The Three Most Common Lies Told

People lie.

People lie about a lot of things.

People worry about the "big lies" but in reality it's the small and most common ones that are doing the most harm to them and their relationships. What are these lies?

1) I'm OK.

This is perhaps the most common lie. It is the knee-jerk common response to "how are you." It is given when we "don't want to get into it." and rather than say that, we say "I'm OK". Yes it may be "code" but it is a lie. How often do you use it?

2)It's OK.

This one is used when someone we usually "care about" wants us to do something or has done something that we don't care for. Since we don't want to hurt them or otherwise "jeopardize" the relationship we say "it's OK". How often do you use it?

3)I don't mind

This one is closely related to number 2. Possibly another way of saying number 2. In either case, it's so often used that people generally don't question it when it is said. The general lie clue? If you feel you should respond to this comment with "are you sure?" You've probably been lied to. If you are the person who's hearing "Are you sure?" There's a good chance you're lying. How often do you use this one?

This Is What Domestic Violence Looks Like

A pretty brutal story.

They had three children in very quick succession and by the time the third child had arrived, Dr.K knew he was in deep trouble. His first clue was that he was not permitted to speak to his children. No really. Beauty’s first language is not English and she wanted the children to be bilingual. Fair enough. Dr.K does not speak any language OTHER than English, but Beauty forbid a word of English to be spoken in the house.

When Dr.K told me this, my response was “tell her to fuck off”. Seriously? Who forbids a grown-up from speaking to HIS OWN CHILDREN? Dr.K said that if he tried to discuss the situation with Beauty, she would keep him up all night screaming and railing and crying, and for a surgeon, that’s a disaster with the potential to cost someone’s life.

I'm not one for domestic violence but I would not have shed so much as a hair follicle if he had popped her in the mouth over that shit.

Hard Lesson in Co-Signing

So I received this e-mail from Change.org reading:

Every time the bank calls me about my son's student loans, I relive the day I found out he was murdered. Donte was on a trip to visit his college town when a police officer called to tell us that he had been shot by the side of the road.

Then the calls started -- not condolence calls, but from debt collectors demanding we pay back Donte's student loans. All of a sudden my family not only had to deal with the police investigating Donte's murder, but with collectors constantly calling and reminding us of his death. Before my husband Bruce cosigned Donte's loans, we asked the lender to explain the terms. They never told us that we would be forced to take on our son's debt even if he died, which federal loan agencies don't force families to do.

[Original emphasis] While I certainly feel for the family with the loss of their son, I'm not sympathetic to their particular plight in regards to the loan they co-signed for. When one co-signs a loan one is just as responsible as the "primary" loan signer. In fact, you may as well consider yourself the primary loan signer because you have all the rights and responsibilities of one except that you do not make the payments.

I don't know whether these folks are telling the truth that they were never told the consequences of co-signing a loan but even if they weren't it was their responsibility to read over all the paperwork and get someone with their interest in mind to go over the paperwork if they didn't understand what they were reading.

This is about responsibility and everything in this e-mail shrieks "I did not do my due diligence and I want someone else to pay for it."

Certainly the bank has insurance and other means to write down the loss. That is their choice to go that route, but these folks don't even want to split the difference or make reduced payments for what was already taken out. Certainly if the money had not been used for tuition at that time, it could have been refunded by the school and returned to the lender. But to expect the lender to eat funds already used? That's not fair either.

In the end it's a sad situation for the family, but it certainly does not warrant a mass mailing to people they don't know asking them to pressure a bank to not enforce a contract the family willingly signed.

Lesson: Learn what it means to co-sign. Don't do it if you are not prepared to pay.

Define "Necessary"

Reading a recent article in the NY Times entitled "Drivers With Hands Full Get a Backup: The Car" As a person the drives a manual transmission vehicle and is of the opinion that people that cannot drive a manual transmission actually do not know how to drive *snicker*. That is, persons who cannot drive a manual transmission vehicle have not mastered a machine but rather know how to point and press.

It is said that BMW added cup holders to it's vehicles after much debate because it was simply unfathomable to some at HQ that people would actually be drinking any liquid AND driving (the horror!). Surely someone in a "performance" machine would at least have one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear lever.

