Another guy reeked of marijuana on the bus today. People don't realize how much that smell carries to people who do not smoke. The funny thing is, as I walked past the bus stop on my way to the building, I past someone who smelled like pipe tobacco. That was a much more pleasant smell than the marijuana.
Could the U. S. survive a siege? It just seems to me that we do not know how to support ourselves any more. Every one knows how to do marketing and outsourcing. Who still knows how to thatch a roof or mend trousers?
I listened to a British soldier named James Blunt list off the equipment he replaced as a grunt with his own funds. He replaced the 5 kilo sleeping bag with a 1 kilo sleeping bag. That sort of thing. His primary quote that sticks in my mind was, from memory, "The RAF doesn't have the funds to keep it's planes running on the front line." Scary stuff. He averted a British version of The Cuba Conflict some say. He did this by disobeying an order to fire. I believe every bit of what he said.
I've never played with an iPad. I've unboxed a couple. I have only seen a few tablets used in online videos.
I really wish I could create good fictional stories. I wish I were a creative person. I wish I had that magic to entertain with words and actions.
I'm going to swap my good windows box at work out for a crappy one because I do not need a good windows box on the internal network.
What does it mean when you sigh a lot? It worries me that I'm sick. Could there be a real problem when it comes to having to breath heavily between tasks? Is there a good excuse?
These are the gayest manliest push ups I've ever seen. I just ate 3/4 of a pan of lasagna. I'm going to go weep in to my pillow now. I can't get out of bed in the morning.
My first impression of Walking Dead is a good one. I believe that the police will be the most likely survivors of any kind of apocalypse because they have the guns. The U. S. government thinks so too because of all the money being poured in to FEMA and Homeland Security being dumped on the local police forces.
Spoiler Alert!
The first scene is is the cop looking for fuel. He hears a noise. He spots a little girl. She is a zombie. He shoots her in the forehead. It disturbs him, but he did it.
The first zombie he comes across has no legs. The zombie claws her way toward him as he mounts a bicycle. He easily takes off to find his family. Later he goes back and shoots this zombie too.
Another survivor cannot shoot his now zombie wife.
The hot showers must have felt like heaven.
The zombies eat a horse.
The whole first discovery scene of a zombie movie is getting on my nerves. "Oh my god! The dead are walking the Earth." "I must save my family." "I must travel." "I really wish I had prepared for a zombie apocalypse before all this happened." It makes me feel like I've seen it all before. At least they show how this guy was left behind so to speak.
The scene where he is talking over the radio, someone else can hear him, but he cannot hear them. I loved that bit. Anyone who has tried to communicate with a CB at any point in their life should do a cartwheel to celebrate that scene.
I watched the show on hulu. I'm not sure how far behind the episodes premiere. I don't care. If it becomes an issue I will pursue other avenues of viewing. I'm not going to pay for the show, regardless of how good it is because I do not have the money. I'm am tapped from one month to the next. This is simply a fact. Figure out a way to make money off me without taking it directly out of my pocket. This should not be news to the powers that be.
Staring at a blank page is like being born. There might be an entire life to poor over that page or, there might be pneumonia round the corner.
Google moved most of its revenue from other countries to a company in Bermuda. This dropped their taxes in the U. S. dramatically.
You will find pre-stamped greeting card envelopes. This stamp will cost $0.04 cents per card. The Post Office is taking advantage of laziness. How many companies have gone broke taking advantage of laziness?
GM is about to get bought out by the Chinese. That is, the largest car maker in China is about to buy a huge chunk of GM. Perhaps this is why the Hummer purchase didn't go through. The Chinese company held off for the whole damn company instead.
There was a small car sitting in the far right lane of traffic on Westheimer at Richmond. It was an education watching people maneuver around the little vehicle. They had their hazards on. As I walked by they tried to start the car, but no dice. Someone got out of the car while I was waiting at the bus stop, but I was gone before the situation was resolved. I have helped people in that situation before. Even just a push around the corner to a much less busy street is a help.
They are calling the new Harry Potter movie Episode 7A. I love it. "They" being Mark and Simon on 5 Live Film Reviews. If I think about it, I'll put in a link. Someone said they finished the filming a couple years ago and are just dragging out the franchise. And, why not. The last book was one of the bad ones in my opinion. There is a couple chapters where people are wandering around dodging witch contact for months. I think that is what this movie is from the description. "Lull before the storm" has been put out there. "Mounting sense of despair." "... art film."
The cat walks up and pops one of the gaiters. The gaiter falls back to a position of strength (retreats). Two gaiters, two kitties. Sounds about fare. As long as the cats stay far away from the water, I think they will keep the upper hand.
I'm not the only one who is afraid of Oracle owning Open Office.
- Ask Slashdot: Where Do I Go Now That Oracle Owns OpenOffice.org?
