Replicator?

Imagine a future where energy is limitless and free. A world where because of the advances in science we control fusion to get our energy. No one fights about energy resources anymore because we have key power plants placed in places that power the entire globe evenly and thoroughly.

Now that we have the setting, in this world goods would no longer be manufactured or produced. They would be designed and tested. Then they would be replicated. Each building would have a replicator and each building would have a store of matter. No one would actually purchase products any more, they would pay for the rights to replicate products. They would be paying for the architecture of the products. Once the architecture is purchased by the consumer they have the rights to replicate it as many times as that purchase contract allows. if science advances far enough ways of taking raw energy and transforming it straight into forms of matter would prove more efficient. However that does not seem likely to happen for a while.

Imagine a hospital equipped with this kind of technology. Instant vaccines, medicines, and supplies. Would save millions of lives. Imagine a replicator placed in a small town in Africa, now able to replicate food and water. It would change how we live. No longer would the population be dependent on the earth for it's survival. No longer would people be forced to die because their region experienced a drought, disease or disaster.

Where would we get all the material for this from? Well if we are powering the world by fusion then there is the answer. We use the leftover matter from the fusion reactions to be used in the replication processes.

Is this technology even close to being possible? We have the technology For 3 dimensional printers right now. People use them to test a multitude of things in the real world. All we would need to do is modify this process to account for density and different types of materials. When it comes to fusion, even though they always say it is 50 years away, eventually we will possess the technology to control a reaction and obtain the energy from those reactions.

The world would be saved from overproduction, and the carbon foot print for moving products around the world reduced to almost nothing. The resources spent in packaging products would also be reduced to almost nothing and the garbage produced from those packaging would be reduced to almost nothing. Overnight the worlds waste would decrease substantially and we would finally be able to feed the billions that go hungry everyday.

(picture source)

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Sleep?

I can not even begin to count the amount of nights I have laid awake at night wondering why sleep is such a hard thing to come by, or better yet why It is even necessary. The reasons for it are obvious though. The brain needs some downtime to repair and maintain itself. The thing that gets me all interested in it is why it was evolutionarily weaves into every animal on the planet.

The cause is probably as simple as the fact that since it gets dark at night the body might as well have a resting period due to the fact that there is no way of seeing the world around them. Not until very recently when homo sapiens discovered they could harness energy and illuminate the nighttime for their own wills, no other creature was able to fully take advantage of all 24 hours of the day. Which begs the question, could we systematically reduce our sleeping periods to a fraction of what they once were?

The thing that bugs me about the whole sleep thing is that it does not seem evolutionarily prudent. I would think that any animal that decides to lay down for 8 hours un-moving and un-aware of its surroundings would have died out a long time ago. A sleeping animal would be easy pickings to any fortunate predator that may stumble upon them. Even that did not stop sleep from continuing to be a huge part of an animals cycles.

Probably the most irritating thing about sleep is that it is not an instant thing. One must almost chase it down and overtake it, or at least that is what it feels like sometimes. The brain has to wait until the heart rate and breathing are a certain reduced speed before the process can begin. It is almost painful having to wait for the body to decide it is ready for sleep when the person had decided on that fact hours beforehand.

I wonder if on planets in other systems where they are gravitationally locked into their rotation, one side of the planet always in darkness and one in light. That if those twilight zone animals require sleep or if it has even come to exist in their ecosystem. If sleep originated due to the dark nights here on earth, what would happen if on that planet it was always daytime? Would animals that were never unable to sense their surroundings have come to a point where sleep is required?

I think one of the goals of future bioengineers should be to either find a way for the brain to do the processes it does while sleeping on the fly, or at the very least reduce the required time for sleep. A world without sleep would be a much more efficient place.


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Onstar?

I recently took a family vacation to Washington DC. The trip was a result of the need to go to the Jon Stewart Rally to Restore Sanity. On the way there I got to thinking about the integrated on star function in most cars nowadays. I soon came to the realization that on star does not actually give a damn about the safety of it's customers and I will explain why.

