Digital TV

Did you know the powers that be are going to cut off normal analog TV all together on or about February 17, 2009? Well, I've been watching TV prices over the last couple of months. I noticed TVs without a digital tuner are plummeting  in price and have a warning that specifically says they do not do DTV.

I called my dad last night and asked if he would run Nat and I over to Sam's Club to get some shelves for the garage. He said yes. We really need the shelves. The garage is straight out of Sanford and Son. So, we got the shelves. Then we got some kitty litter. We were wheeling around the cart with three hundred pounds of merchandise.

My dad says "Lets go look at TVs." he has been talking about buying a TV. He wants something about 45 inches or so. I like the TVs on the middle isle. They are Vizio brand. I've heard of them. I think they are one of the rebranded TV, but I don't really care. I'm sure it is not the top of the line. I'm sure it has all the bells and whistles I'll need. It has a million plugs including the one for a computer monitor. It will do more than we need.

My father decides it for us. What a guy. I mean couches, a bed and now this. All in the same year. It is the exact TV I planned on getting when we had the money. It may not have been the same TV because you can't always catch the sales at Sam's Club.

So, we now have the x.1 channels. Nat just said she has never seen TV as clear as on that new TV. We don't even have cable and there are like 40 channels to flip through. We went from eight to forty. How cool is that?
We have Jurassic Park II playing on Fox at the moment.

Observations

• I have noticed that the disparity between the sound of the show and the sound of the commercial is even worse on DTV. I mean by like double. It only encourages us to mute the commercials more than ever.
  
• I cant even tell if we are receive any HD channels, but the digital ones sure look good.
• Even the Simpsons looks better.
• The TV is lighter than our old tube TV.
• The menu system is not half bad. It took me three minutes to program all the channels.
  
• We need a better antenna. Big time.
• There was a beautiful sunset tonight. Not on the TV.
• There was a beautiful rainbow the other way from the sunset. Also not on the TV.

Well, I'm off to surf all my new channels. Wish me luck.

Update: forgot the couches.

Random Coolness

This is just some random cool thing I found while roaming the net. I think it is much better than all the crazy door designs used by some super car designers. I would try to figure out a better way to get the window to work. That's just me.

Theme of the weekend

Rape ... kill ... pillage and burn. Rape-kill-pillage-'n-burn. Eat the babies!

Rape ... kill ... pillage and burn. Rape-kill-pillage-'n-burn. Eat the babies!

Rape ... kill ... pillage and burn. Rape-kill-pillage-'n-burn. Eat the babies!

Befitting bumper stickers

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

Therapy is expensive. Popping bubble wrap is cheap Your choice.

The Witch of the West was framed.

Things haven't been the same since that house fell on my sister.

Isis - Isis - Ra! Ra! Ra!

Get a taste of Religion, lick a witch.

Remember ... Pillage first, then burn.

Why do psychics have to ask for your name?

Ahhh... I see the Screwup Fairy has visited us again.

Your village called.. The Idiot is missing.

I think we met in a past life and I was a witch then too.

xnczbvjxhasd

I typed that in from frustration and it didn't come back to anything. Now, maybe someone will find something when they get frustrated and at least know they are not alone.

Thought

The only reason I have not achieved ultimate good or evil is because it hasn't dropped in my lap. I picture myself in the back yard on any Saturday or Wednesday night. I hold up my hand and a parade of flattened cars floats past. Their drivers rendered slow for all time. They will know only the passing of time and slow evenings by the window watching other people get on with their lives. I do not have the power. I would use it if I did.

Friday the Thirteenth continued

Did I say Friday the thirteenth had gone well?

So, I get off work early. Nat and I hop in the car and head out to Tony and Chrystol's place for a party that we have been looking forward to for weeks. They are way up 45 some place. We get to the last gas station about two or three miles as the crow flies from their place. I give Chrystol a call to find out if we should grab anything.

The party was canceled days ago. No one told us. W turned around and came home. I think the round trip is two hours and a hundred miles.  I did the google map thing once.

If that is the worse of Friday the thirteenth, we are getting off easy.

Test Intro

Just after the moment, I was stunned having flipped on the way down. I was on the ground, hitting hard. When my eyes opened, before the pain, I had that moment we call eye contact with something in front of me. it was someone's eye lying on the ground. As the pain entered my life, I realized the only person who was near me had died in the explosion. She was the only thing that made me whole. She was the only person who was worth living for. She was the only woman worth being a good man.

I writhed in agony on the ground and spat a curs. Those who killed us, those who made the pain of a broken body and the loss of life's love come, would pay. In this instant my life pivoted on an axis. No moment mattered before or after. I had become the man who would rend nations. I had become the man who would commit religions to history. I had become the man who would change the design and purpose of the species. Not for good. Not just because I can. But, all in the name of vengeance and despair.

Friday the Thirteenth

Nothing special to report so far.

Parking Garage

I walk around the parking garage at lunch and mumble to myself. I also take some pictures now and then. I caught these today.

There is some company up on 12 that draws rich business folks. I think most of them are Argentinian. Click the images for a larger shot.

If I were King

No, I think not.

• You do not want me to have my finger on the button. I would drop the hammer on America's enemies. I would go on TV and laugh at their pain and make them admit they have lost before helping the ragged survivors. Be they hiding behind the skirts of our friends, then those are not our friends.
• You don't want me making the rules for immigration. I would throw people out of this country who do not deserver to be here. I would round people up and put them in work camps until their back taxes are paid off. Then deport them. They would not be aloud to leave until they had ratted on their employers.
• You don't want me to make the rules for employment. No one, and I mean no one would have an excuse to not work. If you are not qualified to do anything useful, then your job would be to help take care of someone who is truly unable to work. You would help them to work. If you are not in a coma, you can do something. If you are not in a coma, you can help take care of someone who is.

I would be the worse King the U. S. ever had. But damn it! I wish I could do something about the problems we have. The world is growing and maturing all around us. No one needs the mighty U. S. economy to guide the financial well being of the planet any more. People in South Korea enjoy the highest percentage of internet connectivity in the world. OPEC wants to stop using U. S. dollars as the basis for pricing oil. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has their own stock exchange.

The U. S. is not in decline. The rest of the world is catching up.

Podcasts

I need to list out some of the better podcasts I have found. I like news. I go for the BBC news feeds. I have some NPR feeds, but I have a hard time listening to NPR for long periods of time because they are liberal pansies. I do like the Writer's Almanac, and The something of our Ingenuity. I still miss just listening to Five Live live feed. They have a bunch of back and forth that I miss. I may try to figure out how to record the live feed and bring it in the next day.

Worrying

I have a bunch of friends who either are now or will soon be cops. This kind of thing worries me. I know it happens all the time. Never become complacent.

Python, wxWidgets, C, and C++

So, I finally get the wxPython crap working. I write a little demo program in it and start learning. Just in time to.get told by my boss "Oh, we don't need anything in Python, it all needs to be in C." I know dick about C. I took a class a long time ago. I can do a bit in a pinch. I will be slow on the up take in the beginning. I've got my two C++ books that I'm taking to work tomorrow. I have the basic hello world for wxWidgets working in C. I just need to wrap my head around things again.

I like Python. I hate how frigging hard it is to do the simplest things in C. Move a piece of data, no no. You need to point to the piece of data in memory and move the pinter around. Sort some data, no no. You point to the pointers that point to the data and then sort those in stead. It all makes about that much sense.

