rant and rave

This is where ranting and raving occurs. Venting. Blowing things out of proportion. That kind of thing.

driverless cars – seriously?

by

I saw an article by BBC on autonomous taxis.

Why you have (probably) already bought your last car

I wrote on Twitter in response:

17 seconds ago

Replying to

How about RV drivers who take their rigs camping? Driving 14 hours from Calgary to Vancouver on mountain highways, dead of winter, 3 feet of snow? How about family trips, stopping at a roadside historic information sign? Not all travel is commute. This utopia does not compute.

I pile camping crap into my car and head off into the hills.  How would that work with an all-electric, self-driving car?  I go off-road in my little Kia, climbing up a mud and gravel hill on a logging road for excitement.  The Kia performs well.  Could an autonomous electric taxi replace my car?  Don’t think so.  I’m accident free since 1987, driving in large cities, on long highways, through blizzard conditions, daytime and at night.  Long time.  Loooong time.  No way in hell an autonomous car will take my license away.

Now if you’re talking about a car that can drive by itself, with the driver taking over at any point he / she wishes to, I’d be into that.  Sure, why not?  But, in a city the size of Lethbridge, I really can’t see how it could be useful.  Downtown Seoul?  Sure.

later

Just curious – Google (advocates of self-driving cars) collects a lot of data from lots of people, like our travel habits.  Does it know how much travel I do that isn’t part of my daily work commute?

Google Console and searches

by

It occurred to me a while back that my websites were not searchable in Google, Ask.com, Yahoo!, Duckduckgo, or anything else.  Why?  Didn’t people search for seaweed soup or ESL classes?  Weren’t people interested?  I was hurt!  Not really, but it was weird nonetheless.  Back in the day, when static HTML pages ruled and students logged in, my website was searched for many times.

Read more

the The (the article)

by

Long ago someone asked me why I said, “my wife,” as though she belonged to me.  That someone was a man-hating feminist vegan lesbian artist.  I gave her a ride home once.  She seemed nice.  I didn’t know she had a hate-on for men at the time.  I was just offering a ride home.  “Do you own her?  Does she belong to you?” she asked.  I jokingly said, “No, I think she owns me.”  That didn’t go over well.  No, “belong to” in my thinking doesn’t mean “ownership”.  It means “membership”, as in “I belong to this group”.  A member of a team.  Without the team (read: community), I am incomplete.  Without me, the team (again, the community) is incomplete.  I should have started with that!

Read more

min. 3 years experience

by

I’ve been searching non-stop for employment since convocation in April.  I have had a few interviews and spoke with several employers, but pretty much all positions posted online require minimum 3 years’ experience.  There are repeat job listings rewritten with “This is not an entry-level position” included in the job description.

Read more

when drinking coffee, time … flies

by

During my days looking for employment daily and practising engineering & architectural stuff, I sometimes head to a coffee shop.  There’s one close by called Good Earth.  Nice surroundings, nice enough people.  The coffee’s not fantastic – a bit on the weak side – but good enough.  Free refill.  Good scones.  I commented to a server that the music playing was good.  Then, 10 minutes later, a person in the back turned it to something else – “You’re no good, you’re no good, you’re no good, baby you’re no good,” repeated the lyrics over and over and over and …  <sigh>  I left.  I used to go to Starbucks (MMDS), but there are so many flies there that it makes it impossible to concentrate on anything I’m doing.  The coffee is always good.  Yesterday I went to the Starbucks downtown.  Also good coffee.  I once waited about 20 minutes for a coffee at The Penny Coffee House.  Good coffee, nice enough surroundings, but so busy that it took forever.  I couldn’t complain because the staff are all working full-tilt.  But sometimes it’s just nicer to sit at home and continue working.  Cheaper, too, for someone not employed.  Unfortunately, staying in the house all day makes the day drag on.

finger nail brush

by

The dumbest of things.  I bought a finger nail brush today from Princess Auto.  It was 99¢, so I know it’s not of the highest quality that money can buy.  But have a look at the label.

“This product contains chemicals, including lead, known … to cause birth defects…  Wash hands after handling.”

So I have to wash my hands after washing my hands with this brush.  Plus, I have to buy another nail brush to get the damn sticky stuff off where the label was.  Or Goo-Gone.

I actually saw a packet of peanuts on an airplane once that stated, “Caution – May Contain Nuts”.  As well, on the bottom of a frozen TV dinner, it said, “Do Not Turn Up-Side-Down”.

Speaking of blowing a gasket <ahem>, the rubber seal on my coffee pot finally broke today.  Life has come to a grinding (no pun intended) halt.

2018-06-26 update:

You’ll be happy to know that the ant killer I just bought does not contain nuts!  For all those ants with peanut allergies.  …  I know, right?

half of “the room”

by

Have you ever sat through a movie that was just awful?  I watched something on Netflix called The Disaster Artist, a movie about the making of another movie called The Room.  So when The Disaster Artist was done, I tried watching this B-movie about directed, produced, and acted by Tommy Wiseau.  Oh my frakking god!  It’s now 56:00 into the movie, and I just can’t watch it!  Give it a try, see what you think.