The service as it is setup currently is that the customer pay a fee every month after they initialized the service. Now this is clearly a type of insurance plan for the passengers and driver of the vehicle of which only works if the fee is paid every month. So if one is not a customer of this service then they will not have immediate emergency response if something were to go wrong.

The way it should be is this. The service is paid for when purchasing the vehicle. The feature should be a premium feature paid in full upon acquiring the vehicle for the first time. Once the car is started for the very first time the on star function should initiate on it's own. So the second the car is driven off the lot by the owner they are "insured" with the functionality of on the spot response to whatever may happen. No monthly payments and no subscription. If that is not entirely viable as a product then the most it should ever be is a pay to use service. Where upon using the service for an emergency response the customer is charged a fee, but that should be a last resort.

The reason I got to thinking about this is if we were to have gotten in an accident on our trip, even though our vehicle was equipped with the hardware required for then onstar service it would have been useless since we do not pay for the service. So my question is, why do they automatically put it in vehicles if it will go unused? And why make a clearly innovative safety feature just another money ploy.

It should be an automatically initiated response service meant to keep people safe. Instead it is just another way in order for GM to make some quick cash. They should Stop making it a product to make money off of and make it a standard safety feature across the board.

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Stopping Time?

Whenever someone on a tv show or in a movie stop time they always seem to be able to do it very easily. I am not going to dispute the impossibility of achieving this with our current level of technology or that a biological being would somehow be able to achieve it on their own via a gamma burst or an eclipse. The thing that really concerns me about the whole concept is, if that person is really actually stopping time they could possibly produce a grave situation for anyone they decide to take with them. Let's say if that person were to bring someone with them on the time travel adventure and somehow leave that person behind. The consequences for that person would he atrocious. Once the time traveller resumes his position in time, the passenger would now become stuck at that one point forever. An infinity would pass for that person and the matter that they are composed of. Some possible situations that could arise would be that person would consume their lifetimes worth of oxygen, food and water in what would seem like an instance for everyone else. Proving to be possibly disastrous for the rest of the planet. The percentage of oxygen would reduce drastically because no oxygen would be being produced while that person is consuming it. The person and all of the waste they produced would last for an infinity within a point of normal time.

The only way it would be less disatserous for everyone would be if instead of the time traveler stopping time, they merely slow it down. This would be more reasonable. Depending on the rate in which the traveller slows time down would depend on how long an abandoned passenger would have to wait until the time traveller realized what happened and slows time down again. it is much easier to comprehend that all of the waste that the passenger produced would not be confined to a single point within time, it would still be visible to the people at the normal rate of time, it would just decay at an increased rate.

Moral of the story is simple, if you can stop time, make sure you don't bring anyone with you and if you can slow time down make sure you decrease the rate of time so that you have enough time to re-slow time down in case you leave them behind.

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Recycling Facilities?

When it comes to recycling I have never understood why it is always put into the hands of the consumer alone. For instance it is up to everybody to have to recycle on their own at their own will. This has not proven to work. The waste management system itself should have some kind of recycling built in.

The way it should work:
the consumer puts their garbage out for the company to pick it up. After it gets picked up by the management company it is taken to the facility where it is sorted preferably by robot controlled systems into the various recyclable materials. Thereby leaving only biodegradable waste behind to rot in the giant compost pile that is the dump. The facility could also turn a profit on this venture simply by selling the recycled material to companies who can use it. Not only does this solve the issue of non-disposable waste being left to decompose at the dump It also makes it so companies in the area are using cheaper recycled materials instead of having to buy newly created or mined materials that only go further in exhausting non-renewable materials.

Consumer side of things:
the only thing the consumer would be aware of would be that they put out the trash. Some would say that this would lead to less care on what people throw away. That may be true however that should be the issue anyway. We should be able to throw anything away that we want and have it all sorted out at the facility we pay to manage our waste. Also when it comes to consumers recycling things on their own, their are a lot of financial reasons the consumer would choose to recycle what they can on their own.

Overall I think that if this kind of plan was implemented I would guess that not only would our world start to become a lot cleaner, but companies that should be "managing" our waste would not just be burying it in a hole somewhere but actually doing the management that they currently propose they do.


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Modern Warfare 2 is an Epic Failure?

