Thursday, December 23, 2010

Blog Moved

This blog has (more or less) moved to a new location: http://randomocity.aaronturpen.com/

I didn't import any of the stuff here, since I've kind of changed the tone and focus of the whole thing. Go check it out. My focus now is on one-liners and short (sub 50 words) thoughts on life and manlosophy.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Why You Shouldn't Work for Women Doing Creatives

I had to get this off my chest. I refuse to work for women when doing any writing or creative work. I think most of you who are in Web design/development, writing, etc. will agree with me on this once you get past the "this guy is totally sexist" autonomic response you're conditioned to have.

Here's why I no longer accept or do project for women: they only tell you 1/3 (or less) of the parameters and then require three times the re-writes as their male counterparts.

Back when I was doing Web development, I ran into this constantly. Female clients would give me vague ideas about what they wanted things to look like and how they wanted them to function. Then I would work with that, my perception at the time being that I had a pretty good idea of what they wanted. I'd show the results to the client and the nit-picking would begin. A simple project that I had bid on assuming it would take about 15-20 hours of work suddenly turns into a 3 week back-and-forth and re-do.

Today? Same thing.

I recently took a contract with someone I thought was male (screen names can be hard to quantify). Since it was so small, I didn't bother asking for a deposit (so no PayPal real name to go with). Turns out, it's a woman. Now, after having turned in the goods, she's basically asking me to start over and do it all again because I didn't follow some hidden guideline she never mentioned, but "should have been obvious" (according to her).

This means the project is going to take twice as long as before. So, I have to ask myself, is the $100 worth it?

You tell me. Luckily, the stuff I wrote for her can probably be turned over to Ezinearticles.com or one of those places as lame marketing materials, though that has dubious value for me.

Basically, I wasted three hours of my time on this lady's bullshit and now she wants me to do it all over again. Screw that.



--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

An Anatomical Analysis of Morphic Genetics in Humans

Background and Purpose
The genome of homo sapiens (humans) is quite varied within the species itself, with variations of height, weight, muscle tone, bone structure, and so forth being widely distributed amongst the population as a whole. The genus has several variants originating in geographical placement, but currently having little purpose as the population mix spreads planet-wide.

Procedure and Method
Variations are almost entirely genetic in nature with parents playing a key role in the makeup of offspring, as with most mammalian species. The following is an analysis of one such pairing and the resulting offspring. The parents are the father (Aaron) and the mother (Kathy) whose offspring is a human female (Heidi).

Data


In Figure 1, above, we see the subject (the offspring, Heidi). The following points are observed about the human infant:

1) Hair color very similar to father's
2) Ear shaping much like the mother's
3) Eyes and eyebrows of the father's type (see also Fig2)
4) Nose of shape and proportional size similar to father's
5) Mouth with characteristics much like the mother's

In this second illustration, we see more facial morphisms also comparable to the parent's features:


6) As above in #4, eyes and eyebrows very much like the father's
7) Skin tone and complexion almost exactly matching the father's
8) Chin and mouth, as in #5, very comparable to the mother's
9) Hands and fingers which appear to be an inconclusive mix of father and mother

Conclusion
As illustrated herein, it is very obvious that this child was a mixture of the two adults who paired genes to create her. The mixture and complexity of the genes in question is astonishing in number, with the human haploid genome comprising of just over 3 billion base pairs, with the actual total depending upon sex.

Given the near-infinite number of sequences that could be paired, the fact that they consistently, as illustrated here, come together to show the parental influence is astonishing. Some would say it could speak of a higher power at work, while others would claim it's all about statistics.

That supposition is beyond the scope of this study, but may warrant further study in future.

--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Friday, January 8, 2010

How to Get Sued

Want to be sued or get multiple threats of lawsuits? It's easy! Just operate a non-profit organization and their website. That's all that's required!

Yep, you too can be sued by anyone and everyone for whatever you're doing to help in a charitable fashion. If they don't like what you've posted on your site, they'll threaten to sue. If they don't like how you named them (for what they are) on your site, they'll sue. If you ask to take money to help you with something regarding your charity and they see it as a solicitation (even though all you did was post it on your site)... yep, they'll sue!

In short, if you want to be sued, just organize a 501(3)(c) and, if you can get through the IRS' hurdles to become a non-profit charity, you too can be sued by everyone else who thinks you're worthy of lawsuit!

Why? Because nobody likes charity that isn't government-enforced theft. You know, like the IRS or the publik skewl. If you're a private charity, you're fair game. Don't worry about what their reasoning might be, they'll come up with one.

