Canada?

A thought occurred to me today:

What if illegal immigrants from Mexico weren't actually trying to stay in America, but rather had to because they were on their way to Canada?

Is that really so hard to believe? You hear those "dirty barefoot unpatriotic" liberals always saying how if things don't change they'll move to Canada. So what's stopping a poor immigrant who has nothing to lose anyway moving up there? It has been suggested that it's probably the cold, but where I'm from in Indiana we have a large Hispanic population and they don't seem to mind the harsh winters, so I think we can negate that.

I'm come to the conclusion that phenomenon is largely overlooked in American society, not because it's not happening, but rather we Americans are too self-important would would gasp at the idea of it. I mean, we're the "greatest nation on earth", of course people want to illegally come here, heck I would if I wasn't already a citizen! Are we so blind to our own thoughts of greatness that this isn't even a possibility?

On top of our own ignorance Canada would seem to have even more to offer than America. Free health care? Why wouldn't an immigrant want to go to a country that provides that most basic modern technology. They even have a providence that's official language isn't English, I have a feeling Canada would welcome such language diversity instead of creating sensationalist stories about foundations of their culture (National Anthem) being disgraced by anything other than English.

We all know this isn't true though, because of one simple reason. As much as American's love to complain and point the finger at illegal immigration as one of the biggest issues facing our nation, secretly they want it. Canadians wouldn't allow their workers to work for under minimum wage or give them little to no benefits. American businesses on the other hand seem all for paying for what is essentially slave labor.

Greatest Nation on Earth indeed.

One Month at a Time

Friday I noticed something; the last time I put gas in my car was September 18th, and I still had a quarter tank remaining. Now if you're counting, Friday was the 13th, which means I've almost gone a month without getting gas (I finally did on Oct 16th after a lot of weekend driving). Most people think it's impossible to do without doing some radical lifestyle change and wonder how I do it. In reality, not only is it possible but you'll actually gain more than just saving money by making only a few small changes.

I only fill up my car when it's on E. I know conventional wisdom says you shouldn't do this, although recently I've learned that conventional wisdom is usually useless, but I do it anyway. Because of this I always fill up around 13 gallons (my manual says it has a 14 gallon tank, but I've never seen it go past 13) so I have a good starting benchmark to work with and I can gleam all sorts of interesting data about my car and driving habits.

According to www.fueleconomy.gov my 2002 Subaru Imprezza 2.5RS should get 22 MPG. Now my average mileage per tank is 260 miles which comes out to about 20MPG (I'm using 13 gallons). I'm not that concerned about the below average MPG because I'm good at keeping the car maintained and I know mechanically it's fine. Rather I believe there are two factors that contribute to this. One is where we live, University City, an area that is notorious for horribly timed traffic signals and a high population density, both causing long periods of the car running but not actually going anywhere. The second are my driving habits, which are related to the unfavorable traffic conditions (I jump off the line at one light in order to try and make the next one before it goes into it's five minute cycle).

With such a low MPG, an unfavourable environment, and my impatient self to blame how do I almost go a month without getting gas? Three things:

1. Taking the bus to work
2. Walking to the bus stop
3. Carpool as much as I can

Now it's not as exciting as you may have expected, since everyone knows that if you take the bus of course you'll save on gas. The main point though is that it works and it's easy. I spend just as much time on the bus as I would if I drove to work so there's almost no time incentive to drive. In addition to this instead of sitting in my car cursing at traffic and having to focus on driving, I am completely free to do whatever I want on my commute, giving me a less stress incentive. Also I read, which has increased my book rate to about three a month, adding an "intellectual" incentive. Finally mechanical wear and tear on my car is decreased. Overall not only am I saving money, but I have gained three additional incentives without any increase in time.

The second factor is I usually walk the fifteen minutes to the bus stop, although sometimes I drive if I'm running late. This adds the addition of health benefits as well as time to slow things down and not get so caught up in things.

I also tend to carpool as much as I can, which usually ends up with someone else driving since my car doesn't have a stereo in it (high crime rate is also consistent with where we live).

When you combine all these factors not only am I only filling up once a month, but I also gain more than if I drove, economically it just makes sense. Now I know that everyone's situation is different and I am lucky enough to work for a commuter friendly employer who provides free bus passes that are convenient to where I live. UCSD also provides free hours with a hybrid Flexcar a month so I can go somewhere during work hours if I need to.

If at all possible I would recommend looking into supporting your local public transportation to not just save money but also increase other aspects of your life.

North Korea Wants to KIll You

North Korea has nukes, why aren't we attacking them?

