http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_haught/holy.html
It was written in the early 90's, but it obviously still applies today because the same religious hatred we see around the world has been going on for thousands of years.
"Anything that divides people breeds inhumanity. Religion serves that ugly purpose."
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Olympic Torch Relay Created as Nazi Propoganda
Yes, you read the title correctly. That spaz Adork Hitler and his minions considered the ancient Greeks to be an early form of the Aryan race, so when they won the bid for the 1936 Olympic games, they sent the torch on a relay to show off Aryan strength or some crap like that.
You can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Flame#The_modern_era
Of course, Wikipedia isn't known for its total accuracy, so you can do a little more research on your own.
You can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Flame#The_modern_era
Of course, Wikipedia isn't known for its total accuracy, so you can do a little more research on your own.
"Concerts" followup
I asked some people I know the same question as the post below about concerts and a couple of them were really offended that I considered Billy Ray Cyrus a one-hit wonder. I decided that it was in my best interest that I not tell them that I didn't actually consider "Achy Breaky Heart" a "hit" because, basically, the song sucks ass. I merely consider it a song that a lot of people with limited musical taste listened to for a short period of time.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
A Question About Concerts
Picture this:
You're at a Lynrd Skynrd concert, it's about 1978, they come out and perform one of their hit songs. Let's say it's "Sweet Home Alabama". When the song is over, people start yelling out for another of their hits (Freebird!).
Now, fast forward, it's 1992, and you're at a Billy Ray Cyrus concert (for some unknown reason). He comes out on stage and performs "Achy Breaky Heart". What song does the crowd yell out for after that?
You're at a Lynrd Skynrd concert, it's about 1978, they come out and perform one of their hit songs. Let's say it's "Sweet Home Alabama". When the song is over, people start yelling out for another of their hits (Freebird!).
Now, fast forward, it's 1992, and you're at a Billy Ray Cyrus concert (for some unknown reason). He comes out on stage and performs "Achy Breaky Heart". What song does the crowd yell out for after that?
Monday, June 23, 2008
Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition
Out of everyone in the senate, you'd think that McCain would want to actually "support the troops" as opposed to just using those three words in attack speeches and political rhetoric:
McCain
McCain
McCain Defends Bush's Iraq Strategy
John McCain, a war hero and a former P.O.W., is towing the :stay the course" party line:
McCain
McCain
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Morning run
I went for a longer than usual morning run (about 11.6 miles vs. my normal 10.25 miles). For some real reason I didn't see as many broken bottles on the road this morning, but I did see a dead snake, a couple of dead armadillos, a dead vulture, and a plastic Nesquik bottle. I also saw what was left of an armadillo, and although it smelled pretty bad, it was kind of cool that the only thing that was left was the hard shell. The buzzards and other members of nature's cleaning crew devoured the rest.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Running thoughts
Before anyone asks, the title is a play on words that not only describes how my mind wanders, but how it wanders while I'm running. The last few times I've been on long weekend runs (10 + miles), I couldn't help but notice all of the garbage (or just strange things) along the road and it distracts me from the latest Korn album that I have blaring on my iPod. To give you an idea, here are a few things I saw this morning:
I once asked someone about clearing their mind. She was supposedly into meditation and I asked her how it was possible to have clear thoughts. She didn't understand what I was talking about so I went on to explain to her that when I try to clear my mind, I am very aware of the fact that I'm trying to clear my mind. I go from trying to think about nothing to thinking about trying to think about nothing. The next thing you know, my inner monologue is singing the words to a song by Pink Floyd or the Offspring for no apparent reason. She really had nothing to say other than "wow".
I can't begin to tell you the number of problems this has caused me in the past and will continue to cause until the day I die (which will hopefully be before I become dependent on others to survive). The only thing I can do is ask "why am I here" and get on with my boring day.
- At least 20 broken bottles, most of which weren't there last weekend
- A half empty 20 oz. Mountain Dew Code Red (I guess they didn't like it)
- A mostly full 2 liter Coke
- A dead squirrel being picked at by a couple of buzzards
- A (presumably) used condom (I didn't stop to inspect it)
- An unknown quantity of Burger King, McDonald's, Sonic, and Starbucks containers
- People that don't understand that the car they are driving doesn't belong in the bicycle lane that I'm running towards them in.
