We Watched Interstellar....

We watched Interstellar last night.  I couldn't help but say things like "Alright Alright Alright, we're gonna take this spaceship to another planet..."  In my best Matthew Mcconaughey voice as I was putting the DVD in.

I thought it was good.  I'm not a scientist so I couldn't say whether the science was bad or not but most of it pretty much made sense to me the way it was presented except for a couple little things.


SPOILERS BELOW


When they realized that because of the time difference that the doctor on the water planet had probably just crashed when they got there I thought that they should have been something they took into account before they wasted the fuel/time to go there. also, why were a handful of planets next to a black hole ever even considered viable homeworlds?

And when you come in for a landing and crash into ice clouds and see nothing but tundra I figure it's a safe bet to count your losses and head for the other planet.  Sorry crazy Matt Damon. Also, you think there would be the technology to communicate somehow with the base camp before they land. Initiate the deep sleep wake up  routine remotely, then have open comms with the doctor and even be able to upload research data.  without even landing. Or even leaving orbit.  They're sending video messages through a fucking wormhole from earth still but they have to land in an unknown environment and physically find the doctors?  They should have set up an unmanned orbiter that they could have been beamind the research data to in real time. Then beam that out so it can be received as soon as they come through the wormhole
.  Seems like the data they DID get was minimal and useless if they actually had to physically go there just to see what's up.  

Also... wheat died out but they're kicking back drinking beers. There's a plague but trees line main st. It didn't seem that dire.

Also, while he's sending the data on interdimensional gravity manipulation via dots and dashes, which, and again, I'm no physicist,  would probably fill 5000 notebooks and take a a million hours to transcribe he could have included "Hey Murph, this is your dad.." somewhere in there.

Basically, Plan B works, she goes to the other planet, sets up a baby factory and the human race flourishes on the new planet who I assume studied the black hole that is nearby for many years and figure out how to manipulate gravity and created the wormhole... which made their own existence possible in the first place? I think I just found a time travel paradox...DAMNIT!  I know it's not real time travel but it kind of is since he's communicating with his daughter in the past. Time travel never works!


But otherwise I thought it was entertaining.

Dont Sample the Whistle Key Chains

Retail Adventures

As I come around to the main aisle following a trail of spilled coffee and I see a middle aged Latino or Native American man of short stature at the reading glasses display. I'd noticed him before wandering around other parts of the store, not really looking like he was shopping for anything in particular.  Along with his height I notice his hair is messy, his basketball shorts and wifebeater tank top are ripped and dirty. He's also wearing a bomber jacket that looks like it's been crumpled up on the floorboard of a car for a week.  Usually when someone like this, unkempt, shifty, aimless, is in the store they get a second glance. It's probably profiling but usually hunches turn out to be right and they end up stealing something.  Having free coffee tends to attract more of these people than we'd like, but it's a nice thing to offer our customers. 

He's got on a pair of reading glasses and on his tippy-toes trying to stand high enough to see himself in the little mirrors provided by the store for customers to see how different glasses look.  They are set about chest high on an average height person, and they are adjustable but he insisted on balancing on his toes to see his reflection while holding a dixie cup of coffee, spilling most of it out on the floor in front of him, and all over himself.  He notices me and looks up with a wide, stupid, toothless grin and giant bug-eyes from the magnifying reading lenses and says "Hawdo I look?!" I paused for a second to think to myself 'like a scumbag moron' and said outloud in my friendly customer service voice "makes you look smarter"  because that's what people say when you try on glasses right?

I left him to his spectacle shopping and walked away but kept an eye on him as he continued through the store.  He still had the glasses in his hand but his other hand was hidden by his jacket sleeve and it looked like he was trying to conceal something in his shorts. His right hand was under his shirt as he walked around.  It was time for my lunch break so as I left, I asked another employee, we'll  call him Jason, who has sort of become our unofficial, self appointed theft prevention officer.  It's not his job, and isn't qualified for it and it takes away from his normal responsibilities so I probably shouldn't encourage him but he's into it. 

