Rants
Awful Verbiage from Xbox Live
Jan 20th
Horrible Verbiage
Pretty self explanatory here but this doesn’t even make sense! All I did was add some points I didn’t just signup for an account…
This whole things started as I wasn’t able to use any of my current cards in Xbox Live. I don’t know if it was because there were already “pending” charges on the card or what but I had to use the website and enter a completely new card in order to add some points… Pain in the ass!
Federal Gun Laws Make Me Laugh
Jan 6th
Ok so perusing through the North Carolina gun laws I came across the Federal gun laws and laughed my ass off after reading this little bit:
C. Eligible Persons
1. Federal Law Requirements
As a general rule, the following categories of persons are ineligible to receive or
possess a firearm under federal law:
…
d. The person is an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any
depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance;
…
“By the books” if you use caffeine or tobacco you are not allowed to own a hand gun… as you are most certainly addicted to both… chemically in fact and they are both controlled substances.
Alexa, Compete, and Other Educated Guesses
Dec 15th
Hey you! Yeah you, the one obsessing over your Alexa rank… you CEO, you “webmaster”, you marketing guy, you whomever you are…
STOP
Seriously… you people are driving me crazy with your Alexa rank whoring. It’s the same few things over and over and over again that I hear:
- WTF my traffic went up like eight fold and my Alexa ranking hasn’t changed!
- OMG my Alexa ranking dropped like four million places but my traffic is still the same!
And I always answer with the same reply… Who fucking cares?!
First off you need to understand that the Alexa number has no bearing on your business in the slightest. It is a reflection of your business… and a cloudy one at that. I know people that I swear would take a loss in traffic if it meant a gain on Alexa. Where are your priorities?!
Second you need to understand that It’s an educated guess as to how your site may or may not being doing based on a very very very very small sample size of the entire Internet. Do you even know a single person who has the Alexa Toolbar installed?
The last time I even HEARD of someone having the Alexa Toolbar installed I about punched them in the face for browsing my admin area (you know who you are) and having it prefollow all the delete links… luckily we did nightly backups.
Compete is even worse. I have a property that was closed down in 2007 and they show I peaked my traffic in January of 2009… need I say more?
What about Hitwise vs comScore vs Nielsen?
Save your fucking cash… These giants will bend you over backwards, upside down, and rail you un-lubed till you’re broken and bleeding. Ok that was a little strong but seriously… There are very few companies that should be subscribing to any of these services. Unless you’re in the SEO market (and I mean providing SEO to clients), online marketing, or another broad sweeping / far reaching online company, you DON’T NEED IT.
You would do better to focus on improving your business rather than comparing yourself against your competitors… the real kicker is you’re comparing educated guesses against other educated guesses about numbers that really don’t matter! If your competitor did 50% more sales than you are you going to know why from those numbers? No, you’re going to spend 200 hours looking at the numbers over and over again.
Nothing Else Matters
Instead, why not try looking at your competitors from the end user / customer’s point of view. What do they offer that I don’t? How easy is it for me to checkout / purchase on their site compared to mine? Then take an analytical top level approach to comparing your business. Where do they advertise? Where does their traffic come from? Do they have an affiliate program? One step further on the technical side you start asking… What is their page load time compared to mine? Where do they host? Do they use a CDN?
These are questions whose answers matter…
Don’t pay $30k – $50k a year for a service when you’re only interested in one market… hire someone full time to do nothing but run numbers for you. It would be the same cost in the end except you’d employ more people and if you really wanted you could have them install the Alexa tool bar to bump up your fucking rank… groan
/endrant
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Worst Game Matching EVER
Dec 10th
CoD: MW2 is quite possibly the best multiplayer FPS game ever made however it has one of the worst matching systems ever seen. This problem is amplified if you try to party with ANYONE… even adding a single person to your group causes massive headaches. I just tried playing with a friend of mine during my lunch break and over the course of an hour I was able to play … two games… that’s it, two fucking games. Talk about a waste of time.