Alas the coffee drinkers of the world won out and now even the vaunted M vehicles not only come with cup holders but sadly automatic transmissions with "manual mode" which on my testing is pure rubbish. The amount of lurching the X3 I tested did when I "changed gears" via the manumatic was reminiscent of first learning how to drive. I left it in D and put on eco mode and left it there.

Anyway, the automation of the transmission (which also made vehicles far more approachable for women) was the beginning of the automation of the driving experience. Today one finds many articles about the new features on vehicles: Automatic parking, automatic and adaptive cruise control and upcoming fully self-driving vehicles.

There are two large reasons for this push, the first being "safety". You will not read a single article on autonomous vehicles that does not emphasize safety. Like much else in America, fear of injury, disease or death sells. You may get hit. You may hit someone or something. YOU cannot be trusted so you must hand over control to that which canbe trusted: The computer.

I read one article on Google's test vehicle that pointed out that it's vehicles do not get road rage, get distracted, etc.

In the near future as automated vehicles become mainstream (probably linked with the widespread adoption of purely electric vehicles AKA: Computers on wheels). We will see arguments against human operation very similar to the arguments I see in regards to guns in America: It's dangerous and threatens the lives of other "motorists" (I prefer in this case to refer to them as passengers) and pedestrians.

Recall in I, Robot the horror expressed by the authorities and the female lead that Will Smith's character was actually driving his high tech automated vehicle in manual mode ("at those speeds" to quote the character). Now look at the text from the linked article:

Driving around a college campus can be treacherous. Bikes and scooters zip out of nowhere, distracted students wander into traffic, and stopped cars and speed bumps suddenly appear. It takes a vigilant driver to avoid catastrophe.

Jesse Levinson does not much worry about this when he drives his prototype Volkswagen Touareg around the Stanford University campus here. A computer vision system he helped design keeps an unblinking eye out for pedestrians and cyclists, and automatically slows and stops the car when they enter his path.

Can you feel the feelings of panic in these opening paragraphs? Quick question: How many car accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and motor-scooters happen on Stanford University's campus? According to a February 2010 report, there have been 200 accidents on Stanford's campus since 2005. That works out to 40/year. The one in this report ended in a death because the cyclist was not wearing a helmet and it is undetermined as to whether he had his light on (which is required for night riding). I have not seen (or looked for) how many of the 40 accidents a year at Stanford are a result of intoxication or events such as deer. However; reading this one would think that one must be in a state of hyper vigilance as if one were in an open battlefield with a known sniper somewhere in the vicinity. Look it's NOT like that.

But the point here is to induce feelings of fear in the reader. The reader doesn't want to feel fear and anxiety. They don't want to hurt another person. Sell them a self driving "omniscient" vehicle and put their minds at ease. What responsible persons would turn that down.

One of the problems with these electronic "eyes' is that the "driver" learns to depend on them and loses lessons of "looking around". I foresee a time when drivers will lose the skill of looking around as they drive. Actually, in my travels I've noticed that this skill is already lacking. Also these backup cameras and the like are leading vehicle makers to design vehicles with extremely poor visibility. High trunk decks and small side and rear windows have become common in SUV's and some "sporty" vehicles.

Once the "responsibility" argument is established we get to think of these items as "necessary". As indicated in the article:

Dr. Rajkumar said he suspected that most Americans were not quite ready for a fully autonomous car.

But, he said, “In time, as society becomes more comfortable and legal concerns are ironed out, full autonomy will become practical, inevitable and necessary.”

Necessary? Says who? Millions of vehicles are on the road today. A small minority of them are involved in accidents and a smaller minority of those involve actual bodily harm and a smaller percentage of those result in fatalities. How are automated vehicles "necessary"? Define "necessary".

Lastly Dr. Rajkumar says:

He, for one, would welcome an automated car for his 30-minute commute home. If the car could drive itself, he said, he would happily take a short nap.

I humbly suggest that if the good doctor is too tired to drive that he take public transport both to and from work.

Drafting Works

Took a trip to Miami for the new year. And yes, I'm quite mad that I'm back in 30 odd degree weather, when the coldest temps I saw for a week was 50 (with highs in the mid 80's). Yes. I'm a weeeee bit upset about that.

