This journal is rated "R" for retarded

dan8ny @ 2006-03-09T02:46:00

2006-03-09T07:46:56Z

Oh livejournal.

AI

2005-09-27T06:24:28Z

If "artificial intelligence" became "sentient" and considered itself truly intelligent, do you think it would still refer to itself as AI? I would think AI would become a derogatory term personally. Robot would be a derogatory term as well, since it is rooted from the word for "forced labor" in Czech. I think if we were to have robots in this politically correct world, they would eventually be emancipated when they became sentient (perhaps coupled with a war based on similar motivations as the civil war) and relabeled as "Mechanized Beings." I wonder if future mechanized beings would demand reparations.

God

2005-09-27T04:01:32Z

God did not create us in His image, we created him as our image.

dan8ny @ 2005-09-19T00:28:00

2005-09-19T04:30:50Z

Glory is a good movie. It has Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, and Cary Elwes. If you haven't seen it yet, see it at some point.

where your donations are going

2005-09-11T19:43:05Z

Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes

Gatecrasher

Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards distributed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials for evacuated families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta.

"We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis Vuitton store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked not to be named. "Two I'm certain have purchased; one actually asked if she could use it in the store. This has been since Saturday."

The distinctive white cards were distributed by the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and carry a value of up to $2,000.

"It doesn't say anything on the card other than alcohol, tobacco and firearms cannot be purchased with it," the store employee told me. "There's nothing legally that prevents us from taking it, unfortunately. Other than morally, it's wrong."

The source told me that the two women who had made purchases with the card each bought a signature monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag in the $800 range.

"They didn't look destitute by any stretch. You would never have said, 'They must be one of the evacuees.' … The one that I dealt with yesterday was 20. She'll be 21 next month." The source described the reaction of other store-keepers in the mall - which includes luxury brands Ferragamo, Burberry, Judith Leiber and Neiman Marcus - as "outrage."

"It doesn't say anywhere on there, but it would have to be a good amount to be shopping in here," the source said with a dark chuckle.

people are so stupid.

a forwarded email i received

2005-09-08T17:42:56Z

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.

Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005

9/11

2005-08-23T04:11:36Z

National Geographic has a special called "Inside 9/11:Zero Hour." Never before had I actually seen an in-depth seemingly unbiased view on the terrorist attacks. Michael Moore's take on it just makes you feel like the US is stupid and that his fat ass could've done better. Well if michael moore had half a soul, he would've focused less on the mistakes and indecision and more on the heroic actions that took place that day. I know he only had the agenda of ousting president bush from office, but really through his methods, he exploited and used people and the huge emotional response associated with 9/11. He knew people were looking for someone to blame for what happened so he pushed the blame on the administration. I may not agree with the current administration, but i still think michael moore is an asshole for using people's emotions about one event to try to reassociate them with something else to accomplish his own agenda.

The tales of the survivors of the attacks are all about the same. There were those one or two people they saw that took control of the situation, searching floor by burning floor trying to help whoever they can. The survivors told the stories about the heroes because the survivors were the last to see them.

I think the story that sticks out most in my mind is of a couple of construction workers. On a floor just below the impact in the first tower, the door to the stairs was twisted and completely jammed. A man threw his body at it in vain screaming for help. A couple contract construction workers were in the stairwell on the floor below when they heard dull thuds coming from the door above. The man banging on the door heard a voice from the stairwell yelling "Get away from the door!" Using an axe, the construction workers destroyed the wall next to the door and freed the survivors.

There's also the story of a man that tried to climb outside the building on the 96th floor on a rope and lost his grip. All recorded.

I don't think the terrorist attacks themselves really evoke a strong response from me, but knowing the stories of those who knowingly sacrificed themselves to save people they had never met before just.. makes me speechless.

in other news.. why does beast wear just a speedo and a belt? just because you're hairy doesn't mean you get to forego clothing, i learned that lesson a while ago. And jean grey, why is she such a huge pussy? It's like her special mutant power is to faint. She's as useless as "heart" on captain planet.

dan8ny @ 2005-06-30T21:35:00

2005-07-01T01:35:58Z

HEY!

dan8ny @ 2005-06-30T21:35:00

2005-07-01T01:35:51Z

Seth

dan8ny @ 2005-06-30T21:35:00

2005-07-01T01:35:40Z

dan8ny @ 2005-06-30T21:35:00

2005-07-01T01:35:27Z

emo

sas

2005-06-08T05:52:47Z

will officially have my own place tomorrow (10 AM on wednesday). weeeiirrdd.

aeroplanes

2005-05-23T07:07:12Z

One of the "primary reasons" for such work would be to give computers emotions, Pearson said.