Communication sometimes bad

I'm listening to the BBC interview the guy who "toughened up" the report that Blare went to parliament that justified the war effort for Iraq. It taught me something. When you have separate investigative bodies that do not always get along and do not always cooperate with each other, you can bet that the information they come up with will not always agree. You can then compare the information and the degree and depth of difference will speak volumes. The different possibly competing motivations and resources will produce different results and prevent any one entity (Homeland Security for example) from obtaining too much control of the ears and eyes of the president or congress.

So, the whole idea of getting better communication between police forces may have a fundamental flaw. Our government has a balance of branches. Executive may have to be split giving us four branches. It should be split in to Enforcement and Surveillance. We should not PC the new names. They should be called something scary so people keep an eye on them.

Executive Decision

I'm starting to understand how colossal cluster SNAFUs happen in big business. When I was at my old job in the huge corporation, I never felt part of what actually ended up on the ground at a plant. I was many layers removed from everything. At my current job, I have found myself making decisions based purely on my own experience and not bothering any one else with the details.  it is really annoying when other people do this and end up screwing up something I put so magnificently put together. It is bad for others to have to fix your code. There is a point though where it becomes a direction change and not a fix. I'm not there yet.

It is a constant battle trying to decide what to do with things. How should an error message look? At what point do you abort something? What should the name of a file that everyone including customers will see? Just How much information should go in the name of an RPM file? How much testing is really necessary for an in-house program? There are a million of them. There is no comity to present to. I ask people's opinion and get "Whatever!" more often than not.

I wrote this last Friday. I'm only now putting it up due to extreme laziness

Security Terms

It creeps me out that so many officials are now referring to the U. S. as "The Homeland". It just reminds me of "The Fatherland" from pre-WWII Germany. This comes from the office of homeland security. Someone should have come up with a better name for that governmental over-lord-sight group.

Podcasting

Well, It kind of works. I had to use gpodder. It was the only thing available on yum and I was completely out of gas when I trid to get things working. There is a reason for being out of gas. I have a thing going on at work that is killing me. It is trying to get wxWidgets working on RHEL4. Someone else at the office got it to work with ease. Of course, he is a genius. I'm about to just say forget it and install a whole different operating system on the computer just to get wxWidgets working.

I'm so happy I got the podcasting stuff even kind of working. I missed my BBC terribly. I have felt out of touch for the last year. I wish five live would just record several hours of the live show and simply make it available as best as possible. I wish normal internet radio stations did the same thing. Music would end up being much larger, but USB drives are cheap these days.

One problem I'm running in to is that a bunch of the podcasting community has gone to video and didn't inform me. I'm not sure I can get MP4 files to work on Linux. I'm sure there is something via hook or crook that I can find.

Rough couple of computer days

I jotted down some notes about how bad my computer related day had been going. I shouldn't bother listing them, but it has kept me from blogging because I want to wine about my problems. You don't have to read it.

I bought a bunch of DVD-R disks. The last time I bought a bunch of DVD+R disks I found out that my drive doesn't support DVD+R disks at full speed. So, I bought DVD-R disks this time. I can't get them to work. I now have a spindle of coasters.

At work, I have an assignment that requires wxPython. ... I can't get it to work. Anywhere. Let me check my home computer. ... No. Similar problems.

I give up. I'm going to spend the rest of the day watching what Top-Gear episodes I have left. I'm going to wine and cry for help tomorrow at work.

Islamic Supremacist

was listening to a BBC interview today (actually a podcast from earlier this week) where a couple of people meant very different things by the word Islamist. One meant any one who studied the religion of Islam and the other meant those who believe the whole world should be ruled by the Mullahs and Sharia law. They were speaking to each other on different levels. The ironic thing is the mayor of London sounded like he was talking about Islamic students and the guy who was from some Muslim group said Islamist like it was a curs word.

It's getting to the point I don't know what to call the people I hate any more. How about Islamic Supremacists. I like the ring of that. I don't mind people trying to further their religious ends, but leave me and my family, and my culture out of it, thank you.

Just who is trying to kill me and my family anyway? It is not the folks who are living in squaller in some third world desert. It is not the guy up the street worried how to make ends meet this month, like myself. It is someone who believes in their heart and with all their soul that their way of thinking and believing is better than any one who does not agree.

People in pre-WWII Germany were just living their lives and trying to make things work. They were only one generation away from having lost a war. Then comes a bunch of war heroes who insist things could be better if every one just looked and acted the same. I've always wondered why people would agree to kill off their neighbors. I think I'm closer to comprehending the Nazi appeal. Notice I didn't say 'understand'. The word 'understand' implies some kind of sympathy. I have none for what happened back then. It wasn't that people wanted to kill their neighbors. It was that they wanted things to get better and needed a reason to make drastic changes all at once. Having an ethnic group to blame everything on was just convenient.

I'm not excusing it. This realization makes me fear things that people say and do today. it won't be that long before a major country in what we call Western Europe today will vote in a government that leans heavily toward laws that sound like Sharia. People will quietly move away who do not want that kind of rule. Then, when the majority is firm, the democracy will fall to the Mullahs without a shot being fired. I bet this will happen in my life time.

I don't have any solution. I just think people should read the news and keep up to date on who hates whom and who is actually doing something about it. Who says "stop" and who says nothing at all.

Headline Effect

Some headlines make you cringe. This one gave me a shutter. A whole group of people died from methane.

5 die in dairy farm manure pit ... Authorities said Showalter entered a manure pit to unclog a pipe Monday evening and was quickly overcome by the methane. Stoltzfus, apparently believing Showalter had a heart attack, went in after him and also passed out. Another farm worker alerted Showalter's wife, who rushed to the pit followed by Shayla and Christina. "They all climbed into the pit to help," Sheriff Donald Farley said. The victims had no warning of the deadly gas that had built up in the pit. "You cannot smell it, you cannot see it, but it's an instant kill," said Dan Brubaker, a family friend who oversaw the construction of the pit decades earlier. CNN

From yesterday

Trivia

Answer is: 300,000 kilometers per second.

What's the question?

I will not bother to tell what the question is if no one besides my mother hazards a guess.

One bump, One lesson

So I call home today and Nat says "Elle just came in here and said 'Mommy, I bumped my head!'" Nat doesn't sound happy about it and continues "So I asked her - What were you doing when you bumped your head?" Apparently, Elle had not thought this far ahead because she ran away as the phone rang in stead of giving Nat an answer. I still don't know.

The lesson here is that even a mother's love may come with difficult questions. That's a good thing really. It might keep Elle from doing some stupid shit later in life. We shall see.

Podcast

So, I tried a program called gpodder yesterday. It didn't work. First, it downloaded MP3s OK, but it put them in this cryptic name format so you couldn't tell what had downloaded. Then, it refused to "synchronize"  it kept bitching that I needed to set up my drive. I set up my frigging drive, copy the damn files ... and give them the right frigging name while you are at it. Nope. Just a never ending circle of errors. I looked up the version and it turns out the gpodder on the Fedora yum repository is out dated. I ended up uninstlling it. I'll try something else today or tomorrow.

I miss my five-live. I used to listen to the BBC at work. That was one thing that was cool about my old job. BBC and internet radio.  They just seem to know how to present to people better in the UK. Radio in the States has gone to shit in a bad way. It's gotten to the point I can't listen to the radio. They have go to be doing it on purpose. The government wants those frequencies for other stuff. They are running listeners off to satellite or the internet. I just know it.

I bet I can get podcasts of all kinds of cool stuff. I know other news places have them available in both audio and video. I'm only interested in the audio stuff right now. I don't have internet at work, but I think I can get the podcast stuff to work. There isn't that much to it. As long as the software saves the files in a sane manor I'll figure things out. I've met some people who do podcasting stuff. It can't be that hard. Even on Linux.