While I’m at it I’d like to rant about some pretty fucking key features that were over looked in development that cause more frustration in this game than anything else…
First up, hey devs! How about checking to see if you’re in harm’s way BEFORE you spawn someone in? Seriously how fucking hard is that and how did that make it through testing and out the door? I’ve spawned in only to get killed by a “poorly placed” care package, air strikes, AC130 rounds impacting, shit I’ve even spawned in only to die because I was IN someone’s line of fire. In fact now that I think about it, the whole spawning system sucks. If you play Modern Warfare 2 I’m sure you’ve run into the scenario of stalking a small group of enemy players with cold blooded pro on only to have a team mate suddenly spawn in AHEAD of where you are just to the flank of a group of enemy. Which of course sets off the alarm, the bloodbath ensues and whoever is left standing is left standing… real fucking great when you’re trying to be stealthy about it. So yeah, the entire spawning system is major fail.
Second, why the fuck haven’t they released a patch yet for the exploits that are running rampant. Instead they threaten everyone with the ban hammer. I think it would be a lot more enjoyable if you said you’re not banning anyone so that people could at least be on an even playing field. If someone is exploiting with the Javelin then let us all do it. Instead we have to sit idly by and hope it doesn’t happen, or fill out a useless report, or drop the game (take the loss) and start another one…
This is partly why I was only able to play two games over the course of an hour… I had about 6 games fail to start in one manner or another. I spent about 15 minutes in “finding a new host” screens, I played 30% of about two games before someone on one of the teams set off a nuke because they were being boosted by clan mates on the opposite team, and the rest of the time I was in menu systems… talk about a complete waste of time.
Third, and last, I only play ground war… do you know why? Because I like to play with friends and talk to them without being berated by 11 year olds and 18 year olds that act like 11 year olds over the fucking mic the entire time I’m playing. I don’t want to listen to whinny bitches, douchbags who think they’re cool because they can rip on people behind the mask of anonymity, and asshats who call everything “gay”… I like to call them “gayers”. So I’m stuck playing one game mode if I want to be able to talk to my friends while I play, that’s fucking fantastic.
Oh and one last thing about the shittiest fucking game matching system in the history of online gaming. I’m tired of getting the same fucking map over and over and over and over again, IN A ROW! Because your PoS game host system keeps crashing, dropping people out, matching you to a server and then dropping your team mates out (without telling the party leader), failing to connect, or whatever other bullshit that causes you to have to join a new “session” where you are promptly served up TDM Terminal or TDM Highrise. I don’t even fucking like playing TDM but I’m stuck playing it because there’s no “Ground War: Domination” or Ground War anything else for that matter…
If you’re looking for a clue as to why so many people play Ground War it’s not because of the increased team sizes it’s because you can talk to your friends while you play. Why the FUCK would you want to subject yourself to the general chat on XBox Live when you play a game?! Just let me talk to my friends isn’t that what the whole experience is about?
Book Publisher Fail
Dec 9th
Brendan sent me this article: Two Major Publishers To Hold Back E-Books
Yet another industry failing to get with the program…
First up:
“The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback,” said Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp. “We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible.”
The right place for what? for you to make the most profit while desperately clinging on to the last remaining shreds of your ancient and outdated business model? Aaaaand you need to do this now because soon it won’t be an option? If you really think it’s going to stay an option because you switched now you should find a new job that’s not effected by the digital world. Perhaps working as a farrier because I doubt that’s going to change much…
Next we have some more nonsense:
David Young, chief executive of the Hachette Book Group, said that Hachette, beginning in January or February, will delay the e-book publication of the vast majority of its titles for three to four months.
“We’re doing this to preserve our industry,” Mr. Young said. “I can’t sit back and watch years of building authors sold off at bargain-basement prices. It’s about the future of the business.”
At least this guy doesn’t sounds like he believes his own hype about preserving the model. Instead he tries a creative spin, throwing in the word authors to make it sound like this is going to effect the authors. The only thing that’s going to effect the amount these authors get paid is these jackasses slowing down sales to sell more books that have a higher profit margin. The author will still make the same amount (most authors will anyway that have a standard contract). If they were embracing the digital market they would probably be making even more money as the number of books they sell would be higher… I’m not 100% sure on today’s ebook contracts with authors but I’m willing to bet they’re in favor of the publishers… And what is the deal with “bargain basement prices”? You know, if you’re selling me an ebook that costs zero dollars to manufacture then yes, yes I expect a significantly reduced price.