For as long as there have been video games there have been LAN parties. For As long as there have been video games there have been nerds, who even though socially inept, have had there fellow nerds to enjoy the art form that they are. Whether it be in an arcade, a chat room, or even moms basement. Nerds have always gravitated together to be awake into the wee hours enjoying that new interactive masterpiece together.



Infinity Ward has decided however that this is no longer acceptable. They in one fell swoop made all LAN parties impossible with their newest addition to the Call of Duty franchise. Modern warfare 2 with all it's glamor and beauty lacks one of the most important features for any video game.

These are the things that make this game an enormous failure, even if it is the most popular game.

1. No LAN(Local Area Network) support whatsoever.
They decided to tell their customers that either connect to xbox live, play split screen, or you are playing on your own.

2. System connect only allows for 1v1.
If I can play split screen up to 4 players, why not allow me to port that experience to a system connect. There won't be any lag because there is no network to rely on.

3. DLC maps only playable when connected to xbox live.
This is absolute bullshit. I paid money for these maps. They are on my xbox. Why am I forced to be connected to the Internet to access files stored locally on my hard drive. This is a crime against video games.



There seriously should be some list of rules, a video game charter if you will. That has the rules that all games should be developed by. For instance, if I download a DLC, it is now my property. Don't restrict me to having to be connected to the Internet or only certain users allowed to use it. If it is on the hard drive the account is saved to, then I can use that DLC. Halo 3 for all the problems i have with the game has done this part right. Recently my roommate downloaded the new map pack under his gamer tag on my hard drive. On my gamer tag I had not downloaded them. But halo 3 allowed me to play those maps simply because they were on my hard drive. Allow for all possible multiplayer possibilities. System link, LAN, and split screen.

Update:
people have said to me, why do i reserve such hostility to MW2 and not Starcraft 2 a game that should have LAN support but does not. my answer is simple. Blizzard announced a long time before Starcraft 2's release that it was not going to have LAN support. full disclosure. with MW2 however they just failed to put it in the game and never told us about it.

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Car Years?

Why don't car makers put the year of the car on the outside of the vehicle? Instead of just putting the name challenger, why not have it say the year before or after the name. It would make things a lot easier. For instance mechanics, or police officers would find it helpful. No more having to either remember it off hand or tearing apart the glove box.b

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No Network Play?

The story goes like this. My buddy brought over his xbox so we could play 2 on 2 MW2. Not thinking anything of it we Plug his xbox into the living room tv and mine into my monitor in my room. We both get signed into the network and then into xbox live. I said to everyone, "hey let's do a local network match, it will have almost no ping and no lag". So the connections would make for a very even match. The options for multiplayer are either split screen, xbox live, or system link. Up until this point I was under the assumption that I could just set up a match via the network we were on, but no this is apparently impossible for this game to do. For fucks sake, star craft was capable of this and halo 3. Why is this not a feature that is standard on all multiplayer games now. It is really ridiculous. We ended up having to play across xbox live, which led to ping between systems. Why do some features always seem to get left behind?


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WWDC?

Some words on WWDC 2010. As I sit back and reflect on the keynote this past Monday, I begin to realize just how disappointed I am. Granted the new iPhone 4 looks fantastic, and the technology they added to this new phone is really quite impressive. However there are a few things I have on my mind that I think should have happened but did not.



10.7?
Apples next big cat should have made at least a Preview or a mention. This is the developers conference after all. In the past it has almost always been the event that apple uses to show a sneak peek of the new Mac os. I was a little disappointment their wasn't even a slide hinting at them working on it.

MobileMe?
I have recently posted about my opinions of the current MobileMe set of functions. So really all I have to say is that it is still way over priced for the limited functionality it gives it's prescribers. I really had hoped for any kind of iTunes streaming, cheaper price....really anything would have been nice.



AppleTV?
Apparently it is still a hobby, how unfortunate. Apple concedes victory to google.



Mac Pro?
From what I understand the new i7 chips would seriously upgrade the performance in those machines. I may be wrong, but they have not made a very big deal about their top of the line Mac in a while.