...

Well, I'm trying Liferea tonight and I'm getting nowhere. It won't download anything. They have complex way of downloading frigging files. Just wget the files and stick them somewhere I can lay my mouse on them. That is apparently too much to ask.

ATV

I forgot to mention that this past weekend was the first time I ever road an ATV. I did ride a three wheeler when I was a kid, but I don't think I ever soloed. It was fun. It is amazing how quickly you make it around the property on one of those thins. The ranch seems small when a flick of the thumb takes you to 40 mph. All I did was putt around the driveway for ten minutes or so. It was still memorable to me. Now I'm trying to think of a way to mount a video camera one of those things to get some cool footage.

Phil had a great time riding the Yamaha two stroke around. You can barely get that thing out of second before you run out of pasture. Someone mentioned it will do ninety, but left off the details. They also have a two stroke dirt bike. The dirt bike is far more nimble than the ATVs. The Polaris I road has racks and a trailer hook up. You can get some work done with it. I know now that an ATV is really useful on a big plot of land and not just a toy. Well, it's both.

Camera stuff

I need to figure out a way to mount my video camera securely to my head or upper torso. When I walk around or ride a bike, I would love to have the camera going. It would have been great during the ATV ride this weekend. I suppose I could just use duct tape, but that might mix with sweat and turning me into a super villein.

I've been in a mood lately where I don't want to mess with pictures. It has been building for a while. I'm not sure if I have anything against the pictures, or if I'm just being lazy. It's gotten to where I don't want to mess with putting them on the net, so I don't take them. I need to get over it. I miss not having pictures or video of this weekend. Hopefully I can force myself to take the equipment next time.

Fourth celebration

We have plans to celebrate the Fourth this year with some coworkers of mine. They are more than coworkers. They are friends. It is in towns and should be a ball.

Last night we went over to Tony and Diz's place. I have to say it was a ball and a half. I drove a four wheeler around for a minute. It was a Polaris automatic. I set off a bunch of bottle rockets and hit someone in the face. Apparently one is to let go when the rockets fires. Who knew? We had a bonfire of brush and limbs.

I didn't take my camera because I thought it might be raining. I should have. The one picture I regret not getting was a tripod shot of the moon beams coming through the trees. The driveways out there have the coolest effect of moonlight as you walk down them. I bet I could have taken some pretty cool shots.

I had a ball.

Note: I could only find videos of people doing 100 mph on ATVs or jumping things.

Alternative fuel

Not every one is a blithering imbecile. Someone at Rice University, in Houston by the way, came up with a way to better utilize a byproduct of making biodiesel. Glycerin is highly caustic. Remember, nitroglycerin is highly explosive. Well someone put two and two together to come up with a use for it as ethanol for another alternative fuel. Someone was paying attention in class.

Rice has always had a place in my hear. They were the first institution of higher learning to turn me down.

MS-13 Mistrial

As one juror broke down in sobs and two others started to cry, state District Judge Devon Anderson declared a mistrial Friday in the Ashley Benton murder trial, saying the jury had been deadlocked for six hours. Anderson set a hearing in two weeks to determine how to proceed against Benton in the killing of a rival gang's leader. Both sides said they will evaluate their positions. The case could be retried or a plea deal may be struck. Houston Chronicle

I cannot believe this chick is going to get less than murder. She went to a gang fight with a knife. What the hell did she think was supposed to happen?

Is six hours all it takes to be deadlocked these days? Who the hell was on the jury? I'm sure the one who sobbed was a mother. This is the problem with having a diverse society. Pretty teenage murderers get off for no good reason. Let's hear the story of how she got in the gang. Did she have to commit a crime or have sex with people in the gang? Sometimes pretty rubs right off.

4x4 on the street

The other day I was waiting for Nat to pick me up at work and I noticed three huge diesel 4x4 pickups roll by. They were just lumbering through the city and each appeared to only have one occupant. I could feel the curvature of the Earth shift. How they didn't sink in to the concrete ... That heavy of a truck is all but useless as a 4x4 anyway. I have a buddy who put huge balloon tires on one and he can actual drive it on the grass without instantly sinking to the frame. If you have normal street tires you will get stuck in wet grass. I've seen it done. All four tires spinning. The grass was only deep as the tire. Everyone thought the driver found some mud, but no. The truck was simply spinning it's wheels on grass. ... Useless.

God, they are cool though.

Corporate Orgy Planner

Now, that's a job title I want on my resume. it all stems from an NPR story this morning about a book I believe was called working from IX to V. It's about jobs of ancient Rome and maybe some other places. Well, the first orgy planners were priests. Go figure.

Small Talk

Lunch Conversation

• How much the rap phenomena was like 1970 country.
• Bling, Country was all about dope, money and broads in the 1970's. Modern hip-hop is pretty much the same.
  
• Lyrics: The lyrics are all about dope, money and broads.
• They typically mention their own name in their music so you remember who you are listening to because all the songs sound the same.
• Liberal sprinkling of the "N" word.
• Video game rubbish.
• Soccer tonight and the chances of rain.
  

Weekend

I called my mom. I like calling her because she is always happy to hear from me. They are headed to a huge flea market this weekend. Sounds like one of those things I would have hated as a kid. I have no idea what Nat and I are up to this weekend. Elle has some party to go to. That should be interesting. I might end up with some pictures out of it.

Weather

What's up with the weather lately? I remember complaining that it rained every day at 3:00 when I walked out of work for the haul to the bus. Now, it is pretty much the same thing at 6:00. It didn't follow me. It is just sunny then rainy then sunny then rainy again all day. I thought it was supposed to be nice last weekend. It wasn't really. I've heard the weather will be yucky over the Fourth holiday. Great. I hope I heard wrong. As I type, there is thunder rolling around outside my window. Yet, the sun is shining in.

Thunderbird

The email program I use at work is called Thunderbird. It sucks. It goes away every time you try to delete a bullet. Pain in the ass because half the emails I send around at work have some sort of bulleted list in them. I'm afraid to upgrade because it is Linux and thing fall apart if you don't do it right. They do in Windows too, but no one seems to care about that.

Aquatic Smart Car

Category: Dunk  Talk

I've had it in my head about modifying a Smart Car so that it floats and runs on water as well as land. Ever since I saw the episode of Top Gear where the guys made old heaps float, I've thought "You should use something small and light like a Smart Car." Well, I cannot get it o of my head. It would work I tell you.

The car is already plastic. Rig up a pan on the bottom and seal it. Use the guts from a Jet-ski. I bet you wouldn't even need to use the engine from the jet-ski. Those things are modular from what I've seen. The hard part would be making the controls and other stuff go through the water tight bits to the water. That is the challenge on all water craft.

(See what I mean about drunk talk?)

Programmers vs. Users (prerequisites)

Category: Venting

Programmers HATE the idea of prerequisite packages. That is when building a software package or an RPM, when a message pops up that says another package is required. This is wonderful. It keeps the bare minimum number of prerequisites for a given package. I'm just surprised how strongly programmers try to avoid them. That is a good thing too. It does help me understand why I have to do so much work to get things to work from a user point of view. On Windows, most packages include what they need. This leads to DLL hell.  In open source, you are not really aloud to include other folks stuff unless you comply with all kinds of rules so they don't. The user has to track shit down and make it work. Good for programmers. Bad for customers. Well, not so much bad as annoying.

Which is better? Well, It depends on who you are. They are both good and bad. Users buy software. If it is annoying, they will find alternatives. Programmers, well, are programmers. They want things to work. Every other decision we make is to eliminate users having to call us for support. that is a good thing for both users and programmers. Sacrifices are made in the design. Alternatives like etching your data on a clay tablet, start to look better.