Posted by timothy on Sunday November 14, @03:47PM
"So I noted that there was better support for my processor in the latest BIOS for my mainboard. After downloading the update, there was a .doc file containing flashing instructions. No matter, I have OpenOffice.org installed on this machine and just opened it up. And, as should be no surprise, there was an Oracle logo splash screen while OpenOffice.org 3.2 started up. At my job, I've had a less than favorable history with Oracle that I'm not going to get into — rather let's just say I never want anything to do with them again. Including installing any of their software on my machine. So I'm facing a dilemma. I've looked into the forked LIbreOffice but that's still in beta and I'm a little wary of depending on that. Has anyone used LibreOffice (it's installing as I type this) extensively? Does it handle complex Powerpoint files okay? Is there some alternative out there that I'm completely overlooking for open source? Can anyone convince me that there's no reason to fear the Oracle OpenOffice.org? Will it remain the de facto standard? Will it eventually lock me into a commitment with Oracle? If you get by without one of these heavyweight monster editors, what do you use and how do you handle doc, ppt, (etc.) extensions?"
It takes something special to get up in front of a crowd and be awesome. It takes getting up in front of a crowd several times and not being awesome. It takes getting up in front of your friends a couple of times and being terrible. It takes not listing to your mother. It takes parents, tolerance, thick skin. No, it only takes practice.
This is a pretty cool look at combat. Taking fire from one building. It looks like the bad guys moved to another building. By the time our troupes get on top if it, the bad buys split. "Goddammit Spanky!" I love it.
Ties and beards are hazards according to Dr Karl. Once you listen to the experiment, it sounds like an unkempt beard that has been sprayed with bacteria is a biological hazard.
I put up three videos yesterday. One was a bad trip to Faire. The other two were game night at Adam's place. Nat feels poorly and will not go camp at Fair this weekend. This is for the best. She needs to heal. I need to do laundry, the lawn, dishes, everything normal. I need sleep. I am worn out. The week has been long and complicated. Things have happened that I cannot fix. Having to buy replacement motherboards feels like a failure.
My family has no tradition. We have no tie to the past. We have little code. We are all American mutts. This is a good thing.
I want a phone application that I can aim at a police car or other emergency vehicle and tell me where the emergency is. I hear there is one for aircraft. Why not? Surely terrorists will not abuse such a handy tool.
I dreamed a whole new episode of Heroes last night. Too bad I can't remember most of it or I would write it up and post it on a fan site somewhere.
I spent about 90 minutes today figuring out that I had a bad SATA cable. Of course, I complained about this to the engineers. They were not sympathetic. Tim said he had that happen with a fiber channel cable. At least they are expensive. The cable I spent my time on is worth about a quarter.
The shelf in my office was missing one of the little pegs. That shelf was basically useless. Being me, I had stuff on it anyway. I found a whole bag full of the little metal pegs for a set of shelves. No idea why they are not being used on a set of shelves. I nabbed one. It fits the hole. It prevents the shelf from falling out, but it still moves. I have gone from "fall on floor" to "warble a bit". I'm calling that a win.
About 30 Earths would fit between us and the moon.
I would love to explain Space Alert, but I cannot. There are six positions on the board. There are up to five players. No matter how you slice the pie, you are going to have to share responsibility for defending the ship. You strategies under timed pressure. You plan and attempt to work together to defeat an enemy. Then when the pressure is off, you play out the scenario. At this point, you get to watch your best laid plans dissolve in to chaos before your eyes.
Ken said Space Alert is more fun to watch than play. He also said you have to read the rules for an hour to play a ten minute game. Ken was not pleased. It boils down to working together and planning your moves several steps in advance. You have to make things work in time and in some cases simultaneously several step in the future. Not as easy as it sounds, and it sounds like a bitch.
Adam and I discussed this game after the fact. I wonder if the military put it out in order to find people who are good at it and recruit them for some special project. This board game smells of "The Last Star Fighter" to me.
What cracks me up are some of the rules that say specifically that if two people push a button at the same time, you only get one push of the button. This is spelled out explicitly because this happens constantly without planning. The moves and actions are waisted. You blue your chance. Shut up and do better next time.
Another rule says you can tell people what cards you have, but you are not supposed to show them your cards. At some points in the game people are allowed to hand a person one and just one of their cards. The rules say you must hand the card to that person and cannot toss it to them. Again, this rule came about after playing Space Alert several times.
Both of those rules appear to exist to force people to communicate in a premeditated manor what resources they have and what they need to the rest of the group.
Something I noticed last night is a miscommunication happening over and over. People would say "I'll do ..." There was no leader who decided what needed to be done and then called for people to decide who needed to do what when.
First step should be to scatter throughout the ship. Whom ever can go to specific places on the ship needs to go to those places. This is going to be different people every time. They all need to be able to cover the different tasks.