When I return from lunch I ask about the suspicious individual.  "So did he end up stealing anything"  Jason says something like "not that he saw but went on to tell me what happened"   Or unofficial security officer isn't very subtle when it comes to tracking potential shoplifters and many times they get the hint they are being watched and either just leave or confront the accusation.  This time the guy got a little antsy and said something like "hey man I ain't takin nothin, why you watchin me"  and at that point Jason mentions how he's been hiding something under his shirt.   The man then explains that he has a zit on his ass that he's been trying to pop. Jason was speechless.  This guy may or may not have been stealing but at that point he didn't care. He told him to go wash his hands.  He follows him to the bathroom and waits for him to exit.   The individual is taking his time, definitely more time that it takes to wash your hands.  Jason goes in to check on him and see's what can not be unseen.  The guy has his basketball shorts halfway down his legs, bent and twisted over in front of the mirror trying to pop the pimple on his butt with both hands.

"Oh come on man!"  Jason exclaimed and then tells him to pull up his pants and get out of the store.

The rest of the day all the employees are recalling him from earlier and taking mental notes of all the things he touched in the store with his dirty butt zitt hands.  As a general rule I do not recommend testing out the whistle key chains. Ever. I once saw an old homeless woman pick up one of every color and blow into them one at a time.  Add reading glasses and several other things to that list.  

Here's Where Your Stolen iPhone Ended Up.

Yesterday on my lunch break.

I've always seen the cash for phones machine at the mall but never really thought much about it because I don't have an iPhone and when I'm done with phones they have very little value. But yesterday I noticed that most of the time I see people using it, it's scumbags. Then I started thinking about it... ECOATM... So like, you put a phone in and get back cash instantly? How is this not a haven for phone thieves? Surely they must verify that the serial number matches the owner somehow right? Turns out no. Not really. 

A quick search landed me here.
Mugged for a phone that wound up in an ecoATM, on Baltimore Brew website

Here's an interesting excerpt
...There’s no way to determine the phone’s owner during the process. All ecoATM asks for is a valid id that resembles the person performing the transaction.

For that matter information about the phone that could help determine ownership is not captured during the sale. The seller doesn't have to prove that they can unlock the device, the device doesn’t even have to be powered on...

I wonder what the stats look like for phone theft in cities with and without EcoATM's?

What I've been watching on the internet

because you're dying to know. 

Netflix

Louie 

Comedian Louis CK TV show. 

All This Mayhem 

Documentary. Aussie Pro Skateboarder Papas brothers rise and fall in pro skateboarding. 

Halt and Catch Fire

AMC TV drama about an upstart in the mid 80s PC wars. 

Marvel's Daredevil

Netflix original series about a blind superhero Daredevil. 

Downloaded

Alex Winter (Bill from Bill & Ted) directed documentary about the rise and fall of the file trading website Napster. 

Atari: Game Over

Documentary follows the birth and the eventual death of pioneering home console developers Atari and the search for and myth around the "grave" of game cartriges buried in a landfill. 

YouTube

There Will Be Quiet - The story of Judge.

VICE/NOISEY 4 part documentary chronicles the beginnings of Straightedge Hardcore band Judge with interviews leading up to a band reunion concert. 

One Man Metal

VICE/NOISEY in a 3 part documentary they track down and talk with illusive Black Metal solo artists.  

The Secret History of Cabbage Patch Kids

VICE talks to friends of the original creator of what would become Cabbage Patch dolls and how she was totally ripped off. 

Until The Light Takes Us

Documentary chronicles the history, ideology and aesthetic of Norwegian Black Metal - a musical subculture infamous as much for a series of murders and church burnings.

The Ingenious Design of the Aluminum Beverage Can

Quick video of exactly what you think it is. 

VSAUCE 

youtube channel of Micheal Stevens. 

pretty much every video by this dude. 

MKBHD

youtube channel of Marques Brownlee

reviews of tech with a focus on cellphones and tablets. 

Why I hate stuff on the internet #4,632

The internet is an amazing thing. 20 years ago, from the days of AOL chatting, I would never have imagined all it can do.  But as content begins to proliferate the world wide web, there are many things that just suck.  An example below of the 4,632nd thing that pisses me off on the internet.

