Free is my Favorite Number

Free is my favorite number, always has been. And since I like "free" so much, I decided to share my like with the rest of the world. Below is the PDF with a list of free online educational resources. I may have blogged about these things in the past, but a refresher with some new is always a good idea.

I'm not going to lie, I unabashedly stole this list someone else curated. I stole it from Google+ and am sharing it here for two reasons:

1. for me, so I can come back and have this list somewhere
2. for you, because I want to share this list with the world

This popped up in my reader feed today and I thought it relevant to this blog post therefore I added it. RedHoop Finds Classes from All the Major Online Course Providers. http://goo.gl/mag/odGu77e

Download Link for People Who Like to Download Stuff

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Into Darkness SPOILER ALERT

Saw the second installment in the STAR TREK reboot this afternoon. Now, to be honest, I'm more of STAR WARS fan than STAR TREK  but I like a good sci-fi movie whenever I can get it, no matter the family it falls within.

Since this is Monday morning and all the cool kids have probably seen the movie already, I'm sharing my take on what I found wrong (and somewhat right) with the film. There are a bunch of spoilers in this post, so if you're not interested, don't look. I mean, seriously: don't read any further.

There were a lot of problems I found with this movie, problems that were never reasonably explained or just didn't think much of the science in science fiction.

First:

In the beginning sequence we see Kirk running from the natives, ala Indiana Jones, through a jungle whilst dodging spears and arrows. That's great. Why? Because he stole a holy canvas. Why? We don't know -- the only answer that was ever given was simply: "They were bowing to it." And why, during an observation mission, was Kirk and McCoy on the planet and that close to the natives, anyway? Sure, they were setting up Kirk's violation of the Prime Directive, but they never really explained why he had to have more access to the alien civilization than observing from space would have sufficed.

And why the captain of the ship with his chief medical officer and not an anthropological/sociological away team? That always bothered my about the STAR TREK movies and television shows. The captain of a ship has more pressing concerns than what goes on in a tent on a random planet.

Second:

The Enterprise was on a observation mission to watch this planet and collect data. Why did the Enterprise have to be submerged under water? Why couldn't it have been placed in orbit and a shuttle have been sent down to the planet for a closer view? Or, if the ship needed to be within the atmosphere (for some reason), why not over an ocean or a an ice-cap and (again) sent a shuttle in for a closer look?

This is never adequately explained.

Third:

There is a volcano that will erupt and wipe out this planet. Fair enough. Why did Spock have to descend into the volcano and drop off the bomb? The bomb was set on a 3 minute timer, couldn't they have timed it properly and dropped it into the volcano from a specific height? Couldn't they have "beamed" it down or even lowered the bomb from a cable without a Vulcan escort?

I know this was a premise to set up the rest of the story with Kirk violating the Prime Directive and the subsequent punishment, but it just seems to me this could have been done in a much better way.

[Side Complaint]
I won't even get into a discussion about emergency stopping out of warp speed. Is warp truly a speed or is the warp engine just creating a hole in space from one location to another? Is it isolating a piece of space and then moving space around the isolated space? Can a ship, or anything, be jerked out of warp with a engine problem?

I'll leave that one to the physicist theorists to argue about.

Fourth:

Scotty was drunk when Kirk called him. If this story happened in less than a day from when the Enterprise left Earth (as we're supposed to assume at the end when Scotty says "I've only been gone one day") then how his the engineer coherent or at least not hungover? Space-aged hangover cures?

And why did that ship, three times the size of the Enterprise, have a cargo bay door that was only a few meters wide? That cargo bay was huge, what are they loading that didn't need more than 3 or 4 meters of diameter?

Fifth:

The return trip from the Klingon's home world, Kronos, seemed to only take a few moments and the other ship caught up with the Enterprise in the warp tube (for lack of a better analogy). Like above, depending on how warp drives work, could a ship over-take another ship inside the same warp tube? Could it fire weapons inside the warp tube knocking the other ship out of warp? If so, could it then leave warp quick enough to stop in the same location without shooting well past the defunct ship?

Sixth:

The Enterprise is shot out of warp (see above) next to the Moon. ow is the Earth's gravity going to pull it hundreds of thousands of kilometers into the Earth's atmosphere within minutes when it's not pulling space debris or the Moon itself (and one has to assume the Moon's gravity would be counter-acting the Earth's gravity on the Enterprise).