Next comes a card check. There are a finite number of threats. Those that come from the outside require energy to fire the guns and those that come from the inside need to be handled by battle bots or jamming or whatever. Each person assess the cards in their hands and decide what need to be given away and what you need as an individual to do your job. Be prepared to trade off when the call comes.
When a Threat comes in, be prepared to move, shoot, reload. That strategy counts for all actions. Move, act, prepare for next action. Repeat.
The object of Space Alert is to make it for ten minutes. From what I noticed last night that is about all of this game that can possibly be fun. If you had to keep this up for a couple of hours, you would go nuts. It makes me think of real combat encounters that took a week to fight out. There are plenty of times that two armies have simply stood off from each other and pounded until one or both fell.
it has been a long time since a board game made me think this much about anything. I have to give kudos to the developers for making something highly intelligent and challenging. It is just too bad they couldn't get the two audio CDs that came with Space Alert labeled correctly.
On a technical side note, my camera was acting strategy. The cheap batteries I got heat up pretty bad. It kind of looks like this may be messing with the white balance. The more I use the Canon 940 IS, the less I like it. I had to restart the video a half dozen times last night because of the ten minute limit crap on this camera. There is going to come a point where I just need a real video camera.
Field
Data
Title
Space Alert
Description
I would love to explain Space Alert, but I cannot. There are six positions on the board. There are up to five players. No matter how you slice the pie, you are going to have to share responsibility for defending the ship. You strategies under timed pressure. You plan and attempt to work together to defeat an enemy. Then when the pressure is off, you play out the scenario. At this point, you get to watch your best laid plans dissolve in to chaos before your eyes.
Ken said Space Alert is more fun to watch than play. He also said you have to read the rules for an hour to play a ten minute game. Ken was not pleased. It boils down to working together and planning your moves several steps in advance. You have to make things work in time and in some cases simultaneously several step in the future. Not as easy as it sounds, and it sounds like a bitch. Space Alert
Tags
Space Alert strategy game board game spaceship intelligent frustrating stressful war game night
It is getting to the point that I do not even feel the walk from home to the bus stop. I remember when I stared doing it, I was winded pretty good and always worn out on the bus ride. Now, it rolls off my back, unless I'm under the weather or a sore toe or something like that. I'm still not particularly happy with it, but I have adapted physically to the challenge more so than I thought I might. Dammit, it is keeping me in shape. Don't tell Nat. I do like getting a ride occasionally.
I just typed in the paragraph above this one all in one shot. I then ran the spell checker. No hits. I then typed in a garbled word and ran the spell checker again to make sure it had not broken.
Wow, I really don't like The Who very much any more. I used to like some of their stuff. Are my tastes changing with age? Am I just sick of them and older Metalica stuff? Did they always kind of suck and I am just now getting around to noticing?
Rocks -> G. Love and Special Sauce - Okay - 07 - Cold Beverages
I've already complained a lot about this past weekend at TRF so I'll spare you most of it. This is a short video of some camping and me complaining about the boom boom.
Field
Data
Title
Bad camping experience at TRF
Description
I've already complained a lot about this past weekend at TRF so I'll spare you most of it. This is a short video of some camping and me complaining about the boom boom.
Tags
TRF 2010 Texas Renaissance Festival gang bangers hoodlums camping hunting season noisy people
Last night I kicked off my podcast download right before I went to bed. That is, I thought I did. What I did was kick off a query that goes out and finds what is available. It then pops up a dialog box with a list of things to download. Then the time consuming bit happens where the computer actually tries to download the data. This is a two step process that is ridiculous. It should be a one shot thing. Of course, I walked in this morning to sync my USB key to take the day's podcasts to work to keep me sane while people pummel me with tasks and to do bullets. What do I find? The second screen that basically says "Click next for me to do the only thing I'm designed to do." Idiots.
I use GPodder for some ungodly reason. It is the absolute lowest common denominator for pod catching software. It works, but you can tell the developers don't use their own product. Anyway, left without any podcasts to listen to today. It is music. For some reason, this just doesn't do it for me these days. I'm getting old I suppose.
This was not the only issue I noticed in the five minutes that I was hitting the computer this morning. My server hadn't done anything all night either. I have software running that kicks off and runs in the background. This is what servers are all about. Anyway, I noticed all the entries were set to 'paused'. I have a scheduling plugin for Deluge that is supposed to make life easier by letting Nat run during the time she needs the computer and kick off the Deluge software at specific times. This does not work for shit.
First, the scheduling plugin has a snazzy little interface that makes it pretty easy and intuitive for marking off blocks of time across a week. That part seems to at least work. Second, the meat of the program doesn't work. There are several bugs. There is some combination of actions that place all the entries in to the 'paused' status and prevent anything from downloading. Another issue is that even when nothing is downloading there is some network traffic going on between the server and the internet. It is looking for connections or receiving communications from the outside.
