Mack's Survival School...

Mack Hall is a friend of mine, more than that, he was a school teacher of mine in 6th and 7th grades in Kirbyville Texas. This article is reprinted with his premission. He writes a column in the Jasper News Boy and The Beaumont Enterprise news papers.


Mack Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Mack's Survival School

Last summer a fellow from New Jersey paid a survival school $3,175 to force-march, humiliate, starve, dehydrate, and kill him in a Utah desert. The school says they push folks "past those false limits your mind has set for your body."

Well, yes, dead is pretty much past any limits, false or otherwise.

This is from the school's 'net site:

Your destination on a BOSS Field Course is not a physical place; it can't be plotted on a topo map. Somewhere along the many miles of sagebrush flats, red rock canyons, and mesa tops of Southern Utah — somewhere between the thirst, the hunger and the sweat — you'll discover the real destination: yourself. (http://www.boss-inc.com/02front.html)

You'll surely want to travel a few thousand miles and pay a few thousand dollars to put your life in the hands of someone who writes turgid sell-o-babble like that.

A quick browse through the 'puter will dig up dozens of survival (if you survive) schools, each with its catalogue of cliches' appealing to the sort of geek who lives in a basement with his collection of shirtless-guys-wearing-headbands movies.

One school even advertises lessons on how to kill a sheep with a knife, a life-skill we've all desperately wanted to learn in case America is invaded by extremist ewes with blood-lust in their eyes and death on their little hooves.

There are entirely too many, um, men who suffer the pathetic need to join an organization where they will be bullied and humiliated, and where they can do secret handshakes and call each other Brother and Comrade. If your son wants to join a fraternity, ask him why he wants to pay money to some other idiots to strip him naked and beat him up so they'll be his friends.

But I have my own fantasy of a personal training school, one that can whup me into the shape I want. Indeed, I have sketched out a rudimentary curriculum for Mack's Survival School:

1. Sleep deprivation exercise: whenever the alarm sounds off in the morning a crack squad of ninja clock-assassins wearing discount-store camouflage knee-pants made in China will garrot it into silence with a length of piano wire so that you can sleep another hour or two. After all, what's really important in life: food, clothing, and shelter, or self-fulfilment, and, like, oneness with nature and stuff, pushing your personal envelope where no envelope has gone before?

2. Preparing clear fields-of-fire: whenever the yard needs mowing, your comrades will chant "No, it doesn't! No, it doesn't!" over and over, and will flash seductive pictures of reclining chairs before your weary eyes.

3. Man as hunter: intensive sessions on studying menus. Hey, if God meant for you to run down a sheep and cut its throat, He would not have invented restaurants.

4. Finding water in the desert: intensive preparation and practical exercises in asking wait-staff for a glass of water. Advanced course: turning the water-faucet the right way.

5. Staying dry in a thunderstorm: stay in the house.

6. Sleeping dry in a thunderstorm: go to bed. In the house.

7. Protection against predators, human and animal: lock the door. Sleep with a revolver by the bed. Memorize the secret code for 911.

8. Crossing the desert: drive your car.

9. Finding your way across country: stay on the road. Duh.

10. Signalling to your comrades: dial the telephone.

11. Primitive shelters: just wait for the next hurricane and score yourself a blue FEMA tarp.

12. Route hiking: from the couch to the refrigerator and back.

13. Discovering who you really are: look in the mirror.

14. Building a fire: strike a match.

15. Making a difference in the world: go get a job.

Now, then, folks, you'll find yourself and you will survive my course. Now just send me the money.




What is your opinion?

Data Compression Tests

In this day and age of "High-Speed" internet and P2P programs where people can download entire collections of music and pictures, there are many choices in compression. What i mean by this is what program you can use. I am sure that many of use have used WINZIP. Another one is called WINRAR. I use Winrar and 7-zip on my personal computer as with both of those, i can open most any file that i encounter. Here is the link to the article that i read.

Compression Comparison Guide Rev. 2.0

There are many others as you can see on this table.

As you can see, the data compression software that was used to test are a selection of old stalwarts, as well as current popular formats. But instead of just testing them at the default settings, we are going to examine each data compressor at their fastest and best compression settings as well

Here are the data sets that were used in this test.

