To Wookiee, or not to Wookiee, That is the Question...

So, the other night I was a tangential participant in a Facebook discussion. One of my online friends, I won't name him, but suffice to say he's someone I consider a good person, went to WalMart and bought a number of items. None were "big ticket" - no computers, flat screen TVs, or anything even vaguely expensive.

So, as he was walking out, the greeter asked to see his receipt. He politely declined, was challenged a second time, declined a second time, and then left the store. Someone who he thought might be a store detective followed him out into the parking lot, again asking to see his receipt. He declined yet again, then asked if he was under suspicion of having done something illegal. When told no, he got ready to leave.

The detective/loss prevention person then took pictures of his car's license plate and informed him that he had better not have stolen anything, because they would inform the police. At this point, the friend in question asked if they wanted to call the police, because it sounded to him that WalMart was accusing him of a crime. The loss prevention dude declined to call the police, and my friend left the store parking lot and went home.

This is one of those kobayashi maru* scenarios, where there really is no good outcome. I *totally* understand not wanting to show a receipt. It's a colossal waste of time, you know you haven't stolen anything, it's sending a bad message to the store when you consent knowing you've done nothing wrong. On the other hand, my friend ended up wasting way more time arguing with store employees than had he simply shown his receipt. Yes, you're right, but you've allowed the store to steal more of your time than it would have taken to produce the receipt.

I've been challenged, and shown my receipt, for just that reason: it's easier. It takes five seconds, tops, they glance at it, are satisfied, and I leave. Easy peasy. Maybe people like me are the reason they feel they can challenge anyone at any time. For me it's a simple time/benefit analysis - it's simply not worth the extra time to argue with someone over whether they have the right to demand my receipt. I'm not going to convince the $10/hour loss prevention dude that he's chasing the wrong folks.

But the flip side is just as convincing: by not giving in, my friend forced the store to the brink, and they backed down. By not calling the police, they are admitting that they don't have sufficient evidence to even accuse my friend of a crime, let alone produce evidence to have him arrested. It forces the store to be more accurate in who they chose to accost leaving the store, and that's a net win for everyone.

I don't think the store did it maliciously, that simply doesn't make sense. It took time for the greeter to ask for the receipt; it took time for the loss prevention dude to go out into the parking lot to talk to my friend; if the store is doing this just to harass customers at random, it's a terrible idea all around. Not only are they losing money in the form of salary paid for precisely zero effective work, but they're diverting loss prevention resources away from, you know, people actually stealing from the store.

Bottom line, I really don't know how I would/will react. Honestly, I'm more likely to produce my receipt to get out faster - years of shopping at warehouse stores where you deliberately show your receipt when leaving have conditioned me to simply keep the receipt out until I get into my truck. On the flip side, by refusing to show a receipt when I know I've done nothing wrong, I'm forcing the store to examine their policies and possibly save them time and money.

Oh, I'm just kidding. We all know that's not going to happen. More than likely, the store has some idiotic, TSA-like "random search" policy where they ask every [X] person leaving the store for their receipt. Corporate has probably run some sort of analysis that showed a certain percentage of stops resulted in a certain drop in shrink (lost goods; yes, I used to work in retail...). By stopping every, say, 50th person leaving the store, they create the illusion that their loss prevention team is ready to swoop in like ninjas should you try to abscond with a Snickers bar you didn't pay for.

Maybe I lose some wookiee cred here, because it's not worth my time to teach a megamart a lesson that they'll never get. 

That is all.

*And yes, I am fully aware of the irony of using a Star Trek scenario in a post I titled with something from Star Wars... ;)

180 Days...

Just saw this. Rather interesting...

NBC suspends Brian Williams for 6 months without pay

NBC announced Tuesday that it is suspending Brian Williams as "Nightly News" anchor and managing editor for six months without pay for misleading the public about his experiences covering the Iraq War.

The network's decision came less than a week after Williams apologized for saying on the air that he was in a helicopter hit by a grenade in 2003. Instead, another helicopter flying ahead of his was hit, and some veterans involved in the mission called him out on it.