These issues are no big deal. I would rather thing be working at the house, but to be honest, I don't care that much. It is just a lousy way for an IT professional to start the morning.
Traffic
While putting my boots on, I had the local news playing in the background. This is the only TV input I still have in my life. I don't even watch TV shows on the TV any more. They start in with the weather and it sounds like it is going to be a pleasant day. At least I'll get to catch a glimpse of it through a tinted window. Then the traffic comes on. I'm generally not worried about the traffic. I walk and take the bus. Every day is a potential to get run down. Once on the bus, I generally don't care because the driver worries about it. As long as the buses are still running I'm happy.
This morning I hear about an accident smack in the middle of my commute. It is an auto pedestrian at Highway 6 and Westheimer. Actually, a block north on Highway 6. They said something about redirecting traffic through the mall parking lot. That sounded bad. I was thinking there must be an issue beyond a fender bender because of how much traffic was being diverted.
As I was walking in, sure enough, I heard life flight and saw a news chopper fly over my head a couple times. That is what was killing traffic. People were bailing on Westheimer and heading over to Richmond around the mall. I can't blame them. One guy flipped out while I was waiting on the bus and drove around a bunch of people blocking the intersection while blaring his horn. He nearly caused another accident. Not fifteen seconds after he took off, the traffic moved and he would have been able to move the way he wanted without putting any one's life in danger.
Bus
The guy sitting in front of me reeked of cigarettes. I'm getting less and less tolerant of this particular stink. People get on all the time stinking of sweat. That doesn't usually bug me. People have to smell like feces (unchanged babies mostly) to piss me off more than cigarettes.
The male driver was chatting up some woman about the same age while driving. They were complaining about ambulance charges going up and one of them had something to say about their family and the upcoming holidays. I wasn't paying much attention. Neither was the driver. He had to slam on the breaks a couple times to avoid people acting like the jerk above.
Someone gave me a funny look this morning as I read Dilbert. I use a magnifying glass to read my phone. I was chuckling at the dentist joke and just felt the eyes on me. There really must be something to the whole "Someone is watching me." thing. The older I get the more I believe there is some other sensory perception going on.
This whole windows update thing is getting out of hand. To bring up a new Vista system based on an original CD takes a half day just to run windows update after install. I use images to help speed things up. They don't always work on different hardware.
Wow, Early Metalica sucks. I'm definitely getting old.
I find so many fools today. A fool is someone to whom feeling is more important than what you feel.
Josh brought in a Japanese grapefruit. Adam brought one last week I think it was. Those things are really good.
Supposed to rain this weekend. Wonder if I can get some mowing done before the wet stuff comes down.
I had to toss a shirt today. Something was on the pocket. It was hard, red, and felt like plastic or gum or something. The shirt was boring and crap anyway. Still, hate tossing an otherwise good shirt.
Lost while walking between buildings at university.
Looking for a roommate to help pay bills.
Political t-shirts. $5 or best offer.
For sale. scooter, not cool to women.
The bookstore sales shot glasses.
You can get a haircut for $3 in the quad.
Don't feed the squirrels, they bite.
You can get free condoms in the dorm, just show your ID.
No loud music.
No pets.
no drugs.
No glutton.
Magneto vs Tank Girl?
Wind turbines should be purple to avoid attracting bugs.
Five years working for the NRA will pay for law school.
Ass god as my witness, I will never eat Roman again!
I was only at lunch for 19 minutes today. I over heard the following and more.
Computer games
Work
More work
Sandwich places
Mobile phone companies complaints.
Replacing water battles in the coolers.
Music, but I didn't catch any of it.
That was pretty much it. Boring. I was pretty brain dead this afternoon. It was just a rough morning. Things keep acting strangely at work. I'll put an IP on the network and it will disappear for no good reason. I hate that. On top of this, I had to get back to work and missed my normal walk. This did not make the afternoon pleasant.
They didn't mow beside the road. I don't know what I was smoking yesterday. Some of the grass has laid down and someone mowed around a couple signs.
I'm learning about bandwidth shaping. This just might help me at home. I have a server that runs all the time. This machine eats the network alive. It is even worse with the newer router. If these tricks work, I will be more able to control who gets what bandwidth. This means Nat will be able to surf the net day or night without competing with the server. Wish me luck.
I'm not depressed. I'm paying attention.
One of the podcasts I listen to was talking about stem cell research. The rules are finally changing. Religious groups are up in arms. One of the suggestions was that researchers should use ape stem cells. One of the scientists asked "What is in it for the religions?" This person has no concept of fighting on behalf of someone else's life and existence.
Heparin (blood thinner) is made from the mucus of pig intestines.