- People that don't know how to look left to see if maybe, just maybe, there is a pedestrian there about to run in front of them before they merge into traffic
- A lot of commercial aircraft flying into Orlando airport.
- A state trooper that has pulled someone over (but I still say they are never around when you need one)
- Really, really fat people in really, really big vehicles
- Dozens of nails
- Dozens of very large bolts with washers attached
I once asked someone about clearing their mind. She was supposedly into meditation and I asked her how it was possible to have clear thoughts. She didn't understand what I was talking about so I went on to explain to her that when I try to clear my mind, I am very aware of the fact that I'm trying to clear my mind. I go from trying to think about nothing to thinking about trying to think about nothing. The next thing you know, my inner monologue is singing the words to a song by Pink Floyd or the Offspring for no apparent reason. She really had nothing to say other than "wow".
I can't begin to tell you the number of problems this has caused me in the past and will continue to cause until the day I die (which will hopefully be before I become dependent on others to survive). The only thing I can do is ask "why am I here" and get on with my boring day.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Winter holiday cards
Normally I only get one or two cards but this year the two cards I received had a summary of what happened the previous year. If I were to (for some reason) send out a card with one of those, I wouldn't have enough very much to say, but it would probably sound something like this:
You may or may not know me, but I couldn't buy a small number of cards (the smallest box had 50 cards in it), so I decided to send the 43 cards that I didn't need out to random people. It would mean a lot to me if you feign interest in my life as it makes me feel like I have friends.
It's been a pretty hectic year. Actually in hindsight, it's been pretty much the same as every year. I'm still alone (over six years now. Is that a record?), but I just spent $6,000 at Great Expectations, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that spending an insane amount of money as a final sign of desperation is all it takes to find a good woman. A live-in hooker might have been cheaper, but I think that's still technically illegal
I bought a new car (a Scion XD), even though the car that I traded in on it was paid for, so maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to do. I guess I was just bored (see previous paragraph.)
I'm still working, but I can't really tell you much about it because it's a Dept. of Defense project.
I'm still running. I'm up to about 40 miles a week. I don't really have any reason to run or a particular goal other than not getting insanely fat like most people I see. Maybe I'm just bored (see three paragraphs ago).
That's about it. Whether you know me or not, I wouldn't be offended if you tried to hook me up with any single women you know (no children and no fat chicks).
Happy Winter Solstice!!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Secure the Gmail notifier on OS X
This was found on macosxhints.com via digg.com:
I was shocked to discover that the Gmail Notifier, as distributed by Google, defaults to sending your Gmail password over the network in clear text every time it checks your inbox for new mail. This is incredibly insecure, especially since Google has plenty of smart people who now how to secure internet communication. They have the capability to enable secure communication as proven by the ability to access Gmail entirely over HTTPS (by using https://mail.google.com as the entry point). As it turns out, there is an easy "hack" for Mac users to switch Gmail notifier to HTTPS as well:
Pull down the Notifier menu (either Calendar or Gmail), hold down Command and Option, and click Preferences on the menu. You’ll see a hidden settings editor. Enter SecureAlways in the Key field (upper and lower case must be entered as shown) and 1 in the Value field, then click Set. Quit Notifier and start it up again. From now on, all connections with both Gmail & Gcal will be https. Thanks to this comment on the O'Reilly blogs for this trick!
I was shocked to discover that the Gmail Notifier, as distributed by Google, defaults to sending your Gmail password over the network in clear text every time it checks your inbox for new mail. This is incredibly insecure, especially since Google has plenty of smart people who now how to secure internet communication. They have the capability to enable secure communication as proven by the ability to access Gmail entirely over HTTPS (by using https://mail.google.com as the entry point). As it turns out, there is an easy "hack" for Mac users to switch Gmail notifier to HTTPS as well:
Pull down the Notifier menu (either Calendar or Gmail), hold down Command and Option, and click Preferences on the menu. You’ll see a hidden settings editor. Enter SecureAlways in the Key field (upper and lower case must be entered as shown) and 1 in the Value field, then click Set. Quit Notifier and start it up again. From now on, all connections with both Gmail & Gcal will be https. Thanks to this comment on the O'Reilly blogs for this trick!