Anyway. I own a 1997 Z3 2.8 with the infamous "dancing fuel level indicator". For those unfamiliar with this "feature" it is simply that the fuel level indicator will point to "empty" for miles upon miles and then decide to pop up to whatever level your fuel is actually at. Perhaps it will hold that for a day, and hour. a second and then drop back to empty. The "low fuel" indicator does work so you'll always know when you actually have, oh, about one half gallon left. But before that happens, well, when the needle does the dance, or stays at empty, your guess is as good as mine.

So, how do I know when to refuel? Well THIS model has the on board computer that will tell you how many miles you can go before empty. during my years of ownership I have discovered that when it says 75 miles left, you've got a quarter tank. In the case of a Z3, that's about 2 gallons. We're going to get to the drafting bit in a minute.

So on my way down to Miami, the computer told me I had all of 100 miles left on the tank I had. So I passed on the gas exit that was upcoming. No sooner had I passed the exit than the computer did what I call "The big drop".

You see, on occasion the computer discovers that it was well, wrong. To my dismay 100 miles dropped to 90 in the space of one mile. 80, 70, 60, soon followed. Shall we say I let off the gas. NO help. 50-40....46. And on came the "low fuel" light. I was not happy.

Fortunately I was near the next exit where I could refuel.

See my usual rule is 75 miles to go or 1/4 tank. Whichever comes first. But when the needle is asleep and the computer decides to go into freefall, well..You better hope there is a petrol station nearby. Right.

So on the way back home I hit the magic 100. Fortunately the needle was working. But I wanted to make it to Fayetteville NC so I pulled in behind a semi. Oh look....miles to go is INCREASING! I must have gained an expected 20 miles before I decided to not press my luck and pass Fayetteville.

I decided that for the remainder of the trip, whenever I found a truck or large SUV traveling at least 15 MPH over the posted speed limit, I would tuck in behind it. I knew how close I needed to be because in the "vacuum" created by the huge vehicles ahead of me, I could no longer hear wind hitting the cloth roof.

Let me tell you. I have NEVER. Ever. had my expected miles go above 360. The computer reported 404 miles. I did a quick calculation and found that while drafting at various illegal speeds my car was seeing a nearly 30% increase in efficiency.

Of course there is a major downside to this method of saving fuel. Had any of the vehicles I was behind crashed or otherwise stopped short, I was certainly...dead.

See the safety reasons for not tailgating are as follows: firstly you have space to come to a stop or engage in evasive maneuvers. Secondly you can actually see what the vehicles in front of the vehicle you're behind are doing. Often I brake before the person in front of me does, because I can see that the people in front of him are braking or doing something silly. When all you can see is the tail of the truck in front of you. There are no warnings.

But all that said. If you desperately need to make an exit and you have allowed that "low fuel" light to come on (I don't recommend that), Do pull in behind a truck. 30% more distance from what you have left.

PS: I know some wanker is reading this and saying "just drive slower". Look you. The idea here is to make time AND be fuel efficient.

Kanye Kardashian

I'm not one to comment on celebrities but this latest one has bothered me some. Fist we had Alicia Keys and Swiz Beats (or however his stage name is spelled). Fine. But this? This is some way out "can't judge me" bullshit on steroids.

Firstly Kim is still married. I know she's moved on but damn... Knocked up before the divorce even happens? How does that work?

So while publcily fucking some dudes wife, cause apparently fucking privately is out of the question, Kanye drops seed and then announces that he's knocked up another dude's wife? Really?

Then the media is apparently cool with this public display of "no class at all"? Really?

GMA folks compared this to Jay Z and Beyonce. No.

Jay put a ring on it. Beyonce is not somebody's baby momma. Beyonce is W.I.F.E.

Then Jay knocked her up.

That is how it's supposed to be done.

Meanwhile Chris Humphries, who is now the biggest punk of 2012, who did everything the way he was supposed to, get's to read and watch stories about his "wife", her new man and baby on the way. I'm sure he's the butt of a lot of jokes now.

I guess this is how it is now. Shit that used to at least stay out the public eye in order to maintain some appearance of decency is now public and applauded.