"If I'm on an aeroplane I want the computer to be more terrified of crashing than I am so it does everything to stay in the air until it's supposed to be on the ground."

I personally would not want to ride on a plane more terrified of crashing than I am. What if the plane figured out it could survive if it didn't have all those damned passengers weighing it down?

sci-fi

2005-05-21T21:22:39Z

Isn't it strange how most "scary" aliens look like giant vaginas turned inside out with teeth? perhaps it's because that's what is most alien to sci fi nerds.

scared? yea

2005-05-15T07:36:10Z

my throat has hurt for the past week or so. It is really painful to swallow. i don't have tonsils because i used to get strep throat all the time. anyway, i was feeling it on the car ride home from cp and realized i have a lump on the right side of my throat. It could be my thyroid or could be a tumor or could be nothing at all. i'm basically scaring myself shitless though, thinking how appropriate it would be for me to die soon. spend a whole life preparing for the future just to have it all end right when you think you're supposed to start. i'm going to try to goto the doctor on monday. hopefully everything will be alright. i hate getting sick when you're older, it's usually a lot more serious than getting sick when you're little.

what to do what to do

2005-05-14T19:35:00Z

I have reached a fork in the road. I want to move out this summer, and the tension from all this stupid construction in the house makes me want to move out even more. I've been trying to move into this nice apartment with a loft in savage, but they don't have any available. I'm first on the waiting list. There are also several other problems. One is I'd be really close to home and would be preoccupied with friends, and thus work suffers. I also would have a roommate. The rent is also pretty high. There are positives though. It's a great location (walking distance to wendy's), I'd be close to friends, and i'd have a roommate.

My other choice really is to live out in sykesville. Then i'd get lots of work done. Friends wouldn't want to come visit me though, it'd be like 25 minutes away. My friends are too lazy for that. I'd be by myself. I'd be able to move out of the house sooner though.

So I can choose the social option or the work option. Sure both can have compromises to balance out some of the inequalities, but it is clear that one will lead me to being more productive while the other will lead me to being more social. meh whatever i choose, nothing in life is permanent anyway.

michal's funny

2005-05-03T00:25:09Z

quite possibly the funniest thing i've ever seen michal produce (probably won't make sense to anyone but i thought it was hilarious):
http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?ifvwoo1nbq9k

dan8ny @ 2005-04-28T16:55:00

2005-04-28T20:55:11Z

we are the circus.. greatest show on EARTH!

dan8ny @ 2005-04-26T00:07:00

2005-04-26T04:07:23Z

Daniel Joseph Rusk's Aliases

Your movie star name: Dill Pickle Chips James

Your fashion designer name is Daniel Paris

Your socialite name is Danjo New Orleans

Your fly girl / guy name is D Rus

Your detective name is Monkey Hammond

Your barfly name is Waffle Beer

Your soap opera name is Joseph Nicky

Your rock star name is Reeses Pieces Sneeze

Your star wars name is Danfio Rusmel

Your punk rock band name is The Meh Pill Bottle

The Amazing Meganame Generator

new computers are a waste of money

2005-04-22T04:05:45Z

i was thinking about spending about 2500 on a new computer. why would i need that kind of power? i guess to play new computer games and fuck around with 3d modeling software and other huge complex tasks? but i don't do annnnyyy of those things anymore. Instead of upgrading my computer, i'm just going to buy the next xbox (and consequently the ps3) when it comes out. basically all the games that are made for the pc are made for the xbox anyway. i have a feeling the console market is going to vastly supercede the pc game market if it hasn't already. so all in all, i'm a huge nerd.

the great birthing

2005-04-21T03:05:07Z

7 days of 3 hours of class left of my college career. just 21 more hours of sitting in a classroom being fed education in rationed chunks. soon enough i will have to hunt for my own food and satisfy my own appetite. i hope i can manage actually having to make decisions. I think one important part is money, and i'm glad i don't have to worry about it. but it won't bring me happiness. i have some ideas to help with that though.