Still learning how to set up email for archiving. It is an art. PST files die around 2 gigabytes. Once you go over that, something happens at that size and the files tend to deteriorate unpredictably. Stop archiving to that file. Create another PST file and archive to that file. Once you have a couple delete the really old ones. Burn them a DVD, stick it on a shelf and forget about it. At some point, you will not be able to mount the file any more because Microsoft is Satan's proxy in the business community.
I want to shoot a video. I have nothing to shoot a video of. That doesn't stop most of the YouTube people. I shouldn't let it stop me either.
Nat called me at work today. She was at home dealing with a letter from a hospital thinking her for using the mammogram services. The trouble is that she did not use the services. The hospital is looking in to it. The part of the call that got me is her and Elle. Nat and Elle are hitting one of those mother daughter stages where they think they both know the correct way of doing everything at least where it comes to one another. Perhaps all children hit this stage. Elle is just shy of eight. We should have twice this long before she becomes unmanageable.
I really need to learn what to say when someone dies. I need to learn out to console without sounding like an asshole. I only have one pitch in this play "Sorry for your loss." Someone beat me to it. I cannot think on my feet on this subject. I can't stop and give it long thought and get anywhere either.
Wrong things
So and so is in a better place.
Hope you feel better soon.
The person who died (OK if volunteered by the bereaved)
What happened?
How did they go?
Did you say goodbye
Did they have time to prepare?
At least they didn't suffer.
Anything to do with money.
Did they have insurance?
Did they have a will?
Anything to do with relationships.
Were you close.
Will you speak at the funeral?
Anything about litigation.
Maybe
Let me know if I can help with anything.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Right things
Sorry for your loss.
The structure of this encounter is completely one sided. It is one of the few times that the encounter is supposed to be mono directional. All emotion is to flow basically one way. The hurt party is to receive all positive emotion and supportive statements. Any statement that takes from that will be perceived as incorrect or as some kind of attack. Questions are very difficult. Do you touch the bereaved? There are no set rules for some of this. The best thing would be experience. I do not wish experience of this kind on any one.
Suggestions are welcome. Don't hold punches. I need to have these things to say near the top of the response list so they can be recalled without hesitation. Is there someone I can ask about this kind of thing. I need the kind of help that Big Bang Theory characters need on this one.
I went out to Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF) camping Friday evening. The place was empty. It was the opening day of deer hunting season. There was one other couple who we hang out with also camping. Tony and Diz are highly cool people. They are both good people. They are both capable individuals. They are great friends. Then there was us.
Friday evening, we roll in and start setting up. Nat criticizes how I'm handling the tent and I stop off in a huff. I put up with being yelled at when I'm getting paid. I don't need it at home. Nat and I constantly fight for dominance in the marriage. It is not a good thing. That ruined Friday evening for me. I went and sat in a campsite not far away and sulked. Walked around for a while and people watched. It was relatively quiet Friday evening.
Saturday, I didn't dress out and go in. I just didn't want to spend the ticket. I was in a bad mood and would just be in a bad mood after walking in the Faire. So, I sat outside. I tried playing with my phone, but that didn't work. T-Mobile doesn't get data connections out there. I may have to walk clean back to the front of the park to get Edge network. I walked around. I watched the cops drive around. And I listened to the gang bangers a couple sites over blast a bunch of raunchy boom boom music. Every other word was the 'N' word and rapping about rape and that kind of garbage.
I hadn't slept the night before. I never sleep well out there. Now, I couldn't nap during the day. They kept booming of course. No one will say anything about it. They are gang bangers and design themselves to intimidate.
I was close to bar rowing another tent and heading for family camping. A bunch of other people started walking through our camp site to get to the gang bangers site. It was a hub for raunchy noisy hoodlums. The people waking up were at least smart enough not to camp there so they could get away from the noise when they finally wanted to.
Nat offered to take me home. I took her up on it. She decided that there was no way she would want or be able to drive back out after taking me all that way so we just packed up and left. I feel bad for leaving the other couple there. I just had to get the hell out of there. We got home and both just crashed. The best part is after I got home. The club behind us had a thing going on outside and it echoed all through the house. I slept in the shooting sound suppression earphones.
This was Nat and my anniversary. I'm not going back this year. I hear Kenny has problems with the place too. Nat will still go out for the rest of the season. She still has fun out there. I can't do it. I'm staying home. I'm not spending any money out there and I'm not going to give much free advertisement to the place on this blog or my other channels to the internet. Too bad. I get good hits on that stuff.
it was beautiful weather. Supposed to rain next weekend. The cops out there are running off the wrong people. The cops didn't give the gang bangers any shit over their fire on the ground that I saw. I did notice the cops yelling at people who looked like normal law abiding citizens. Isn't it great to be normal? Isn't it great that the cops are afraid of the gang bangers?