They fucking exploded an atomic weapon, and well hell, Iraq may have been developing them. But North Korea not only developed one, they built it, and then fucking EXPLODED it. But all we're going to do is take diplomatic action.

I have an idea president dumbass, how about you take all those troops in Iraq who are in the middle of a sectarian CIVIL WAR and send them to North Korea and take out that insane guy with NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Even Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union Address that,

"North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens."

The same address in which he starts his justification for invading Iraq,

"Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade."

Yay, good to know that we went after the right one there. You know, it's a lot easier to get a country to support a war if you invade them for a justifiable reason and not just because you have a "gut feeling".

Democrats and liberals are pussies? I don't think so, we'd just rather spend our time going after countries who hate us AND actually have NUCLEAR FUCKING WEAPONS.

Lessons of the GAIM

I got a new computer at work last week (I mainly wanted it cause of the larger hard drive). So I went through the motions installing all my favorite apps, which included GAIM. A wonderful open source application that I've been using almost as long as I've been using GNU/Linux. A few years ago they released a Windows client that I've also happily enjoyed while working in a windows environment. Unfortunately with this new install I ran into two major problems.

1. GAIM would not sign onto AOL with any screen name
2. GAIM eventually didn't even start up when I tried to run it

After a few hours of researched I solved both problems and I'm posting my results here:

If you install Cygwin, go into the folder: C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins and remove the tcl.dll file. For some reason the Cygwin tcl.dll will take over and cause GAIM not to start up properly. By removing this .dll everything works fine and you won't even notice it's gone.

If the connection status stops at "Connection established, cookie sent" when trying to connect to AOL you must install the version of GTK that comes with GAIM and not a newer version. I installed GTK v2.8 thinking that it was newer than v2.6 that GAIM comes bundled with, but apparently there's some type of bug that prevents it from working correctly. The same issue appears with GAIM 2.0 beta.

So there you go; if you run Cygwin and GAIM remove the tcl.dll and don't install a version of GTK that doesn't come bundled with GAIM on windows.

Second Life Bum

Over the weekend I borrowed one of the new laptops (Dual Core w/ 1GB Memory) we have here at work and gave it a workout on non-normal work applications. Normally I don't play many PC games, mainly because the computers I have at home are laptops under 1Ghz with less than impressive video cards. Last week though I became interested in the online game Second Life after reading about it in Wired.

When it comes to MMORPGs I usually stay away from them, mostly because I know I can easily become addicted to them and also I'm too cheap to get a hardware upgrade just so I can pay a monthly subscription fee. When explaining to people why I don't play them I ask them the question of "For all the time you spend on improving your character, what could you have done in your own real life?". I decided to try Second Life though, not because it's the typical RPG style kill something, get experience, kill something else, but because it's based off Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel Snow Crash.

In the novel there is a setting called The Metaverse, which is a 3D world created inside a computer. Characters have the freedom to look however they want and to build objects, buildings, clothes, etc. The company that made Second Life, Linden Research Inc, attempted to follow the model in the book and after playing it they came very close. One interesting aspect of it is the virtual economy. In order to buy land and acquire larger pre-made objects you have to pay for them in Linden Dollars, which can be exchanged for real dollars. Linden Dollars used to be given away for free to new accounts, but over the last few months they phased it out and now you have to purchase them with your credit card. It's nice that the game is free but I do wish a small amount of Linden Dollars were available as soon as you started.

Over the weekend I got a hold of the controls and started wandering around the world, checking out the popular places and exploring at random. I'm impressed by the level of detail in the architecture and furnishings of the buildings. At random I searched for Irish pubs and I stumbled across two, one called The Standing Stone and The Blarney Stone in Second Life Dublin. Both are exceptional quality and are located in some high quality areas. I've never actually seen anyone in the Standing Stone, but The Blarney Stone has an average of around five people hanging out.

For my character I went with an Irish punk look, dark jeans, an Ireland flag t-shirt (I got it for free from the Blarney Stone), no shoes, and a green mohawk under a cap. I decided on this look because I'm going to try an experiment: I'm going to be a bum and see how much money I can get.

Across the street from the Blarney Stone in Virtual Dublin is an alley that has a box in it, which I have made my virtual home. Every night I'm going to sit next to this alley and ask for spare change to help get back on my feet anytime someone comes within earshot. I won't harass them, just ask once and then see what happens.

Eventually when I get a modest sum I'm going to go to the casino and see if I can try my luck at increasing it. If it works out I plan to buy some land and then just bum on the side for some extra $, cashing it in occasionally to get some real cash.