Mark Zuckerberg stole my ideas

Mark Zuckerberg stole my ideas. He owes me $171 million. Sure, I pulled that number out of my ass, but it'd keep my belly full of pork products for the rest of my days -- so it seems about right.

As you'll learn over the next few weeks (after the release of Facebook: The Movie) that Mr. Zuckarski has a reputation for stealing of ideas. And he's surely stolen mine.

Think about it. What do you think of when you think of something on teh intarwebs that is:

• useless
• about nothing
• a time waster
• a senseless self promotion

Facebook? Or SporkInTheEye? Or both? Coincidence? I think not!

Oh sure, you may point out that the origins of Facebook were in 2004 and the beginnings of the holy Spork were in 2006, but I don't think that's enough evidence. You're forgetting that this guy has a net worth of about $7 billion dollars... I'm relatively sure this is enough to purchase a time machine in order to steal my business plan. If only I had figured out a way to make money with my implementation. If only.

First, Zuckerello tries to win on traffic flow alone. As of July, 2010 the estimated users on facebook was about 500 million. Now I don't have access to his logs to compare that with my own traffic, but if I do a little estimation, I think he may be getting more hits than me. I cannot say for sure... but I think he is.

And if that wasn't enough, he now is trying to trump me on uselessness. First he introduced a new method of data mining where people VOLUNTEERED their most personal information to applications written by absolute strangers he wasn't paying... And today he is going to announce he is giving $100 million to the Newark public school system. Damn, Zuckophaleese... you pulled ahead of me. You are now King Useless. I bow before you.

Let's put this in perspective, shall we? The Newark Public School system is terrible -- with a 51% graduation rate. Their mission statement must be "We be better than Cleveland." The whole system was seized and taken over by the state in 1995 for its supreme waste and mismanagement. Clearly, this is a money problem, right? Zuckonnel to the rescue!

Well, maybe not. The nationwide cost per student runs about $8,000. Hell, the smell-my-bootie private school here in town runs $10,000 per year. Newark about doubles that at $19,000. Nationwide teacher salaries average around $40k. But the poor educators in Newark are forced to live on a measly average pay of $63k. (And DON'T you bitch at me about poor underpaid teachers. Remember that this is a 9 month contract, not a year. If you adjust this to the 12 month year most of us work, it works out to an equivalent $88k.)

Zuckeroo falls into the same stupid hole that so many consumers (and 99.9% of politicians) fall into: If something isn't working, throw money at it. At least he's not borrowing to do it. But jeez: for $100M you could build a moat of private schools around all those failing public schools -- and let all the kids attend for free. My crystal ball says: In 1-5 years you'll see a fine new batch of controversy, cronyism and embezzelment surrounding this.

Uselessness of Spork: 0; Zuckminster Abby: 1

Spastic Surgery

Women: I'm looking at you. Sure, some of my super human wisdom below applies to some men... but you are clearly the target here.

I don't hate plastic surgery per se. I hate what it's become. If my nose were to get ripped clean off in a freak bird watching incident, I'd want it reattached. And I'd pretty much want it to look like it does now. Not that I am Brad Pitt, I have just become accustomed to my appearance. Picking bogies out of George Clooney's nose just seems wrong.

In general, I'm opposed to any voluntary surgery. Surgery has significant risks. It's necessary sometimes. But if you even have to think about whether you need it or not, you probably don't.

There's not a heterosexual man on the planet that cares about the shape of your lips or the height of your cheekbones. Well, okay, there's probably a few, but they have some weird ass high-cheekbone, curly fish lip fetish that borders on creepy and they really are not the sort of guys you want to attract. If you're having plastic surgery -- and I mean any non-medical plastic surgery -- you're doing it not for men and probably not even for yourself. You're doing it for some idiotic Madison Avenue advertising executive that is running a campaign to tell you that you are ugly. Is this really the guy you want to impress? If Darren Stevens were to walk in the room and proclaim in front of his boss Larry that you have wrinkles at the corner of your eyes that make you look hideous, wouldn't you rather punch him in the mouth than spend $10 grand making him happy? I mean: he's such a prick to Samantha anyway.

