June 2008

ElePHPants shouldn't face left!

For those of you who can't stand the idea of putting a left facing elephpant on your PHP powered website like this one...

Might I suggest this one? Free to use with pride!

Yet another small stab at subliminal leftist suggesion in the flood of media.

Zap!

Edit: Have a downloadable pack of different sizes, and filetypes, and some are transparent! elephpant_to_the_right.zip

GPS Navigation, and How It's Making You Vulnerable.

Used to be a time when if you were lost, it was commonplace to ask for directions. But this was an inconvenience to you, and the person that had to help. And it might put you in danger (heavens no!) of being in contact with the criminal element. Or even worse, as a man, you had to admit to your wife you were yourself lost, and needed to ask directions. Of course, it also meant you might miss out on hearing about the best place in town to get eats (not the place that paid your GPS navigation data provider the most for top placement in their restaurant list.), or maybe even make a new lifelong friend.

There is the oldskool way, the trusty old map and compass. Sure, not many city folks know how to use them, but living in Wyoming, it's a matter of survival. "Huh?" you say. Yes, survival. If you don't stick to the main roads, and are looking for a place to fish, or hunt (as many people do when they come to Wyoming), you better know how to read a map, and to tell if you are on public land, and if not, where is the ranch house on that topo. Not doing so, can get you shot at, and perhaps killed. The last thing a rancher wants to see, is some out-of-stater with a gun, walking through his pasture where he keeps his $150,000.00 prize breeding bull with a bad attitude. That bull doesn't know what a gun is, and will charge you like any other invader, and you will probably shoot rather than run. So guess who might shoot first?

Of course, using said tools, requires you know how to use them. It's called Orienteering. Pick up a book on it at your library, ask a veteran (they love to feel useful), or steal your son's Boy Scout handbook for a bit. What? Your son isn't in scouting? For shame! What? You don't have a son? Then put your daughter into the Girl Scouts, they do it too! .......... Oh, you are too young for kids, then get into scouting! Why? Keep reading.

 In our current state of paranoia there comes a time when one must wonder, in the panic following a good kicking, if our government may turn on its own civilians. Perhaps it won't even be intentional, but in a panic knee jerk reaction, it may do things it thinks will protect everyone, but instead cause mass detriment to the populace.

For instance, the chances of some foreign creep looking to blow stuff up running around Wyoming is pretty slim to none. The US Bureau of Reclamation had decided, along with the Department of Fathe... errm... Homeland Security, that one of my favorite fishing holes by Alcova Dam in Alcova, WY, needed to be fenced off to protect us. I can't drive, or even walk up there to the spill gates to toss a line in the water anymore. You hear this Dick Cheney? This is a place we both have fished at (Not together, but I gladly would), now closed forever due to some idiotic out of state numbnuts deciding it was a target of THE TERRORIST. Horsepuckey! We all know terrorists don't strike infrastructure. They are into flashy areas with lots of civilians, and big bangs.

I have digressed...

The whole point of the preceding being, that Imagine some day, some bureaucrat flying a desk in Washington D.C. gets some bad information about an impending missile attack. Imagine that, the government getting bad information! But they do. (We stayed in Iraq for the right reasons, and we should never have left in the first place!)

So, in a panic, Mr. Faceless and Blameless public servant decides the GPS system should be shut off to civilian receivers (or maybe even accidentally crashes the whole shebang) to avoid providing the missile guidance. You suddenly have no way to figure out where you are... that is, unless you have bought a map (or picked one up at the tourism information center when you crossed the border for free). What I am saying is, GPS is nice and accurate, but it has a fatal flaw, it is electronic, and foulable in so many ways!

Actually, as another sidenote, in a couple years, it won't matter, the terrorists will be using the Russian GLONASS which we have no control over.

This still doesn't mean GPS won't be tampered with, even by nature. It's a microwave radio based system, and that means line of site. I have been down in several deep dark canyons where you might be lucky to see 2 birds at any one time... and this is the last place you want to be lost, is in the middle of nowhere, at the bottom of some pit.

Also, if your system isn't large (as in has a big antenna) or sensitive, severe weather may block too many of the satellites from it. Imagine being lost in the dark, knowing there is an F5 Tornado sneaking up on you. Your GPS has quit because there is too many tons of dust and water held aloft in the supercell above you blocking the signal. You were madly looking for the interstate to escape, but now find yourself in the middle of a corn field at the end of "Bob's Road." Wouldn't it be nice to have a map, and the skills to read it with you to know that the on-ramp is only 2 miles away, but only if you make 3 left turns from where you are, instead of the 3 rights you are going to take that will take you over the interstate with no on-ramp, and right into the path of destruction?

Trust me on this one folks, this planet is pretty oldskool. And it plays by the old school rules. Learn how to use a map, and maybe a compass, and save yourself a bunch of grief. Don't rely on technology, it can betray you at the worst times, and according to Murphy, it will!

Or, you can always lower yourself to asking a local where to go... (I got yer answer right here!).

Zap!