want to have to retype things on your phone.
Certainly the iPhone suffers from a serious problem when it comes to blogging and writing things.
That’s copy and paste.

I would say it’s great for plain writing and writing only. Don’t expect anything else.

Well maybe it’s also cool to upload a picture to your blog.. That’s per darn cool

Just thought I’d give a run down of my experience with this app.

Olympics

I just wanted to say that i’ve really been enjoying the olympics

I need a programmer

I’m looking for a programmer!

Goal: My goal is to have site up and running by second week of September.
PAY: I’m not rich but I’ll pay good enough.
Time: whatever amount of time to reach September goal. At least 20hrs week is preferred.
Language: I’d prefer a framework and well commented so someone could carry on down the line easylike. Ruby would be cool but PHP is great too.
Communication: I have it all sorted out in my head but we need to communicate to get it on line. Locals are prefered.
Complexity: I’m told it shouldn’t be very difficult. So says my really good/busy programmer friends.

The Purpose to be a one stop destination for searching for any photographer any where.

Who is the consumer?

The consumer is anyone looking for a photographer.

Who are the photographers?

Simply anyone that is presently pursuing photography for more than private purposes.

Benefit to the photographer?

To be found easily.
To not have to pay a website to be listed and found
To not have to spend a lot of time creating a basic profile.
To be able to stand out because of their talents more than their marketing strategies.

Benefit to the Consumer?

Free
One stop
Searchable based on almost any criteria they might need to find who they are looking for
Every option is there (all photographers)
Contact and websites are easy to find.

Style of site?

In the style of Mahalo… meaning that content on the site is primarily inputed by employees to maintain high quality and making sure we have ALL photographers.
In the style of a shopping site… in that they should be able to compare the products (photographers)

Aspects of the site
-Database of photographers
-A simple search ability
-A more advanced search ability
-information to be re-organizable
-Filter functions on information
-a nice simple layout (not crowded but as full of information as they desire (expandable from little info to all info)
-accounts and logins
-admin functions
-well layed out database

Programming needs
(in my somewhat uneducated opinion)

-heavy on the database side – mysql is almost a definite decision
-I would prefer a framework – but I’m flexible
-style is what should set it apart – i have several ideas on how I’d like it
-very important – the data input of this information is pivotal… it should be designed to make it the most     effecient possible for the person that inputs.
-Ajax sounds like it will be pivotal to the way information is deployed
-Ability to change or create new surveys
-I need search engines to find this. SEO

I don’t want the info we grab and the way it’s displayed to be set in stone – I want it relatively easy to switch up if needed. I don’t want to have to redo the whole site if i add one aspect of information and

I need …. skills in my programmer
-web programming ability
-experience on other sites/projects
-mysql knowledge
-CSS
-Available Time

I prefer…. in my programmer
-Ruby, PHP, cakePHP
-ajax (Most likely a need)
-many years of experience
-communication skills – (Be able to communicate with me and understand the vision)
-Design ability (I might be working with a graphics designer… but design knowledge would still be a plus)
-Organizational – I need nice neat code that anyone else can pick up on
-know how to search for, find, and implement code that has already been done (sourceforge etc)
-fast worker
-lots of available time in at least august
-contacts and at least willingness to communicate with others to make sure they have the best possible code.
-Best cost for quality ratio (More towards the range of quality but i’ll still try to get the best bargain)

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED

I would like an email with a resume. I don’t care if it’s formal or just a letter. But I want to know the following.

• A list of websites (with links) that you’ve worked on.
• Languages you program in.
• Specifically if you know any of the following technologies. (CSS, MySql, PHP, RoR, Ajax, Cake,SEO)
• How you learned programming… (Schoool, self-taught etc)
• How many years you’ve been doing it.
• How we’ll be communicating. (In person, skype, phone, telepathically, a mix)
• Your prefered pay rate.
• Way you prefer to be paid (By hour, by project, by week, by month)
• What your last job paid.
• Anything else you’d like to know from me
• Anything else you think I should know about you or your work.

Call 801-362-6372 (Personally, I’d prefer a resume before calling)

Email: jarvie@jarviedigital.com

I will not make a decision until I have talked to several/many applicants.
And I’m too busy (11 wedding photo shoots this month) to sit down with many people this month.

Want to know more about me you can find me/ friend me on facebook (Scott Jarvie)

Or follow me on twitter @jarvie

Or go to any of my other blogs/ websites.

Fan Me

I’m doing this for Technorati purposes but feel free to fan me or whatever
Technorati Profile

iPhone apps I’ll be getting or considering.

For Sure

Pandora - Free
This one is per darn excitin’

Remote - Free
I hear it’s cool and I believe them

SmugShot – Free
I use smugmug a lot and the GPS addition to it will be swell.
Take a picture with the iPhone during your photo shoot and you’ll be able to look back and know where exactly you were when you took all those other pictures with your big camera.

MLB.com At Bat – $5
I love my baseball… even though the padres aren’t doing so well.

MPG - $1 or CarStat $2
The price is right and i try to keep track of this stuff anyway… specially with all the traveling I tend to do.

Facebook - Free
I use facebook a lot and this is free… no brainer i’d think.

Twitteriffic or other
I’ll do some research to see which twitter app is the best.
One version is free

eReader – Free
Seems like a logical thing to get

WeatherBug -Free
Handy to know the forecast
Price is right

Considering Highly

Super Monkey Ball - $10
I need a game or two

Another Game of some sort
Options cro-mag rally or some type of solitair game

Baseball - Free
I like stats and I like baseball and i like free stuff

Box Office - Free
Would be nice to have a list of what’s playing nearbye

List program of some sort
Need to see which of the many will be the best option… or perhaps there’s a built in one that will be just fine. Possibles: Todo, lists, To Do(Free)

Linguo $3
It doesn’t have to be this program but I’d like a translator program

Yelp – Whrrls and Loopt
To see what it’s like and because they’re free. I’ve been hearing about these

Band $10
I’d like to play it first before i get it.