If you don't believe that this is all some advertising plot, take a wide eyed look at The Doctors TV show, where "America's medical dream team" lives. (This week they're talking about women and heart disease with renown expert Barbara Striesand.) And what is this "dream team"? An ER specialist, an OB/Gyn, a pediatrician, and a plastic surgeon. Really? Is that really the 4 most important medical specialties you can come up with? If you say yes, you're already in need of a psychiatrist.

Facial wrinkles are a character map and express all sorts of emotive response. Trying to pull them tight or cover them up makes you look foolish. You're not fooling anyone and if you doubt me take a look at Joan Rivers or Bruce Jenner or Burt Reynolds or Micheal Jackson or ... well, I could go on ad infinitum. If your think your limited funds will buy a better job than these megastars, I've got a bridge in Jersey for sale.

I have distinct memories of my two grandmothers: one with sour, sagging wrinkles and the other with deep lines on her face that would make you think she had been laughing every minute of the previous 70 years. I can't remember the former ever being happy. The latter still has a place in my head as an attractive elderly woman -- but not in some creepy grand-Oedipus sort of way. To me this suggests that if you want to look pretty, then you need to be happy. Period.

The contrast is the ever unhappy, ever unsatisfied chick whose face is never young enough, breasts are never big enough and hair is never light enough. Madison Avenue will forever have you buying goo, hiring surgeons and attending your colorist. And all of these changes come with maintenance. You can't just fix it and forget it. You'll have to tweak and spackle and lighten until the day they do it one last time and close the casket door. And don't think for a moment you're doing it to attract a man (or please a man you already have). Men don't care. Big boobs, little boobs, medium boobs -- they're all boobs. We all like them. All of them. Think we all like blonds? We do. We also all like redheads and brunettes and everything in between. We don't care what your shoes cost and could care less who designed your dress. We'd almost all prefer to see you in blue jeans or nothing at all. Sorry, but that's the truth.

And if you, for some odd reason, have latched on the guy that cares about this trivia, then you have latched on the guy that has a pretty damn superficial view of you. He will always want you to be that 24 year old perky blond with big tits and a tight little butt. And when you turn 35 and are still trying to look 24 you won't fool him or anyone else. But it won't matter because while he smiles and says that "tummy tuck looks great honey" he's busy "working late" boinking the office slut -- who I might add is really still 24 and perky. A real man falls in love with the 24 year old and sees that same perky 24 year old when you're 73 and your teeth are floating in a fizzy concoction of Efferdent.

So, girls: don't buy it. Don't buy the $50 Armani mascara. Don't turn your hair a color that doesn't match your skin tone as that will just bring on a host of other changes. Embrace the boobs that fit your body type. We like them. Don't mess with your face. It's perfect the way it is. Don't go down the road of Jennifer Grey -- who made her place in Hollywood with one face and lost it with another.

I mean it.

Don't you just love Mexican feud?

Everything relates to the wisdom of Rush...¹

They say there are strangers who threaten us,
In our immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness too dangerous
In our theaters and bookstore shelves.
Those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves.

Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand...

There is a disturbing trend building on the right. It's not new, but it's gaining momentum: Illegal immigrants are going to be the end of us. And let's translate that to TDE:² "I hate Mexicans." And this is really no different than the wave of hating other immigrants before Mexicans: Jews, Blacks, Scots, Irish. The list goes on.

The sad part here is that, on many levels, the Right actually somewhat understands individual rights and somewhat understands what this country is philosophically based on. Sadder still is that the things they complain about have nothing to do with immigration. The problems they have are a misdirection. There is not a problem of Mexicans, there is a problem of creeping growth of invasive government that has nothing to do with immigration -- legal or otherwise.

First off, let's face it. This country is built on immigration. We are all a bunch of mutts. And unless your last name is Eaglefeather, you're one of them or a descendant of one of them. This country was built with the idea that anyone, given freedom, can make something of themselves. And it's been my experience that it is often the newest immigrants that have the fullest understanding of the vast amount of opportunity that this country can offer. It's the guy busting his ass doing a crap job working 60 hour a week at night that really understands: he can pretty much do what he wants if he tries hard enough. And it's the guy with a good paying job, 2 cars, an Iphone and a 3000 square foot house that doesn't get it.

