Kyle Dickerson – Page 86 – If we had a Marriage, These Would be its Thoughts

Outrage Fatigue

June 10, 2013 4:08 pm

I realize this isn't very democratic of me, but honestly, I'm just tired of being outraged.

I was outraged when 455 members of Congress and President Bush passed the PATRIOT Act and signed it into law at the end of October 2001.

I was outraged when, despite the world's largest anti-war demonstrations, and based on a series of falsified information, Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003.

I was outraged when Bush was caught illegally authorizing warrant-less wiretapping from 2002-2005.

I was outraged when, in response, Congress (including then-Senator Barack Obama, despite having campaigned against it) simply passed a new law stating that warrants weren't needed for wiretaps so long as someone could say it was somehow related to terrorism. And stating that everyone involved in the illegal warrant-less wiretapping program would be granted retroactive immunity for their illegal activities.

I was outraged when the TSA decided that it was okay to take and store nude pictures of airline passengers.

I was outraged when the TSA lied over and over and over again about the capabilities and refused to allow any independent organization to examine potential health risks of the scanners.

I was outraged when the TSA decided they would perform highly invasive pat-down procedures in what only appears to be an attempt to discourage people from opting out of the scanners.

I was outraged when the TSA began running checkpoints at bus stations, train stations, and highways.

I was outraged when it was discovered that President Bush had authorized the permanent imprisonment without trial of pretty much anyone the military felt like picking up (including U.S. citizens).

I was outraged when it was discovered that President Bush authorized the use of torture (and here) on prisoners of war and attempted to side-step the Geneva Conventions by calling it "enhanced interrogation techniques" and them "enemy combatants" (including U.S. citizens).

I was outraged when President Obama redefined due process to exclude the Judicial Branch and began assassinating U.S. citizens.

So please forgive me when I hear about wide-spread dragnet surveillance of U.S. Citizens and I just can't seem to muster the energy to continue to be outraged.

I've expressed my discontent with the above practices. I've written letters to my Congressional Representatives and the President. I've voted for third-party politicians (none of whom win, of course). And I've donated money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

I've tried to share my opinions in a reasonable and rational way, but it makes no difference when apparently, millions upon millions of people think these programs are a good thing because "I'm a good guy so it won't affect me" and "whatever keeps us safe from terrorists is A-OK."

It also doesn't help that about half the people that also dislike this crap think the best response is to buy more guns, but won't bother to do anything else. And more than half of those people think electing Republicans is the solution!

Let's not pretend this is a partisan problem. But if that's too much, at least try to look far enough ahead to realize that any power you allow "your" party to have today will also be wielded by "their" party within 10 years.

Now Presenting: Serindu Gallery

June 4, 2013 9:34 pm

I've been working on a new project recently.

It started with the goal of a photography gallery website where I could put my pictures and allow people to self-service buy prints/canvases/etc. through one of the many companies that sell such things.

I found a promising option, but it turned out to not be as helpful as I had hoped. They wanted me to sign up with a payment processing company, file for a state tax identification number, etc, etc. Way more effort than I wanted to go through.

Then I found another option, but, on top of the cut they take for each sale they also want $30 a year, which I don't really feel like paying.

So I took another tactic: I created a photography gallery website and licensed my pictures under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. It's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. It essentially means you can do just about anything you want with the photos except use them commercially so long you attribute them to me as the copyright owner.

So anyone is free to have prints or canvases or whatever made from the photos.

Without further ado, I present Serindu Gallery:

Serindu is just a name I made up years ago for an online game, it doesn't mean anything, I just like the way it flows.

Tools used to build the site:
Django, Django-photologue, Django-tagging, Bootstrap, Bootstrap-Image-Gallery, jQuery, and BrowserState history.js. I also used the webfont Tangerine.

Idea: Amazon "Suprise Me!"

May 26, 2013 4:25 pm

Dear Amazon,

Here's an idea to make some easy money.

You already have my wishlist and my credit card information. Now just let me sign up for a "Surprise Me!" service: Every so often randomly select something from my wishlist and send it to me.

Let me select which wishlists to include, a maximum price limit, the payment option to use, and a frequency.

If you want to be nice you can give me a small discount on each item purchased this way (like you do with the "subscribe and save" service).

This really shouldn't be very hard to implement, so I expect to see this rolled out soon.

It would be kind of like those CD/Movie club things, except I'd get stuff I actually want and I'd be able to easily skip deliveries or cancel the service.

Thanks,
Kyle

Views of the Bay

May 12, 2013 3:30 pm

Driving to Tilden Regional Park from Livermore takes you along a "mountain" pass where the road winds back and forth from the Bay-side to the valley-side. There are some stunning views from some of the pull-offs. So on our way home from the park we stopped so I could hop out and take a few pictures.

I turned the pictures monochrome because the images were very blue and there wasn't much of any other color visible.

Here's a view of San Francisco over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (or locally, The Bay Bridge, even though there are many bridges over the bay). The gigantic tower in the background is Sutro Tower.

This is a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. The second tower is just barely poking through the clouds. And I believe that's Alcatraz in the lower-left corner. I used a very strong noise removal filter on this one which gave the whole image an oily quality to it which I like.

Tilden Regional Park

3:14 pm

Last week we learned about Tilden Regional Park. I don't remember how, but I had stumbled across something that mentioned the "Steam Trains" which sounded interesting. As it turns out, they have a great little narrow-gauge, scale-model (I think it's 1:5) train system. For $3 per person you get to ride the train around for about 15 minutes. They have tunnels and bridges and roundhouses and water towers. It's great fun.

Heather thought it was pretty fun, but she was a little unsure about the whistle. It would startle her every time it blew.

Also in the park is a "Little Farm" with some animals. Heather loved watching the ducks and chickens run around. She made sure to keep an eye on the rooster which kept crowing. The cows weren't interested in us much because we didn't bring any food for them, but we were able to get some face time anyway.

From there it was on to the carousel. Yes, this park also has a carousel (and no parking/entrance fees!). The carousel is $2 a ticket or 7 tickets for $10. Given that Heather's favorite part about Disneyland was the carousels we figured this was a good bet. And she got very excited when she saw it and realized what it was.

Heather mostly had her ride face on, but she was loving it.

And here's photographic proof that I was there too.

Getting up to the park takes us through Walnut Creek, so, of course, lunch on the way home was at the new Chick-Fil-A.

Word of warning:
We decided that anytime anyone comes to visit us from now on we'll need to go ride the train and carousel. They run all year round, weather permitting.