To obtain an accurate idea of how well each compressor will perform in real world, we have specially created a data compression benchmark. The fileset consists of 10 standard categories covering all the common file types as well as a special category. All categories have a size of at least 200,000,000 bytes. compressed by nature (e.g. MP3, MPEG, JPEG, etc.), we have only one thing to say - when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. As you will see later, the results of some of the newer compressors will surprise you. They can attain really amazing compression results even with files that are thought to be impossibly hard to compress. We wouldn't have discovered that if we did not test and merely assumed, would we?


Overall, WinRK was the champion at compressing the filesets. It had an average compression rate of 23.2%. It was 9% better at overall compression than its closest rival, SBC Archiver which had an average compression rate of 21.3%. The poorest compressors overall, at default settings, were the trio of WinZip, gzip and ARJ32. They only had average compression rates of about 13%.

However, gzip was the undisputed speed champion. It only took just over 121 seconds to completely process the complete fileset collection which weighed in at over 1.6GB. It was over a third faster than the runner-ups, ARJ32 and WinZip.
The other compressors were pretty slow at their normal compression settings. However, WinRK was extremely slow, compared to the others. It took almost 1.5 hours to compress the entire fileset collection



The compression efficiency rating is a simple way to evaluate the efficiency of each data compressor. This way, we can see which compressor can save the most space in the least time.


Please note that a higher efficiency rating does not mean the compressor is better. It just means the compressor has a better compression-to-speed ratio. A more efficient compressor is, of course, always more desirable than a less efficient one.

The most efficient data compressor for the aggregated results was gzip. Its super-fast compression speed, coupled with its average compression rate allowed it to become the undisputed overall efficiency champion. ARJ32 and WinZip were also very efficient compressors. They were more than twice as efficient as their nearest rivals, StuffIt and bzip2.
The other compressors may have been good at certain files, but overall, they were pretty inefficient. The most inefficient compressors overall was WinRK by a large margin . No matter how good it was at compressing files, its extremely slow compression speed totally killed its efficiency ratings.


Here is the conclusion from the Article:


WinRK was the best compressor in most filesets it encountered. So, it was not surprising that it was the overall compression champion. However, its performance was offset by its abysmally slow performance. Even with a really fast system, it still took ages to compress the filesets. On several occasions, it took more than 18 minutes to compress just 200MB of files. Thanks to this flaw, it had the dubious honour of being the most inefficient compressor as well.
SBC Archiver, which was just slightly poorer than WinRK at compression was much faster at the job. Although it was nowhere near the top of the speed rankings, its faster speed allowed it to attain a moderate efficiency ranking.

WinRAR, which is a favourite of many Internet users, displayed a surprisingly bland performance at default settings. Although it had a pretty good overall compression rate of just under 19%, it was very slow at its default settings. That made it the third most-inefficient compressor. Surprising, isn't it?

In contrast, another perennial favourite, WinZip which had a lower overall compression rate of 13% managed to attain a much higher efficiency rating because it was able to compress the filesets much faster than WinRAR. Quite surprising since many users have abandoned it for WinRAR in view of its rather dated compression algorithm.

StuffIt is a dark horse. It has a pretty good compression rate overall but with an unimpressive compression speed. However, its amazing performance with JPEG files cannot be denied. JPEG files is undeniably StuffIt's forte. No other compressor even comes within a light year of it.
gzip and ARJ32 are both the fastest and the worst compressors of the lot. They have unimpressive overall compression rates but more than make up for it with their tremendous compression speeds. Therefore, it isn't surprising to see them garner the top two spots in compressor efficiency. However, we would still recommend GUI alternatives like WinZip. It is almost as efficient as gzip and ARJ32 and far more user-friendly.

Based on our results, we can only come to one conclusion. If you do not like to change the settings of your data compressors and want a good, fast and user-friendly data compressor, then WinZip is the best one for the job.



What is your opinion?

Childhood Memories...