Seventh:

Back to the second act of the movie, why on Earth would all the senior captains and their seconds all meet in the same room, accessible by any aircraft or rocket launched missile?

Eighth:

When they needed Kahn's blood to save Kirk's life, why on Earth did they need to go after Kahn? The Enterprise was filled with 72 other genetically advanced people just like Kahn whose blood, presumably, would have had the same properties as Kahn's. I mean, he was awakened at random, right? Or are we to believe the admiral wakened the leader of the people on the first try?

Now, don't get me wrong, the movie did somethings right as well. For example, Kirk and Spock's relationship with Spock providing the caution of reason and logic over Kirk's passion and Kirk's earnest need to appeal to Spock's human nature.

I really wish there'd been more screen time from McCoy and Uhura and while I'm more interested in the character story-based drama, STAR TREK is, and always has been, about science and unlike the first of the reboots, this movie just didn't seem to hold science as a major player in the plot.

Image borrowed from the internet [Paramount Pictures owns the rights]

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Denver Pictures

The Blogger mobile app is great, but when creating a blog post from an image in the Android image gallery, the blog the image is supposed to be posted to cannot be changed; it can be changed from the Blogger app only. 

This post was supposed to go to my photography blog but ended up here instead because of that little quirk, so I hope you enjoy looking at these images.

I took some pictures of Denver's cityscape from the 7th floor of the Denver library. These are Android (Note II) shots and edited with Snapseed.

The Denver Skyline Across Civic Center Park, in Black and White-ish

The below image was only slightly boosted with some saturation to bring out the greens of the grass and the blueish grey tones in the sky. The above image is the same as this one but with a more dramatic treatment.

Denver Skyline Across Civic Center Park, in color

The next two images are the same, as well. Both are of the Denver City/County building, with Civic Center Park and some of the Denver skyline in the image as well.

Denver City and County Building

The Denver City and County  building with Civic Center Park.

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My Brother, My Niece and the Lives We Live

You can't choose your neighbors or your family.

That's the saying, at least and for the most part, it's true. Sometimes you can adopt (choosing family) and sometimes you live in a co-op where you have to be approved to move in -- you know, to keep the riff-raff out of the neighborhood.

However, a vast majority of us don't fall into these categories -- most of us aren't adopted and most of us don't live in co-ops.

A vast majority of us also have some sort of family drama that makes get-togethers a pain in the ass or we have that weird cousin, uncle, niece or whatnot who provides ample gossip for the rest of the relatives. Chances are, I'm that weird family member people talk about -- but for different reasons than this blog post is about.

This post is about my older brother.

A couple of days ago I rang in the new year (for) me with my 38th birthday. Yes, yes, ladies, it's means I'm becoming more awesome. My older brother just turned 40 or will be 40 on his next birthday, I always forget. He lives in a small dinky town in rural Illinois and lives within miles of where he's lived his entire life.

My brother is also a pseudo-alcoholic. I say pseudo only because I don't want to say out loud that he is in fact an alcoholic. It's one of those open secrets: he can't sleep unless he's drunk, he gets "the shakes" if he doesn't have a beer or two at lunch, he's not cheerful and all day long thinks about his next drink.

He's your typical 12-pack a day kind of guy and even at, or near, 40 he's still proud of his ability to drink all night.

About a decade ago he was at a bar (or a party, I forget, but I think it was a bar) and ran across an ex-girlfriend. The two of them had sex that night and the next thing you know she's pregnant and he's a father to be.

Yay, right?

To protect his identity

Nope. He never wanted children, doesn't like children and, as far as family gossip is to be believed, never wanted to move out of his mother's house (we have different moms) where his laundry was washed, his meals were made and his private living area (aka: basement) was cleaned on a regular basis.

Now he had no choice. The girlfriend already had a child from a previous relationship and my brother bought a very cheap house in a very cheap side of town and moved them all in while the girlfriend was pregnant. The floors sagged, the electrical was shot, the walls had holes everywhere and barely any of the windows worked. He had high hopes for the house but could never seem to not drink long enough to put the work in to make the house baby friendly. Sure, a few items were fixed here and there as needed when a help came over, or he could arrange some other help, but nothing like the full blown remodel the house needed and he kept saying he wanted to do.

