Why the U.S. Military Doesn’t Train on XBoxes

Alright, my unplanned, unintentional hiatus from my blog has lasted long enough. This is just too ludicrous to not post. A recent article on wired.com explains why the U.S. military uses computers rather than Xboxes (or is it Xboxen?), even though the latter is cheaper and much easier to configure. Here's one of the three reasons Microsoft gave to Roger Smith, chief technology officer for PEO STRI, the Army command responsible for purchasing training equipment:

"if the Xbox became an Army training device, it would taint its reputation. Microsoft was concerned that “do we want the Xbox 360 to be seen as having the flavor of a weapon? Do we want Mom and Dad knowing that their kid is buying the same game console as the military trains the SEALs and Rangers on?”

Really, Microsoft? Well you better not tell "Mom and Dad" that that PC that the whole family uses currently possesses the "flavor of a weapon" because maybe they'll stop buying those, too. (Also, why is the kid buying the game console and not the supposedly concerned parents?) True, it's quite unlikely that the PC at their house has the same training software on it that the military does, but Microsoft wouldn't have to make the Xbox game(s) that the military would use available to the general public either. It's not even the game itself that they're apparently worried about, it's the game console. I'm sure there are a number of people out there that would refuse to have an Xbox in their house knowing that the U.S. military trains on them, I just don't think that that number is greater than the number of consoles Microsoft would sell to the military.

Oddly enough, another concern that Microsoft listed is that they couldn't handle the workload of producing Xbox 360s for both the military and the general public. Seems to me that these complaints cancel each other out. If you think manufacturing for the military will cause civilians to no longer want your product, then production won't have to worry about a double workload.

360s for the military seems like a win-win situation. Microsoft gets more money (if they're that concerned about a "shortage of Xbox 360s", don't they have the means to expand production?), and the military gets a cheaper, less problematic training device that its users are more likely familiar with.

Dancing Lessons Are Not Considered Health Care

I was just perusing my HSA's List of Allowable (and not allowable) Health Care Expenses to see what all I've been paying for out of pocket that I don't actually have to (like contact solution!). I came across a few that I found rather amusing...

• Dancing lessons: Not Qualified. Who thought dancing lessons would be covered as a health expense? Why, because it's aerobic exercise? Well then you better throw curling lessons on the list, too! And Wii Fit!
  
• Circumcision (non-infant): Not Qualified. Sorry, Abraham wannabes, unless you're eight days old, you're out of luck. Talk about adding insult to injury.
• DNA testing for paternal responsibility: Not Qualified. You know what is qualified though? Birth control. So are vasectomies. I wonder how many people upon learning that think "I sure wish I knew that last year".
• Experimental Drugs: Qualified. But only if obtained legally. I'm clearly thinking of the wrong kind of experimental drugs.
• Marijuana: Not Qualified. Ah, there we go.
• Smoking Program: Qualified. What's a smoking program? A program that's on fire? They're clearly not talking about a program for smoking marijuana. Maybe this is like a cigar club or something. If so, sign me up - I'm qualified!
  

Brinkster Customer Service Fail

A few months ago, I blogged about how "great" my web hosting company, Brinkster, is. Apparently they thought this faint praise was sincere, because they're back at it. I went to listen to some briTunes this afternoon and was met with a very generic parser error screen. Real lovely. Turns out this was true of all of the pages. I just visited the site last night and hadn't made any changes since, so I knew the error wasn't on my end.

I checked my email to see if I was notified of any outages, which was a waste of 40 seconds because that's not how Brinkster rolls. They view service issues as a way to increase site traffic (who cares if it's pissed off site traffic, right?) so they make you log in, chat with customer support and let them tell you condescendingly that the site is down for maintenance via this link. Sorry, guys, didn't realize that one of the requirements of being your customer was to check the Brinkster news page every hour to see if my site might be down. Ever hear of email?

Additionally, if my site is going to be down for 24 hours (which it was last time...we're approaching 12 this time), it should, at the very least, be set up to redirect to a nice, clean, plain-English page explaining that the site is currently down because of Brinkster's lousy servers and not because of me, the customer (even better if it provides a link to the news post). It's bad enough that the site is down, to throw some nondescript parser error message at you is inexcusable.

Unfortunately, explaining these ideas to customer support feels like explaining capitalism to a squirrel. They can nod* and pretend they understand that you want something in return for what you gave them, but really they don't care because they already have your nuts.

_____
* the computer senses this nodding and outputs "I have noted that for you" as a result

Griffey and Catheters

What do those have in common? For now, they are merely topics from the same doughnut meeting at my workplace. That's right, work here and you'll get to munch on a tasty treat while discussing topics such as kitty litter, bunk beds, toilets, and beer. All in the same meeting! (Not necessarily in that order, though). If that's not a pitch for the company, I don't know what is. Unfortunately, we're not really hiring right now. Sucks for you.

Street View and the Patriot Act

To anyone who is of the belief that Google Street View is "the Patriot Act in action", please go educate yourself before opening your mouth and sounding ridiculous. Google just added a ton of new locations, so I'm sure there will be more of an uprise by silly people than ever in the next few days. But before you speak and cause me to bang my head against my desk, please consider the following:

• Google is a corporation, not a government agency.
• Street View is not live, so please quit looking for the camera right outside your house. It already drove by 6 months ago.
• Google only travels on public property that any bozo can take pictures of (and when they accidentally stumble onto private property, they get in trouble for it and take it down)
• Google has technology that automatically blurs out faces and license plate numbers, so no, your wife can't tell that it was you leaving the strip club in the middle of the day. You might want to throw away that shirt though, just to be safe. If you're still worried about it, you can always hit the "Report a concern" link at the bottom of the image. It might also be a good idea to stop frequenting strip clubs in the middle of the day, pervert.

How many golden rings DID my true love give to me?

Most people would answer "five". According to the actual lyrics, they'd be wrong. Take a look:

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

"My true love" sent all those things just on the fifth day of Christmas. If what most people assume was correct, it would instead say something like this:

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five golden rings, in addition to the
Four calling birds sent to me on the fourth day of Christmas,
Three French hens sent to me on the third day of Christmas,
Two turtle doves sent to me on the second day of Christmas,
And the partridge in a pear tree sent to me on the first day of Christmas

But it doesn't. So instead we are left with the following gifts from said "true love":

1 x 12 = 12 Partridges in (a) pear tree(s)
Note: it is unclear whether each partridge got it's own pear tree or not
2 x 11 = 22 turtle doves
3 x 10 = 30 french hens
4 x 9 = 36 calling birds
5 x 8 = 40 golden rings
6 x 7 = 42 geese a-layin'
7 x 6 = 42 swans a-swimmin'
8 x 5 = 40 maids a-milkin'
9 x 4 = 36 ladies dancing
10 x 3 = 30 lords a-leapin'
11 x 2 = 22 pipers piping
12 x 1 = 12 drummers drumming

And you thought 8 maids a-milkin' sounded like a lot! We now have a total of 364 gifts, nearly one for each day of the year. Of those, there are 184 birds and 84 of 'em are either a-swimmin' or a-layin' (even more birds!). I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather just get a digital camera or something.

Alumni Addition

My high school has an "Alumni Addition" of their newsletter. No, it's not a math club. It's an embarrassment.