I spent money on this stupid watch that automatically updates the time. That part works but daylight savings time has to be switched by hand. Apparently, the idea of the target moving around is too much to handle. That switch must be thrown by hand. What is the point? It works on my phone. Do I complain about this every time the switch comes around?
They mowed! I think any way. It looks like parts of the side of the road I walk on have been mowed, but not all of it. There are bits that are still over grown. The cross has been fixed, or at least picked up. Sure makes it easier to see all the garbage.
Monopoly is 75. I hate that game. I suck at it because I'm not ruthless enough to win. I'm not ruthless enough to win at life either. I don't know if winning at Monopoly is a good indicator for success in life, but it has caused some rifts in families that have never healed.
The walk in this morning was nice. Even with the time change and the light straight in my eyes, it was pretty nice. I do walk faster when there is light. That is just a natural side effect of being able to see. It is supposed to get warmer over the rest of the week. Then, it is supposed to rain next weekend.
So, the fountain at work has not been running for a while. Is it the windy days we have had lately? Is it the cold? Is it more construction? The readers of this blog may never know.
Dr Karl. - Just watching a video of someone coughing and or sneezing triggers an immune response in your body. I wonder if it is the feeling of revulsion or something completely unrelated to emotion.
Back Track won't boot the first system I tried it on. It is very difficult to try another system after the first one fails. It was so promising too. There is a Chinese word on the boot screen. This makes me cautious. not sure I want to keep trying it.
G. Gordon Liddy show "They should be working for Main Street, not K Street." K street is in Washington DC. It is where the majority of the lobbies have offices. I like that one.
I'm not normally in to the boring British comedy. I liked this one. I like all the actors in the show. I have no idea why, but I like Bill Nighy. He seems like the kind of pompous ass that I would hate, but he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously.
Plot: An art thief has a hit put our on her, but the hit man falls in love. Aw. ... puke! Still, I liked the movie. I think after that plot has been done to death, someone has finally gotten it right. Now, let it die please.
Can any one tell me who controls this news organization? I like the data they are coming up with, but I don't know how much of it is backed up with more than pretty words.
Science: Chip Allows Blind People To See
"3 blind people have been implanted with a retinal chip that allowed them to see shapes and objects within days of the procedure. From the article: 'One of the patients surprised researchers by identifying and locating objects on a table; he was also able to walk around a room unaided, approach specific people, tell the time from a clock face, and describe seven different shades of gray in front of him.'"
They get tat little bit closer every day. I can't wait until eyes are as easily replaced as verginity.
2010-11-05
I had another kidney stone pass last night (2010-11-04). It really sucked. It was just after work. I had just stopped on the bus for the ride home and noticed the agony on the right side of my body that comes with kidney stones. I went over the symptoms in my head just to make sure it was not my gallbladder or appendix. Not fever, The act of jumping up and down doesn't make it worse. I can push on the area and it is only a tiny bit sensitive. Abdomen is not rigid.
The horror of it being something serious is always warring on your mind as you stand there wrathing while people are trying to get on and off the bus. It hurt to sit. Of course, it hurts just as much to stand, but you feel a bit more like you are doing something. It hurts just as much to push on your stomach. Putting your hands above your head and holding on to the hand rail seems to help for some reason. It probably just relaxes your stomach muscles. My hearing is affected by the pain. It isn't that I cannot hear as well. It is more like my brain stops trying to hear what is around me so much. My hands tingle a bit from the pain as my body reacts by pulling blood in to my torso. There is no point in doubling over, it doesn't help. There is no point in hollering or holding your gut. None of that does any good either.
The thing to do when you are sure it is a kidney stone is to distract yourself. Walk around slowly. Drink a ton of water and pee your brains out. If it goes on for too long get to a doctor. If it starts to burn instead of just hurt get to a doctor. If there is blood get to a doctor. If indeed the pain gets too bad to take get to a doctor. Do NOT take Tylenol. If you have appendicitis, Tylenol or many other pain killers may mask the fever.
A funny thing that seems to help me is to lie on my stomach and gently roll from side to side with my weight really on my chest. This sounds bad, and I'm sure would look even worse if any one had ever seen me do it. This movement seems to help move things along. It still hurts, but it is a new place that the stone is hitting and may very well shorten the over all experience. A good thing.
Bumping along on the bus didn't hurt anything, but sitting at lights was agony. I called Nat and we agreed to meet at Whataburger so she could give me a ride home. I only had to wait a minute or two, but it was long time. It was chilly last night and the breeze seemed to help. I took off my jacket stood there, paced, being cold. It kind of worked. We had the wait the full light at Highway 6. The light took ages for every little movement. I looked around at the other cars and people seemed to get along with their lives. I was sitting crooked in the seat. I wonder if anyone in the other cars noticed.