Now, I wonder if the camera crews and other folks that accompanied Williams are also suspended for six months. I mean, if they were there, and knew he was lying, shouldn't they have come forward? Or, maybe they did come forward, and were told to keep quiet. Hard to tell.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that he wasn't the only person that knew his story was BS. I also think - well, I'd like to think - that at least one person from the crew would have the guts to stand up and say, hey, this story isn't right. Judging from how it is carefully omitted from the official record at NBC, I'd wager the higher-ups knew as well it was an embellishment.

The scary thing, though, is reading the comments (I know, I know, never read the comments). They break down into roughly three camps:

1. People lie all the time and don't get caught/fired/etc.;
2. Politicians all lie to us, so why can't reporters;
3. BUSH! FOX NEWS! RETHUGLICANS! WITCHHUNT

Someone in a FB comment thread even had this to say:

Well if you remember they kinda did the same thing to Dan Rather!

Yes. The nebulous and shadowy "they" did "this" to Dan Rather. After promoting a shoddily done forgery, Rather was kicked to the curb. And now, after years of lying about his experience in Iraq, Williams has gotten an unpaid leave. "They" seem to be punishing liars, although I suspect the commenter falls more into the BUSH! FOX NEWS! camp and sees no reason why either man should be punished.

In a way, though, they've got a point. Williams is a talking head who basically reads whatever is put on the teleprompter in front of him. He's got great hair, a good speaking voice, and he can fake sincerity with the best of 'em. How lying about getting shot down in a helicopter affects his ability to read words on a screen is anyone's guess. 

Of course, in all the comments I read, while many blamed Bush, not a single person mentioned Hillary "We came under sniper fire" Clinton...

That is all.

I Like It!

An alert reader sent this story in, (rightfully) thinking I'd dig it...

What This Company Did With Legos In Their Office Is Amazing. Can I Work There?

How cool would it be to work in an office made entirely out of Lego bricks? While we're not quite there yet, Hamburg, Germany-based creative studio NPIRE is a lot closer than most offices.

For the last year, employees at NPIRE slowly built a colorful wall of Legos to divide their kitchen space from the hallway. The finished product is the coolest piece of office furniture you've ever seen.

They've got the full progression at the link, but here's the end product:

Wall 'o' Lego!

Naturally, that got me to thinking... With the wall sufficiently deep, it should be more than adequate as a partition (obviously not load-bearing...). The question, of course, becomes one of cost: How much did this cost just in materials? One of the pictures shows the starting materials; assuming that's all the bricks needed, there's 30 large buckets and about 50 of the smaller boxes. The large blue buckets are over $100 each; the boxes are $30 each. There's close to $5,000 in Legos there...

Yeah, I think at that price I'd stick with 2X4s and sheetrock...

That is all.

Oopsie...

#1 Blogdaughter sends in this story that's even more backwards than "Wrong Way" Corrigan...

Iraqi pilots mistakenly drop supplies — instead of bombs — on Islamic State terrorists

Members of Islamic State recently received an unexpected surprise from the Iraqi military’s inexperienced pilots: an airdrop of food, water and ammunition.

A senior security official told NBC News on Tuesday that an investigation has been launched into how supplies meant for Iraqi soldiers fighting the terrorist group were dropped at the wrong location in Anbar province.

Yeah, that's pretty bad. Rather than dropping explosives, you gave them food and ammunition. That's about as bassackwards as you're going to get, as not only did you not kill them, you gave them the means by which they could assist in killing you or your fellow soldiers. That's a pretty big oops...

Now, of course, they could turn this into a huge positive. Load the same planes up, this time with a small amount of food/water/etc. and make another run. When the ISIS jackholes run out to collect, have a second plane do a strafing run...

You know, when life hands you lemons, light 'em up with a .50-cal.!

That is all.

Consult The Book of Armaments!

Joseph in IL sends in a story that, honestly, I have no idea what to make of...

Fish and Wildlife Department Using 'Salmon Cannon' to Move Fish Upriver

Say goodbye to the lazy river. Salmon now have a cannon! Sounds fishy, but it's true. Whooshh Innovations, a Bellevue, Wash.-based company, has developed a product called the Fish Passage. Nicknamed the "salmon cannon," it is used to move salmon upstream much more quickly and safely than the fish are normally able to travel. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has recently adopted the device to move Chinook salmon up the Washougal River about 120 feet in five seconds to a nearby truck, which then transports the fish to a hatchery. 

