American Justice

Jayson Williams got sentenced to prison today. Justice has been served.

Ex-NBA star Jayson Williams shot a man to death with a shotgun. That's the only fact that's not in question. He has a bullshit excuse about it being an accident, but fortunately for him the only person who could testify against him is dead from a shotgun wound to the chest.

Williams plead guilty, but wanted to spend some time with his daughters in his last few hours before serving his time. His daughters are seven and five. He killed Costas Christofi Feb 14 2002. Happy Valentine's day.

Williams has been a free man for eight long years while the criminal system worked it's magic and generated the "justice" that is fair to everyone. Now he begins serving his 18-month sentence, after having eight years of freedom to start a family. He apparently has been having a pretty good time, if you can judge by the fact that he crashed a car while drunk in January. Maybe in a decade or so the system will put him back in prison for that crime.

American Justice system, is there any problem you cannot solve?

Manifesto

When I started reading the news about the guy who flew his plane into a government building in Austin Texas, things started seeming creepy.

The guy was frustrated with his government. He was an IT professional. He worked with factory automation. I actually checked his background a little to see if I might have worked with him in the past. It's not impossible that we might have crossed paths on some project somewhere.

I read his manifesto online. It's kind of sickening that the only reason I read it, like millions of other people, was because of what he did. The only possible way for this guy to get that kind of attention to his message was by committing a horrible act. He had to make himself infamous. His infamy will only last a small number of hours, but it was enough to generate the attention he desired.

The manifesto was fairly lucid, but not really compelling because of all the self pity. This guy honestly felt like he was being treated unfairly. He felt like there was some conspiracy within the government to treat him and people like him badly. It seems like he felt that it was impossible for him to get ahead.

And by "people like him" I mean me. I'm an IT professional, I work with factory automation. I'm frustrated with my government. Good thing I don't have a pilot's license.

But that's the thing. This guy DID have a pilots license. So the guy had the spare time and the resources to learn to fly. It's doable, but it certainly isn't easy and it definitely isn't inexpensive. And he had access to a plane. That doesn't exactly scream "extreme poverty."

He cries over and over in his manifesto that he's gone broke due to unfair persecution by the government or his industry or some force that is out of his control. But what does "broke" mean? The guy wasn't starving to death. He could afford a wife and an ex-wife. I've heard that ex-wives aren't a cheap luxury. But worth every penny.

So this guy's biggest problem was...he wasn't rich. He felt like he should've be rich by now. He thought he had worked hard all his life and he deserved to be rich.

I wonder what dollar amount would have made this guy happy? Well, happy was probably not possible, but how much would have kept him from flying his plane into a building full of mostly innocent people? Twenty grand? Fifty?

In the end this guy was just a lunatic that thought the world owed him something. Something like....tenure.

Dominos Pizza Thinks You're Stupid

Have you seen the Dominos Pizza media blitz lately? It's nauseating.

First it was a series of TV commercials that say "We realized our pizza sucks but we changed it." So they're saying that they made shit pizza for 30 or more years but suddenly are experts in determining good pizza? How can that be?

Now they have another series saying they sued Papa John's Pizza for saying their pizza was "better" in their ads. Nevermind the fact that they didn't say "better than Dominos," Dominos took it to court. And they won.

But waitasec... Dominos admitted that their pizza sucks. So they sued Papa Johns for implying something in their commercials that they themselves admitted recently?

Apparently Dominos thinks we're too stupid to remember their commercials from one series to the next. But if you've ever tasted their pizza, you already know they thought you were pretty dumb for buying it in the first place.

Recall!

I just got back from the store, did you know that Toyota also makes keyboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Foiling the Hackers

Well my World of Warcraft account got restored after being hacked. It's happening so much lately that the WoW folks have a backlog of accounts to restore of more than a week.

All's well that ends well I guess. I got a much needed week off from the game, and my guild and I got all...well, most of our stuff back.

In the meantime, I got a mobile authenticator. It's a cool little dongle that generates a new code every 30 seconds that you must have to log in to my account. Hacker can keylog me all he wants, if he doesn't have the exact same mobile authentication code generated by the unique one associated with my account, he can't get in. It's not completely un-hackable, but it sure makes things difficult. And usually that's enough.

It's very cool, and I love using technology to thwart would-be evildoers. It made me think, I wish I had something like that on my poker accounts, since that's real money and all and I have had my account stolen before.

I checked at Full Tilt Poker and sho-nuff! They have mobile authenticators! Sweet! Waitasec, not so sweet. As far as I can tell the only way to get one is to buy one from their online store, which only takes Full Tilt Points. You need 5000 points to get an authenticator, and I only have 3200 or so after my latest jersey purchase late last year. At the baby stakes I play, 5000 points takes a long time to earn.

The WoW authenticator cost a MASSIVE Six dollars and fifty cents, including shipping. FTP wants 5000 Full Tilt Points? Are they in the poker business or the "ripping off our customers so they can be safe" business? You can get a T-shirt for 1500 points, but a $7 plastic authenticator costs 5000?

Not to mention that you have no choice but to play real money at risk until you earn enough points to order this security "option" which I don't consider very optional these days.

Maybe I'm just an idiot and I can't find the way to buy one of these for cash on their website. If anyone knows of a way to do it, please let me know in the comments.

If not, shame on you Full Tilt Poker.

Edit: I just checked PokerStars. They want 4500 VIP points. Same deal, no way to pay cash for it as far as I can tell.