The Null Pointer

Last weekend Gordy went for a ~48.2km bike ride from Eastlake to the start of the Sammamish trail. This weekend, Carolynn and I tagged along. The route that I took (and Carolynn for part of the route, ~48.2km) can be seen below -- The Ship Canal trail in Queen Anne -> the Burke Gilman trail -> the Sammamish trail -> Marymoor park. A 87.2km round trip bicycle ride! CRAZY! Gordy's route was slightly different due to his point of origin, but I believe it was around ~80km round trip.

John McCain has 7 houses, 13 cars and a private jet and the GOP wants you to think of him as a "regular guy."

Obama likes Dijon mustard on his hamburger and that makes him an out-of-touch elitist? lololol

Over the past four years I've asked police officers throughout the U.S. (and in Canada) two questions. When's the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana? (I'm talking marijuana only, not pot plus a six-pack or a fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause, they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask: When's the last time you had to fight a drunk? They look at their watches.

All of which begs the question. If one of these two drugs is implicated in dire health effects, high mortality rates, and physical violence--and the other is not--what are we to make of our nation's marijuana laws? Or alcohol laws, for that matter.

Reposted due to familiarity...

1. Projects with realistic budgets and timetables don't get approved
2. Activity in the early stages should be dedicated to finding the correct questions
3. The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the progress report
4. A user is somebody who rejects the system because it's what he asked for
5. The difference between project success and failure is a good PR company
6. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it
7. Every failing, overly ambitious project, has at its heart a series of successful small ones trying to escape
8. A freeze on change melts whenever heat is applied
9. There's never enough time to do it right first time
10. You understood what I said, not what I meant
11. If you don't know where you're going, just talk about specifics
12. If at first you don't succeed, rename the project
13. Everyone wants a strong project manager - until they get him
14. Only idiots own up to what they really know (thank you to President Nixon)
15. The worst project managers sleep at night
16. A failing project has benefits which are always spoken of in the future tense
17. Projects don't fail in the end; they fail at conception
18. Visions are usually treatable
19. Overly ambitious projects can never fail if they have a beginning, middle and no end
20. In government we never punish error, only its disclosure
21. The most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest
22. A realist is one who's presciently disappointed in the future

-- Source: Tony Collins, Computer Weekly

You build a nice big room-sized cage, and in one end of it you put five monkeys. In the other end you put the banana. Then you stand by with the fire hose. Sooner or later one of the monkeys is going to go after the banana, and when it does you turn on the fire hose and spray the other monkeys with it. Replace the banana if needed, then repeat the process. Monkeys are pretty smart, so they’ll figure this out pretty quickly: “If anybody goes for the banana, the rest of us get the hose.” Soon they’ll attack any member of their group who tries to go to the banana.

Once this happens, you take one monkey out of the cage and bring in a new one. The new monkey will come in, try to make friends, then probably go for the banana. And the other monkeys, knowing what this means, will attack him to stop you from using the hose on them. Eventually the new monkey will get the message, and will even start joining in on the attack if somebody else goes for the banana. Once this happens, take another of the original monkeys out of the cage and bring in another new monkey.

After repeating this a few times, there will come a moment when none of the monkeys in the cage have ever been sprayed by the fire hose; in fact, they’ll never even have seen the hose. But they’ll attack any monkey who goes to get the banana. If the monkeys could speak English, and if you could ask them why they attack anyone who goes for the banana, their answer would almost certainly be: “Well, I don’t really know, but that’s how we’ve always done things around here.”

Damn, that sounds familiar.

I've come across too many people saying "My cat is a vegetarian" while searching the interwebs for information on cats and kittens. From Wikipedia's Cat Article:

Cats are classified as obligate carnivores, because their physiology is geared toward efficient processing of meat, and lacks efficient processes for digesting plant matter.

So, no, your cat is not a vegetarian. You may be, but your cat is not.

If you are still in doubt, I recommend you visit the following URL: Is Your Cat a Vegetarian?