MacBook Air?
Still a joke of a product in my opinion, but it would have been nice to see something about it this year. It was quietly updated earlier this year, but it doesn't seem like that was enough. Even though I have had countless conversations with my cousin about how they should just remove that laptop all together, it is over priced and under powered.

Overall this years WWDC was all about the iOS and the new iPhone. I had just hoped for a lot more. However I always want a 4 hour keynote anyway, and they always keep it under 2. I just hope they quietly release some stuff over the next few months, or even have a special keynote for some of the stuff I mentioned. Either way this years WWDC was just meh. There is always next year.

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Large Engineering Project Impossibility?

Nowadays I believe it is impossible to have a large engineering project commissioned. Some would argue that building a stadium, or a skyscraper would be considered a large engineering project, but I am talking more like the Hoover dam, the pyramids of Giza, the highway project in the 1950's and the transcontinental railroad. Those were true engineering projects and in the present I don't think that with all the regulation and union issues about, that it would be possible to start and finish such a large project without immense political whiplash or an incomparable amount of lawsuits.

Why it worked in the past...


Well frankly most of the worlds greatest projects were created using slave labor, or something very close to it. The pyramids were built by slaves who had no rights and did not see any kind of payment for building them. The amount that must have died during the long proccess of building all 138 pyramids must have been staggering.

The transcontinental railroad was built mostly by Irish and Asian immigrants. Whose working conditions would never pass in today's world. The rate at which they completed the project clearly means they worked well beyond the work day limit in today's world.


The Hoover dam was built as an economic boost for the depression, so men were eager to go to work on the project, 112 people died while building it. Something that would never be allowed to happen in the modern age. Even 1 death is a travesty nowadays, and would spread across news outlets like wildfire emphasizing how the project is doomed and how it was a terrible idea to begin with.


The 1950's interstate project is the most recent. Suggested by president Eisenhower It was immense, the goal was to connect the country in a way that was never before seen. much like the railroads in the 1800's the interstate was meant to enable travel to more places even easier. A trip that would take 30 days prior to the interstate now took two. Since it took place in modern times the conditions were quite good when compared to prior projects. However the price tag was a staggering 128 billion dollars. The pubs would have a cow if Obama wanted to spend that much money on a single engineering project.

That's not to mention union issues, where to manufacture goods, housing transfer, and so on. The cost for something that big is too high in today's world. The regulation would restrict it so the length would be ridiculous and it would be political suicide if the project went awry in any way.

I think the closest thing to these examples would have to be the Burj Dubai tower. However even that was built using sub par working conditions.

Why we need one right now...
The reason I bring this up is because take the Hoover dam for instance. When it was commissioned in the 30's it was designed to create jobs and boost the economy. It worked, and it also created the largest hydroelectric facility on the planet powering most of nevada and southern california. The country could use the boost in it's economy with a project of that size. Unfortunately it will probably never happen.


Obama has said multiple times that he plans to redesign and re construct our crumbling infrastructure. This means redoing roads, electrical distribution, water, and much more. I have not seen any progress in my home town just yet, but he may have this on the back burner since now he has to deal with finishing healthcare, the oil spill, 2-3 wars, terrorist issues, and so on. Hopefully he gets to it because we need the jobs and we need the economic boost that would surely follow.





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Thermal Scope Reversion?

So in MW2, when using the thermal scope, why is it so hard to use on a snowy map? But is the best thing to use on afghan the desert level? When playing with thermal on derail the snow causes the thermal scope to have a white out effect but on afghan it is clear as day when looking at the terrain. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If this was a real thermal scope, on derail the snow would appear dark grey or black because it is so cold. But on afghan the terrain would light the thermal scope up like it was A Christmas tree. The game is backwards in that regard and is really frustrating to think about.


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Google vs. Apple - The Battle for My Living Room?

GoogleTV is Google's entry into the living room. Let's see if google can dethrone apple from another area that they have..... wait a second, An area of media where apple doesn't have the upper hand already? This could get real interesting.

I am personally an apple fan. I also love technology. I think The fact that I love apple products so much is because that company seems to put more care into what they manufacture than any other company in the market. Everything is polished, and clean. The industry even holds each apple product as a comparison to what all other products strive to be like in their chosen field. For the last 12 years apple has been the leader for innovation in pretty much every division of technology that it touches.