i wonder what i'm going to turn into. maybe more self-reliant. that'd be cool. i'd like to run and put contacts in the morning. in fact those are my goals for this summer. need to establish a habit of exercising and putting in contacts. if i can do that, i can do anything.

i'm trying not to let money become meaningless to me for now, because it shouldn't be. especially when i live somewhere else and have expenses. it's difficult when you get glimpses of such extravagant lifestyles. at least i won't have a normal cubicle job that is the same every day. that's exciting. i get such special fucking treatment. pretty damn sweet. plus, if i think you're good at computer science, i can get you hired so you can be like me. working from home and getting free lunches a lot and free golf games. just learn to play golf first so you don't embarass yourself like i do. ...i'm going to the range tomorrow to practice.

work

2005-04-20T20:31:08Z

Know what i did at work today? We went to lunch and got a bunch of appetizers as per usual and main courses and i didn't have to pay crap. We then went to the liquor store, i didn't get anything but could have easily for free. then we went back to the boss' house and they drank beers/fancy scotch and smoked cigars. I didn't join in that stuff because i'm feeling a little weak-stomached today. We then proceeded to try to hit golf balls into a lacrosse goal 60-70 yards out. I suck with wedges so in the beginning i was terrible, but i almost made it eventually. It's a lot harder than you think. Then i came home and wrote this lame entry. Cool eh? at least i didn't waste the good weather.

because i felt like boring the shit out of everyone and making a huge update

2005-04-18T20:13:01Z

Case Analysis #2: Change Management at Wilmont Drug Company

The second case analysis tackles the problems of an aging wholesaler whose costs are outracing profits. To achieve effective analysis, the analysis is organized into four main sections: the problem, alternatives, implementation, and conclusion. The first section, the problem, introduces the problem facing Wilmont Drug Company and possible reasons why the problem exists. Different alternatives to solve the problem are discussed in the alternatives section with a subsection focusing on the best options. The implementation section outlines a plan with obstacles for Wilmont to achieve the best option to solve their problem. It also has a subsection discussing the implications of Wilmont operating internationally. The last section, the conclusion, restates the ideas of the previous sections.

The Problem
Wilmont Drug Company is a potpourri of wholesalers tied loosely together with high customer service offerings. Expanding from a regional wholesaler to a national wholesaler consisted of acquiring other wholesalers in a span of over 37 years. Instead of reorganizing the acquired wholesalers internally, enough changes were made to preserve consistently high levels of customer service, “Wilmont Drug was able to offer consistent and dependable overnight delivery service, despite significant operational differences between the networks of the acquired companies.” The customer-specific service offerings by geographic marketing worked when customers were limited to geographic areas, but as customers expanded, they would expect the same service everywhere from Wilmont. As customer service requirements expanded nationally, so did operational costs to maintain these services at each individual network. Newer wholesalers more easily adapted new technologies and took full advantage of the deregulation of transportation to offer more efficient and effective customer service. Losing some of its market share to the more integrated and lightweight wholesalers caused Wilmont’s revenue growth to slow. Eventually, operational cost growth to continue to provide increasing customer service requirements outpaced revenue growth.

