Fuck city living

A drive by shooting with over 30 rounds fired from 3 different firearms at 1am (All fired within about 5 seconds) NEXT DOOR?  A desk pig that basically mocked me for calling the next day with worry about that, two cars broken into down the block, and the dude who was trying to rob my renters house?  Subwoofers?  Why do I live in the city?

Whatever weapons were used in this fucking drive-by, they were serious shit.. The walls of that home are plaster, and apparently there were rounds that made it clear through the WHOLE FUCKING HOUSE.  The fridge, which has the outside wall, and an inside wall between it and the direction of fire, has bullets lodged into the side of it.  Apparently a few strays hit the neighboring house (on the other side).  This fuckhole pig is annoyed with my concern?

I can't properly show the vibe I got from him, but here's a little excerpt:
Cop: "We don't have any information about any of those situations"
Me: "uhhhhhhh ok?  Are you a cop?"
Cop: "uhhhhh yeah I am a cop"
Me: "How am I supposed to feel about this?  There was a fucking war going on outside of my home last night.  You can't give me any information about any of it.  What am I supposed to do?  Tell me.  Give me some advice here."
Cop: "Lock your doors and windows"
Me: "Helpful.  am I going to have to keep a loaded firearm under my pillow?"
Cop: "It wouldn't be a bad idea.  Get training and a handgun."
Me: "Reassuring."

6 Months ago all I had to worry about was obnoxious subwoofers.  Now I find myself plowing my gf off the bed to the floor at 1am because HOLY FUCK WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!

At least he'll see what he can do to up the patrol time for my area.

~Nic

STNG weighs in on gender issues

Watching Star Trek the Next Generation on 'flix is probably my best time waster ever.  Anyhow, in "The Outcast" was this monolog from a person who was part of a "sexless" race, and she had feelings of being a woman her entire life, which is apparently forbidden on whatever-the-fuck planet she's from (Cut/Pasted from IMDB):

I am female. I was born that way. I have had those feelings, those longings, all of my life. It is not unnatural. I am not sick because I feel this way. I do not need to be helped. I do not need to be cured. What I need, and what all of those who are like me need, is your understanding. And your compassion. We have not injured you in any way. And yet we are scorned and attacked. And all because we are different. What we do is no different from what you do. We talk, and laugh. We complain about work. And we wonder about growing old. We talk about our families, and we worry about the future. And we cry with each other when things seem hopeless. All of the loving things that you do with each other, that is what we do. And for that, we are called misfits, and deviants, and criminals. What right do you have to punish us? What right do you have to change us? What makes you think you can dictate how people love each other?


The Judges Response: I congratulate you, Soren. Your decision to admit your perversion makes it much more likely that we can help you.

..Riker: "Did it occur to you that she might want to be like this?"

 It's a beautiful episode, one among many.

 ~Nic

Fuck you, homosexual!

The title is in reference to gingergate, and is intended to convey irony.

(via) "One school district bars teachers from taking a position on homosexuality."

I don't understand this concept of "neutrality" with regard to homosexuality... How do you remain neutral on a fact?  Let me hyperbolize:

Student: "Hi, I'm Billy, I am gay."
Teacher: "I can not confirm or deny the existence of homosexuality."
Student: "How about if I just say I'm straight?"
Teacher: "I CAN confirm the existence of heterosexuality."
Student: "Doesn't the acknowledgement of one infer the existence of the other, exempli gratia: darkness implies light?"
Teacher: "Why do people think I earn too much?"

Am I misinterpreting their idea of neutrality?  Perhaps I am taking them literally what they are asking for.  To remain neutral on a characteristic is to not have an opinion on its existence (See: agnostic(loosely)).  Though what's implied (and what they really mean) is that teachers ought to remain neutral on the "good" or "bad/evil" of such a characteristic, however this is not possible..  Just as some people might think Gingers are evil and should all be killed(I went there), which is highly irrational since hair color (along with skin color, sex, etc, etc) are characteristics over which the holder has no control, homosexuality fits the same bill, and is therefore transcendent of any arbitrary judgement of goodness.  The only choice a teacher has is to take a position something like:

"The fact in the matter is that this particular (or that particular) child is homosexual(or hetrosexual).  My purpose is to protect my students from hatred in any form, and therefore hatred, and/or bullying directed at any child is unacceptable.  I will not remain neutral when a child is harassed, and it follows that I will not remain neutral when a homosexual child is harassed, the harasser will be punished."