(On a side note, "Salmon cannon" would be an awesome name for a punk band)

There's video at the link. It's not really a cannon, it's more like a salmon vacuum. Which would also be a good name for a punk band. I think I speak for everyone when I say I want to see this weaponized. I want to watch our enemies on the battle field tremble in fear when our soldiers bellow "UNLEASH THE CANNON".

What's funny is that the article goes into the nuts and bolts of the cannon, but they never get into the real reason that the Department of Fish and Wildlife has to help salmon go upstream. Given that the cannon costs $150,000, it'd be germane to know why a chunk of tax dollars is going to help fish do what, well, they do anyways.

As Joseph states, what's next, a mackerel mortar? 

That is all.

I Am A Bad Christian.

Because my first thought after reading this story was WTFF? (and yes, the second "F" is what you think it is...)

O’Malley calls for love in face of threat from ISIS

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said yesterday we may be forced into a “just war” but without love “we’re going to destroy each other,” while 5,000 miles away in Albania his friend Pope Francis, defying an ISIS death threat, went ahead with his first trip as pontiff to a heavily Muslim country under extraordinary security.

During the first Mass for public safety personnel in 13 years at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, O’Malley told the gathering of law enforcement officials, “Compassion and love can come from one’s enemy. Then, no one is an enemy and everyone is a neighbor.”

I do have to admit, my first reaction when reading this was along these lines:

But, realistically, this is a very Christian response. Hate the sin, love the sinner; turn the other cheek; etc. Nonviolence coupled with love for your enemy is a basic Christian tenet. Add to that the ever-increasing amount of guilt over the Crusades, and you've got a recipe for a squishy, kumbaya-ish Church that's pretty much going to tell its adherents to stop drinking milk so they have flimsier bones to make it easier for the terrorists to cut their heads off.

Love ISIS? If by "love" you mean "carpet bomb", maybe. I can endorse the idea of killing them with kindness - as long as "kindness" is the name stamped on each MOAB. I don't want to understand them. The only thing I want to feel with regard to ISIS is recoil. They have made their feelings about us perfectly clear. It's about damn time we started feeling the same right back.

They have threatened to start beheading random people in Australia. Don't for a moment think they won't try something like that here, either. The thing here, though, is that there's a fairly good chance that grabbing people on the street in, say, Houston would be viewed most unfavorably. I doubt we would stand idly by while jihadists tried to behead soldiers as happened in England. I suspect it would end a lot more, well, ballistically...

So, yeah, I kinda suck at the whole "turn the other cheek" part, especially when so many have had their heads cut off while turning that cheek. I'm more of this mindset:



They behead one of ours, we drop a few JDAMs on some of theirs...

That is all.

Scary Stuff...

Seeing Stretch Saturday reminded me of this story he sent along. While I may disagree with pretty much everything the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue does, this still scares the heck out of me...

Breach Prompts Review of White House Security

The director of the Secret Service ordered an internal review of its security procedures around the White House after a man armed with a knife who jumped the fence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Friday night managed to make his way through the front door of President Obama’s home before being stopped, officials said Saturday.

Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, of Copperas Cove, Tex., jumped the black iron fence that surrounds the White House around 7:20 p.m. on Friday and ran straight to the North Portico door, the grand entrance that is flanked by white marble columns and faces Pennsylvania Avenue. He made it through the unlocked doors and was tackled immediately, said Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman. Mr. Gonzalez was carrying a folding knife with a 3 ½-inch serrated blade, according to a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court.

Made his way INTO THE DAMN WHITE HOUSE. Again, I don't care what your thoughts are on President Obama, this should frighten the living hell out of anyone with half-a brain (obviously Vice President Biden slept well after hearing the news...). Someone was able to scale the fence around the grounds, run across the White House lawn, and actually gain entrance to the building that is home to the President of the United States before he was stopped.

I find it hard to believe, bordering on impossible, that this wouldn't have been pretty much the textbook case for "shoot on sight." We've had people run up to the White House before, but all previous attempts had been stopped pretty much at the gate itself or on the lawn. I would hope that someone getting that close to the building itself would earn a .308-caliber hole or two, but either it was Mr. Gonzalez's lucky day, or someone is about to get fired.