As a suit in the music industry once told me...
"Dont bore us, get to the chorus"
Get to the fucking point man.

You see something interesting on Facebook. Your gut says "don't do it man" but you just gotta see this amazing catch. 

What's this shit? Oh ok baseball catch, so I'm on the right page but where's the fucking video? 

Definitely dont need this 5 paragraph fucking story explaining it. You had me at "amazing catch" TL;DR...scroll.....

FINALLY!  Let's see what this shit is all about now that i've jumped through hoops to see it. 

What the fuck man!?  You really love yourself dont you? 10 seconds of your stupid intro logo and music for a god damned 25 second clip... FUCK YOU!!! I WANNA SEE AMAZING CATCH!

It was pretty amazing. Almost looks fake. It probably is fake.  FUCK YOU INTERNET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So. I got a new phone. But...

I wanted to go to Costco to get a new phone because they have the best deals but not always the best choices in phones. I opted for the Ballistic Nylon 32gb Droid Turbo.  It comes in red or black metallic Kevlar and a Ballistic Nylon 64gb version but none of these are available at Costco.  My other choices were the Samsung Galaxys5 or Note4.  Initially I wanted the LGG3 but since it's Costco they stopped carrying it a week before I got there.  The Note4 was tempting but I really don't care for Samsung's Touchwiz user interface.

I've had the Turbo for just over a week. It's a beast on paper. The specs are out of control. The turbo charging and battery life are the best I've ever seen. Many of the Moto features built into this phone are really cool too but overall, this phone is not all that spectacular. First of all, and this is kind of nitpicky but,  I can't stand the ballistic nylon backing.  It catches on lint in my pocket and it's fraying around the edges. It feels weird on my fingers too. I can feel the fabric catching my dry rough fingertips. I know a case can fix this but it's a problem not mentioned much in the reviews of this phone.  It's been only days, I can't imagine how it would hold up after 2 years.

 I'm coming from a two year old Droid RazrM  and since the Turbo is essentially the same Motorola/KitKat operating system and user interface it's just like a bigger, more stable version of my old phone but with incredible battery life.  There's nothing necessarily wrong with this but I was hoping for the newest version of Android, Lollipop to have been updated on this already.  It's also kind of a bummer that since the Turbo doesn't have an SD memory card slot,  I couldn't just put my old SD card in and have all my stuff. I find that I'm worried about filling the internal 32gb with music and pictures. Also I've noticed the screen is really dim and hard to see in bright daylight outside. The camera is clearly better than I've had before but I don't really have an opinion on it since I'm not printing out hi-res photography or anything. So It's got me considering the Note4. It's on par specs wise and is the next best thing Costco has to offer.

But the rub is, as I mentioned before I hate hate hate hate hate Touchwiz. Thankfully I run Nova Prime Launcher on everything and it will virtually get rid of Touchwiz.  I also hate the buttons on Samsung. It's like Touchwiz is part of the fucking hardware. Thanks guys. This you cannot fix. Despite these downfalls, I think for what I use my phone for I might bite the bullet and trade in the Turbo for The note4.

Turbo
Pros: 
Battery/Turbo Charge (Note4 has similar tech)
Active Display
Moto Voice Control
Front Speaker

Cons:
Crappy Ballistic Nylon quality/feel
No SD card
As of mid/late Feb 2015 no sign of Lollipop.
No onscreen nav buttons
Bad screen brightness
No Lollipop

Note4

Pros:
Quick Charge/Battery
S-Pen
Multi Window/Multitasking
Screen brightness
SD card
Giant screen
Samsung has loaded this with a ton of stuff which I may find useful

Cons:
Being lumped in with mindless samsung sheeple.
Touchwiz
Physical nav buttons
Iffy rear speaker
Back and recent apps buttons switched
Still no lollipop
Giant screen
Samsung has loaded this with a ton of stuff which will probably be useless to me and take up space.


I'm going to go take a closer look at the Note4 today and weigh my hatred of samsung against the features it offers me. Anyone with either phone feel free to chime in on your experiences.