The baby was born. We all traveled to this dinky little town and congratulated the new family. During that same trip to Crapville, Ill, my brother's doctor told him he needed to stop drinking, he'd already damaged his liver and kidneys beyond repair and they could only get worse from that point on.

According to my brother, the doctor didn't understand the local culture of drinking until you're drunk 7 nights a week and my brother never stopped immersing himself in the culture.

That's what I always heard when I questioned my brother on his life choices: "that's the culture around here, Jason. That's how we live."

My brother spent the next few years complaining about his girlfriend: she wouldn't cook for him, wouldn't clean the house, wouldn't do his laundry, wouldn't go shopping, wouldn't get a job, always wanted him to watch the kids, always wanted him to take them places and do things with them, etc.

I remember a number of times telling him over the phone that he's perfectly capable of making his own sandwich, doing his own laundry and taking care of the kids while she goes out.

Of course, according to him, I didn't understand a woman's role.

At this point I'd only met the mother twice: once when the daughter was born and once when I came to town for a family reunion. She was always nice and friendly, but according to my brother she was a drug (heroin?) addict and liked to leave for weeks at a time with a 'new boyfriend' before coming back and playing domesticated housewife for a while. After a few months of his dream girlfriend the stories would turn back to she doesn't clean, she doesn't cook, she doesn't take came of me and so forth.

After a few years my brother realized he wasn't actually going to fix his house up so he bought another a few miles away in farm country. He's on 3 acres (because neighbors suck) and is surrounded by farms and ranches; his nearest neighbor being a half mile away.

The house had an in-ground pool which he filled in with brinks, construction waste, logs and dirt before building a deck over it. You know, to save the children from accidental drowning. No one can be expected to keep an eye on the kids, right?

Since then, he went through a terrible break-up with the mother of his child and fought in court for primary parental rights. Surprisingly, he won. I think he only fought for her to screw the mother out of her parental rights.

I guess it goes to show how bad the mother really is that my alcoholic brother who can't figure out how to do laundry won custody of their daughter.

Last year I went to his house for reasons I'll keep to myself for now, and when I pulled up I was appalled at the condition of the house. Most, if not all, of the screens were torn or gone, doors were falling off, the porch was sagging and garbage was strewn across the lawn. Actual garbage. Mostly in the form of beer cans because, as he puts it, he likes to sit out in the yard and have a few beers with the boys. Those large yard garbage cans were filled to over-flowing with cans of Bud Light, Keystone Light, Natural Light and whatever else is cheapest on any given day. Bicycles and broken down vehicles abounded, as well as tons of children's toys that were never used. I saw him yell at his daughter to pick them up and put them away, but she shrugged and walked off, he complained and took another drink from the recently purchased case of beer.

The inside of the house was the same, with every horizontal surface covered in beer cans. Both my brother and his daughter sleep on couches or chairs because no one cleans the bedrooms or does laundry. The master bath tub was filled with dirty clothes and the shower stall was black with mold and soap scum. The other bathroom wasn't used.

The eight year old girl had to cook her own food (usually frozen pizzas and burritos) in the microwave which prompted me to give him a convection toaster oven (which suddenly broke after I left).

The daughter was 8 at this time, doing well in school but her biggest complaint is none of her friends are allowed to come to her house (gee, I wonder why) and since she lives in the sticks, she can't just go down the street to where the kids hang out.

The rest of our family lives in Florida: our father, stepmom, brothers and sisters all reside in the Sunshine State. Occasionally my brother will send his daughter down to spend time with the grandparents, go to the beach, etc. Apparently, in the past, he's been known to send her to Florida with no additional clothes or severely ill-fitting ones -- pants too short, shirts too tight, pants that can't be buttoned and one pair of shoes, no sandals or "nice shoes" for going to restaurants. My family had to buy the poor child a whole new wardrobe so she would have some clothes that fit while she visited.