Unless there's some odd rules of engagement that are unlike, well, pretty much any other for a secure building guarded by marksmen, we can only theorize why the interloper was not ventilated. In my mind, it's either that the guard(s) were asleep or otherwise occupied (any Colombian hookers in town?) or else they thought it was funny and let him pass. Neither is a comforting thought.

The words "President Joe Biden" ought to make you break out in a cold sweat...

That is all.

Not Sure What To Think...

Buy Johnny Cash’s Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

Pretty sweet ride, for a man who considered himself one of the little people...

Now, in all fairness to the man in black, the Rolls was a gift from ABC studios after the well-received Johnny Cash Show had a successful second season. It's not like he went out and spent concert proceeds on a $25,000 (in 1970 $) car. That's at least four times what a Cadillac cost, and that was at least an American car.

It just really surprised me, that's all. I figured Johnny Cash for an Oldsmobile man, maybe a Ford. I never would have guessed he'd be tooling around in a car that cost more than the homes that the people who went to his concerts would live in. I would have thought the opulence and decadence would be too much for the man in black.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But still is there because he's a victim of the times.

The poor and beaten down will never even *see* a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, let alone get to ride in one. The people on the hungry side of town can't afford the taxes on a luxury car, let alone the purchase price. I mean, I guess it's not rampant, blatant hypocrisy to make your fortune claiming to be a champion of the little guy, but drive around in a car that costs more than most of your fans will ever dream of making. Somehow.

Learning about feet of clay shouldn't surprise me, yet sometimes it still does...

That is all.

Pick On Someone Your Own Size...

Oh, this kid is going to have a rough time in life...

Deputy U.S. marshal attacked on Allegheny River trail

A deputy U.S. marshal chased down a Spring Garden teenager after the teen pulled down her pants while she ran along a North Side trail, according to court documents released Wednesday.

Pittsburgh police said the marshal had Robert Flynn, 19, backed into a corner when they caught up with the pair Tuesday evening.

Chased him down and then beat his ass while waiting for backup. Well played, Marshal. Now, a few things to consider. This woman is a trained US Marshal, yet she did not injure the suspect. She ran him down and cornered him, and then he charged her, but fortunately she was able to subdue him.

Honestly, she got lucky. He's a dumb kid. He towered over her - at 6'4" and (judging from his pic) 200+ pounds, had her significantly outclassed at 5'5" (and what I would imagine to be considerably lighter, if she's out jogging and was able to run him down). Had he really been malicious, or been able to get out of his own way, he could really have hurt her.

And yet there are those out there that think we should deal with someone twice our size with harsh language alone...

That is all.

Not Sure About This One...

#1 Blogdaughter sends this one in. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Senior surprised by $315 bill for calling 911

"I got up, and I was dizzy and feeling kind of nauseous, and I thought, 'This isn't right,'" Shorewood resident Lois Sarrel said.

Sarrel had a rude awakening in early May.

"I guess I was panicking a little bit because women don't have the same symptoms as men for heart attack," Sarrel said.

She called 911, Emergency Services came out and triaged her, finding that she was not in fact having a heart attack. She declined transport to the hospital, and because of that, she received a bill for the services rendered. Apparently she is on Medicare, and they only cover emergency calls that result in trips to the hospital.

Now, on the one hand, I'm of the opinion that if your symptoms are so bad that you have to call 9-1-1, you should take the trip to the hospital to get checked out anyways. Something is going on that is causing you enough discomfort to brave modern medical care - it might not be a heart attack, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be something else serious.

On the other hand, I can see where this might cause some folks to forgo emergency care, and that's never a good thing. I can also totally understand that someone might not realize that a 9-1-1 call would result in a big charge like that. You think you have insurance, and that it will be covered, only to find out later that it's not.

Again, though, I come back to the whole "this was serious enough to call 9-1-1 but not go to the hospital" part. If it was so serious that you couldn't drive yourself to the hospital, you probably should have gone just to be on the safe side. Just because it's not a heart attack doesn't mean that it's not something serious. I can kinda see the charge if it's to discourage people from using EMS as a way of getting medical care at home (i.e. rather than going to their doctor).

