Miscellaneous Randomness

We are
the fallen
ones.

The ones
that you
pretend not
to see.

You discount
us as refuse,
as societal
waste.

You see
more clearly
than you
know.

Silently, we watched, as they came for us.  We knew they were coming.  They knew we’d be here. Why didn’t we run, you ask? Running isn’t what we do. We wait. We endure.

We knew what would happen.  They told us.  Eventually they demonstrated, just in case we didn’t believe. We had believed from the start.  That’s who they are. They don’t bluff. They don’t lie.

Some may cast these events as a struggle.  It is not. There is no conflict. We accept what will happen. We do not fight it.

Their own people will watch them, as they do to us what they promised.  They will watch.  They will see. They will think.

They will be our retribution.

If you know me, it’s no secret I loath and detest my current ISP. I’m unable to switch, as they’re the only terrestrial “broadband” ISP that services my location. That’s right, no DSL, no cable, no nothing.

The infrastructure is poorly managed, suffers frequent outages, and rarely hits even 50% of my tiers speed, a whopping 2mbps.

Most of the time, when my services goes out, they act surprised, like they had no idea it was out.  When it’s out for me, it’s out for a number of customers, so I’d like to think that monitor it, but it’s obvious they don’t.

Now, back in December, I was told that “new bandwidth” was coming.  Which would lead to faster and more reliable service.  So I waited. And waited. And waited.  Last month, I noticed that the public IP for the (oh, that NAT through a single IP.  All of us) So, new bandwidth in place, I assumed. No improvement.

After a few weeks of especially terrible service, I wrote a rather nasty (but polite, no profanity) email to them.  I cc’d the support team, the sales team, the Better Business Bureau and several regional groups that monitor what broadband is available where.

Two days later, I got a call from them. Two days. “David asked me to call you, and setup an appointment to switch you to our new network.”  Two things. Who’s David? What new network?

Now, the David thing I get.  I obviously made *somebody* higher up take notice, so I’m a squeaky wheel now.  Coolio. I’ll keep that in mind.

But, “new network”? WTF is that about?  *Apparently* the new bandwidth is feeding a new wireless network (oh, my ISP is a wireless one, didn’t I mention??) that’s being built over top of their current one.  A new, shiny, WiMAX one. Which, in theory, will be much faster and reliable.  I had no idea. How long had this been in place? How was I to know I had to switch? All these questions run through my mind.

The fact that this was news to me points to my ISPs single biggest problem (well, beside their terrible original network). Communication. Their website hasn’t been updated since 2009.  Seriously.  It has “Election 2008” coverage on it. They tell us (the customers) effectively nothing.

If I had know a new network was coming, and dates surrounding the scheduling, my rage would be about a quarter of what it was/is.  Seriously. “Hey, we know it sucks, but we’re doing X, Y and Z, and they should be done on A, B, and C.”

How hard is that? A few hours a week to post something on a blog? It should be a no brainer.

That’s my biggest takeaway from my whole ISP rage lately. When I take them over, because they have such a shitty business, I’ll make sure to communicate with the customers.  I bet I could do nothing different except that, and double customer satisfaction.

Well.  That’s a lie. My *biggest* takeaway is, if I’m really bitchy and CC lots of people, I get preferential treatment from them.  The communication bit is 2nd.

Heard about the rage against Scott Adams?

Apparently I’ve missed all the backlash of this by a couple weeks.

However, I’m tickled about all of it.  Strip all the emotion out of it, and out of the knee-jerk feministic response (that’s not just from women) and, well, he’s got some good points.

You heard me.

Now, all of you I just pissed off can leave.  Go on.  GTFO.

This thing that Scott has said has always been something that I totally agree with. Oh, not the specific _things_ he’s said, or even the group that he said them _about_.  No, it’s the idea _behind_ what he says that I’m in love with.

It’s this.