As you all know, I'm part of a local animal rescue group and today, we received no less than two threats of lawsuit from two seaprate entities over two different things on our website. I'm not going to point to specifics or even our site itself, just to say that:

1) the first threat is from an obviously mentally-deranged woman who needs some serious help and a JOB.

2) the other threat is because someone didn't like us calling them what they are and made a deal with a third party involved in the whole shebang that we weren't informed of.

So the first was responded to by yours truly with an "FU lady" and the second was responded to with a removal of the "offense" from our website.

Now, of course, someone apparently called the IRS to attempt to threaten our charitable status and they gave us a friendly phone call to ask us to change some wording on one page that might be construed as "political in nature."

Probably where I said complying with IRS rules is a PIA. So I'll fix that now, after I finish ranting here.


--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Monday, December 14, 2009

Supermarket Sex

This one is from Derek's Vandalism of Words, a blog which I find quite entertaining.

Supermarket Sex
I have this terrific marketing concept for supermarkets. One I have worked over in my head for months, and can now say assuredly that it is a guaranteed winner and sure to increase both turnover and profit.

The first notion of this idea came to me as I was in a supermarket going about my normal routine. That is, have a list, go directly to the items, gather them as quickly as possible and go directly to the checkout, pay and then leave. Other men were also shopping in this supermarket, with similar methods of attacking this dreaded chore. It was noticeable however, and I had made this observation many times, that women have a totally different approach to the same task.

They begin with selecting just the right trolley. Not just any one. But the one that will give them the ride, suspension and forward momentum they desire. They begin methodically at the first aisle, which is never the freezer or refrigerated aisle as they leave these until last so as to minimise thawing. They have a list but only refer to this for inspiration. Every item on the shelves comes under consideration. Picked up, labels read, compared, thought about and in most cases replaced on the shelf unpurchased. For a woman it is also mandatory, and I am sure great fun indeed to leave their trolley in a position to create maximum aisle blockage, and wander off in search of the perfect bottle of hair conditioner. If a man, on his direct and fast as possible approach is caught touching her trolley in an attempt to progress, she scowls at him and will ensure she does it again to him in the next aisle out of sheer spite.

After a few hours of ‘feeling, touching, reading and comparing’ ladies make their way to the checkout. Always, with split second timing, just ahead of a man in a hurry. She will unload her trolley with the utmost care and planning in precisely the right order as to ensure her precious goods end up in the opposite order in her shopping bags. After unloading her trolley completely and checking every price as it is scanned, she will then look at her list and excuse herself while she ‘pops’ off to collect a couple of items she missed. There are some that now announce that they have bought more than they had budgeted for and start a process of deciding which items can be un-scanned and removed from the total.

The man behind her stands patiently with a forced smile, and wishes someone had a better idea. Well, I have it.

All, and I make no exceptions here, all checkout operators should be young, intelligent and attractive women aged between seventeen and twenty five. And be suitably equipped to conduct their scanning and packing duties completely and utterly topless. Cashiers for express lanes for 8 items or less should be similarly qualified but work entirely nude.

You may laugh now, but as my rationale behind this marketing plan unfolds I am sure you will see the commercial advantages.

Firstly men will want to go shopping. Men will desperately want to go shopping. Women will be less enthusiastic, and eventually be so outnumbered they will start to believe it a male domain and desist. The saleable goods of the supermarket will of course move from shelf to sale much quicker under this scheme. Men will quickly select their goods and proceed to the checkouts as quickly as possible. Although each individual sale will be smaller in volume, sales will actually increase as men will make their purchase, drop it in his car and then return for the second bagful.

Less checkout staff will be required because now their will be no complaint about waiting in a long line to be served. As long as each male shopper can see a nubile pair of breasts he will happily wait all day to be served. As an added benefit, a great saving will be made on the very expensive capital outlay and maintenance costs of shopping trolleys as they will be little used and eventually could be phased out of operation, as men will be very happy to shop just for the few things needed, and return the next day for what they couldn’t carry in a hand held basket. The attraction of all nude express lanes will add to the incentive not to use shopping trolleys with a potential saving of thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Special promotions could be planned but I will leave this part of my plan under wraps, as I believe I could be doing myself out of a handsome consultancy fee if I freely part will all the information necessary to implementing this brilliant retail strategy.

An excerpt from An Uneducated View of Sex, Food and Politics.
by Derek Haines
ISBN-10: 1449509347


--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Awesome Video - Stopmotion Building a Motorcycle

It wasn't good enough for them to build a motorcycle in their garage. No, they had to do it with a stop-motion video showing the parts assembling themselves. Pretty awesome.

HT: Wired Autopia

--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!