However when apple released the AppleTV in 2007, it was being sold as a product to connect your living room to the large digital library people had been massing since the release of the iTunes store. The product didn't do so well for a lot of reasons. Mainly because it was not really all that compelling at it's price point. Plus iTunes didn't have any HD content to stream to a device that also could not display 1080P. So the device was immediately labeled as a "hobby". And apple has referred to it as such ever since. The device received an upgrade a little later boosting it's video output resolution and a view more things hardware and software wise, but the product remained mostly the same dull box.

With google releasing this new platform for their GoogleTV apple seriously needs to take those old AppleTV ideas out of storage and start realizing that in order gain control over the living room like they had hoped to do originally, they will need to seriously step their game up. The GTV platform is cool in a lot of ways. It puts the box after the cable box and by doing that allows for the device to aggregate all content available on cable and the Internet to make it all searchable and viewable. Also the fact that they are taking the extra step with it and putting it into new tv sets themselves is really cool for everyone.


I have an ATV right now in the living room. Personally I love what I can do with the device. Granted it is useless unless the owner either is loaded and can afford to purchase everything they want to watch or they steal all their content. I will not divulge which of those describes my situation. One thing they could add to the ATV would be an app store of some kind. What would be cool about this is they already have thousands of developers making thousands of apps for the iPhone and iPad. So if they opened up an app store for the ATV, I can guarantee it would be an over night success just like all of the other platforms they have. I can also see apple having some kind of video subscription service, allowing ATV owners to subscribe much like cable and be able to view all content in the store. Would be interesting, however I can just image the cow the networks would have over the slightest inclination to that idea. Plus they probably would force adds into the videos as well.

In closing since WWDC is only a week or so away, it will be very interesting to see what apple comes up with. I just really hope they update the ATV to compete with the GTV because if they do not then they are basically conceding victory over the living room to google and their new platform.


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360 down to 8?

So I'm playing the new super mario galaxy 2, and I am on a stage where I need to throw fire balls at some boxes so I can clean the area. It was a bonus stage. Anyway while I'm playing it I realized that nintendo seriously fucked up. In my left hand is the nun chuck, which is used for moving around and aiming the fireballs. I noticed that the nun chuck joystick is restricted to 8 degrees of actual movement due to the fact that the joystick is surrounded by an octagon. The reason this is frustrating should be obvious. I am going from 360 degrees of free 3 dimensional movement down to just 8. It is extremely restricting and frustrating.

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Magazine Prices?

So reading on this ipad is amazing. However the price I have to pay is not. I really want to get popular science and time. But both cost $4.99 an issue. AN ISSUE. I mean come on. Give me a years subscription for 30 or something. $4.99 is way to expensive for a magazine issue in my opinion. I was really hoping to be able to read magazines and comics on this device, but now I find myself realizing just how poor I am, lol. Even comics are around 5 dollars. I guess this is how much these things would cost in the real world so it makes sense. However most magazines like popsci have a yearly subscription service for a drastically lower price then it would cost to purchase each in the store. I really hope they bring that kind of service to the app store, because then I will actualy start buying magazines. As for comics, I really want marvel to bring their online service price of $59.99 yearly price to view thousands of comics online. Why don't they bring that to the iPad? Clearly it is because people will buy the comics regardless. Overall the whole comic and magazine trend on the iPad is disappointing to me. Hopefully things change in the future.

Update: wired came out and said today that they would be releasing a subscription service in the fall. Let's hope the rest of the magazine companies follow their example.

