Author Archives: gentlebenno

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nobody ever suspects the butterfly

I saw this dude twice today, if it was in fact the same dude.  When I saw him this morning I stared at him for about five minutes.  Then when he came back this afternoon I took a picture.  But it’s a bad picture on a phone (dude was just too fast), so you’ll have to play Where’s Waldo to find him.  For those of you too young to know, Where’s Waldo was an old smartphone app that’s lost it’s popularity.

butterfly

I have no idea what type of butterfly this is.  I don’t particularly care.  I was fascinated by the complexity of God / Nature that made this little thing to eat while also expending limitless energy to fly around flowers.  This thing weighs less than a penny, but can fly all day and eat and be good to go.  We don’t appreciate it, but little things like this are freaking miracles.

My family’s been through hell and I’m hesitant to talk about it even to my own brain.  But my brother, for intermittent laugh purposes, brought up this Simpsons joke.  I have no idea why.  I didn’t care.  I laughed.  It was enough.  This clip sucks [thanks Fox copyright assholes] but you get the idea:

Then today I saw the butterfly and remembered my brother’s reference from a few days back.  I laughed.  And then I watched the beautiful butterfly.

My other brother (I have two, blessed by God) kept flipping to Gladiator the other day while the family was together.  For those who have seen it, Oliver Reed / Proximo has one of the greatest lines of all time:

“…we mortals are but shadows and dust…”

Yeah, we are.

Nobody ever suspects the butterfly.  That it could remind you of what you are.  But in a good way.  The butterfly is a freaking miracle.  And so are we.  But we can also do poetry, write songs, and drink beer.  So we’re better off than the butterfly.

But next time you see the butterfly?  Stop what you’re doing.  And watch for a few minutes.  You’ll be glad you did.

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Obama adds third unplanned stop to African itinerary

The Washington press pool struggled to rearrange schedules as the Obama administration announced without notice that the President will now also visit Libya’s famed Kaf Ajnoun or Mountain of Ghosts. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained the move as, “An appropriate means to wrap up our trip in keeping with the President’s theme of meeting with horrible human beings.”

The concluding visit to one of Satan’s known earthly dwellings will follow Obama’s forthcoming sit downs with famed war criminal Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya and Hailemariam “The Street Sweeper” Desalegn in Ethiopia. In Addis Ababa, Obama is also scheduled to address the African Union.

Although the AU is said to be interested in rescheduling the speech’s start time due to an imminent AU vote to unanimously ratify the title of “Imperial Majesty for Life” to Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza, a move supported by America’s State Department. The AU is also set to reconfirm its annual stipend to Omar al-Bashir’s private aircraft corporation Speedy provided its “no notice use for all” clause remains intact.

While at Kaf Ajnoun, Obama will spend time at such key sites as The Road to Hell and The Devil’s Hill. Said Earnest, “Since he came to Washington, the President has learned the diplomatic dark arts like the best of them. He figures it’s time he paid his due respect to those who have enabled the ghoulish powers he now possesses. In fact, I’m told the State Department Bureau of African Affairs insisted on this stopover.”

Earnest also mentioned several other critical American goals during the trip including talks to get more of Angola’s oil than China, additional tank, tear gas, & piano wire sales to Egypt, and the forthcoming pool renovation contract by Halliburton of a mysteriously unknown but supposedly important villa in South Africa.

When asked by reporters if Obama worried about potential human rights protestors during his speech in Addis Ababa, Earnest wryly chuckled, “You ah, you don’t really understand how things work here, do you?”

kaf-ajnoun-ghost-mountain

Arcturus News Muster – 23 July 2015

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your own self-driving car is never going to happen; but if it does, you’re in trouble

I’ve believed for years that the Internet of Things is ultimately going to be known as one of our culture’s greatest mistakes. We’re restructuring all the building blocks of our society on an Internet with security rules built on quicksand. If every business can lose your credit card number in eight seconds, what chance does every other company have at keeping things safe once they’re online?

And much of the Internet of Things is so unnecessary. What possible reason is there to hook up my fridge to the Internet? Oh, so the power company can better manage the grid at peak hours? I swear, if I hooked up my fridge and they turned it off, and I got home and my beer was warm? I’d burn down the power company.

And so to the surprise of nobody who understands how the Internet is structured, a bunch of dudes have figured out how to hack your car. Not the fancy new wired self-driving cars, but your normal everyday average current automobile. They discovered they can literally turn your steering wheel and send you to Valhalla via the express lane.

The BBC has a good brief summary, but the Washington Post gets into the all too predictable horrifying details.

Unless we’re prepared to restructure the base rules of the Internet, then the Internet of Things is a danger because everything is completely vulnerable. Yeah, I know, quite the stretch for some. But it’s all doom mongering from lunatic blog authors, until somebody dies in their car via a hack. Or somebody hijacks a drone and rams an airliner. I don’t have to go through this again do I?