You get the dilemma? I'm bad at explaining this stuff. I'll give up before I explain my way into a corner.

Blogging Stuff

Nat said I left a bunch of stuff out of the Smart Car post from yesterday. She said I left out the bit that she would like the car as a run-about during the day while Elle is in school and that sort of thing. I stick to the fact that it can't hold the family so there would come times that she would have to run home and get the other car when she could have just swept by and got us on the way home from her errands. That point kind of fell through.

I'm lucky in one way, I know for a fact that my boss reads my blog. I am not tempted to say anything bad about him (here). He is an old friend of mine so if I had anything to say, I could catch him outside of work if need be and bring it up. Our friendship would survive most crap. It has so far anyway.

I could probably think of other stuff. My blog serves the following purposes in my life.

• Vent (bitch and moan).
  I need an outlet to say some of the things that I cannot say to people's faces. There are times it isn't a a person. I might be mad at God or tired of the world and I just want to stand on top of a mountain and shout at the whole place at once.
  
• Other outlet.
  I'm not sure how to explain it, but this blog satisfies my creative need for the most part. I put pictures and thoughts up here. I sometimes get stories stuck in my head and put them here to get them out. Expect something about an aquatic Smart Car soon. Ever since I saw the aquatic Top Gear It has stuck in my head about building a home made Perfect Houston Car, an aquatic Smart Car.
• Drunk talk.
  You know what I mean. Where you have a few drinks and cook up some goofy idea and people build on it. How many space stations or cures for cancer have been built in people's minds while having the drunk conversation that never got recorded? Well, people think up that goofy stuff and only feel confident enough to talk about it while getting smashed among fiends. I do it here, because I don't drink much.
• Spark conversation.
  Nothing puts a smile on my face like blogging something that we spoke about somewhere or, even better, someone mentions that they saw something on my blog and we end up talking about it. That is a kick.
  
• Remember things over the long term.
  I've blogged about things that I know I'll need to know about in the future. These are usually computer related and I have a feeling that I'll need the same info again someday. This is a bad use of a blog really.
  
• Tell people about me.
  "How far can you see?"
  
• Help people keep up with what is going on in my life.
  I am paranoid about blogging events before they happen because someone might use the info to rob my house or something. Blogging after the fact is OK. Besides, what else is a blog for?
• Leave a legacy.
  Not that it is a wonderful legacy. It is nice knowing the information here has a chance of out lasting me. Maybe after I'm dead, I'll get some hits. =]
  

Everything on this blog is filtered through my prospective. I make plenty of excuses, but that is just the way it is. I do not let any one else put in their two cents unless in a quote, hearsay or a comment. I've been thinking of killing the comments because of all the spam that goes on. I haven't been hit too many times, but once is enough to piss you off.

My first post started with "So, why a blog?" I've had some time to work out the details.

Quick pic from a couple of days ago

Smart Car

Nat and I pulled past our first Smart Car this morning on our way in. It was gray. I thought the whole point to a Smart Car is that they were hip and a bit outrageous. It seemed to be rolling along just fine. There are better ways to get 50 mpg. They are light, easy to park, good economy, and they are pretty cheap to begin with. They are little icy-tincy cars though. People worry about getting in wrecks with them. They are actually not that bad in a crash. Smart Cars are not highly rated though. There are worse new cars you could be caught dead in - so to speak.

Smart cars are all over Europe. They were featured in two movies that I remember lately. The remake of The Pink Panther, and The Da Vinci  Code. One of which had a car chase in a Smart.

I found out today they make a convertible. I thought it was a death trap before. Nat said she would like one for running around town. It will be fine when Elle is at collage, but there is no room for a child seat. I believe it has air-bags too. They are worth a look for sure.

Why do engineers like the Smart? Because there is plenty of room for improvement.

Screen Saver

I mentioned that I switched to the XScreensaver a couple of days ago. I wanted the one minute delay on the screen lock. There is one annoying feature of this screen saver. When you type in the wrong password, it says "Sorry" after not letting you in. That bugs me. I was the one who typed in the wrong password. The computer didn't do anything wrong. It should say "are you sure you are who you think you are?" or something like that.

Also, I felt a strange sense of accomplishment after making the screen saver work. It was nothing really. I should have done it a long time ago if it made me feel that much better about my computer. The one feature I wanted, I don't even use that often. Oh, well. I'll take it.

Toyota Prius

Rubbish! A good small diesel does better on economy. This is something I've heard elsewhere. Nat said she wanted to go do a test drive of a hybrid car. I don't mind that a bit. It really sucks that we have no diesel option for smaller vehicles in this country. They are a great idea. They have a few rankles to iron out yet.

We'll wait.

Dream

I've dreamed of taking a lap around the track on Top Gear. Well, it's been done. The bloke taking the plunge was blinded in military service to Great Briton. He beat some sighted folks. He did it with audible help from the host. The help wasn't that much. It reminds me of the 'navigator' in the passenger seat of a rally car.

Well done.

MPG

I think we should get better gas mileage in our Corolla. I did the math recently with Nat's help and it comes out to about 33 mpg. That is real rubber on the road numbers. Toyota claims it was supposed to get 41 (stick) or 38 (automatic) in normal driving. Where are they driving the cars they test anyway? I suspect that other five miles per gallon goes for air conditioning and sitting in fast food queues. It upsets me that the numbers are so far off.

I have to say, so far the car has been high quality. Nat and I both want a larger vehicle. It is going to be a while before we can afford one. I do not look forward to spending even more money on gas. We have cheap gas in this country relatively speaking. That doesn't make it any easier to pay the bill every month. I will insist on sticking with Toyota for the next vehicle. Even if it means sacrificing features or economy. I'm addicted to a vehicle that runs when you turn the key. Since I cannot go 'save' Nat when something goes wrong, I want to make sure as little goes wrong as I can.

The Math

Nat took down some numbers at a fill-up. I believe the car was at a quarter of a tank when this was taken.

Given

• 335 miles
• 2.83.9 per gallon
• $29.01 cost
• (10.2 gallons)

Calculation

• 32.8 mpg (roughly)

Party pictures

Nat is off at a multi day party in Galveston. She took a few pictures with her phone. I have them here.

That last row is a cake. Julie's husband Don did a wonderful job.

Screensaver

I bothered to change the software on my home machine (the one I'm typing on now) for one little feature. Normally, I use only the blank screen, screen saver. The screen saver I came off of is the gnome-screensaver. Competent, but lacking in the one feature I wanted. The XScreensaver seems to have all the same screen saver modes, but less choppy animation. It also has the one feature I wanted.

The one feature was a one minute delay between the screen saver kicking in and the computer requiring a password to clear. I had it with the screen saver kicking in and I had to type in my password to view the rest of my TV show. I've found myself watching TV on my computer more than on the box itself.

Little Things of the Day

• I noticed three old yellow Jeeps on the way in this morning. I noticed Some kind of yellow Hummer, the military kind, as well.
  
• Cindy Lopper is 54 today (Fifty-freaking-Four!!!!)
• 311 does not cover where I live.
• I'm missing a friend's wedding because I have to work and because I cannot drive.

Work Related Note

I do not miss the old job. I miss being the genius. At my old job, I was brilliant. Every one came to me with computer issues and I was able to fix things left and right. I was a go to guy. Now, I'm not a go to guy any more. I have gotten much better since I started this job. The people here are all brilliant. They are all capable. They are all excellent at what they do. At least, as far as I can tell.