Friday, July 06, 2007
Sansa MP3 players
I currently own an 8 GB (e280) version of the Sansa portable music players. I bought my first 4 GB unit about 18 months ago. Overall, I really like the device (small, light, decent GUI, priced right), but I have to say that if I hadn't bought the $29 extended warranty from Best Buy, I wouldn't be a happy person.
About two months after I bought the first 4 GB unit, the screen had a series of diagonal lines across it and the device was locked up. I took it back to Best Buy and they happily replaced it under the extended warranty. This happened four more times over the following 8 months (sometimes the device just wouldn't power up anymore).
When I returned it the last time, the 4 GB model had been discontinued so they gave me a full refund of the original purchase price. I didn't feel like driving around town shopping for another player so I checked out what they had for the same price (about $249). The 8 GB model was there, and they had some iPod Nanos for a few bucks more. I decided to stick with the Sansa if I could buy another extended warranty, but I couldn't help but think "Surely they've fixed the quality problems by now." Six weeks later, it died. That was in January 2007 and I've had two more e280s die since then.
You may be asking "what the heck are you doing to these things?" I'm not rough with it, I keep it in a neoprene case, it doesn't get wet, etc. I take pretty good care of the players, so it must come down to poor manufacturing quality.
All in all, I would recommend buying one, but only if you buy a "no questions asked" extended warranty and you don't mind driving back to Best Buy/Circuit City every 6 weeks or so to exchange it
About two months after I bought the first 4 GB unit, the screen had a series of diagonal lines across it and the device was locked up. I took it back to Best Buy and they happily replaced it under the extended warranty. This happened four more times over the following 8 months (sometimes the device just wouldn't power up anymore).
When I returned it the last time, the 4 GB model had been discontinued so they gave me a full refund of the original purchase price. I didn't feel like driving around town shopping for another player so I checked out what they had for the same price (about $249). The 8 GB model was there, and they had some iPod Nanos for a few bucks more. I decided to stick with the Sansa if I could buy another extended warranty, but I couldn't help but think "Surely they've fixed the quality problems by now." Six weeks later, it died. That was in January 2007 and I've had two more e280s die since then.
You may be asking "what the heck are you doing to these things?" I'm not rough with it, I keep it in a neoprene case, it doesn't get wet, etc. I take pretty good care of the players, so it must come down to poor manufacturing quality.
All in all, I would recommend buying one, but only if you buy a "no questions asked" extended warranty and you don't mind driving back to Best Buy/Circuit City every 6 weeks or so to exchange it
Final Second Life entry
I forgot to make an entry after I abandoned SL, so here are my final comments on the application (for now at least).
I did meet a few cool people there, but everything was so oriented towards the sex industry (there are an inordinate number of transsexual prostitutes there). Once you meet a friend or two, then what. You hang out at someone's house, go to an overcrowded night club (the more people there, the slower everything runs), or just fly around exploring stuff.
If you are a little creative, you can try to build stuff, but land is pretty expensive so you might want to reconsider spending a lot of time building a house.
So, I transferred all of my transferable stuff to people I knew, gave my money to a club I would sometimes hang out in, and canceled my account. If SL goes more mainstream, maybe I'll go back, but I just think that with the current trend, it will not be sustainable.
I did meet a few cool people there, but everything was so oriented towards the sex industry (there are an inordinate number of transsexual prostitutes there). Once you meet a friend or two, then what. You hang out at someone's house, go to an overcrowded night club (the more people there, the slower everything runs), or just fly around exploring stuff.
If you are a little creative, you can try to build stuff, but land is pretty expensive so you might want to reconsider spending a lot of time building a house.
So, I transferred all of my transferable stuff to people I knew, gave my money to a club I would sometimes hang out in, and canceled my account. If SL goes more mainstream, maybe I'll go back, but I just think that with the current trend, it will not be sustainable.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Does Science Leave Room for Faith?
I wrote the following essay for a scholarship a few years ago. The subject was "Does Science Leave Room for Faith (or vice-versa)?" I don't think the people granting the scholarship liked it because they didn't even bother letting me know that I didn't get the money.
To begin with, "science" suggests a fact or series of facts leading to a conclusion, while "faith" is typically used when an unobservable event happens (i.e. the origin of life) that is explained by the existence of a supreme being.