Because of this, I contend your own self-driving car is never going to happen. Not because the technology can’t be done, but because there’s no way they can make it secure. And if your car ever does become self-driving it’ll be because somebody hacked your car and you’re in trouble. Break the window and dive out, while you can.

burning car

our future awaits

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Japan is debating the wrong issue

It’s been 70 years since Imperial Japan walked itself into a bar room brawl it couldn’t win. And everybody remains chasing ghosts. China and South Korea still won’t talk to Japan on a reasonable level, in large part because Shinzo Abe can’t choose to spend some of his off time playing Pachinko instead of crawling around Yasukuni.

And today’s Diet debate has brought to a head the obscure local concepts of collective-self-defense, constitutionalism, pacifism, and so on. It’s all part of Abe’s effort to make Japan a “normal nation” again. For the majority of the Japanese people who want no part of this, it’s about defending 70 years of prosperity and not pointlessly starting vicious bar room brawls.

It’s the push and pull of a culture struggling with the reality of an increasingly withdrawn America. Poland, Saudi Arabia, and Japan are all starting to realize they have to do more themselves. The difference is none of these other countries have the historical baggage Japan does. A significant portion of Japan’s population quite literally despise their own history. All you have to do is carefully watch two or three old Japanese golden-age movies to figure this out.

I could talk about this defense / historical discussion for four hours, but honestly, I can’t get past the idea that Japan is debating the wrong issue. The future of Japan is not going to be about collective-self-defense, constitutionalism, pacifism, and so on. The future of Japan is demographics.

By 2050 Japan’s population will have declined by 1/3. Nearly one out of every two Japanese will be over the age of 65. No country on Earth has ever gone through such a transition before. It’ll literally reshape Japan as we know it.

How will this change society? The culture? The people? And most importantly, how will Japan pay for all of this?

They should be talking about this in the Diet, in yakatori houses, Pachinko parlors, and on street corners. But the best they can seem to manage is the occasional dialogue on how many Philippine nurses are allowed in to work in nursing homes.

I don’t have an answer for this problem. At this point nobody does. But China is not Japan’s biggest threat. Nor is Japan’s history the biggest concern that should drive the future. Demographics is going to determine Japan’s path. Until Abe, the Diet, and the country tackle this, everything else is a sideshow.

diet debate

wrong topic

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newsroom baffled how leaders wrote Iran speeches via belligerent time travel

At the conclusion of fifteen straight hours of an overall “baffling ordeal” the entire newsroom of the Daily Planet struggled to write a single coherent article on the recent Iranian nuclear deal. Arguments among staff primarily centered on the similarity of speeches made by the planet’s leadership to words they already said six months ago. “We spent about seven hours investigating the possibility that the space time continuum had ruptured and we were both late for Christmas, and all humanity was doomed to a vicious black hold related death,” stated deputy editor Brace Winslow, “but after consulting the Pluto robot folks at Johns Hopkins we’ve ruled out that possibility. Which was fortunate, because I hadn’t had the chance to buy a damn thing for my future ex-wife.”

After a sleepless night, several pizza runs, and six discarded bottles of various alcoholic beverages the grizzled reporters settled upon the theory that the President, Republicans, Iranians, Israelis, and Euro-trash politicians all wrote their speeches six months ago and simply read them upon the agreement’s approval. “What we’ve yet to figure out is how they could write these speeches and then just read them,” remarked Winslow, “it’s almost like nobody has read the agreement before speaking.”

Yet the undaunted newsroom decided to determine the root cause of this discrepancy. “No responsible leader would just spout their own canned talking points without actually reading a critical document. So our conclusion is all the world’s leaders knew what the exact agreement would be when they wrote their speeches back in December. Because they could see through time. So we’re going back to Hopkins to figure out how this was done. The Iranian deal’s pretty huge; but think of it, our leaders can literally travel through time.  We could go back and shoot Hitler!  What a scoop.”

newsroom

Arcturus News Muster – 15 July 2015

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do not read or buy this book

Apparently an 89 year old stroke victim who can’t see or hear can consent to having their name attached to a book sold worldwide.  Who knew?  Money!  There’s been a lot of confusion on how this book came about, with widely varying stories on what’s happened.  So let me break it down in all its horror so you’ll believe me when I say do not read or buy this book.

– Harper Lee did not read or edit this book in draft or final form.  Whether she actually wrote any of this five decades ago is irrelevant.  The author reserves the right to approve their work prior to publication.  That’s why they’re the freaking author.

– Lee made herself clear on many, many occasions that she’d never publish again.  Seeing as how she’s not said one word about this book (probably because she can’t) it’s quite clear she didn’t consent and/or change her mind.  Thus, it’s not her book.

– Tonja Carter (Bob Ewell) says she miraculously found the manuscript, but only after Alice Lee died.  Like our good old friend Bob, it’s quite clear she’s lying.  And like our good old friend Bob, she’s getting away with it in open view of everybody on the planet.  Money!