At my old job, I was a cog in a huge machine. Here I'm a cog in a small efficient machine. There was a lot of waist at the old job. There were people who found their niche and just stagnated. At the new job, people are robust. I struggle to keep up. That's a good thing.I like the challenge. I worry I will satisfy the company's needs.

I have a buddy I've known for years who works here. He runs the DnD game most of the time. I always wondered how he did such a stressful job and still did all the stuff he managed to do in his home life. Now, I'm completely lost. I envy his balance.

This morning I thought I found a problem with one of our software packages. No biggie, that's why I'm here. I wrote up the bug and put it out on the bug reporting tool. Two minutes later someone replied "You are using the wrong variable." and showed me what I had done. I knew the moment I read that line that this was a case of creeping-dumbass. That is where an otherwise capable person makes a rookie mistake because they are too busy paying attention to everything else that's going on. It is a symptom of multitasking. The only cure I'm aware of is to slow down, focus on one thing at a time and make sure you complete tasks in stead of leaving things hang.

Half a hike

So, the tole road people hiked prices by $0.25 across the board. Then they hiked one tole road by double. Now they pulled the one tole road hike back. The $0.25 hike is still in effect. Sounds like a great way to distract people from remembering the across the board hike if you ask me. Reminds me of the temporary tax conundrum.

Yoda on the Desktop

This is the only perk for working at Blockbuster. He had to move it from his apartment to his parent's place because it was freaking him out every time he walked past it. Pretty cool in my book.

Shame on me

So, something interesting happened to me this morning on the way to work. It was out of the ordinary. It was kind of a pain in the ass, but not too threatening immediately. There was a stripped car abandon practically in front of my house. It was just a few meters toward Westheimer right in the middle of the road. I called Harris county and reported it. There was no engine or seats. The front clip had been taken. I explained to the lady on the other end that thieves take the engines out of Auras and put them in small Honda Civics. I have a friend with a similar car so it kind of hits close to home. One other thing about the car that worried me where the wheels. Whomever stripped it bothered to put some small crappy wheels on it. That means they either towed it there or pushed it. That means it was probably stripped in the shitty neighborhood I live in.

So, why shame on me? I didn't take a picture. What was I thinking? I had two cameras on me and I just walked off mumbling to myself about the shitty neighborhood I live in. It would have been a great time to use the phone camera if nothing else. I'm getting old.

This isn't the first time I've done this sort of thing on my morning commute. I have a history of warring blinders during my morning routine. I could walk past a flock of two headed terradacty. and not notice much less take a picture.

Frigging NPR

So NPR finally decides to cover the political blogs. They have a story titled "The liberal conspiracy". They only cover liberal blogs. They tout that the liberal world is beating the conservative world online. They say the liberal blogs are better organized and that they are better at rallying the troops.

I doubt all of that. They didn't mention the radical blogs that daily bash the troops and threaten the standing government of the U. S. with violence. They neglected to mention the out and out support of the U. S. enemies that shows up on so many blogs of all kinds. The trouble with freedom of speech is that most people are full of shit.

I'm not linking to these nut-balls.

Mini-Mag LED

So, I bought Nat a purple Mag light Mini a couple of months ago. She loves it. I also got her an LED converter, but she wasn't in to that. Fine, I dug out my old Mini-Mag and tried it out. I use it every day. There is one problem with this light. It unscrews itself at both ends in my pocket. I just had the batteries and ass end go flying when I pulled it out of my pocket. That is just about the last straw. That is just plane useless. You unscrew the head a bit to turn the light on. I've had a couple of people stop me with "your ass is glowing." How is that not embarrassing? I'm considering finding a different light to carry in my pocket. It hasn't pissed me off yet. It is getting close though.

The LED option for the Mini-Mag is a pretty good option. It is bright enough to work for most flashlight needs, It has enough of a beam and flood effect for up close work and walking around in the dark. It seems plenty tough. It just unscrews itself a bit much for me.

I got up early and mowed the back yard. We are in that summer rain cycle that makes it impossible to come home after work and mow because it just got through pouring down and everything is wet. The grass was still wet from the previous after noon's rain. The grass in the back was too high. I wish I could motivate myself to do it more often. I need to get the blade sharpened on the mower. I need to get all the maintenance done.

We went out to Tony and Christel's place today. I like their place, but they have trouble with things disappearing on their property. I could not abide. It is scary enough that it makes Nat want to get a gun for our house. I have a .45, but that won't due for her to shoot. I'm thinking the old Lady Smith, but in the normal frame model. I can't find the one I'm thinking of. I'll have to ask around at a gun shop. I want something that both of us can use if need be.

The most significant thing that happened today is the endless stream of questions that Elle comes up with. It is really getting on Nat and my nirves. We try to do the whole answer the questions thing, but it just gets old quick. Then Elle spouts one that floored both of us. "How do fish go potty if they don't have butts?"

Just a moment ago, Nat had to round up 25 doodle-bugs that made their way under the back door. We need to get that fixed. We have a friend of ours who will help us. We just need to pull the trigger.

Commute

It rained like mad last night. It was muddy and the grass was wet. You have to remember the grass i waist high in some places. I'm highly considering spraying some herbicide on the bad spots. That just causes mud though. What I would like is a sidewalk. I keep threatening to call 311 and finding out if they cover our territory. I have no idea who to contact about a sidewalk. I figure I'll google it for a start. I plan on writing a couple of letters. I'll play the old bitty card, or the disabled card if need be. I'm certainly not above it.

Commute related weather story

Speaking of rain, Here is the comment of high winds from a friend of mine about last night's storm.

When I got home from the gym at 7:45 last night it looked like a mini-tornado had gone down my street -- LOTS of limbs down.  I had to move 2 out of my driveway to drive in.  Winslow was still hiding in the closet & I had to go in there before he would come out.  I looked around the back yard & all looked well except for one tomato that had turned over.  I walked over to right it and saw the fig tree looked weird...it was leaning on the house.  I thought maybe a limb had broken, but  couldn't move it back enough to see what had happened (it has those big leaves).  So I went back through the house and thought he gate.  It's the entire center part of the tree out of the ground. I looked at it more this morning and am thinking the ground may have gotten too wet. It's about 15 feet tall and heavy (full of figs).  I'm not sure if it can be saved, if I can save it, how much it would cost for someone else to look at it, or what to do. I hate to lose it, but don't want to spend a lot of money to save it. I wonder if that part comes out, if the two side parts will live on or  if they will die off too.  I'm not sure how the root structure is set. our fig tree...

Something that happened on the way to work (commute related)

So, I'm walking to work to get there early this morning when "gigigegegech!", then nothing. My left ear phone quits. Normally, they limp a while and you can bend the wire around to get some play before they completely go out. Not this time. I felt lop sided the whole way in to work.
I was asked at lunch if I wanted to go to Beck's, also known as $10 burger. I declined saying I was going to Target to get a $10 pare of head phones. They seem to work OK. They say Sony on them. I'm sure no one who works for Sony ever touched them.

Fact I heard on my commute

Something I learned today is that Coo-coos are parasitic. That is, they plant their eggs in the nest of another bird and let that bird raise their young. It is still not known how coo-coos find their way to East Africa and to their family group. And, I learned this with one ear tied behind my back, not bad.

Lunch

Written yesterday 2007-06-14

Nat and Elle came by for lunch today. I left  my pack at work because we were coming right back. Elle asks "Where is your backpack?" Nat and I looked at each other and cracked up. It freaks me out because she is that observant.