I saw this the other day while I was reading on the net. When I lived in Kirbyville Texas and attended grade school there, we had a big slide like this on out playground. I remember a kid was on it and the little edges were not totally closed to the slide and when he was going down it, his fingers got caught in between the slide and edge and they got cut. I think that they made some changes to the slide after that, but I can’t remember. Below is a map of Kirbyville Elementary School and also the middle school. The one to the north is the elementary with the playground being to the northeast. I took this image off of Google Maps.

For people that read this site i aperciate it!!

What is your opinion?

Emails.

After this weekend, no more emails will be sent out to you.  If you want to read the blog, you will have the address and know where to go to read posts.  The address is http://renigade.blogspot.com

 

Also if you want to subscribe to the blog, you can use the RSS buttons on the right hand side.  Here is the link to be able to subscribe to the posts if you wish. http://renigade.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

 

You will need a RSS reader to get this feed or use www.Rojo.com or some other site like that.

 

Thankx for helping me get my site up and running.

--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++

Today...

It has been a rainy, cool day here in Midlo. Very dull weather here and it is in fact raining now. I still have to grill steak tonight so it doesn't go bad. Well, night shift kicked my ass this week. I worked all weekend on days and then Monday and Tuesday nights. I was BEAT yesterday morning!!

We also went to Hayes Furniture and bought a new bedroom suit for Chel and a futon for our spare bedroom. All that will be brought here on Tuesday afternoon.

What is your opinion?

My Blog...

I enjoy writing this blog. It is sometimes hard to keep the contect good all the time. but i try.

I think that it is neat to see how many people i can get to read this site. I have signed up to many different blog services and when i post a new entry, i use some of the services to "ping" and say that a new post is ready to be read. I keep stats on my site to see how many hits and people have read it that day and also where in the world that live.


http://www2.clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=http://renigade.blogspot.com is the link to use to see where people have read my blog all over the world। Please take time to come to my site and read it, not just the emails or the RSS feeds that can be signed up to. I like to think that i keep interesting and neat topics on the site for all to enjoy and learn from.

Thank you.

What is your opinion?

What is your opinion?

Neat Website....

You know me. I like to browse the web for neat pictures and nice website. I found a site called www.redorbit.com and i do not remember how i found it. It has got some very neat stuff to offer like Tech News, Science News and stuff like that. I like to use Google Earth to make overlays of GPS data when we go Moutain Biking. I found some very nice new satalite photos of some US cities and other places on Reborbit.

Here they are.

Blatimore MD:

This ASTER image of Baltimore was acquired on April 4, 2000, and covers an area of 17 by 20 km. Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland and one of the busiest ports in the United States. Its economy focuses on research and development, especially in the areas of aquaculture, pharmaceuticals, and medical supplies and services. Before European settlement, the site of Baltimore was inhabited by Native Americans of the Susquehannock tribe. The town was founded in 1729 and named for the barons Baltimore, the British founders of the Maryland Colony

Machu Picchu:

The ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people utilized the Andean mountain top (2800 m elevation), erecting massive stone structures from the early 1400's, legends and myths indicate that Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak' in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. The Inca turned the site into a small (12 square kilometers) but extraordinary city.

Nasca Lines:

This ASTER sub-image covers an area of 14 x 18 km, and was acquired on December 22, 2000. The data were processed to create a simulated natural color presentation. The Nasca Lines are located in the Pampa region of Peru, the desolate plain of the Peruvian coast 400 km south of Lima. The Lines were first spotted when commercial airlines began flying across the Peruvian desert in the 1920's. Passengers reported seeing 'primitive landing strips' on the ground below. The Lines were made by removing the iron-oxide coated pebbles which cover the surface of the desert. When the gravel is removed, they contrast with the light color underneath. In this way the lines were drawn as furrows of a lighter color.

Washington DC:

Washington, D.C. was imaged by ASTER on June 1, 2000 in this 14 by 13.7 km sub-scene. The combination of visible and near infrared bands displays vegetation in red, and water in dark grays. The 15 m spatial resolution allows us to see individual buildings, including the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Washington Monument with its shadow.

What is your opinion?

Internet Radio...RIAA Style

Radio's Tangled Web

April 30, 2007 - As you read these words on your monitor, there is a decent chance that you’re also streaming a little online radio. After all, with an estimated listenership of approximately 50 million Americans per month, Internet radio has become a go-to destination for a fuller spectrum of music, an alternative to FM’s mind-numbing monotony. And if you are one of those listeners, mark May 15 on your calendar: it might well be the day that the music dies.