#firstworldproblems

What The Fuck SuddenLink?

I dont know what the fuck.  Maybe it's living up here behind the redwood curtain in bumfuck norcal
but I can't get good internet service for the life of me.  I had AT&T, paying for 3mbps down
which is the best they can offer me.  I was getting fairly consistently 2.5 - 2.8 which sucks donkey balls -- but is fair considering what they offer.  So for nearly the same price I finally pulled the trigger and switched to the ONLY other choice for internet around here, Suddenlink. I opted for the 15 mbps internet (the slowest they offer but hey 15 is like flying first class compared to what I had with

AT&T)  When the guy hooked it up I did a speed test and I was getting a shocking 17+ mbps.  I thought I hit the jackpot... Finally!  But every day since it's slowly gotten worse. 16, 12, 8, 5...  Right now 8 feet from an unrestricted wifi router I'm testing at around 2.5.  Seriously Suddenlink what the fuck?  Can you tell me what the fuck because I dont know what the fuck?

Is 11pm still considered peak hours?  Does cable internet get congested?

I'm kinda irritated.  I still cant get on-demand. I couldn't before because my connection was too slow. Now it's because the installer was too lazy to run a line under my house to hook it up near my DirecTV box.  I didn't think it would be a problem because DirecTV has a new Genie box that's wifi enabled and I knew I was eligible for an equipment upgrade but I called to upgrade and they say that my old Genie box is considered a "Genie" just like the new one they call a "Genie" so it's not an upgrade, so I can't get it.  But even then, with the shitty speeds I'm getting now I would still be seeing the "sorry your internet sucks too much to stream on-demand" message from my TV.

I hate companies.  Y U SO FUC ME OVR?

By asking me for something , you're basically asking me to Google it for you.  I swear people don't realize the smartphone in their pockets is for other things than texts, snapchat and candy crush.  

Another thing that bugs me is when the above happens and they say that the $600 state-of-the-art smartphone has no data available.  Way to go chief!

Congrats on being useless and helpless.

Dreams from last night

I  had a dream that I flew over seas, Europe or Israel.  But my bags were switched with a priest's. Once I got there everything went wrong.  It was very frustrating.  Then some people I was with wanted to visit a synagogue.  I try to enter but the hallway has many turns and starts to get smaller and more colorful like a kids fun house.  I have to back out and when I ask the lady at the door if there's any other entrance "one that is normal adult sized" she keeps saying no and points to the door I just came back out of.  My friends are inside, I'm already pissed from the day before and I don't have my luggage.  This fun house entrance situation is twilight zone status.  I storm out of there angry, swearing and flipping the synagogue off.  With both hands waiving.  Cussing and yelling at it and cursing the country I was in.  Then I realize that all this time, all of my angry outbursts toward a Jewish house of worship whilst wearing the priest clothes, dressed like a fucking priest.

Then I had another dream where all the toilets were clogged and the sinks were backing up in my house.  Because my forgetful grandma kept flushing stuff down the toilet. 

Nugget Pieces

I was leaving work for lunch and some idiot pulls up to the light on the wrong side of the road.  I leave space for him to move over but he never does and the light sensor never gets triggered.  Now a line of cars is piling up behind me and oddly enough, behind the guy in the wrong lane.  The left turn light from the cross street turns green and people have to loop around the line of cars to get in.  It's a total cluster fuck.  After the light cycles through twice I give up and pull forward so my light finally changes.

After all of that my lunch break is half over so I only have time for McDonalds. I go inside because the drive through is backed up. I notice while I'm in line I see an old lady with a ten piece chicken nuggets. I found it odd that the box in front of her was full of mostly eaten nuggets.  Like she ate each one until there was a bite left and put it back in the box.  Then I saw her leaving. Box in hand.  Old people are weird.

When I got back from lunch the parking lot was full of people who drove like it was "free drive without a license day"  total chaos.  People walking in front of moving cars, people backing out of spaces without looking.  Just complete retard sandwiches for lunch.

I can't shake that little box of Nugget bits in that box tho.  So weird.