What I have seen of the Mexican culture is really not the lazy bum on welfare or the drug crazed gang member.³ What I generally see is the guy that is sitting at the day labor pick up point at 5 am. He works his ass off all day long for sometimes less than minimum wage -- and is damn happy about it. Sure he doesn't pay taxes... but he doesn't really have a choice there, does he? In our current FICA-ruled collapsing economy, he can't just walk into the nearest Social Security office and ask for a new SSN, now can he?

You see, what you are mad about isn't that there is a huge influx of inexpensive labor willing to work and do jobs you really don't want to do. What you are mad about is the vast pipeline of endowment programs that illegal immigrants may or may not partake in.... public education, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, etc. But seriously, are you really mad about who in particular is using your tax dollars against your will... or that anyone does? Does it somehow bother you more that Mexicans get food stamps than it does Caucasians? Or Blacks? Or Irish-Chinese Hindus? It's the damn giveaway you're mad at! Not the recipient. They receive the giveaway because they qualify... much like I qualify for various housing/marriage promoting income tax deductions -- and, dammit, I take every deduction I qualify for!

The truth is: if you were to take away all those stupid benefits... there would still be a huge desire for our southern neighbors to immigrate -- because there is a huge opportunity here to be more and make more than they could ever make at home. They want to be here for the same reasons you do: because it's a fine damn place to be.

I've also heard endless arguments on crime related to illegal immigrants. And I'll admit that there's a gaggle of them guilty of income tax evasion (because they have no real choice there). But for the most part the crimes they are involved in are the crimes created by government prohibition: drug crimes. Get rid of the nanny state war on drugs and suddenly the whole drug cartel evaporates like the alcohol cartel from the prohibition before it. Prohibition created Al Capone. Ending it created Jack Daniels... and the same goes for illegal drugs.

The saddest accusation from the Right is new to them. It's a leftist argument: "They're stealing our jobs." This ugly protectionism is nothing different from the union bosses they despise. It's the idea that you have a right to some job that your employer is bound by government muscle to give it to you. Well, friend, I sort of like the gentleman's agreement I have with my employer. The day I have "a right" to my job is most likely also the day I "have no rights" to oodles of other jobs. No thanks.

---

1. Don't be an idiot. Rush the band, not Rush the pill popping windbag. This is a snippet from Witch Hunt
2. Truck Driver's English
3. I'm sure those do exist. I'm not saying they don't.

A prediction of future paleontolgy

There will be a day, somewhere in the future, where future archaeologists dig up the remnants of our society and try very hard to understand us. I suspect the most confusing thing they will find is the battery operated paper towel dispenser. The following is an excerpt from Future Earth paleontologists:

...and much in the same fashion that 20th century humans failed to understand that spending $300 in fossil fuels to drive a recycling truck in order to pick up $8 worth of raw recycled materials isn't really "conservation", they totally went off the deep end when it came to conserving paper. When archaeologists first unearthed what is now commonly referred to as the "hands free towel dispenser" they were absolutely and totally confused. Many, many theories arose as to the purpose and origins of this apparatus:

• It was theorized that primitive 20th century man did not have fully working elbows, which did not allow him to raise his arms more than 8 inches above his waist. Later skeletal discoveries have proven this theory unlikely.
• It has also been theorized that this primitive man had a very flawed idea on germ theory. It was believed that they were so terribly afraid of touching surfaces after washing up that they required automatic dispensers so as not to touch the towel dispenser as we do today. The very sad irony of this is that the combination of touch free dispensers and increased use of hand sanitizer left their immune system ripe for destruction during the age of the Purellic Plague.
• Another popular theory is that primitive man was just so absolutely lazy that he could not be bothered to turn on faucets or dispense paper towels. Archaeologists have searched for an automatic poo extraction device where these machines are found, under the theory that anyone too lazy to dispense paper towels is also too lazy to actually defecate.
• The most popular theory is that primitive man did not understand basic mathematical principles. The device was designed to "save paper" by only dispensing a worthless 6 inches of towel. Also required for this theory to be viable is that primitive man had extreme short term memory. It was assumed that if he could get a 6 inch towel to dispense that he would forget the mechanism he used to dispense it and walk away... rather than actuating the dispensing mechanism a second or third time.
• It is also generally understood that primitive man had regressed by the time they were using this odd machine. Archaeological digs show that the walls contained some sort of copper electronic wiring that would generally allow powering of lighting and machines. Yet man in this age was unable to understand that mechanism and defaulted to powering this worthless gizmo using 12 caustic acid-filled battery devices. It is estimated that the power to run this machine cost roughly 300 times more in power generation, natural resources and environmental damage than the paper it saved....