Also, not for nothing, but $315 for an EMS call to the home is pretty cheap. I've seen several medical insurance plans where an ER visit is a $200 co-pay. Add in another charge for the EKG, and it's not too far off what she ended up getting billed. Throw in that she didn't have to drive to the ER, and it's starting to see pretty reasonable.


I still don't know how I feel about this one...

That is all.

Everything - Especially This - Is Awesome

Sent in by an alert reader is this awesome story for the day...

Someone Found A Way To Make Lego Blocks Even More Awesome. OMG.

For many years, Lego blocks have been thought of as a boy's toy only. As generations have grown up, the gender roles have changed a little bit, but you still typically see more young boys asking for Legos rather than girls. A brilliant inventor is about to change all of that.

Illustrator and designer Akihiro Mizuuchi created a new and improved Lego that is designed to delight all children, and adults, of any age.

Chocolate Legos. PURE. GENIUS. There's a couple of pics in the article that I suspect are chocolate-colored plastic Legos, but this one certainly could be chocolate:

The potential for hilarity with these is great. Think about having a Lego house sitting on the table, with extra bricks strewn about. When someone comes in, exclaim dramatically that you're sick of your kids leaving their toys around, so you're going to teach them a lesson, and take a big bit out of the house.

Or, alternate, inform someone of the chocolate Legos. Consume a handful to show, and offer a couple. Then, slip in a few plastic Legos just to be a jerk...

Oh, I am certain I will misuse this information...

That is all.

You Go Right Ahead...

Seen on Facebook...

Have house will travel: Inside the Tiny House Movement where more and more Americans have rejected tradition for a simpler - and cheaper - lifestyle

Once upon a time an American family’s home was their castle and the bigger the better, but growing concerns about meeting mortgage payments and the environmental impact of large houses has helped fuel a new movement of people who are happy to live small.

The Tiny House Movement is a growing group of people who are happy to downsize the space that they live in and enjoy simplified lives as a result.

There's so much wrong with this whole thing, I don't even know where to start. First off, this is not a new thing. This is a very old thing. When I was out in WY back in May, there were cabins on the ranch property that were easily over 100 years old that were the same size as these "tiny" homes. You know what *is* rather new? The idea that we need more than one room in a house. Check out the cabins and old shacks - or huts in third world nations - and you won't find "bedrooms" or "living rooms" or "great rooms." You'll find one room.

Second, you know what else is missing in the story? Where do these tiny houses go? The ones on wheels - what's the permanent address? Where do their utilities come from? Yeah, didn't think of that, did you? The cost of the basic 8' X 24' home (under 200 sq. ft.) is $66K. Add the cost of a plot of land to that, and you're easily pushing $100K total (or more) depending on location.

Think you're going to play Caine and just wander the land? Good luck with that, having no permanent address or job, for that matter. Gas to haul something that heavy is expensive, and so are campgrounds. The 24' trailers weigh 15,000 pounds - that's a full-ton diesel pickup with a dual wheel rear axle, which is easily a $60K+ rig. Not only that, but you're talking single digit gas mileage when towing - and towing something that big is a major PITA.

Third, you know what else these "tiny house" people are missing? Anything even remotely resembling planning. Where do you store your tax records? Where do you keep extra provisions? Looking at a 200 sq. ft. home, I don't see a lot of room for extra canned veggies, toilet paper, or more than a handful of extra clothes for that matter. It doesn't seem likely that you'd be able to hold more than a few days worth of rations in a place that small.

When the Mrs. and I first started out, we had a small 2 bedroom apartment in a large complex. The whole layout was 650 sq. ft. We had to go shopping mid-week to garner the groceries we needed, because there simply wasn't enough room in the tiny galley kitchen to store all the food we needed to get through the week. Forget keeping a family's worth of extra food, toiletries, HBA, etc. on hand for future use.

It *sounds * really cool. $66K works out to something like $1200 a month for 5 years in a standard loan. Imagine paying off your house in 5 years. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? The Mrs. and I were halfway through our mortgage when we moved; and still had very little to show for the money we'd actually invest at that point. I imagine it'd be awfully tempting, were we just starting out, to shell out for one of these teeny houses, with the idea that it would be all ours in just 5 years.