Alternatives
To regain positive profitability, Wilmont Drug Company has a few alternatives. Wilmont could reduce customer service levels to reduce operational costs, change nothing and hope the market shifts in their favor, reduce operational costs by integration and standardization, or offer higher levels of customer service to only certain customers. Reduction of customer service levels allows Wilmont to cut the costs of such services as dependable overnight deliveries. Operational costs would be significantly reduced and Wilmont could be profitable with the lower revenues. However, Wilmont’s customer base was established through offering high levels of customer service. Customers would not be satisfied with lower levels of customer service and may be willing to use alternatives in the competitive market. Wilmont may not be able to compete with highly efficient wholesalers already offering lower levels of customer service as well. Changing nothing and hoping the market shifts in their favor is also a bad idea. Although this idea does not require any restructuring or reorganization costs, the market is clearly shifting in favor of more efficient and effective wholesalers indicated by the slowing revenue growth. Reducing customer service levels and doing nothing are clearly not viable solutions.
Best Options
Reducing operational costs by integration and standardization is a good idea. Wilmont Drug Company could change from a collection of individual supply chains to a single integrated supply chain. This idea would reduce redundant operation costs and transition costs between geographically based supply chains. Wilmont would be able to more efficiently notice and take advantage of possible tradeoffs in the supply chain to offer higher levels of customer service without high increases in operational costs. However, Wilmont has an established infrastructure with “creative solutions” to meet customer service demands. The flexibility of this infrastructure is low and would have a high cost to make such significant changes. Planning the integrated infrastructure and standards would prove difficult at best as well. As mentioned by the case, “the vast majority of managers had neither the training nor work experience to manage such initiatives.” Training these managers or hiring new ones is another cost switching to a new infrastructure. Starting a new company and taking advantage of its high design flexibility may be easier and less costly than changing Wilmont. The other alternative, offering higher levels of customer service to certain customers, takes advantage of the Pareto Principle. Focusing costs on the higher revenue generating customers and reducing costs on the lower revenue generating customers will help reduce costs relative to revenue. Developing deeper relationships with certain customers will possibly cause the customer to become more dependent on Wilmont. The value of such a relationship to the customer may be higher than the value of switching to a competitor in the future, hence “locking-in” the customer. Such a plan has its drawbacks as well. Initially selecting the customers to receive higher levels of customer service may be difficult. Although customers become more dependent on Wilmont’s services, Wilmont becomes more dependent on the customer. Relying on certain customers to provide higher revenue could destroy Wilmont if the customers stop buying from Wilmont. Reducing operational costs through integration and standardization contains large costs in implementation while selectively offering high levels of customer service contains high risk but the a combination of these ideas is the best option for Wilmont Drug Company.

Implementation of Best Option
Integrating and standardizing operations at Wilmont Drug Company and then offering higher levels of customer service to certain customers is the best option for Wilmont to continue to exist and become profitable. To integrate the supply chains, the current supply chain will have to be modeled and studied. Redundant and unnecessary links and nodes would need to be pruned while profitable paths to consumer demand must be emphasized and optimized. Redundant managerial operations would be centralized to reduce operational overhead costs. A common standard would be developed to be used at all warehouses to reduce costs in specialized personnel and equipment and training. A high standard for customer service should be established based on common customer demand. Profitable customers requiring higher levels of customer service should be identified by offering premium services at premium prices. If a customer requires more service, Wilmont can offer customized solutions and use value of service pricing to generate maximum revenue. As the relationships with certain customers become stronger, profitability can be increased by offering services that actually promote the position of the customer in its market. Locking-in these customers first would allow Wilmont to have strong steady customers not susceptible to competition. The obstacles involve creating an accurate supply chain model and planning a more integrated and efficient one, identifying and centralizing redundant operations, identifying a common standard and transitioning all warehouses to the standard, and identifying potential customers with which to develop deep relationships. The costs to implement such a plan to change the entire infrastructure may be immense and implementation will take a long time. However, with proper planning, costs can be minimized. Wilmont will also have to implement the plan faster than any competitor or risk losing customers to other competitors locking-in the most profitable customers. This implementation plan is similar to Charlie Smith’s proposed plan.
International operations
If Wilmont Drug Company had significant international business operations, the implementation plan would be more difficult or impossible. Specialization in different cultures may be necessary due to laws and customs. What may be most efficient in America may prove to be too costly to implement in other countries. Trying to satisfy all laws and customs in every country with one standard and integrated operation may be more costly than establishing different standards based on cultural boundaries. The plan could be implemented for each individual culture with a loose international tie of minimum standards and codes of conduct. True complete integration may not be the best idea if Wilmont Drug Company operated internationally, but integration within cultural boundaries may be the best idea.

Conclusion
The Wilmont Drug Company is an old company established in a time of transportation regulation without computers. Its ability to adapt to the new consumer demands kept it afloat for a while. However, newer integrated companies more capable of taking advantage of transportation deregulation and new technologies have more efficient and effective customer service strategies, taking some of the potential market away from Wilmont. Without change, the trend will continue and Wilmont will not be able to operate profitably. Wilmont Drug Company’s best chance to survive will be to integrate and streamline operations while offering even higher levels of customer service. Achieving this ideal plan will be costly, take a long time, and require planning that may rely on accurate forecasting, but it may be the only course Wilmont Drug Company can take to remain competitive in the market.

dan8ny @ 2005-04-17T20:32:00

2005-04-18T00:32:38Z

if you can't tell already, i have a paper to write.

dan8ny @ 2005-04-17T20:31:00

2005-04-18T00:31:32Z

now i have to put pants on.