• Our father has tried to get my brother to move to Florida, presumably to keep a closer eye on his son and granddaughter, but my brother always finds an excuse not to move there even though a job's lined up and a place to live has been arranged.
• My mother, my brother's stepmom, has offered to take the girl full time as long as my brother isn't in her life. 
• Another brother and his wife (with their three teenage sons) have offered to take her under the condition that neither my brother nor his ex- have any visitation rights to the girl.

Seems everyone has the girl's best interest in mind, except my brother, her father.

Last summer I offered to let my niece come out to Colorado for a couple of weeks. I thought it would be a good idea to show her a lifestyle that doesn't revolve around alcohol (my parents, brothers and sisters, while not alcoholics are very very social drinkers and are very social).

My brother came up with some sort of excuse not to have her come to Denver when I asked but this year surprised me when he called and asked if she could come out for a couple of weeks.

Apparently, the girl's mother moved out to the Kansas/Colorado border, somewhere around Oklahoma and New Mexico, and she's going to her mom's house after school lets out for the summer. Since she's already halfway here, he wanted to know if she could come out and see the mountains.

Of course I told him she could come out.

He wanted me to take her to the Grand Canyon (um, that's pretty far away), and the mountains. He wants her to see more of America than the crappy little town they live in and the crappy little town the rest of our family lives in in Florida.

Good!

As far as he was concerned, he was never going to be able to show his daughter anything so he has to send her places. I told him to get his life together and he could do whatever he wanted, but he just told me that wasn't his lot in life.

He had some simple rules for when she came:

• No motorcycle rides (he's terrified of motorcycles)
• No parachuting
• No white water rafting

I spoke with him a couple of days ago, I had some questions about her diet -- more specifically, was there anything I needed to avoid: sodas, cookies/cakes, lactose intolerant, gluten free, etc. You know, responsible stuff.

He said she could eat and drink whatever she wanted as long as she drank unsweet tea throughout the day for the water. Why couldn't she just drink water? "No, Jason, she drinks unsweet tea," as though that's just common knowledge.

The Last Time I Saw Her

He then went on to say she would only be traveling with a backpack, so there wouldn't be a lot of stuff to keep track of. I had to assume a child-sized backpack. When I questioned if she would be able to pack enough clothes his answer was, "Don't worry, her mom can do laundry. She won't show up with dirty clothes."

Um, that wasn't the question. Plus, I can do laundry. Clean clothes were never the issue. Was she going to have enough pants/shorts, socks, shirts, underwear, shoes?

He didn't seem to understand the question.

He then went on to tell me her hair was much longer than the last time I saw her: down to the middle of her back.

Okay...

"Make sure she uses shampoo and conditioner." Dude, I'm not going to monitor her showers. She can use it or not.

"Make sure she showers every day or she get's funky." Funky? How funky can a 10 year old get? "Make sure she showers everyday." Okay.

"Make sure she uses something to keep the hair out of her face." Why, does she trip a lot? "No, she's too pretty to have her hair in her face." Dude, she's 10, if she wants to let her hair in her face, she can have her hair in her face. "No, I don't want it in her face." She'll be 800 miles away, calm down.

He didn't seem to care about her eating healthy, only that she showered and brushed her hair. Where were the priorities? I'm more considerate of my dog's health than he seems to be of his daughter.

Mt. Evans, Summer 2012

I've been looking forward to having her out here, to showing her that not everyone lives like her father does and I'm sure my roommate wants to adopt her already. The neighbor kids (all about 9) are looking forward to her being here, too, especially Fagan (Dagan?) who's the only girl.

We have tentative plans for the Great Sand Dunes National Park, RMNP and Mt. Evans with maybe some time in Glenwood Springs (at the pools) and some fun stuff in Denver.

Should be a fun week.

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Camera Time

Took the dogs to the park for some off leash fun. We've had some good clouds in the skies the past few days.

These are looking east and west.

The images were taken with my Note II and edited with Snapseed, then uploaded from mobile.

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Going Rogue

Earlier today I posted a topic on Google+. This particular post was a share from someone else's post of a feminist blog about how men should not walk up to women "on the street" and tell them they're pretty. While the original author does make the case that this is not a universal rule she does go on to claim that telling women they're pretty or dressed nice is considered harassment or demeaning by a lot of women.

She then goes on to tell us about the inner workings of the male mind and how if we see an attractive woman the only reason we have for complimenting them is because of an innate desire to fuck (her word, not mine).