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Some Thoughts on MobileMe

Now that I have an iPad, iPhone, and two macs I am realizing just how difficult it is to keep all of my data synced together and accurate across all the devices. For instance if I change a calendar date on my iPhone in order to get everything synced to that change, I need to sync my iPhone to my MacBook, then sync it to my iPad and then send the info to the iMac. It might not seem like a big deal, but over time it starts to get really monotonous having to sync and re-sync all these devices manually. This is where MobileMe comes into the picture, it automatically syncs data across all of my devices. Plus the find me feature for the iPhone is really cool. Almost is reason enough to get the service alone. The only bad thing is it cost $99 per year. Kind of a ridiculous price for convenience. I did have the service a while back because I was opted in for a cheaper rate for some reason by apple. So I had it for a year, and I did like it I just really had no use for it at the time. The only real big issue I remember having was the photo sync feature in iPhoto. It almost never worked and when it did it usually resulted in corruption of my files. Now this might be because my iPhoto is continually acting up( I think I may have corrupted a library file or something). But the online viewing experience was phenomenal. I used to put my college photos on the web so my family could view them. But overall I was happy with the service.

It just seems like MobileMe is kind a simple solution to some of the issues that arise while having multiple mobile apple products. It is a good attempt but the service needs to become way more extensive in order to compete with the new droid syncing and streaming services and the new Microsoft kin project. I have hope for the service improving in the future because since apple is selling more ipads then they are selling macs, I think this service is going to become extremely vital to their product line.

Speculation part: rumors have it that apple is planning on releasing a streaming function for iTunes. Now if they add this to MobileMe then that is reason enough for me to buy the service.

Update: i am just going to wait until WWDC to see if they improve the service. i am assuming they are going to since they pretty much need to in order to stay relevant. than i might buy it.

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iPad Blogging

Being my first blog post from my brand new iPad I am still getting used to this soft keyboard. It is actually very nice to use. One of my original peeves was the non tactile feeling and sound. Well with the clicking that I have turned on it actually satisfies the sound need. The feeling though is still kind of odd, but is something I have no problem getting used to. The keyboard is very spacious and I make very little mistakes. Since I don't actually use the standered way of typing on a regular keyboard. I usually just stare at the keys anyway, with the soft keyboard I am required to stare at the keyboard. So my typing speed has transferred. Also the auto correct works rather well. More reviews to come soon. I plan on blogging a lot more often now that I have an app that makes it so much easier.



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Favorite 20 Albums?

20. The Stranger - Billy Joel

19. Beautiful Lie - 30 Seconds to Mars

18. Boston - Boston

17. Heavier Things - John Mayer

16. Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

15. Beautiful Letdown - Switchfoot

14. Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park

13. A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar - Dashboard Confessional

12. So Much For the Afterglow - Everclear

11. Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine

10. The Sufferer and the Witness - Rise Against

9. Mmhmm - Relient K

8. Narrow Stairs - Death Cab for Cutie

7. The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

6. Love - Angels & Airwaves

5. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

4. Don't You Fake It - Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

3. End of Silence - Red

2. The Battle of Los Angeles - Rage Against the Machine

1. We Don't Need to Whisper - Angels & Airwaves

Windows Terminal?

i am using a public terminal to type this with.

the entire purpose for getting on this windows machine at work is so that i could print off my pay stub. but they have it locked down so i cannot even save a document to the desktop to allow me to email it myself. i would try my flash drive but it is in my locker downstairs and i don't feel like walking all the way down there just so when i try it i am not able to access it. the reason i would need to email it to myself is because there is not a printer connected to either of these terminals because of the simple fact that people would destroy their ink reserves here at the hospital.

there used to be the library here that had printers, that associates could enter using their ID badges. since they renovated it, they have blocked out anyone who is not a Doctor from using the library. apparently the doc's were getting pissed they had to share their library with the other staff from the hospital. i would try and get my pay stubs at home but their website only works in IE, which is beyond stupid. i have a mac and there is not an IE for Macintosh. so i am restricted to a windows machine to check my pay stubs. they don't even allow for FireFox to access their website. what a brilliant idea Promedica web programmer.

so now i have to attempt to connect a printer to my windows partition on my mac just so i can print out a pay stub. kind of lame that the security on these terminals is so extreme. why not just allow for desktop saving of documents, but when the machine logs off it restores to the default empty desktop. this way i at least could email myself the saved HTML of the websites that contain my pay stubs.

i went to put a picture on this post and apparently i am not even allowed to open a new window. how lame is that. also i just found out i cannot create a document in google documents either. i fail to see the reason for those two things to be disallowed.

also, this keyboard fucking blows.

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