Frying pan to Fire

Fighters from the Islamic party Hamas claimed full control of Palestinian Authority security agencies in Gaza late Thursday as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved his unity government and declared a state of emergency. ... Abbas adviser Tayeb Abdel Rahim said Hamas was attempting a military coup. By late Thursday, Hamas had seized control of all Palestinian Authority security installations in the territory, Palestinian security sources said. The presidential compound in Gaza City fell shortly before midnight (5 p.m. ET), Hamas sources told CNN. CNN

I have a problem with calling these assholes Islamic Party. They are frigging terrorists. They are just organized and in control of part of a country.

Here is a little survey for you. Which terrorist organization would you rather rule parts of Israel? Hamas, Fatah or the Palestinian Authority? Tough choice.

Home?

I never thought I would own a house where I walk around the last corner on the long, hot walk home and hope the place had burned to the ground while no one was home. I hate this house. I don't like the neighborhood. I don't like the things around the neighborhood (bar across the street). The bog bordering our property. The fish place across the streets stinks to high heaven on hot days. Hell, on cold days too. We paid too much. We are upside down in the house and the car now. I suppose we always will be. I even waited until I cooled off after the walk to write this. I'm still upset.

Stop to soar once in a while

Sometimes when I find myself trying to sleep, I had a hard day or maybe a fight, I lie there and try to think of something else. A friend of mine lost his father recently. That pain wars on me. Then I think of a hawk flying. The eagle is simply floating on the wind. His feathers flutter at the tips in the changing currents. The hawk doesn't pay any attention to the space. The hawk only has eyes for creatures running free on the ground. The hawk has no idea how beautiful and functional he is. Sometimes we forget to recognize the beauty of people. We float along, worried about the things happening around us. We forget to feel the wind. We forget to take a moment between mice and soar for the sake of being a hawk on the wing.

I've trained myself to think of the hawk when I'm trying to sleep. I imagine the ripples in the wing and twitches of the tail as the bird travels. Sleep comes pretty quickly if I can just keep it up for a while without other thoughts sneaking in.

We discussed lack of sleep today at lunch. It's been a while since I had trouble getting to sleep. I hope I do not jinx it. If it never happens again, it is too soon. When I mentioned I hadn't had a sleepless night in a while someone asked what the difference is. I said "A more challenging job." People agree that a stressful job does not help

Super Automatic

I finally found the super car I would own. Normally I blow them off as just plane out of reality. This one, ignoring the price, almost looks attainable and usable. It is the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren.

No more pick-your-part?

I was watching Top Gear the other day. They had a little entertainment contest where the three guys went off and  bought a car each. They could only spend 100 pounds. It had to be a running car with all tax (registration) and inspection up to date. the two are linked apparently in England. sounds like fun.

One guy got an old Audi. Another got a Vectra something or other (not sold in the U.S.). The last got an old Volvo station wagon (estate car). They ran all three for a road trip for mileage. They ran around the track. They counted all the electronics that didn't work. Then, they crashed them in to a wall and the drivers couldn't suffer any broken bones. The Volvo driver broke his thumb and lost the points. The one who ended up with the most points won.

The Volvo guy was at zero points going in to the tally. The last challenge was you get a point for every pound you spent under 100. The Vectra had 75 points at the end I believe. The Audi had 85 or so points when all was said and done. The Volvo guy, that had 0 points, only spent one pound on his car. That one fact won him the contest. He smiled from ear to ear.

The reason he was able to get the car for a single pound from a dealer was due to the recycling effort in England. Old cars have to be disassembled and disposed of with as little waist as possible. It costs a dealer 150 pounds or so to do this. If you walk on a lot and say "I'll give you a quid for that." you might just drive off the lot in a heap that will last to the end of the block.

This all made me think about the pick-your-part places. There must be zero market for used parts still on the car. I bet they can say they are recycling if the parts are logged and set on a shelf somewhere. Just piling the cars up and telling people to watch their step as they dig through the twisted metal. Keeping inventory of used parts costs money. The pick-your-part places just comb the yard periodically and shift the useless hulks to the scrapyard next door. One down side to recycling.

Ponderments

New one

Something I heard today "blah-blah only has four gigs of RAM." I don't get that one every day.

Question

Someone asked today "What cartoon character would you be?" I thought about it for a moment and answered "Dexter from Dexter's Lab." The actor who does the voice for Dexter has the most unique accent I've ever heard.

Question

Someone asked today (rather stupidly worded, but passable) "What inanimate object have you named and what was the name?" When I went to Florida we drove a 1973 Ram-Air Firebird Trans AM. I've linked to that exact page before. It broke down three times on the way. Once for the suspension on the side of the road in the pitch dark. Once to check a funny noise the engine was making. Once to fix the starter in the rain at a truck stop. We called it Jinx.

Pretty property

Tony and Dizzy live out in the boonies. Literally, the sticks. It is beautiful. They have a bazillion trees.  The family owns a bulldozer that performs the same function as my weed eater. They have a creek running through their property. They have chickens and cats and more chickens and a million frogs., several million mosquitoes

The Frogs

Just as dusk fell all around us, the frogs started to croak. More of w wheeze chirp really. I noticed they started at one end of the bog in front of Dizzy's place. Then the whole thing erupted. Then it died in the same left to right direction it built in. I didn't think much of it. Several minutes later, It started in a new bog on the other side of the driveway. Then both bogs blew up. I wonder if something slithered across the bogs and disturbed the frogs, because they would get quiet and stay quiet for such a long time in between. I never actually saw a frog while I was there.

The Cats

They have cats. For as feral as I'm used to cats being on plantations, these cats were quite tame. I bet there are a couple of wild strays on the property. The kittens are cute and will play endlessly. The mother will tackle dogs nine times her size if they get to close to the kittens.  You get the idea. I wanted to ask if they turned up with mice or whatever occasionally.

The Chickens

They have a chicken coop. Chicken coops have to be completely fenced in these days due to bird flue concerns. Tony's mom has a new batch of chicks. They keep a radio in the chicken coop and in with the chicks. There are lights for the chickens. They say it is for predators. It it funny because it looks like they are in a 24/7 disco or something.

The cocks are very young. They sounded like squeak toys when they crowed.

Snakes, Rats and Ducks, oh my

Mom told a story of a bunch of beautiful ducks landing all over the property. They were kind of interesting to watch. They had this habit of grabbing snakes and slamming them about the ground.The ducks would kill snakes even if they didn't eat them. All for the sake of their eggs I'm sure. Well, there is a side effect in the country of killing all your snakes. You get rats. Many, many rats. Mom said you could walk out after dark, hit the trees with a spotlight and rats would scurry around the branches one after the other. I wonder what happened to the squeals. The ducks didn't last long after the rats in the trees thing. Somehow, they just vanished. It is an interesting lesson in the balance on nature.

Good stake

With all the goings on yesterday I forgot to mention that Nat, Elle and I went over to my parent's place for some good grub. My dad grilled some stakes. We had salad, potatoes, corn on the knob, and a bunch of other great stuff. We had root-beer floats. I didn't even have enough room left over for cake and cool-whip. I'm kind of glad we ate before we got the phone call about Tony's dad. It was nice spending time with my whole family. Too bad it was cut a bit short, but it could have been worse.

My dad gave us a hook thing for turning food over on the grill. It had an antler handle. He got it from some Unibomber wanna-be who scared the hell out of them when they drove clear across creation a couple of weeks ago to pick it up. I gave it to Heath because he can probably get some use out of it. He says it works better as a back scratcher anyway. You have to be careful buying stuff off the internet. A guy got shot when he tried to pick up a car from an internet purchase a couple of months ago.