Is it wrong to compliment a girl? Not at all. And of course, that opinion puts me square in the neanderthal category that feminists reserve for men who don't automatically agree with their position. However, the approach is important: a man walking up to a strange woman on the street and just saying, "Hey, you're hot," would more than likely be off-putting to the girl.

But if you approach a girl, enter into conversation and then compliment the girl during the course of the discussion, how is that harassment?

How many people wouldn't have made friends, or been asked out on dates, or changed their lives had they not walked up to a stranger at some point?

If I see a girl I find intriguing and walk up to her and start a conversation, at some point letting her know I find her attractive, is that wrong? According to the original blog post and the original sharer it is. Why? Because the woman might be offended or not want to attention.

I had a girlfriend once (actually a couple of girlfriends) who were Catholic. They took personal offense to my atheism and my disagreeing with their religion. Although we had many conversations on the matter they always ended the discussions by saying I was offending them.

I have a friend, a guy who I used to work with and who I helped him in his career. During the Bush (II) presidency I said I didn't like the president. [Actually, I probably said: this guy's a moron] He was offended, told me so and didn't talk to me for quite some time.

My step mom's offended because I do not consider her a matriarch of the family. My sister was offended because I didn't "like" one of her Facebook statuses.

I had a stranger get offended because I called my dog a dummy and she over heard me at the park one day.

The point is, being alive and going outside is bound to make someone somewhere uncomfortable. Did I stop calling my dog a dummy in public? Absolutely not. Did I change my opinion on GWB to be more amiable to my friend? Not at all. Did I change my opinion about the Catholic church just to appease my girlfriends? Nope. And yes, one did break up with me over it, the other we broke up because wanted to marry me and I wasn't there yet.

I had a neighbor a few years ago while living in a condo. The complex had open parking in the lot and private parking in the garages (naturally). This neighbor had decided she didn't like where I parked my vehicles because she liked to keep those open parking spaces for her personal use. She'd leave notes on my vehicles and left notes on another resident's vehicles as well. Then she confronted me one day and told me to be a good neighbor and let her have her way. I told her to be a good neighbor and follow the rules of the community which allowed me to park anywhere I wanted except someone's garage. After going back and forth with the HOA (who always sided with me) and even calling the police due to her hysterics, I finally filed a restraining order against her. When I asked neighbors to come to court as witnesses many agreed but one said something I couldn't believe. She said, "Jason, you provoked her."

How did I provoke her?

"Just being anywhere she can see you provokes her."

So, according to this witness/neighbor, my very existence -- without doing anything other than being alive -- I was harassing this other woman.

That's right: my merely being alive was enough for one person to claim I was harassing another even when I was on the receiving end of negative attention.

And yet according to some feminists, because the woman didn't like me I'm supposed to change my life to suit the woman's needs?


Are supposed to live our lives on egg shells hoping at all moments of the day that we're not making someone uncomfortable? Not at all. If we did, we'd be driving a wedge within our society that forces us down the slippery slope to the inevitable result of a Victorian era lifestyle, where every movement within the home and society is choreographed as not to unduly upset anyone else.

Every book you've ever read is just a different combination of the same 26 letters

As long as we're human we're going to have cultural differences, differences that might upset or offend people who don't share our culture; we're going to have different outlooks of life and society based on our own previous experiences and we're going to be different in the chemical make-up of your minds.

Rogue Black6:41 PM

I'm not too impressed with +Jason ON's refusal to think beyond his preset notions. Since he won't consider the author or Noah, I know I won't be afforded any respect. 

laurie corzett7:52 PM

If the objection is that a woman is expressing her experience with men, rather than a mixed gender group, each member expressing their experiences with people of other genders, then this is not an objection, but an opportunity for said objector to bring that article together.

Jason ON8:27 PMEdit

+Noah Friedman, not that I don't care, it's that this blog post and the other you linked to pretty much just just says if women don't like it, men shouldn't do it.

Too bad. No one should have to live their lives in fear that everything they do might offend someone.

+Rogue Black, everyone has my respect until they lose it. You lost it. You're not interested in having a discussion about a topic, you're interested in shoving your opinion down everyone's throats and when they disagree, no matter what evidence they provide to defend their position. In your world, if you disagree you're wrong and that's that.