The RIAA NAZIs are at it again. I reported a story on this a few months ago. Well, it looks like they are going to go and turn the music off. The average person running a web station will not be able to pay the HUGE fees that are being leved aginst them. A lot of people just stream music on the internet from their houses and if this happens, This will block many people from music that they would have never have listened to otherwise.

"Last month the trio of Library of Congress judges that oversees copyright law’s statutory licenses decided that May 15 will be the date royalty fees owed by Web radio operators will be recalibrated. The Copyright Royalty Board changed rates from a percentage of revenue to a per-song, per-listener fee—effectively hiking the rates between 300 and 1,200 percent, according to a lawyer representing a group of Webcasters. "If this rate does not change, it will wipe out the vast majority of Web radio," Tim Westergren, founder of the music discovery service Pandora, tells NEWSWEEK. "If this stays, we’re done. Back to the stone age again." (Royalty Board Chief Justice James Sledge declined to comment on the case, which lawyers say they intend to appeal.)

What is your opinion?

Today, this afternoon.

Well, I was on my way to work and I was on Old Hundred Road going East towards Hull Street when I had to slam on my breaks. A driver in front of me stopped to let some one turn, I did the same, but the driver behind hit my bumper!! It only scratched my bumper as he hit my receiver hitch and right side bumper, but his car was really messed up!! The police came and all that jazz. What a way to start the new week!! Oh well, I will get it fixed as I my truck is new and I want it to look good.



What is your opinion?

A New Better Way...another insight into me.

cor·ol·lar·y (kôr'ə-lĕr'ē, kŏr'-) n., pl. -ies.
-A proposition that follows with little or no proof required from one already proven.
-A deduction or an inference.
-A natural consequence or effect; a result.

adj.
Consequent; resultant.
[Middle English corolarie, from Latin corōllārium,
money paid for a garland, gratuity, from corōlla, small garland. See corolla.]

***************************************************************

Perhaps what I intend with opening up myself about my life is to give a few suffering people our there HOPE!! Perhaps the corollary to all of this is a new better way to live. The Big Book talks about in great detail. If you were like me, I had better living thru chemistry for over 1/2 of my life. At some point you, if you are/were like me, need to try it! Is it easy?? HELL NO!! One point that I would like to make is that when I was out drugging, I had some "good times" but were they real and was I living on life's terms? NO! I was living on my terms that every once and a while came into accordance with "normal" life. I did not like living life on its own terms. It was and still is a hard lesson to learn. I still try to "buck the system" but life will push back. I know better now than to try to live any other way by trying to implement some of what I have talked about in the last several Recovery Posts. Were not done with the 12 Steps or my series, we still have a long journey to traverse.

Living life in its terms for me is a journey. I would say that I have had some really crappy days in doing that. But I would also say that in this time, some of my worst days in sobriety have no been as bad as my "best" days of living polluted. Sometimes, I relive those days, remember the sensations and experiences. Some were scary that involved very bad places where I could have been killed. So I can say that in sobriety, I have not had to go there again. So even if my day has gone all to hell, I can say that I will not be in that bad spot again. I mean don’t get me wrong, some of my polluted days were times that some people dream about but would never do!

I lived very hard in that 1/2 life and I think that if I had to do it over and was given a second chance, I really can’t say that I would have done it differently. The reason why is all of those experiences make me who I am today. A person is the sum of his experiences and if I had not lived like that and gone thru some of that stuff, then I could not sit here and try to give some suffering people reading this little page a glimmer of hope. I do not know if anyone reading this get anything out of it, but I can hope.

During my "Spiritual Awakening" that I had in LAHA, I was told some very powerful things. It happened with my counselor and me during a one on one secession. I will not go in to all the specifics, but one I will say is that I was told that I will reach and help people that only I can talk to. An addendum to this is one day in church, many months after this, I was told the same things, that I will/am supposed to help people that only I can reach. It scared the hell out of me that day and I shook for several hours after that event, but I had a different understand of life after that fact. We all have something to contribute to the greater scheme of things; we just need to find it. It is by The Grace Of God that I did not end up in jail or Dead, I truly and whole heartedly believe that because there were many situations where that could have happened.