Lunch, or lack there of

I got in late today so I need to make up some time. I want a quick lunch. I walk over to Lon John Taco. Little bitty sign on a locked door that says "Drive through only" Whatever. They have crazy turnover at that place. It seems they can't find enough illegals to fill up taco shells. I walk over to this deli place down the street. They don't have a menu that I can read. They only have the one up on the wall that is no hope of me reading. The chick  behind the counter doesn't speak a word of English. Neither does the chick in the back.They could find some illegals apparently. On the way  back to the office, there is nice place that will take 45 minutes and there is the Chinese buffet of perpetual diarrhea. No think you.

Mind you, there was a 60000 Rang Rover, an expensive looking Audi, and a decked out brand new Toyota 4x4 parked right up front. I guess they need save money on lunch to pay for the gas those things guzzle.

No lunch for Kelly. =[ I'll get some Pop-Tarts later. Wait, I don't have any cash. I can't get those either. Being broke sucks!!!! At least I'll make it back to work in time for that short, useless, lunch.

A friend's loss

Tony's father passed away last night (Saturday). Nat and I heard about it this afternoon. We ran out to Christal and Tony's place. It was painful to know that such a loved man has gone. Philip's wife is of course devastated. They have been together forever. They have family and friends all trying to help out. Tony was on assignment in Pakistan. He was only able to call this evening to tell every one he was stuck in the airport trying to get a flight back. It wasn't until late this evening that he found a flight out. I have no idea how.

I didn't know Philip, Tony's dad, very well at all. I met him once or twice in passing really. He let us have some barbecues on his property. The whole family seemed inviting to me. He did one thing for me. I never asked him, but he knew what needed to be done and just did it. He saw me struggle walking through some underbrush on his property and he broke out the bulldozer to cut a trail between the two fields. He said "It needed to be done." I thank him for it regardless.

Today, it scares me how useless I felt. It didn't seem like we had any way to help. So ... We shucked peas. Don't tell any one, but The whole house sat there and shucked peas for well over an hour. The men in one room and the women in another, we pulled peas out of the little husks they come in from the ground. It felt like a family.  We (the guys) heard the girls cracking jokes in the other room and they (the girls) said the same about us guys. There was a huge trash bag of picked peas and we had shucked them all in no time. Now they have to blanch, dry, and freeze them.

I learned how to shuck peas today. I learned it can make you feel like part of a family too. I understand how Mexican women feel when they have the tamale gatherings. I understand how a family comes together a bit better. I've never had the extended family of my own. I have adopted the group of CB/Faire folks. More like they have adopted me. It is interesting to be part of an extended family like this. It hurts when someone's father, someone's husband who you love has to go.

I had a post recently about bad things happening to people around me. It is normal stuff. It hurts, but people are borne. People die. People live their lives. I hope there is no truth to the "These things happen in threes." crap. I don't want to loose any friends.

Some emailed videos from Nat

Hillary endurance drugs

I don't have a problem with Hillary Clinton. I just think she is a twit with bad ideas. I wouldn't want to sit down and have a Burger with her. I'll bet she doesn't play DnD.

Some thoughts on marriage

I've felt this way some times. It passes. I felt like this yesterday while Nat was trying to straighten up the living room after my parent's bought us some lovely new couches at an estate sale. I went outside for a couple of minutes. I came back. We got past it. The rough spots are normal. So are the smooth spots.

Note on the videos

Something I've noticed with emailed videos. They are all already on youtube if you just hunt them down. I sat there for half a second and dreaded loaning the mov files that I received in email to the web. Then it hit me, surely some sap has already done it for me.

This is defiantly one good thing youtube has accomplished. Though, I strongly recommend using www.google.com/video to do the searches. For some reason they haven't gotten around to making the same results show up when you do the youtube search.

Baby!

Paris Hilton has not eaten or slept since arriving at the medical ward of a Los Angeles jail and is being given psychoactive drugs, celebrity Web site TMZ.com reported Saturday, citing law enforcement sources. Nevertheless, the socialite and hotel heiress said late Saturday afternoon that she had told her attorneys not to appeal the order that sent her back to jail on Friday after a day of house arrest. "Being in jail is by far the hardest thing I have ever done," Hilton, 26, said in a written statement issued by her attorney, Richard Hutton. "During the past several days, I have had a lot of time to think and I believe that I am learning and growing from this experience." CNN

Poor little baby. Get in trouble and have to pay the bill. You make me sick. I don't remember what you did to get this punishment, but it was something stupid. Then you drove again when you shouldn't have because you listened to your legal counsel, Oh wait, wasn't it your publicist? You are an idiot. You need to do something besides be a rich piece of ass.

Bad News

Wow, a bunch of bad things have happened recently to friends of ours.

• A friend's sister was murdered. She was 18. She just finished her first year of collage. All the police have is a vague description of someone running away from the scene.
• A long time friend of Nat's lost her son. He went to school. He stepped out on the basketball court in PE. He collapsed and died three days later. We have only heard speculation of an otherwise asymptomatic brain abnormality. (brain hemorrhage)
• A friend of ours has a very nasty ex-husband. He has lost his parenting privileges, yet still has to pay child support. He is a bad man. He makes money in bad ways. The child support people are going after his assets. He is showing up around her and threatening her. I wish I could do something.

There isn't much to be done about the first two. The first requires fallow up. The second is done except for the crying. The third is the one I worry about. I prey for all of them. I want to tear off my shirt, swoop in and start saving people.

Clean it up

Clean it up is a song by the Butthole surfers. It is basically the sounds of people puking set to ... music. Some voice comes on and says "Clean it up! I said clean it up bitch!!!" There are some other words that sound a bit like a message left on voice mail that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the theme of the ... song.

It gives me the creeps when it comes on at work. Yet, I don't put it on my exclude list. It is worth the distraction for some reason.

Hybrid

Nat wants to go test drive a Toyota hybrid this weekend. I like the idea behind hybrids. I've read that the technology doesn't save enough money when you factor in initial cost, lifetime maintenance, and repairs.That will change. Nat heard somewhere that they drive a bit differently. She wants to find out for herself. Sounds like fun.

Hybrids get better gas mileage in the city over the open road because most of them run on batteries up to about 40 mph. The gas engine is not doing much until then. Between the zero shift technology, hybrid technology, lighter, tougher frames, and telecommuting, you would think things would be getting better. No, They are steadily getting worse. Higher carbon emissions, More cars on the road. Ah, I remember the good old days when the U. S. and Europe were the only places polluting the planet. Now every one has gotten in on the act.

Several "normal" cars beat the hybrid cars in mileage. They are just efficient. I really wonder where the small diesel engines are. They make a huge difference in SUV and small trucks. It would be awesome to get a 4x4 pickup that got 30 mpg. You think? I suppose nothing will happen until gas hits some magic number that the American consumer finally balks. I've blogged about this before. Nothing new yet.

An automatic transmission basically turns your engine in to a hydraulic pump. That is how energy is transmitted to the rear wheels and that is why so much energy is lost along the way. A hybrid does pretty much the same thing, except it uses electricity. The efficiency comes in when the engine is running and not much load is on it because, say, you are sitting at the light idling, the engine either turns off or charges the batteries. If you find a way to eliminate or recover the waisted energy of the engine in other ways, you do not need hybrid technology at all.

I heard on NPR that the government can't even tell us who the biggest polluters are. They only keep numbers for the country as a whole. Which makes me wonder how much they are missing. That sounds like the kind of thing you do when you have numbers to hide. I wonder what the real numbers are. It looks bad at any rate.

USB

One of the guys got a USB headset. I haven't tried it out. he is making plans to use it while gaming. Apparently, it doesn't use a sound card at all. The USB drivers and software in the background just take care of it. Not a bad deal. I'm not sure of the advantages if you have a sound card, but what do I know?