The question "Does science leave room for faith" (or vice-versa) suggests that everything we, as humans, know allows for a dichotomous existence. With a lack of hard facts, many people have filled in the scientific gaps with divine influence, and over the years, a schism formed between religion and science.
A Brief History of Time provides a description, in relatively plain English, of what we currently know about the origin of the universe and life within. However it is also an example of how science requires faith in its facts. Stephen Hawking, was not at the quantum singularity that the universe was created from, but based on the evidence given, we should "believe" that he is correct in his findings.
As far as faith leaving room for science, any religion should allow for humanity's gathering of knowledge. As humans have overcome intellectual hurdles, it is natural for us to take what we have learned, expand on it, and work toward the next goal. During this process, many items originally explained by religion are reevaluated in scientific terms.
For example, Galileo professed that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. Since this went against the Catholic Church's doctrine, he was imprisoned for his beliefs despite overwhelming evidence supporting his findings.
Another example is the discovery by the ancient Greeks that the Earth is round simply by noting that the mast of an approaching ship is visible before the hull. If the Earth were flat, the entire ship would be equally visible. Despite this, the Earth was believed to be flat and surrounded by demons for another 1500 years.
In conclusion, science doesn't eliminate faith, it simply attempts to provide answers based on given evidence, and many of those answers require a certain level of faith themselves. In contrast, religious faith doesn't eliminate science, but it can be used to provide answers to questions that science hasn't been able to explain. For us to grow beyond a choice between faith or science, we must realize that what we know and what we believe are not absolutes, and as we grow, we will find that some parts of science AND religion were wrong. When that happens, we must relinquish our old beliefs and embrace the new facts.
To begin with, "science" suggests a fact or series of facts leading to a conclusion, while "faith" is typically used when an unobservable event happens (i.e. the origin of life) that is explained by the existence of a supreme being.
The question "Does science leave room for faith" (or vice-versa) suggests that everything we, as humans, know allows for a dichotomous existence. With a lack of hard facts, many people have filled in the scientific gaps with divine influence, and over the years, a schism formed between religion and science.
A Brief History of Time provides a description, in relatively plain English, of what we currently know about the origin of the universe and life within. However it is also an example of how science requires faith in its facts. Stephen Hawking, was not at the quantum singularity that the universe was created from, but based on the evidence given, we should "believe" that he is correct in his findings.
As far as faith leaving room for science, any religion should allow for humanity's gathering of knowledge. As humans have overcome intellectual hurdles, it is natural for us to take what we have learned, expand on it, and work toward the next goal. During this process, many items originally explained by religion are reevaluated in scientific terms.
For example, Galileo professed that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. Since this went against the Catholic Church's doctrine, he was imprisoned for his beliefs despite overwhelming evidence supporting his findings.
Another example is the discovery by the ancient Greeks that the Earth is round simply by noting that the mast of an approaching ship is visible before the hull. If the Earth were flat, the entire ship would be equally visible. Despite this, the Earth was believed to be flat and surrounded by demons for another 1500 years.
In conclusion, science doesn't eliminate faith, it simply attempts to provide answers based on given evidence, and many of those answers require a certain level of faith themselves. In contrast, religious faith doesn't eliminate science, but it can be used to provide answers to questions that science hasn't been able to explain. For us to grow beyond a choice between faith or science, we must realize that what we know and what we believe are not absolutes, and as we grow, we will find that some parts of science AND religion were wrong. When that happens, we must relinquish our old beliefs and embrace the new facts.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Military memories
Every now and then I'll read, hear, or see something that reminds me of a past experience. I was reading a comment thread on Digg.com about how Bush's approval rating had dropped to 26% and the posters were arguing about how/why people in the military voted in the last presidential election. One commenter stated that most of the people in the military voted for Bush because they (at one time) legitimately believed he had some sort of plan in Iraq and that it had nothing to do with how Republicans increase military budgets.
This caused a spark or two to go off in my weak brain and I remembered one time when I was stationed at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama and we were FORCED to go to church one Sunday (I'm an Atheist, so you can imagine how upset I was), and the guest speaker was some Sergeant Major that talked about how "God says it's o.k. to kill if it's for the right reason" and "there's no such thing as a [politically] liberal soldier on the battlefield". This was right after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991 under Bush Sr. (the last successful Bush family member to be elected to office) and they were going full force with the whole brainwashing thing before a single U.S. soldier stepped foot on the sands of the middle east. They were expecting a horribly bloody ground war (much worse than we are currently experiencing in Iraq) and wanted to stretch out the time between a lot of soldiers dying and the living soldiers becoming disgruntled with the war.