It's when you factor everything else in that it becomes truly unworkable...

That is all.

Yo Dawg, I Heard You Like Mags...

Something that I missed when I lived in MA was the joy of loading full capacity magazines. Now that I live in America, where full capacity - and even high capacity! - magazines are fine, there's the little matter of loading them. I've got my Maglula for loading my double-stack pistol magazines, but what about those new 30- and 40-round AR-15 magazines?

Fear not. We have the answer.

Caldwell AR-15 Mag Charger

It looks dirt-simple: Load the rounds in the included tray. Take the tray and load all 50 rounds into the charger. Insert AR mag - 10-, 20-, 30-, 40- round mags are fine, as are drums - until it clicks. Depress plunger to load 5 rounds into magazine. Repeat as needed.

It will be brought to the Seventh Annual Northeast Bloggershoot, where I certainly hope that not only it get a good workout, but it will prove itself to work fine. MSRP is listed as $90, but it's available through Cabela's, Midway, Brownells and others with prices as low as mid-$60s. If you do a lot of shooting, this is a trivial investment to save your poor thumbs...

Thought this might be of interest, and we'll be trying it out at the shoot!

That is all.

Good Luck To You And The Red Sox...

I wish them well. I really do.

UAE plans first Arab spaceship to Mars in 7 years

The United Arab Emirates, already home to the world's tallest tower, is now reaching for the stars. The energy-rich country on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula announced plans Wednesday to establish a space program to send the first Arab spaceship to Mars in 2021.

The ruler of the UAE's emirate of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, said the mission will prove the Arab world is still capable of delivering scientific contributions to humanity, despite the many conflicts across the Middle East.

If they approach this the same way they approached the tower - basically, throw dumptrucks full of money at the best and brightest in the engineering world - they just might be able to approximate something resembling a space program. Get to Mars in 7 years? Assuming they mean "launch a rocket capable of reaching Mars in 7 years", that might be possible; actually getting there in 7 is a little tighter, considering the trip itself takes anywhere from 8 - 10 months.

With the US seemingly out of the space business, it's going to fall on other countries or private industry to get Americans back into space. The latter doesn't concern me anywhere near as much as the former. Given how dependent we are on satellite communications, not being able to get crews up launch, repair, and maintain our critical communication infrastructure is rather frightening.

Part of that "fundamental transformation," to be sure...

That is all.

Everything - But Especially This Post - Is Awesome

OMG. I *HOWLED* at this. It may have something to do with having seen "The Lego Movie" about five times in the past 2-3 weeks...

Lego Representations of the 50 States

My favorite has to be Delaware — it reminds me of my favorite line from Wayne’s World: “We’re in…Delaware.” :lol: Which do you like the best? Do you think your state is accurately portrayed?

My favorite, natch, is Texas:

How can you not like a giant Caddy convertible with monster truck tires and horns?

Here's their representation of Massachusetts:

Yeah, see, they kinda missed out on the whole overbearing nanny state telling you what to do.

Which state is your favorite?

That is all.

In Capitalist Germany, Car Parks You!

Heh. Formynder sends this one in. Dunno exactly what to make of it...

A Robot Valet Will Park Your Car at This German Airport

In Germany, high tech has come to airport parking.

Last week, Düsseldorf airport (DUS) introduced robot valets to take the hassle out of parking for travelers.

Travelers can leave their cars at the arrival level of the ParkingPLUS structure. As they leave, they confirm on a touch-screen that no one is in the car. The robot valet, nicknamed "Ray," takes it from there.

When you think about it, this sort of system makes a lot of sense. The robot valet can "park" cars so that they are very nearly touching, meaning that more cars can be parked in a lot. There doesn't need to be enough room for imperfect humans to navigate rows, or even for two- way traffic - the rows can be exactly one car wide, and the cars can be stacked pretty deep.

They call it "Ray." I think that's hysterical. There's another video here that has actual video footage of "Ray" at work. It's pretty darn cool, although I'd be wary of letting "Ray" take the Earthf**ker - it barely fits in most parking garages as it is; with the lift needed to move it, I'd be afraid it would leave the cap and half the roof at the entrance.