Whenever a historically persecuted minority (women, black people, indians, etc) becomes, over time, less persecuted, there’s always a celebration.  And rightly so.  However, as they become less and less persecuted, and eventually, become “normal people” again, they still *act* as if they were persecuted.  And when they get called on it, they lost their fucking nut.

Take my most enflaming example above, black people. Oh, sorry, “African Americans.” That’s what’s kosher today right?  Anyways (different rant).  So, for years (and years, it was a long time) they were mostly slaves to the white man, here in America.  I get that.  It’s wasn’t a good period of history.  What about today? Discrimination is illegal. You do it, you can go to jail.  In the eyes of the law, it don’t matter if your black or white (thanks Michael).  Sure, discrimination still happens.  Sure, some white folks still hate black folks. It’s not a perfect world.

But, now that black people have become, for the most part, just “regular” people, do they (I’m generalizing here, and I realize that) act as if they’re regular people? No. Of course not.  They were persecuted, ergo they’re *always* persecuted.  So they get special treatment.

Don’t believe me? How about some examples.

Black history month? Check.

White history month? No.

If I hit a black person, is it a “hate crime”? Yes

If a black person hits me, is it a “hate crime”? No.

If a black person calls him (or her) self, or another black person a “nigga” (or whatever colloquial slang is cool), is it racist? No.

If I do it, is it? Of course.

What about if he (or she, equal opportunity and all) calls me “whitey”? A-OK.

Look, I get it.  They were slaves.  Then they got treated like shit, for a long time.  Yes, some people still hate them, and kill them if they get a chance.  It’s awful, yes. But they’re not the only ones that other people hate as a group, just for belonging.

And lest you think I’m a racist (I’m not, if I hate you, it’s because I hate you, not because you’re a particular color, or believe a particular thing), I have examples from other groups too.

Take, lets say, women, like Mr. Adams did.  Not exactly a historically persecuted group when compared with my first example, but societally disadvantaged for sure.  Yes, for years all the job they had was raising babies.  Yes, they’re not statistically paid the same as me for the same work.  Let’s run through my (racist, I hear you think) check list from above.

Women’s history month? Check

Men’s history month? No.

If I hit a women, is it a “hate crime”? No, but I might be shot while “resisting” arrest.  That’s a huge societal more for us.

If she hits me, is it even a crime? Yes, but I’m though to be a pussy if I even dreamt of reporting it.

If I call a woman a “bitch” or other sex-based profanity, am I a racist? No, but I’ll get tons of disapproval, and probably arrested for ‘abuse’ or ‘assault’ if she’s feeling pissy.

If she calls me an asshole back, is it a big deal? Of course not.  Is it abuse? It’s exactly the same, but I’m a pussy if I get my feelings hurt.

So, again, special treatment for a historically oppressed group, even though they’re not really all that oppressed any more.

But they get paid less, I hear you bleat.  Big fucking deal.  Why are they paid less? Who knows.  All the studies about it compare just on sex.  Statistically, a “she” gets paid less than a “he” for the same work.  But why? Does she suck at it? Did she negotiate worse? Is she unwilling to put in extra hours? Does the guy sacrifice family for work? It’s rare those questions are asked.  Why would we? It’s “obvious” it’s because she has a vagina instead of a penis.  Uh huh. Oh, I’m not saying it might not be just because of that.  I’m saying that, because of all the emotion tied up in this topic, the question never gets asked, because the asker gets crucified.

Then there’s the group I belong to. White. Tall. American. Male.  Not only that, I’m blond hair, blue eyed, and not Jewish. Even Hitler loved my people. So, it’s really safe to say that we (my fellow tall blue eyed blond men) have never been systematically oppressed in *any* way (oh, except we make great draft candidates for those wars we don’t call wars). So, no special treatment for us.

And if we ever dare to mention the fact?

We’re racist.

Or hate women.

Or hate whoever is the flavor of the day.

And you know what? Fuck that.

(Source: adityasahay.com)