/End of flashback
This caused a spark or two to go off in my weak brain and I remembered one time when I was stationed at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama and we were FORCED to go to church one Sunday (I'm an Atheist, so you can imagine how upset I was), and the guest speaker was some Sergeant Major that talked about how "God says it's o.k. to kill if it's for the right reason" and "there's no such thing as a [politically] liberal soldier on the battlefield". This was right after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991 under Bush Sr. (the last successful Bush family member to be elected to office) and they were going full force with the whole brainwashing thing before a single U.S. soldier stepped foot on the sands of the middle east. They were expecting a horribly bloody ground war (much worse than we are currently experiencing in Iraq) and wanted to stretch out the time between a lot of soldiers dying and the living soldiers becoming disgruntled with the war.
/End of flashback
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
More Second Life observations
One of the first things I noticed about SL was that, just like in real life (RL) or 1st life, men get much less attention than really good looking women. I created a really good looking female avatar and people go out of their way to answer questions, or just say "hi". My male avatar could have exploded in a huge mushroom cloud (I'm sure it's possible to do in SL) and no one would have noticed.
The next thing I discovered is that people have virtual relationships in SL. Boyfriends, girlfriends, life partners, slave, whatever. They apparently treat it as if it were completely real by building a house and just hanging out staring at a fireplace and spooning on the sofa.
Further, the 1st life gender of the avatar doesn't seem to be important any more. The first 10-15 years of cyber sex held the stigma of "dude, that was probably a guy you were talking dirty to. What are the odds it was a hot 19 year old girl?" Apparently, SL has given people such a huge suspension of disbelief that they no longer care of who is sitting at the keyboard on the other end.
Of course, only SOME people are able to let go of their inhibitions there. Some people are just as big of a jerk in SL as they are in RL, or their avatar is a very close replica of their RL body and all of their phobias go with it.
There is apparently something for everyone in there. . .
Stay tuned.
The next thing I discovered is that people have virtual relationships in SL. Boyfriends, girlfriends, life partners, slave, whatever. They apparently treat it as if it were completely real by building a house and just hanging out staring at a fireplace and spooning on the sofa.
Further, the 1st life gender of the avatar doesn't seem to be important any more. The first 10-15 years of cyber sex held the stigma of "dude, that was probably a guy you were talking dirty to. What are the odds it was a hot 19 year old girl?" Apparently, SL has given people such a huge suspension of disbelief that they no longer care of who is sitting at the keyboard on the other end.
Of course, only SOME people are able to let go of their inhibitions there. Some people are just as big of a jerk in SL as they are in RL, or their avatar is a very close replica of their RL body and all of their phobias go with it.
There is apparently something for everyone in there. . .
Stay tuned.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Second Life
Ok, I never thought I'd do it, but I created an avatar in Second Life. At first I thought I'd get bored with it right away and abandon it, but I've been having fun meeting new people, having virtual sex (not quite as good as the real thing), dancing, etc. Basically everything I don't do in real life. as you can see from my picture, I'm very suave looking and can dance better than John Travolta (before he started believing in Xenu and gained 200 pounds).The pic was taken at Club Cristi which is a pretty cool place. Cristi (the owner) and most of the patrons are pretty nice, so if you are in SL, drop by.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Trojan in fake monster.com e-mail
The other day I received an e-mail that looked and "acted" like it was from monster.com. In the e-mail it said that to keep access to my account after Dec. 18th, I had to download a program. A few years ago, it might have seemed like a legitimate thing for a company to create a stand-alone application to provide their customers with the latest data and a wide range of features.
It didn't take very much for me to realize that this was probably a phishing e-mail. After all, I'm a web developer and I know first-hand that anything that monster.com would have someone do with a stand-alone app could easily be achieved in a web browser. Not to mention that the application they wanted me to download wasn't being hosted at monster.com, it was something like "resume-monster.com".