When I got home, I tried jumping in the shower. This always sounds like a good idea, but the shower just feels claustrophobic and doesn't really help. I tried lying down. Unless it is the stomach thing, it doesn't help. I got up and walked around. I tried to pee every two minutes. I drank a couple glasses of water. ... I waited. I watched TV. Bones and then Fringe were on, but I couldn't tell you what happened. I finished my book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". I didn't like the ending, but it was a good book. I can tell you about that. for some reason. The book kept my attention better than TV. I didn't get on the computer. I didn't eat until much later in the evening. Then I found the Oreo wannabe generic cookies.
I was almost giddy this morning. I was worn out, but in a good mood. Even though your basic kidney stone doesn't do much real damage, thankfully, they do give you that "I survived" vibe afterword. Kidney stones suck. I wish I knew how to avoid them in the future. I've asked doctors and he said they have to analyze the stones to figure out what it is in your diet that you can eliminate in order to stop them. If they only happen once a year or so just count yourself lucky and get on with life. disappointing.
Our bandwidth at work is charged by the megabit per second. If you go over a threshold, you get the crap charged out of you.
Got a spam email today that basically said "We have people in your area looking for the servers and products you provide." What area are we in? What is our business name? What do you think we do? Nope. They act like they have all kinds of information about our company and they got zip. I hate that. It is not worth my time to Mark and delete these messages.
Good description of the new interface is here. Home page.
I looked at the new Unity interface on Ubuntu. People are all a buzz about Ubuntu dropping Gnome for this new tablet interface. From what I can tell Ubuntu is keeping their mouth shut and letting the community give them a bunch of free advertising. The interface looks limited to me. It is a mobile device interface. It is designed specifically for touch screen interfaces. It looks like it sits on top of GNOME, but I doubt it.
Do I think this is a huge failure? No. Do I think this is the way of the future? No. Unity is one more tool in the box. The idea of a touch interface has it's place.
Note about some of the videos I've seen about this and other touch interfaces. They use a video camera aimed at the screen rather than a screen capture technique to show off the interface. This is to show off the hand gestures. It is also because there is no mouse pointer. If you want to explain what to do next, you have to show your hand doing something because the mouse pointer is not there. No big deal, just an observation.
So many people just want pretty icons that "make it work." This is a fare assessment of mobile phones. Te be honest, I like the idea of the phone and my dish washer just working. I call this sort of thing an appliance interface. This is not a bad thing. I've heard people who call themselves technology reviewers who are frightened to death of the command line. They turn off when it comes to learning something new. I do this myself on occasion. I insist on having control regardless of interface. I do not want any one else making my decisions for me. I want them to make my decisions easier to understand and follow through on.
This brings us right back to the appropriate interface for the device. I want my computer to come up and present the web to me. I want to be able to pop the hood and tinker around as well. If you want it to just work and can't be bothered to sweat the details, expect other people to make those decisions for you in their favor, not yours.
Nat and I went to REI last night. She was looking for the camp toilet bags. She got her own personal camp toilet that we have in the tent. She loves that thing. She needed bags for it. They are heavy duty zip lock bags with chemicals. We walked all over REI after figuring out they were out of the bags. Didn't find anything that I just couldn't live without, especially at their prices. So, we went next door to Academy.
Nat and I are low on funds, but we invested in a propane tent heater. I had no idea there were so many different versions of these things. We ended up buying one that was more than just a couple of bits of tube and a nozzle. I've seen people just open the valve on a propane tank and light the jet on fire. The one we settled on is designed to mount on one of the little propane bottles, but of course there are ways to hook it straight to a full sized bottle.
I also picked up a new universal belt sheath for my Gerber multitool. The sheath that came with gave great service, but has simply worn out after about three years of continuous ware. I am not kind to my accessories. The tool looks brand new. I use it every day. The new sheath has a nice belt clip and a backup carabiner which I hook to a belt loop. It is too big. The Gerber is flush with the top of the case and is impossible to grab. I had to stuff something in the bottom of the sheath to prop it up. I used a boot lace because I wanted to have something in there that was useful. I didn't have any paracord on hand.
I really want one of the new Leatherman tools with the interchangeable screwdriver tips. Drool! The couple of different versions I noticed also have knife blades that you can use without opening the tool. They have saws as well. I've been watching some YouTube videos of how useful those little saws are. May have to drop a hint near Christmas on that one.
Someone at work was complaining that they could not find a red LED headlamp at REI. I couldn't find one either. Red gives you light without ruining your night vision. Academy had two from Energizer that looked cheap, but passable. I really need not go back to either store any time soon. We are broke and need to conserve every dime at the moment. We road home on a new set of tires. That is Christmas I suppose.
SilverLight is dead. Long live HTML5. Microsoft is taking the wheel of HTML5 as best as they can. HTML5 is not really open. At the moment it is a nightmare to get some things done. Developers on SilverLight are not pleased. I can't blame them.
