Tag Archive
for Rant
Tagged as: Rant
Aug
27
Does anyone else wish that people thought about others more? I can’t stand it when people think that their actions have no consequences for other people!
Sometimes people will do horrible and disgusting things. Sometimes they’ll even admit that it’s wrong. Sometimes, though, it goes beyond reason when they do horrible things, and justify themselves to others with the opinion that it won’t affect other people.
Spit out your gum? Yeah, it’ll get on people’s shoes (or even my car!). That is not a happy moment.
Throw your trash onto the street? Someone has to pick it up, and it most likely is not going to be your mother. It’s going to be some poor soul who has to clean up your mess.
These things? These are the least of the offenses. The world is full of them.
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Tagged as: Rant, Seen-Around
Aug
13
For those that have ever driven in areas that are unfamiliar, I’m sure that you can sympathize with my distaste for confusing addresses.
The thing is, it’s so unnecessary! Why must city planners do things like:
- Same name but differing suffixes (e.g., Boulevard, Street, and Circle)
- Same number for multiple prefixes (e.g., 111 North Main St and 111 South Main St)
- Non-numerical order. This can happen sometimes when changing cities. And it’s no good!
- Non-standard street behavior. I’m talking about the one way street, the blocking island in the road that restricts cars from entering roads from certain directions, or even a strange break in the road!
- Buildings where you can’t see the address numbers! Alright so maybe it’s more the fault of the builders of each building. But still, it’s annoying.
I am Derek, therefore I rant. Haha. So will city planners listen? Doubtful, indeed.
Obviously my deal with it is that I don’t like getting lost. Who really does?
Tagged as: Life, Rant
Aug
06
People sure seem to like to talk about themselves being ignorant. But just go and call someone ignorant and see what happens.
I’ve heard it said that being called ignorant is tops for bad things to be called. Now whether that is a true statement remains to be seen. Still it makes me wonder. Is the saying true? Is ignorance bliss?
When people talk about ignorance as a blissful state, they are usually talking about the fact that they are unaware of something. Perhaps it’s because they’ve been caught doing something that they’re not supposed to be doing (e.g., breaking the law because they didn’t know the law). Or perhaps it’s because it’s their last resort reasoning for why they aren’t caught up on the facts (e.g., people not up on things like politics).
But it doesn’t seem altogether like I have to buy ignorance as an excuse. Do I really care if someone didn’t know that it was illegal to yield to me at a signal when they’ve just caused an accident? No, frankly ignorance as an excuse is useless. Facts are facts.
So is it bliss? Maybe. But it sure is an extraordinarily weak argument/excuse/cop-out no matter why you’re saying it.
Tagged as: Internet, Life, Music, Rant, Software
Apr
23
Alright so I don’t actually know any ninjas. Pirates, though? Perhaps.
Not the pirates that say, “Arggh me matey” or have a peg leg or even have a parrot on their shoulder. That would be cool, but I actually only know pirates in the modern day sense. You know the ones that illegally consume things like music, videos, software, pictures, or any of a whole range of things. Haha I can hear the groans already.
The digital age has made it infinitely more easy to exactly duplicate other content (which is related to why digital things are superior in quality to analog). With this, people have degenerated to outright stealing while not even understanding what they’re doing. Well I hate to break it to you, but wrongs committed unintentionally are still wrong.
While I have written that I think that Music Piracy Makes People Stupid, this issue is far larger than just music. Music is the best known, probably because it’s the area that’s most often violated. It is so much more widespread, though. So let’s get down to the real issue.
Breaking Down Piracy
- Someone creates something for a purpose
- Somehow it’s made available to other people (whether stolen, hacked, copied, or what) outside of the realm of the original purpose
- You (or a “friend” of yours) gets a copy of said good and utilize it
Is that pretty much how it breaks down? Seems to me like the real issue is that the creator/writer/actor/musician/whatever did not intend for those in step 3 to make use of their creation. If I were a computer programmer and wrote a program to sell. And then if someone had illegally hacked my program that I worked to create to sell and gave it away for free, I’d be piping mad. If you were a photographer and had taken a picture for someone, but someone else had taken it and used it for a totally different purpose, you’d be up in arms. If you provided services (law, medicine, therapy, teaching, what have you) and someone took your service without providing payment, you’d see that something was immediately wrong.
So basically, since the creator didn’t want it (and who hopefully created a bulletproof license or end user agreement), you’re undermining what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter that you could create a digital copy of their song without paying for it and they’ll be none the wiser. Because in actuality, it does affect them. You should have paid them for that song. And you are now a pirate. But you don’t have to be!
Dealing With This New Ninja World
Is all lost? Far from it. Once you understand what it’s like to be the one being defrauded, you’ll see that something needs to change. And there is a solution! There are all kinds of answers! Maybe watch things that are actually released by the studios (try out Hulu), actually buy music (if you’re listening to music you can probably afford to pay for it) or try Amie Street for the whole indie scene, and possibly even catch up on some of my Favorite Open Source Apps.
Or you could just become a real ninja and then you’d care about arrows, ninja stars, and ninjato rather than swiping versions of old TV shows, Adobe Photoshop, and/or the remix version of Justin Timberlake’s latest single. 
Tagged as: Rant, Relationships, Seen-Around
Mar
26
We, as people, have a love/hate relationship with one of the things that is constantly changing: our age. Sometimes we want to get older, and sometimes we will do everything that we can to reduce it. But we really have no control over it, do we?
It seems as if all of this starts early in life. As we are going through the different grades in school, there is a marked distinction between students who are in different grades. Granted, this is all rather necessary because children generally mature and progress according to how old they are. So it makes sense in that situation. But the lasting influence seems to be that we feel comfortable with just people our own age.
Relationships
This effect can often be seen in the arena of relationships. Why is it that many of my friends who are girls will not even think about dating a younger guy? Is it because younger guys is not be great and worthy of her? Is it because they (the girls) are somehow more mature because they are a couple of years (sometimes a couple of months) older? I doubt it. Why do my guy friends only look for girls that are younger than them? And why is there a floor limit such that they won’t even consider girls younger than their specified age? There are a lot of questions, and there aren’t that many answers. All I know is that it all doesn’t make much sense. People limit themselves by not looking for the things that really matter, the essence and characteristics of a person. Then they complain that they can’t find anyone. And that’s just not right, is it?
Social Aspects
People age. That’s the truth. And it seems like as that happens the reality of death is more apparent. The chances become greater (on any particular day since the actual chances that you will die are 100%), and that seems to have lend itself to the general notion that young is better. Even more than that unspoken tendency is that socially we have come to praise the young as vibrant and beautiful.
On the other hand, people who are getting older can always attest that they are getting wiser. It’s true, they should be getting wiser anyways. They just have more experience, and those with experience know that it counts. Of course, those who lack it do not think that it counts for very much. I know, I’ve been/am still there.
Conclusion
But I say that it’s so much more important to be young at heart. Of people that I’ve met, young and old, I find myself consistently being convinced that being young at heart is truly the way that I want to go. I don’t want to lose the awe of a child looking at the huge expanse of the night sky or discovering something for the first time. No amount of time or social constructs can take that away. Whatever you do, don’t be proud of your age sheerly because of your age. That would make you Proud Of Nothing, wouldn’t it?
So really there are 2 ways that you can deal with age:
- Wine - get tastier and more valuable with age
- Cheese - get moldy!
Haha I know, I’m just good at making up strikingly accurate analogies. You don’t need to tell me twice. No really, you don’t.