I contacted monster's tech support via a live chat session (with someone in India, of course) and he/she confirmed that it was truly a phishing e-mail. More than likely, the app was created by some jerk that would get people to install it and it would (most-likely) capture log in information, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.
I hope the creator of the e-mail gets a big boil on the head of his tiny manhood.
It didn't take very much for me to realize that this was probably a phishing e-mail. After all, I'm a web developer and I know first-hand that anything that monster.com would have someone do with a stand-alone app could easily be achieved in a web browser. Not to mention that the application they wanted me to download wasn't being hosted at monster.com, it was something like "resume-monster.com".
I contacted monster's tech support via a live chat session (with someone in India, of course) and he/she confirmed that it was truly a phishing e-mail. More than likely, the app was created by some jerk that would get people to install it and it would (most-likely) capture log in information, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.
I hope the creator of the e-mail gets a big boil on the head of his tiny manhood.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
2 College Student's Sue Over Book Prices
In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that could affect thousands of college students who think they are overcharged for textbooks, two Daytona Beach Community College students have sued the nation's largest collegiate-bookstore chain and their school.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-collegebooks2506nov25,0,954603.story
Not that I condone copyright violations or anything, there were some less-than-scrupulous people that I knew in college that would chip in $10 to one guy that would go to the bookstore, buy a textbook, scan every single page in, save it as a PDF, return the book, then give a copy of the book to anyone that paid him. If you weren't in the "Pre-pay" group, it would cost you $20 for a copy of the PDF. Apparently it was a pretty daunting task requiring 8-12 hours for some books (including beer and bathroom breaks, of course. That being said, it should be more than obvious that if someone is willing to put in that much time to avoid paying $100-$300 for a book that will possibly see little to no use, there's a big problem in the bookstore system.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-collegebooks2506nov25,0,954603.story
Not that I condone copyright violations or anything, there were some less-than-scrupulous people that I knew in college that would chip in $10 to one guy that would go to the bookstore, buy a textbook, scan every single page in, save it as a PDF, return the book, then give a copy of the book to anyone that paid him. If you weren't in the "Pre-pay" group, it would cost you $20 for a copy of the PDF. Apparently it was a pretty daunting task requiring 8-12 hours for some books (including beer and bathroom breaks, of course. That being said, it should be more than obvious that if someone is willing to put in that much time to avoid paying $100-$300 for a book that will possibly see little to no use, there's a big problem in the bookstore system.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
An open letter to the suits at NASCAR
Some people are reporting dramatically decreased attendance at NASCAR races for the 2007 season. Of course the NASCAR P.R. people will be out in force trying to distract or confuse everyone about this fact, one can't deny that the series is getting even more boring as time goes on. I'm not talking about to the people that see NASCAR as a bunch of rednecks driving in circles, I'm talking about to the people that, in past seasons have watched every race and attended more than one, are now not even watching the races when NOTHING else is on.
The high that NASCAR has been riding on for the last few years as they increased the fan base was bound to eventually stop, if not come crashing down. As former fans find other interests or move to the more interesting, versatile, and exciting open wheel series (Formula 1, Champ Car, IRL), NASCAR needs to make some changes over the next few years that will slowly but dramatically change the series to attract new fans. Here are a few places to start:
1) There are too many races in a season. Most tracks don't warrant a second race (some don't even deserve a single race). Having a race almost ever single weekend takes away from the uniqueness of a race. F1, Champ Car, and IRL have known this for many years and restrict their seasons to around 15 races a year. Each race is a special event every season instead of a repeat of something that happened a few weeks ago.
2) Drivers should not be able to score points in both the Nextel Cup and Busch series. The Busch series is designed to hone the driving skills of up-and-coming drivers, not a 250 mile practice run for the big race the next day. The top drivers from the Busch series are almost always drivers that have been in Winston/Nextel Cup for years. Let them race, but they aren't given any final position in the race standings and they don't score points.
3) Reduce the maximum number of cars per team to two. Team owners like Roush can participate in new teams by providing engines, chassis, and technical support, but cannot be more than 25% direct financial partners. This would encourage new startup teams by still allowing Jack Roush to receive testing and race data while decreasing the cost of owning and operating a race team.