A voice recorder of some type

Am I missing anything?

(Try it) My adventures in Ruby #6

So i played with this site and it let you experiment with doing code in a tutorial format.

This was nice because I didn’t have to  set up all that crap that I was trying to figure out.

Try out the “Try Ruby App”

Maybe it’s late… or maybe this is too much trouble than it’s worth.
But I haven’t enjoyed my experience with Ruby so far.

I’ll try more tomorrow…. maybe

anyone like looking at photography websites?

I’d like to know if anyone has some time to spare and wants to look for famous photographers for me to meet with along the path of my trip: http://tinyurl.com/6rupcx.

Main spots I’ll be stopping hoping to do an interview with people are

Interviews are for my podcast found on the envision blog

• Tetons
• rexburg ID
• Yellowstone
• Glacier national park (missoula, whitefish)
• Banff (canada)
• Jasper (canada)
• Vancouver
• Seattle
• Olympia
• Portland
• Oregon coast
• redwoods
• crater lake area

Just figured someone might have some time and wanted to look at different photography sites.

scott

WordPress Plugins

I took some time to find some good wordpress plugins for the Envision Blog

I’ll share my finds

This blog post had tons of links to blogs that had their top 10 top 20 plugins to use.

I like to see the list of real world people and which plugins they’re using so this link was good in addition
It’s the comments section that is actually the most helpful

Hope that helps and perhaps just reduplicates the efforts done by everyone else… so more eyes see things.

My Marvelous Mother – Happy Birthday

It’s my mom’s birthday
so I went through 5000 family pictures and found all the ones with her in it
and made a gallery.
(Warning the first picture in the full online gallery has nudity)

Here are some of the highlights.

America…

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Where is America Going?
Do we hope to gain safety at the expense of essential liberties?

Do you support this?

Stand up for what is right no matter if everyone else is going the other way.

“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell

Viewing habits of the 4ft and under.

So I’ve been off on my own for years now and it’s a unique view of life when you go back around family and little kids.

That being said I got to see my sister and her kid and different people’s reaction to his viewing habits and some of my sisters policies.

And so I thought on the subject.
And then a friend was discussing her politics on the subject of kids and their viewing habits.

—–

Typically not being around kids I don’t often think on the subject… so now I want to hear more thoughts on the subject.

Then I want to turn it us Adults… let’s here your thoughts/rhetoric on the subject, in regards to kids and for us.

But if you’re gonna throw out some blanket statement, some high sounding catch phrase or some up to date rhetoric I want want you to think about it first and see if it really stands up.

For instance: I have and can be the staunchest opponent of modern culture and the corruptive influence media can have.
On the other hand many will know that I watch a ton of TV, Movies, Documentaries as I edit pictures.

So I can think of arguments for both sides… so who’s up for the discussion?

Cool Political Poll

Check out the site

Do the poll and then discuss what it said.

Did it say someone different than you were thinking of supporting?
Did it help you to understand how you feel about certain issues?
Basically, did it help?

 http://glassbooth.org/

Music – Let the Men Rock!

PANDORA.COM

As I sit listening to pandora play some new music that I’ve never heard before I have discovered 3 different artists that I’ve never even heard before but who play some good stuff.

I would like to write some more about them and fully introduce them but I’ll let you do more of that if you’re interested. I’ll give you instead a couple of links.

By the way if you’re not using Pandora.com yet then you’re missing out. Best radio and source of music discovery out there.

Stephen Ashbrook
Myspace Music Page
Official Site

My most recent discovery.
His voice is unique and his songs are good.
I don’t know much else.

Colin Hay
Myspace Page
Official Site

I originally found him and liked him from an episode of Scrubs, where he guest appeared. And then found more of his stuff on Pandora.
I think it’s great that he was the singer for men at work.

Mark Joseph
Myspace Page
Official Site

Probably the best of the group in that he will be more readily accepted and liked by a greater portion of ya’ll.
He’s young and from England.

—

I’ll get you some girls to listen to next time

Intelligence (To the power of 2?)

New Podcast
So a new series of podcasts that I have been recently listening to (and enjoying thoroughly), has been a series called Intelligence Squared

For more about the series check the website of the same name or on NPR 

IQ2
It is Oxford Style Debate… which is wordy wordy trendy terms for a kinda cool formal style of debate that I tend to like.

Rhetoric

It is amazing to see the play of Rhetoric in support of both sides.
And very interesting (or saddening) to see the oft times sneaky or enlightening ways of these Rhetoricians.

Sometimes simply seeing how they beautifully sculpt with words and sway our feelings is like an art form to be appreciated (Or disgusted with) is reason to listen in and of itself.

Subject matter is Great as well
But the subject matter is very very interesting and important to our lives.

Hollywood
Global Warming
Religion in America
Taxes
Iraq and Iran
And many More

I would suggest subscribing to the podcast or download the audio file on their website.

 My Promise

The end result… I can promise you will not be dumber for having done so.

But my warning: Be understanding of what Rhetoric is and does and don’t let well worded sentances sway you to believe total CRAP.

I finally am well enough to talk about it…

The Padres lost.

That’s about all I can say without getting nostalgic or sad or upset.

So perhaps I should just leave it at that. Maybe i’ll be happier when they give Peavy the Cy Young and give us a Gold Glove or Two.

Until then I don’t know how I’m gonna face another year of so much hope to have it crashed in one final moment of collapse.

So I suppose in the end… maybe I’m not well enough to talk about it quite yet.