I remain neutral [and] on the moon.

These fucking haters are so GOD DAMN stupid, and nicotine withdrawal makes me that much more fucking angry about it.  Stop being a fucking hater. 

~Nic

**edit: The MIA video was supposed to be interpreted far differently than it ended up being, and is used to progress a very long and old "ginger-phobia" tradition in UK, and other parts of Europe.  This (not the video, the UK/euro issue) was an ace card I had in my back pocket during Gingergate, and didn't need to use.

Rails 3 - unit testing validators with check validate reflection method

I don't know if this is to best practices or not (and I really don't give a shit -- this works great). Here's the idea:

model:

class Submission < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_presence_of     :title 
  validates_presence_of     :first_name
  <snip>
end

I load some data in with a fixture to make the model valid.... blah blah

unit test:

require 'test_helper'

class SubmissionTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
  def setup
    @one = submissions(:one)
  end
  test "empty title invalidates" do
    assert !check_validate(@one,"title")
  end
  
  test "empty first name invalidates" do
    assert !check_validate(@one,"first_name")
  end
 .....

Now the check_validate method, and the quick check method:

def check_validate(object,field)
    #Make sure object is valid
      assert_object_valid(object)
    #set old to objects value 
      old = object.send(field.to_sym)
    #send setter to object along with nil to blank it
      object.send("#{field}=".to_sym, nil)
    #set return value to boolean of valid? on object
      return_value = object.valid?
    #send setter to object for field with old value
      object.send("#{field}=".to_sym, old)
    #Make sure we leave the object valid when we're done
      assert_object_valid(object)
    #return the value
      return return_value
  end
    
  def assert_object_valid(object)
    assert object.valid?, "test entered with invalid object"
  end

It works great.. nice and DRY, this way I don't have to blank them all out, and put them all back.. ruby's reflection is a billion light years beyond any I've used for anything else ever. (Java? what?) I plan on modifying the check_validate to simplify other checks as well, and create my own library of test for common tasks. Maybe it already exists? I looked, and didn't find one.

~Nic

Liberal propaganda.

**Edit: I spelled propaganda wrong. Again.

Wheeee I've been saving that one. So I spend the last 2 days, about 16 hours working on my sweet new shed with my father. I've gotten him into reading some blogs, and we discussed at length a few repeating patterns we've both noticed (and are by no means immune to):

1. There is a liberal dogma.
2. I agree with a lot of it.
3. We both have a hard time with any dogma.

1: We all know what the liberal dogmatic stances are on everything from global warming, to birth control, to affirmative action, to every other goddamn thing under the sun. While I find myself in agreement with most all of the dogmatic stances I, become thoroughly annoyed when someone chimes in with a completely rational argument against one of them, and the chimer-inner is dismissed as a troll of some sort, and the argument is not explored. I haven't yet found myself labeled a troll on a blog (I don't comment much anywhere), but I can positively conclude that I would be labelled a troll should I chime in.

Even when I am in complete agreement with a stance, political position/posture, or the like my brain immediately begins the devil's advocate program (v 30.3 It needs work, but it's done well for me). I don't do this to necessarily be argumentative, but to be exploratory. I believe this is a byproduct of the general troubleshooting skills I have honed over the whole of my life. I must consider as many alternatives as I possibly can, and should I find a logical conflict, I must do everything I possibly can to correct it. Logical inconsistencies infuriate me, although I have to live with a few (for example, the only logical conclusion I can draw from some of my new-found non-religious frameworks is that eating meat is unacceptable (pain/suffering/killing/etc of sentient beings), however, I continue to eat meat.. and probably will until I can no longer withstand the mental pressure to do otherwise).

2: Yup. Most.

3: Following dogma means acceptance without regard for the truth (should the actual truth be part of the dogma is beside the point). I have, since I can remember, absolutely refused to believe anything that I couldn't conclude with my own thought (when I eventually find the time to think about it. The queue is long). This is why I have no problem dismissing arbitrary authority -- which has caused me a lot of easily avoidable problems -- and making that dismissal quite outward.

I have concluded that the label of troll, in some circumstances (I can't give a %) is intellectual laziness. It's simply name calling with the end of dismissal of an uncomfortable question (in the cases where it's lazy).

While the comfort of dogma may have great appeal to some (and dogma is politically agnostic), I will not accept what I am told. Regardless of the authority of the preacher.

To be cliche:





~Nic