4) Fewer cautions!!! Don't throw a caution for every piece of debris or spin. If a driver spins without hitting anything, there's no reason to stop the race!! The races are already too long (see my next comment), cautions only drag out the races to four hours or more. It also encourages the drivers to throw out a water bottle if they are in trouble and need a pit stop. If there is debris on the course, throw a yellow, get the debris, and start the race again. If someone wants to pit, they might be caught by the green flag.
5) The races are too long. Some races can stay at 500 miles like Daytona and Bristol, but cut the rest of them to below 300 miles. In fact, the races should be kept under 2.5 hours from Green to Checker with some allowance for a lot of cautions (see previous comment) or a red flag for a bad accident/rain.
6) Increase the diversity of the tracks. California, Texas, Atlanta, Charlotte, even Daytona are cookie cutter tracks. You can argue with me that the banking and length of these tracks are different, but be realistic and admit that they are very similar. With multiple races at a lot of the cookie cutter tracks, it definitely makes for a boring season. In addition to getting rid of most of the duplicate races, replace some of the remaining races with road course races, and possibly a temporary road course in the streets of a city. CASCAR has had quite a few of these, and I can't imagine that you haven't noticed that.
7) Cut down on the number of scoring opportunities in a race. The top 20 cars should be the only ones allowed to score a point with a possible bonus point for pole position. This will keep the barely running cars off the track and, combined with a dramatically reduced season, make every point that much more valuable.
Well, that's my 2 cents. I'm sure there are a lot more things that can happen to maybe make the series worth watching, but this is a start.
The high that NASCAR has been riding on for the last few years as they increased the fan base was bound to eventually stop, if not come crashing down. As former fans find other interests or move to the more interesting, versatile, and exciting open wheel series (Formula 1, Champ Car, IRL), NASCAR needs to make some changes over the next few years that will slowly but dramatically change the series to attract new fans. Here are a few places to start:
1) There are too many races in a season. Most tracks don't warrant a second race (some don't even deserve a single race). Having a race almost ever single weekend takes away from the uniqueness of a race. F1, Champ Car, and IRL have known this for many years and restrict their seasons to around 15 races a year. Each race is a special event every season instead of a repeat of something that happened a few weeks ago.
2) Drivers should not be able to score points in both the Nextel Cup and Busch series. The Busch series is designed to hone the driving skills of up-and-coming drivers, not a 250 mile practice run for the big race the next day. The top drivers from the Busch series are almost always drivers that have been in Winston/Nextel Cup for years. Let them race, but they aren't given any final position in the race standings and they don't score points.
3) Reduce the maximum number of cars per team to two. Team owners like Roush can participate in new teams by providing engines, chassis, and technical support, but cannot be more than 25% direct financial partners. This would encourage new startup teams by still allowing Jack Roush to receive testing and race data while decreasing the cost of owning and operating a race team.
4) Fewer cautions!!! Don't throw a caution for every piece of debris or spin. If a driver spins without hitting anything, there's no reason to stop the race!! The races are already too long (see my next comment), cautions only drag out the races to four hours or more. It also encourages the drivers to throw out a water bottle if they are in trouble and need a pit stop. If there is debris on the course, throw a yellow, get the debris, and start the race again. If someone wants to pit, they might be caught by the green flag.
5) The races are too long. Some races can stay at 500 miles like Daytona and Bristol, but cut the rest of them to below 300 miles. In fact, the races should be kept under 2.5 hours from Green to Checker with some allowance for a lot of cautions (see previous comment) or a red flag for a bad accident/rain.
6) Increase the diversity of the tracks. California, Texas, Atlanta, Charlotte, even Daytona are cookie cutter tracks. You can argue with me that the banking and length of these tracks are different, but be realistic and admit that they are very similar. With multiple races at a lot of the cookie cutter tracks, it definitely makes for a boring season. In addition to getting rid of most of the duplicate races, replace some of the remaining races with road course races, and possibly a temporary road course in the streets of a city. CASCAR has had quite a few of these, and I can't imagine that you haven't noticed that.
7) Cut down on the number of scoring opportunities in a race. The top 20 cars should be the only ones allowed to score a point with a possible bonus point for pole position. This will keep the barely running cars off the track and, combined with a dramatically reduced season, make every point that much more valuable.
Well, that's my 2 cents. I'm sure there are a lot more things that can happen to maybe make the series worth watching, but this is a start.
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