And now for some quotes from the sensible crowd:
“In the Internet age you don’t enjoy the same degree of control,” said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, LLC, an online media measurement company in Beverly Hills, Calif. “You can’t create artificial scarcity by withholding content in one form and making it available later.”
An Amazon spokesman said, “Authors get the most publicity at launch and need to strike while the iron is hot. If readers can’t get their preferred format at that moment, they may buy a different book or just not buy a book at all.”
Thank you Eric (and nice name btw) and unnamed spokesperson of Amazon; the only thing this model is going to do is drive people to pirate the ebook and then they’ll never end up purchasing your product AT ALL… ebook or otherwise. I’ve got an idea, let’s release music albums on CD and then 4 months later we’ll sell the electronic copy! There’s no way that would effect the number of people who acquire an illegal copy OR effect the sales numbers across the board.
The final piece or retardation in this article:
Mr. Garland suggested that just as consumers now pay 99 cents for a song they want instead of $15 for an album, they may come to feel the same way about $25 hardcover best sellers. Once they become accustomed to paying $9.99 for a book, they won’t go back, he said.
Wow, analogy fail… CD album price is to digital track price as hardback price is to ebook price? First of all, there’s no fucking way I’d pay $25 for a new book and obviously I’m in the majority here. Book prices have been increasing at a much faster pace than inflation and you’re offering the same damn thing you were 15 years ago. I started buying used books almost exclusively because of the massive price difference. I remember when softcovers were $4.99 and I used to read all the time. Now they’re over three times that and I don’t read nearly as much as I used to.
So what I got out of that article is a few book publishers (so far) are flailing about, crying a lot, and trying to save their entire market instead of taking a few hints from… I don’t know, every other fucking industry that’s been effected by the digital age. I can hear them now because they all sound the same, “but our industry is different, we’re not the same, whaaaaaaaaaaa”.
Internet Explorer – Holding Back the Internet… Again…
Dec 4th
The Microsoft Internet Explorer Team needs to pull their collective head out of their ass and get with the fucking program. IE6 has long been the bane of many a web developer and designer and it looks like IE8 is going to be the same way. First, let’s take a look at CSS3 selector support: No Surprises Here! You could also take a look at this page: CSS Browser Compatibility and see just how many red NOs there are in the Internet Explorer column…
It’s sad that Internet Explorer is the only browser to come preinstalled on so many computers and even sadder still that it’s so widely used. I would love for someone to calculate the amount of time wasted on IE6 compatibility over the years by developers and designers around the globe. What I’m really after is the dollar value that can be assigned to all those lost hours. I’m sure Microsoft has cost this industry $Billions in lost hours when it would only take them $Thousands to do something about it. Any company that stands idly by while that happens and has the resources to do something about deserves a public beat down. I hope they get one.
So who’s doing it best? Apple’s WebKit is holding it down at the number one spot in my book and thankfully it’s garnering a large amount of industry support rather quickly. Currently Apple, KDE Project, Google, Nokia, Torch Moble, and more are actively contributing to Apple’s WebKit. WebKit has a GNU style license with a few parts having a BSD style license and thankfully my personal favorite browser for PC (Google Chrome) uses WebKit.
So here’s my advice to you Microsoft, if you’re not interested in keeping your browser up to date with the latest open standards support then adopt WebKit. Every web developer and designer in the world would rejoice if we could have one standard library rendering everything on the web. Tens of thousands of development hours would be saved every year, progress wouldn’t be halted due to one major browser falling behind, and you can still keep your own branded browser to deliver to the masses… every day you stand idly by I lose respect for you.
The Out of Control Taxation of Tobacco
Dec 3rd
Most people aren’t even aware of why the cost of a pack of cigarettes is so high. I’ve come across numerous articles and blogs with comments from people ranting when major cigarette manufacturers raise the cost on a pack by a few cents. The problem with cigarette prices isn’t the manufacturers… in fact they’re the only ones justified to be raising costs since their costs of manufacturing are undoubtedly rising. The real problem here is taxation from both the Federal and State Governments.