Thinking about my recent sleep study is giving me insomnia

I've known I had mild sleep apnea for a long time. It really doesn't take a high tech lab experiment. All it requires is a wife.

I was paying my own high quality, high deductible insurance for several years and put kept putting off getting it checked. As I recently acquired employer paid insurance, I headed off to the Doc like a fat boy waddling towards my fourth plate of food in an all-you-can-eat Ryan's buffet. And when the cashier overcharged me, I just pointed at the insurance company and said "Daddy's going to pay."

It was at this point I really realized who was at fault in our "health care dilemma." It isn't our doctors. It isn't those evil money grubbing insurance companies.

It's me.

And it's you. And since anecdotal evidence is nothing but a worthless way to drum up emotional support, let me give you a little...

I am no stranger to how apnea is managed. My dad has been using a CPAP for about as long as they've been around. And I did my research before I started. Sleep studies, while not cheap, seemed to be going for about $2000-$4000. (I even found a site that let you search by your zip code and narrow it down to a particular clinic.) The CPAP itself again isn't cheap, but it's easy enough to look online and see that they're about $1000 for a CPAP with all the bells and whistles. So we're talking this is a $5000 endeavor and I owe 20%. A grand. I can manage. No problem.

My initial consult with the Doc was pleasant. I felt assured when he told me after the initial exam "You aboslutely have apnea. But the silly insurance companies won't pay for the CPAP machine unless we do a sleep study." Remember this quote. I'll refer to it later.

Imagine my total and complete surprise when my insurance company was billed for almost $14,000 for the 2 night sleepover in the arctic sleep lab. (For that price, I'd think they could fix the thermostat! Had I been a tropical fish, I would have floated to the top of the tank.) Sure, Aetna was able to "bargain" the price down to a "more reasonable" $10,000 -- but even with insurance paying the customary 80%, my portion of the payments was about what the entire study would have cost in other sleep labs.

The medical equipment companies then enter, supply me with the wrong sized and miserable and almost unwearable mask... and a CPAP -- all billed to the insurance company piecemeal -- much like going to the parts counter and buying an entire car from Mr. Goodwrench one part at a time.

I am a unapologetic supporter of Capitalism and a long defender of the medical profession. I have spent countless hours arguing over the evils of government intervention and socialized medicine. This will not change. But let me assure you that if we want a government controlled monopoly over medicine, we are headed down exactly the right path. And it is our fault.

I live in a culture that will spend 3 months shopping every electronics store in a 4 county area to find exactly the right deal on a television. I live in a society that is always 20 minutes late for work in the morning, but will get up at 4 am to attend a black Friday sale the day after Thanksgiving. I live in a culture that shops at Sams and Costco, buying crate loads of toilet paper at rock bottom prices. I live in a culture that loves double coupons and Wal-Mart. And I live in a culture that accepts everything a doctor ever says without ever blinking to ask the price. I live in a culture that, when it comes to one's own health, will allow their employer to buy lowest-bidder, bottom-of-the barrel insurance to become their sole arbiter.

How the hell is it that we are such a consumer culture when it comes to iGizmos and widgets and fat-free yogurt and McAnything, but when it means something we just abdicate our consumer responsibility to the very people that are selling the service?

Now... just for melodrama: recall that quote from above... that the insurance company requires ten thousand dollars worth of tests... for a $1000 apparatus. And had I been a more thoughtful consumer, I would have realized that even the super expensive auto-adjusting CPAP machines cost less than my 20% out-of-pocket amount. It would have made more financial sense to stop at the initial consult and issue a machine with me shouldering 100% of the cost. As for me, I now will be asking upfront for the price -- when negotiation is still possible.