Expand this comment »

Rogue Black8:30 PM

Whatever. There's the door, get the fuck out with your bullshit. You're not entitled to this space.

Jason ON8:41 PMEdit

Ah see, there you go. I didn't swear or become vulgar, I made a statement based on your comment "I know I won't be afforded any respect." And you proved me correct. I disagree with your position and instead of discussion the differences you dismiss the opposing opinion thus proving you don't deserve respect.

Rogue Black8:46 PM

You already said you had no respect for me in my fucking post so get the fuck out, you piece of shit, and take your bullshit delicate sensibilities with you.

Jason ON8:49 PMEdit

Again, you're just reiterating why you deserve no respect. 

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Ideas, events and people

I've been thinking about rage-quitting Google+. As much as I enjoy communication, sharing ideas and thoughts and interacting with people who share some sort of interest, I'm getting really tired of all the narcissistic ego-centrism I'm seeing.

This isn't the first time I've post thoughts of this subject and after restricting my Google+ usage, I'm finding (after a semi-full time return) that I'm just as annoyed as before my partial hiatus.

I was blocked twice today. Both by long time connections who were both Buzzers of days gone by. One guy -- a guy who alienated many people with his strict outlook on life -- a guy who once told me to stop posting current event articles and to stick to photos of my dog because he disliked my choice of source articles or my opinions, finally blocked me today (or was it yesterday?) after I questioned why he created a post of nothing but a link about a murder suicide. He left no comment on why he shared the link, what his opinion was of the murder-suicide or any other indication of why he thought that particular story was worthy to be shared.

For those of you who know me, you know link-shares, no comment are one of my largest social media pet peeves.

I asked why he shared that article. He told me I was harassing him and he was tired of it. (I'm not sure how asking someone why they shared a particular link is harassing, but whatever). He then said he was just going to "fix that right now." By that, I took him to mean he was blocking me.

Again: whatever.

Later, or more recently, another old Buzzer created a post about blocking people and after-blocking communications. Essentially, she was wondering how someone was able to email her after she'd blocked him on Google+.

I explained how to do this, circumventing Google+, and admitted I've done this in the past if someone blocks me for a trivial reason. In some cases the blocker person is someone I've never met before and only know by their profile picture, I'm not going to lose sleep over it -- not in a world of over 6 billion people. However, many people proceed to get their final jab in, usually as a name calling but sometimes as a statement similar to 'I'm right and you're wrong,' and then hit the block button before a question, rebuttal or defense can be made.

I've blogged or Google+ed about that particular pet peeve in the past.

As I was explaining to the original poster how easy it was to find someone's email and send them a post, or go to their blog and comment, or discover an article they've published and comment there, I used examples of people who've blocked me and how I contacted them to get my final word to them.

As far as I'm concerned, someone who closes the means of communication just because they don't like the direction of that communication is the epitome of an asshat. Yeah, I said it, an asshat.

The person who originally created this post then went on to delete my comment because she said it was taking her post off track. Another person jumped in and brought up old news from months ago: "Oh, after you defended him instead of me he finally blocked you?' This was all old news that I didn't want to dredge up again, but she just felt the need to rehash the conversation again instead of leaving it alone. I replied that my opinion still stands on that particular situation.

You see, I can compartmentalize individual situations. She apparently held on to my "betrayal" much harder than I did. To me it was water under the bridge.

Not only did my very benign comment about my opinion still standing cause her to block me, but the original poster jumped in again and accused me of targeting her for my rant. I wasn't targeting anyone for anything. The subject of the original post was in regards to after-blocking communications.

Should people reach out to those who have blocked them?

When the other woman blocked on that very post I used it was a real world "live" example of what I had previously stated regarding some people just block to block.

Think of it as a real world example to support the hypothesis.

Source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/eleanorroo385439.html

I just couldn't believe how a conversation between two people made the third one believe it was a play to make it about her.

Did people lose the art of reading comprehension with the advent of social media? Can people no longer read a paragraph or two and understand the subject is about a topic, not a person? It makes me think, if people are always making non-personal topics about themselves, what does that say about their understanding of the world? Are they incapable of "larger" thoughts?

If so, it would explain so much.

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