I've been thinking a lot lately about the hypothetical single welfare mother of eight. In a Darwinian sense, her reproductive foresight is what will save humanity when armageddon arrives.

Think about it, she fucks a lot of guys and then the guys ditch her when they find out she is pregnant. The dudes she fucks may have diverse backgrounds and traits that will be passed along to their offspring. This is where the real power of the hypothetical single welfare mother of eight comes in. Through the diversity of her offspring, she increases the odds of survival of the human race.

"Survival of the fittest" isn't just about passing along the single traits that are most effective for survival. There is no way we can predict how the end of civilization will come to pass. It could be a meteor, or nuclear war, or global warming. It is through diversity of our population that we can assure there will be enough people with the right combination of traits to pull the human race through the crisis. By spreading out the gene pool we are increasing the odds that, in the face of any disaster, there will be people on hand who are able to cope.

It is high time the government revisit the issue of welfare reform. We need to be subsidizing the hypothetical single welfare mother of eight so she can spend less time working and more time fucking. Next time you meet a hypothetical single welfare mother of eight, be sure to thank her for fucking so much.

The Marginalization of the Progress Meter

Back in the late 80's, when using computers was fun, I remember installing software on my Amiga 500 and a progress meter would keep me informed as to the current state of completion of the installation routine. That was when progress meters were "progress meters" and wizards were characters in games.

Recently I've had the pleasure of installing or uninstalling a number of different pieces of software on various computers: Intellisync on a workstation at work, DSL software on my parents' computer, and Windows updates on my work PC. The fucking progress meter is useless. With Intellisync, the meter reaches 100% several times before it is actually done. With the DSL software, it went through two cycles during an uninstall and then there was a long pause with no progress meter while the hard disk was still churning away. And with Windows update I got a progress meter for downloading and then another for installing, but the one for installing didn't start moving until several seconds had passed. Progress meters suck shit.

Clearly the progress meter is a useless tool in software installations these days. It has become a requirement for all software installers, but the reason for this is lost.

A progress meter should start as soon as the "install" or "start" button is clicked. It should indicate the relative amount of time for an installation to complete. There should be one and only one progress meter for all installations, with individual steps of the installation using only a proportionate share of the meter. And lastly, it should hit 100% at the moment that the installation is done, not ten seconds before and not before any final summary pages are displayed.

Watching a progress meter is like watching water boil; it takes forever because you seem to be hanging on each little blip of progress. With progress meters, unlike boiling water, sometimes you have to watch it five times before it is done. If they have to be so irrelevant, stick a fucking game or a movie on there.

I stole a tomato from my neighbor's garden and ate it. Then, to complete the cycle, I shat in their flower bed.

There were no al Qaeda operatives in Iraq when Saddam was in power. The President has no right to take credit for capturing al Qaeda people in Iraq when he is responsible for creating the conditions that brought them there.

When Saddam gassed the Kurds, killing 10-30,000 people, the Reagan Administration featuring Donald Rumsfeld looked the other way. Why does Rumsfeld have a woody for getting rid of Saddam now, almost twenty years later?

One thing I hate in life: opening and closing curtains and windows. There is hope. From CNet News, an article about OLED lighting and, specifically, windows made out of OLEDs. "By day, it would function like a regular clear plastic window. Flick a switch and it becomes a light fixture. Besides the novelty factor, the transparent window could cut energy costs by switching dynamically when sunlight will suffice."