So I just felt like giving more information to you my readers. Please do not think that I have the answers as I am still finding them out my self. Life is a journey and not a destination, we are here but a small time compared to the grand scheme of things. I was given a second chance by God, by my wonderful wife Sondra with her, none of this would have been possible. I love her dearly and I still screw up royally, but all I can do is ask for forgiveness and try to live better…

What is your opinion?

Part 4...Steps 4-7

It would be hard to write about just one of these Steps, so i put Step 4-7 in this part as they are all together.

Step 4 - Made a Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory of Ourselves.

DO what? A searching and FEARLESS MORAL INVENTORY?? Ok this is going to suck I said. During this step we have to look at ourselves and that is not fun at all. We have to look at all the things that we have done bad and things that we had done to hurt other people and also things that other people had done to us that we did not like or had resentment over. Because, as they say, An addict having a resentment is like tacking poison and wanting the other person to die. To people like us, resentments are not a good thing. They lead to fear, anger and then an excuse to go out and use again.

Take for instance, one might say me and the girlfriend had a fight, I am going to go out and get messed up to show her!! No your not!! That is just an excuse. In this step, you have to look at your part in the events. You might say that I am resentful at _______ because they did this to me. But what was your part in that event. Did or have you treated them like you should have? And how does this affect you? In your relationship with that person? Does it hurt your Pride? Make you Fearful? Does it hurt your Self-Esteem? All of these questions will have to be answered during this step.

My 4ht step was about 2-3 pages front and back on a legal size pad. It was very emotional time writing this because me and my sponsor had to do this. It is part of the healing process. See the problem is that if you don't be truthful on this, sleeping Demons will come back to get you at a later date. If you have done something that you think is so shameful and that you don't want anyone to know about it; get it out!! For the most part they have done the exact same thing or even worse! Not being truthful in this step can be setting yourself up for some hard times and even perhaps a relapse…

In doing this we had to learn a new way to deal with ANGE and FEAR! Most of my troubles came from me. I tried to control everything and everyone and when things did not go my way, I pitched a fit! I was the director and they were my puppets only that was not the case. I that it was, but it was not and I had to place my Fears on a list as well to go over with a fine toothed comb. See, we are fearful of things that we can’t control. I became fearful of doing drugs, even though that is what I knew I had to do to get to feeling better (Spiritual Malady) but the guilt was a killer as well after the fact!

This step is also a very personal one that you, me, I, have to do alone. My sponsor helped me, but I had to do it and take a long, hard look at what made me tick and I did not like what I found. I will not go into some of the things that I did, but suffice to say, they were not pretty. This is a most important step because in doing this, you clean your steps and try to get a grasp of what the hell you have done in your life. The next Step 5, Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. You have to open up and tell someone else like your sponsor, a minister, a total stranger, just what you have done in your life and how you have wronged people and your part as well as what people have done to you and what your part was in that as well.

I cried my eyes out during this because of a lifetime of hate, anger, resentment, wrongs to me and from me came out!! It was very painful but very healing at the same time…

The paper that you made during Step 4 is a guide during Step 5. I used it to help me remember the things that I had written down, but also new things emerged from my subconscious, stuff that I had so tucked away that I had forgotten about came out and when it was all over after a good cry, I felt better than I had in many years. Getting out the quilt and remorse, resentments, fears was very liberating.

Next step is Step 6 Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. After Step 5, I was totally ready to get all that crap out and give it up to God to take away from me. This is where the Serenity Prayer comes in:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.”

Just knowing this and using this well help you in everyday life. Because, remember that you cannot control everything that is and will happen to you.

I had to do Step 7 Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. This was the last part in from the last several Steps. It is also a necessary Step to be taken in this cleansing process. Another good prayer I forgot was in the 3rd step. It is as follows:

God, I offer myself to Thee--to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always! Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63

So you see, the Step 4-7 is basically a continuous step and they all need to be done in secession. One cannot be done with out the other. Next time, we will move to Step 8.


What is your opinion?