So basically what’s happened is Carter and the goons at HarperCollins have decided to mortgage the good name of Harper Lee and her characters for all time in order to make money.  All without getting Lee’s permission.  Even though it’s her name on the front of the book.

The HarperCollins folks should be ashamed, truly disgusted with their actions.  But I suppose they won’t remember that when they step up to buy their third boat.

go set a watchman

Seriously, do not read or buy this book.

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Omar Sharif is The Most Interesting Man in The World

– Royal monarch visits his childhood home regularly

– Connoisseur of insanely beautiful women

– Able to converse in half-a-dozen languages

– Hooligan of mediocre EPL team

– Frequent French casino patron

– Mythically talented actor

– Drinking buddy of Peter O’Toole

– Accomplished bridge player

– Called a swanky hotel one of his homes

– Human in greatest movie entrance of all time

omar sharif

I don’t always applaud legends.  But when I do, I prefer Omar Sharif.

RIP my friends.

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on beer, breweries, airlines, airports, collusion, and selling out

So the airlines are supposedly colluding on price, eh? Who would have thought? I did. But I’m just some guy who flies regularly. I’m not a big shot at the Justice Department. But my Guests and I just did a brief half-hour of research to confirm what we’ve always suspected. It will undoubtedly take the Justice Department five months and $18M to do what I just did.

Kindly observe this tale of two airports: Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport & Manchester–Boston Regional Airport.

So I went to Priceline Senόr Bancό de Rόbber Bill Shatner’s website to fly between these two locations. I chose 10-12 November to:

– Eliminate the possibility of last minute flight booking disparities

– Non-holiday week

– Not on a Friday or the weekend

– Random boring normal week

Manchester to Phoenix NOV

And, hmm, I get $347 with Delta and United, and American / US Air is within 7%. So why are Delta and United charging the exact same price? So I figure, okay, maybe Bill’s got an inside Star Trek deal in place with Delta and United. So I journey directly to the Delta and United websites to get it straight from the airline’s maul.

United 348

United gives a figure of $348 or $1 off Shatner.

Delta 355

Delta’s $355 or a whole $7 more than Shatner.

Just to further investigate I strolled over to Southwest and no points for guessing how much they charge for this flight.

Southwest 348

Yeah.

So of the four major airlines (all now under Justice Department investigation) three of them charge the exact same price. The other is a whole 7% more expensive. I see. Yeah.

So is all of this just a coincidence? That $348 is just how much it costs to fly from Manchester to Phoenix and none of the airlines can mess with that price?

Put another way, none of these airlines seem interested in providing a price different from the others, so they could, like, make money. You know, compete with the other airlines for your business to make a higher profit than the other airline. Capitalism, competition, etc?

So are the airlines colluding on price? I’ll let you decide. But the answer’s yes.

Speaking of reasons why collusion occurs, it seems presidential candidates have taken it upon themselves to conduct campaign events at breweries. Why?

– Everybody loves beer

– Get to pose with industrial looking equipment

– Meet hard working Americans not yet replaced by some dude in Shenzhen

– Everybody loves beer

bush brewery

Here we see Bush 3 at Four Peaks Brewery in Arizona.

clinton brewery

And here we see Clinton 2 at Smuttynose Brewery in New Hampshire.

I like these breweries. Smuttynose’s Robust Porter is first rate.

Robust Porter

I’ve only drank Four Peak’s Kilt Lifter when I’m layover at Phoenix Sky because you can’t get it out east yet. Good stuff too.

kilt lifter

You can get Kilt Lifter at Zinc Brasserie’s in Terminal 4. By the way, Zinc Brasserie’s is the only place you need to eat at Phoenix Sky. Don’t bother with anywhere else. I literally schedule layovers at Phoenix Sky to eat there. Place is freaking awesome. I’ve never been at Manchester long enough to eat there, so I don’t know what they’ve got.

Anyways, despite my affection for Four Peaks and Smuttynose I’m rather unnerved they’ve decided to sell out like this. Don’t you go ahead and think breweries host campaign events for free. They want payback, eventually. A phone call here, a campaign contribution there. A little access, a chance to remind somebody later when you need a favor. A concept otherwise known as collusion.

If the airlines are colluding against the law they’ve been doing it for at least a decade. And now the Justice Department wants to get involved? Honestly I’m surprised they’re actually doing something. Businesses have gotten so good at rigging the game or selling out that I’m always surprised when the consumer is handed a real victory, like when Comcast recently lost the chance to become the true giant octopus.

But I kind of expect the airlines to break the rules. They’ve been doing it since the dawn of flight. When Sarsaparilla Airways was shoving $2 bills into Woodrow Wilson’s pocket. But beer is supposed to be better than that. Beer is for us, more personal, intimate. You drink it at home, while relaxing with good television or a great book. Beyond crooked awfulness. It irks me to see them in the game this way.

Is beer the next total sell out? I guess we’ll know if Bush 3 or Clinton 2 wins, and then I stroll into my local shopette and see six packs of Robust Porter and Kilt Lifter. And they’re both the exact same price.