You can get just about anything with a USB connector on it these days. My phone uses a standard USB cable. If only I had the software for Linux.

Cherry Coke Zero

Sucks.

I'm Old

My office mate has never seen an episode of Lavern and Shirley, or Welcome Back Kotter.

More Big Endian vs Little Endian

Remember, 16 bit hex is two digits at a time. so 01 = 1 and ff = 255 regardless of which endian you are using. It matters what order all your sets of two hex digits are set in that makes the difference in endian.

Decimal	Big Endian Hex	Little Endian Hex
1	0001	0100
2	0002	0200
...
14	000e	0e00
15	000f	0f00
16	0010	1000
17	0011	1100
..
31	001f	1f00
32	0020	2000
33	0021	2100
...
254	00fe	fe00
255	00ff	ff00
256	0100	0001
257	0101	0101
258	0102	0201

Big endian puts the most significant byte first (two places in hex) This is how western culture is used to seeing numbers represented.
01 = 0001 = 000001 = 00000001 = 1

Little endian puts the least significant byte first. Back-assword from normal.
01 = 0100 = 010000 = 01000000 = 1

Understanding the concept is nothing. The trouble is knowing when to switch between them. PPC chips are big endian if I remember right. X86 (the standard Intel/AMD) chips are little endian. Every frigging chip and board has a potential of switching for no good reason. You just have to know which you are dealing with. Some say little endian has an advantage because you can just keep tacking bytes on and getting bigger numbers. I've never heard of a useful program that used that. It seems they all define a byte count before doing anything. I don't know. I can't imagine a real advantage of one over the other.

For the first time in my life today, I had to write code that deals directly with this issue. Normally, I skirted the issue closely, but never had to dive in. I never had to count bits and bytes until this project. I feel all grown up. =]

Who's rules?

Picture a sports event. One side is playing hockey and the other is playing basketball. They are playing on the same court with each side set up for that team's sport. How do you know who wins the game? You don't. The basketball players would slip on the ice and the hockey players wouldn't have much luck on the wooden floor I bet. Not to mention getting the puck through a basketball hoop using hockey sticks. That is a ridiculous match. It is no match at all. Each side can claim victory without any proof. It might be fun to sit back and complain, but I wouldn't want to be on either team.

That is what's going on between the U. S. and al Quaeda or Radical Islam or whatever you want to call the people who are trying to destroy our way of life and install their own. I've heard it said that all al Quaeda has to do is not be annihilated and they win. That is kind of true. Even if the al Quaeda movement is somehow squashed, there will still be people who want to take over the world in the name of a religion somewhere.

So, how do you defeat an enemy who will not play by the rules? Well, you either play by the rules you have and beat them anyway. That hasn't worked so far. You get them to play by the rules you want to play by. That is not going to happen here. Or, you start playing by their rules. I hope we don't have to resort to that in this fight. No one wins until someone looses. For us to win they must know they have lost. If you are not playing by the same rules, how can any one win?

Iran is fighting like mad to become a nuclear power. The moment they become a nuclear power, they will perhaps unwittingly level the playing field. They will be playing a game that has rules they cannot deny they break. Iran will know who wins that competition. History will not be able to deny who has won and who has lost. Those aren't stadium lights building over the horizon..

I say to Iran, be careful what game you want to play.

Regression Testing

A regression test is one that makes sure what worked before still works now. Regression tests are usually run after or at the same time as the program. I'm writing regression tests for some programs. It is kind of fun. There are different kinds of regression tests. One that tricks the user interface in to thinking there is a user there pulling on knobs and pushing the buttons. The other regression tests checks the oil and fuzzes. I'm writing the second kind right now. I've written the first kind before. They are harder. The nuts and bolts tests are easier to write in my book. This is the kind of thing that has to be done on every software project. Most programmers hate this sort of thing. I kind of enjoy it.

Web Page Woes

You know, I really should make backups more often. The latest web page that I had readily available was from last August. That's nearly a year. Yikes. I still have the pictures, but I may need to regenerate the web pages. I suppose that is not much of a hardship. I find messing with the web page kind of fun. It would be much more fun if I had something like Dreamweaver to create it with.  I just have simple editors and dead reckoning.

This would be the perfect opportunity to rebuild the page in with a better design, but that requires effort. I would like to get away from frames. Frames are bad. No one uses frames any more. I wish I knew that back when I put the page together in the first place. I will probably start with a new template at some point and just leave the existing stuff the way it is. That sounds like something I'd do.

Window Washer

The window washer just went by my window at work. It was kind of freaky. I remember stories of people washing windows in foreign lands  (I believe it was Pakistan) just standing one a ledge maybe 12 cm wide. When they fell, there were ten more people in line for the job. That is the problem with believing in destiny. When something bad happens to you, it was fate. So screw safety.

These guys were obviously Hispanic. They had ropes, pulleys, safety harnesses and I think there is someone on the roof because they have walkie-talkies. They were working on the other side of the building last week. I watched a guy dangle from a rope while washing windows on a building back when I worked at Software Dynamics (pre-web page). He was hauling ass. He was not in control of how fast he went so he had to get the windows done quickly. I was on the ninth floor of a parking garage across the street. He was not more than five meters from me at the closest.  I used to hang out in the parking garage at lunch back then too.

Page All

If I turn it up to hear the quiet people, I get blow out by the people who know how to use their diaphragm.  The madness has to stop. Someone needs to come out with a phone that levels the sheer volume of some one's voice over the Page All (public address). This cannot be an impossible request. Does it cost five more cents to ad it to a phone system? Is someone sitting on the patent waiting for a big payoff? Who will step up to the plate and make it happen? No one, that's who. No one is listening. No one cares.

I care. I, however, am lazy. I did notice that sound leveling doesn't always work. Nat burned some CDs for last weeks trip with a setting that was supposed to level the volume of the tracks. It sucked at it. It was almost the opposite of leveling. It seemed to make it worse. Maybe that's the real reason no one has it available in other areas. Maybe I should turn my music down. ... NEVER!!!

Lyric

"Shrieking like a dog shitting razor blades." I think I've heard that before. Alkaline Trio, Radio. It just tickled me today.

Fringing Samba

Three days. Three days I've been fucking with the smb.conf file to no good end. It just plane won't let me in. I try ninety different combinations of shit.
So, what worked? <pause for effect> Cutting the file down to nothing.

[global]     workgroup = WORKGROUIP     netbios name = henry # Kelly 2007-06-01     [public]     comment = Public Stuff     path = /space/public     public = yes     writable = yes     printable = no # Overnet     [overnet]     comment = Overnet     path = /home/kelly/.aMule/Incoming     public = no     writable = yes     printable = no     valid users = kelly     browseable = yes # HTTP     [http]     comment = http top folder     path = /var/www/html     public = no     writable = yes     printable = no     valid users = %S     browseable = yes

That's it. Just the workgroup and the name of the server. Everything else is default. EVERYTHING else is default.

It pisses me off. The default file didn't work. Me messing with it didn't work. I could share files if I made everything world read and write. Screw that. I at least want to feel like I have some security set.

Sunday

Oh, the upgrade went well with a couple of programs that needed to be uninstalled from Livna. I have to remember that no one gets paid to do this stuff. I'm glad it works at all. They apparently had a melt down recently so there are other things for them to worry about.

I found a good Fedora howto page on the lookout for repositories.

I'm off to sleep. It is amazing how much I didn't get done today. I could write a book with my lack of enthusiasm for bills and the lawn.