Another interesting thing, unrelated to this story, is how much English has crept into the German language. The above video and the video at the original link are in German, but there are enough English words that I could pretty much follow along. "Parking Haus", "app", and "click" are all readily apparent - apparently the Germans aren't as psychotic as the French about keeping English words out of the language...

I'd let a robot park my car - you can tip them in 10W30!

That is all.

Damn Bikers...

They're never up to any good. Like, you know, helping a guy propose to his girlfriend.



I haven't the faintest idea what any of this is about, since the video is in Russian, but given the change in music from Rammstein to some vaguely pop, it seems like that's the cue for the switch.

It's nice to see a Russian video involving motorcycles that doesn't end with biker parts all over the road...

That is all.

Interesting!

Seen on Facebook last night:

Map: The largest company by revenue in every state

A state economy is nothing without the businesses that call it home. But those businesses are not created equally—bigger businesses naturally have outsized influence, generating more revenue, paying more taxes and employing more people.

The map above (larger version) identifies the largest company by revenue in every state, according to a review of data maintained by business research firm Hoover’s conducted by information technology company Broadview Networks, which provides cloud services. The businesses span quite the range: They rake in anywhere from $1 billion to $476 billion and represent various sectors, including energy, banking and retail. Broadview ignored branches or foreign offices in the review and, for consistency, excluded subsidiaries or government entities.

Here's the map, for the TL/DR crowd:

You know what I find fascinating? While some stereotypes are true--the largest business in Texas is oil, frex--others are surprising. Oil is the biggest business in Florida - and California. Insurance companies are represented, as are banks. What's interesting is that retail drives a lot, too - Walmart, Costco, Love's, and Hannaford are all the largest businesses in their respective states.

One thing stands out, though. For the purposes of the exercise, all government influence was taken out of the equation. However, they left in GM in MI. I suppose it's because there's nothing else there any more, but still...

Anyways, I thought it was interesting...

That is all.

Really Don't Know How To Read This One...

#1 Blogdaughter sends in a head-scratcher...

Hoarder dies in Connecticut after 1st floor collapses into basement under weight of clutter

Police in Connecticut say a hoarder has died after the cluttered first floor of her home collapsed into the basement.

Authorities say 66-year-old Beverly Mitchell was found dead in her Cheshire home Saturday, a day after a postal carrier called police to request a welfare check because her mail was piling up.

Uh, 'MURICA? I suppose it's a true #firstworldproblem, in that you're accumulating so much stuff that it causes your domicile to have structural failure... Now, the story is really just a quick blurb, so there's not a lot to go on, but given that it was a postal carrier that called in the wellness check, I'm guessing that this wasn't a particularly social person...

Folks, if you have so much crap that your floor gives way, you need to re-examine your priorities. Or at the very least move to a single-floor dwelling on a concrete pad rather than a house with a foundation.

Now, I can somewhat empathize. We had trouble divesting of past items in our house in MA - the fact that we needed not one but two 30 yard dumpsters to get rid of junk, on top of donating a LOT of stuff to charity (you know those donation dumpster things for clothes? We filled THREE of them. THREE). But so much stuff the floor collapsed? Not so much.

Now, the garage, OTOH... 

That is all.

OpSec: Cherchez-le!

ATM security threat: 14-year-olds?

The Bank of Montreal got a surprise security breach earlier this week in the form of two 14-year-old kids.

The Canadian ninth graders found an old ATM manual online and decided to use their lunch break at school to see if they could hack into an ATM, according to a story in the Winnipeg Sun.

Short answer: yes.

They guessed the password. On their lunch break. And then apparently had enough time to reprogram the security message to say "Go away. This ATM has been hacked." That's pretty freakin' ballsy right there. I do hope the young industrious high schoolers don't face any significant penalties for this.

Just something to think about the next time you're tempted to hit that ATM. Apparently the security at these machines should more accurately called "security," because it's barely a thin veneer meant to confuse the simple. If a couple 14-year olds can break into the machine, it's a damn cinch that actual criminals can as well.

Be careful out there, and only trust the security you provide yourself.

That is all.