Once the crack down on the tobacco industry began, taxing tobacco quickly became an easy way for politicians to gain funding for programs that would not normally pass a vote. It’s much easier to raise taxes on a product used by less than 50% of the population than it is to create new taxes on goods and services the majority of consumers use.
In January of 2009 the Obama Administration expanded the SCHIP Program adding $32.8B in funding. You can probably guess where those monies are coming from but do you also know where they’re going? A large part of this additional funding is going towards opening up this program to illegal immigrants. I’m not too sure how the US Government thinks they have the authority to tax US residents to pay for illegal immigrants but that’s the way it’s going down. This little expansion raised the Federal taxes from $0.39 to $1.01 per pack.
This doesn’t even touch on the out of control state taxes. You can find state tobacco taxes ranging anywhere from Rhode Island’s whopping $3.46 per pack to South Carolina’s minimal $0.07 per pack. Sadly, more and more states are beginning to raise their taxes and now cities are also beginning to jump on the bandwagon. NYC has long had a $1.50 per pack tax on cigarettes making it the most expensive place to buy a pack of cigarettes with a total tax amount of $5.26 ($1.01 Federal + $1.50 City + $2.75 State). Oh and let’s not forget to pay tax on that tax because everyone loves sales tax!
If you were to tell one of our founding fathers that in the future citizens of the United States would be paying taxes in excess of 1000% of the cost of goods, I’m positive they would have spent a little more time drafting a few documents to limit federal and state taxation. But how could they possibly have guessed this would happen when the majority of US citizens can’t even believe it themselves?
The Unjust Extradition of Marc Emery
Dec 2nd
I’d like to address something which hasn’t been brought to light in any articles or comments I’ve read about Marc Emery. First a bit of background:
Marc “Prince of Pot” Emery is being extradited to the US by the Canadian Government to be tried and sentenced for allegedly selling marijuana seeds to buyers in the United States over the past ten years. To the credit of Canada, their hand was forced by the US Government through various political means however it is still no excuse. Any government who is willing to extradite one of their citizens for a crime in which no one’s personal property was stolen or damaged (including one’s self) should be ashamed of themselves. Consciously making a decision to not protect a citizen from a domestic or international threat against their welfare (in this case life in prison) is a crime against humanity and it disgusts me that this deed shall go unpunished.
But most importantly the United States of America disgusts me and disappoints me to no end in this matter and here’s my rant…
What fucking grounds does the US have to force another country to extradite an individual for selling marijuana seeds to the United States when they allow Exxon, Shell Oil, and other large companies to export thousands of metric tons of chemicals used in the processing of cocaine to Columbia alone… The United States ships over 60% of the raw chemicals used in processing cocaine to South America. The vast majority of the final product is imported back into this country. This just serves as further proof that the War on Drugs is nothing but a sham. If the US Government was truly interested in putting an end to drug trafficking they would have banned the export of these chemicals long ago. Instead they chose to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (millions?) going after a single supplier of marijuana seeds. A drug which weighs in at a big fat ZERO DEATHS every year. Where has the common sense fled to in the people holding the reins of this country? Are they so driven by greed and want for power that they are willing to steamroll anything in their path and cast judgment on citizens of foreign countries, forcing their governments to extradite them, just to “prove a point”?
Who wins in these vile actions of the United States Government? What benefit does anyone see? So you destroy the life of an entrepreneurial man, happily married, and with no arrest record other than this charge… to what end? You can not repeal the law of supply and demand. You will not slow the supply of marijuana in the United States no matter what you do. Even if you did slow the supply the only thing you would accomplish is increasing the cost of marijuana. Congratulations, you’ve just made the illegal drug trade more lucrative and probably created more growers and more distributors than ever before. The only way to end drug trafficking is by ending the demand and that will never happen.
Does anyone else think it’s backwards that we promote drinking in this country and arrest marijuana users when marijuana is by far the safer drug?
For more information and to lend some support to Marc Emery please visit http://www.NoExtradition.net/