Likewise is a utility that sits on SMB and Kerberos. Supposedly, it handles the attaching of a linux system to an Active Directory network. It it does what it says on the tin, it is a miracle. If it does what I think it does, it is still quite a bit easier to use than modifying all the config files by hand and plunking away with all the different utilities. As long as it doesn't clink me in the head and frame me for a murder, I'm going to call it a win.
Marijuana for recreational use bill in California lost. I'm kind of surprised yet, kind of not surprised. Most of the people in Callie are just normal people who do not smoke dope. I stopped watching a guy on YouTube because it started to feel like he was just high all the time trying to phone in some "news" about public figures and internet blips. At least this keeps the drug cartel monopoly. Not sure I want to know what would happen if that life line were cut.
Sometimes a 16 gigabyte thumb drive just doesn't help much.
I spent most of my morning trying to get a DVD burner to work in Windows XP over a USB. It works fine in Linux. We couldn't hook it to a windows box to save our lives. We had a hard time getting the over 4 gigabyte ISO files from one network to the other.
I had to format my USB drive NTFS. I had to boot a computer in Ubuntu to do that. I can format a USB drive as NTFS in Ubuntu Linux, but not Windows or Red Hat. I cannot access the NTFS file system via Red Hat linux. We have no computers capable of reading ext3 or ext4 on the internet. This makes the USB drive all but useless to me for hauling files from home to work, mostly podcasts. Frigging ISO files are over the 4 gigabyte limit for FAT.
The error you get is "Disk full", not your files are too frigging big for the shit lowest common denominator file system you used. Come on. I need an error message that tells me something useful. It would be nice if it didn't wait until it copied 3.99 gigs to the drive before giving the error.
That old man up the street, he was standing in the rain. He had no coat or hat. His eyes were closed and he stood there facing up to the clouds and let the freezing rain fall on him. He was soaked to the skin. He was breathing heavy. His fists were clenched. He looked like he was enraged or maybe ready to scream. He was silent and let the rain fall. I think he was in pain.
That old man up the street, he used to round his kids up and go on trips. His wife would cook a banquet for the family and all the neighborhood kids. The house would light up everyone laughed together. No one went hungry. No one was alone. That old man he taught his children to live and survive. He built things. He fixed things. He kept it going for so long.
No one laughs in that house any more. No one visits. The old man is tired. He can't keep his yard. The house needs paint. What happened to his family? What did he do to deserve to live alone? How did he screw up what he had?
Maybe it isn't his fault. Maybe he is just unlucky. Maybe someone did this to him. Maybe it is fate, or the will of God.
Something drove him to stand in the rain and strain against time and the world. He will catch is death out there. Someone should ask him if he needs help. Someone should go over there.
I would go, but that look of agony on his face is healthy. If he looked delirious or shocked, I would worry. If he were gawking at the passers by or even sticking his tongue out at the kids, I would say something. He is a lonely old man crying in the rain to hide his tears from the neighbors. He is out there to feel something besides his life falling away every moment. He is quietly dying. He was simply too strong for too long.
Nat was kind enough to give me a ride again this morning. It didn't rain until we pulled up to the building. Then it poured. She gave me a bunch of noodle bowls. She has a glutton problem and didn't want to eat them. They taste like roman with funky flavor packets.
I watched a vlog last night from an Australian guy. He had several of his friends on who also vlogged. They were going over their cameras. He uses a water proof camera and it seems to be working out for him. I've thought of the same thing. The cameras were all over the place. Not one of them had a Flip camera. Kind of liked that idea.
I'm looking at my YouTube numbers and sure enough, no one cares about watching me do anything. However, people enjoy watching girls dress each other and some folks even watched the Enchanted forest video. I'm back to Faire this weekend to get some camping videos and what ever else people will sit still for. Wish me luck.
The tech who helped me at Dell today had my same last name. That kind of makes me wonder if we were on the same mystical frequency or something.
I was all ready to fight tooth and nail. I had a computer I had gone round and round with. The drive stopped working. I tried a different drive. I tried different connectors and BIOS settings to match. I tried new cables. The CD drive was not even working. The drive that was in that box booted on a different computer. The computer will boot off a USB connected drive including CD or thumb drive.
The tech asked me what I had tried and said "It sounds like the SATA connections on the motherboard are fried." The sky cleared and the sun shone through. The angels sang and birds circled in that happy Disney kind of way. For the first time in a while I just felt felt good about having talked to a support person. Not shabby.
This is the exception. Do you know how many times I've had to fight the person on the other end? Just recently I had to call the AT&T people to get my password reset. It took three people to get the idea across that they could not take control of my desktop because their desktop software is not Linux compatible. That is not my fault. All I needed was my frigging password reset on the ADSL.
Why am I putting up prose I think are inferior? It all goes on the blog. These are bad. Still, here they are. Deal with it.
Forgotten Dream
I had a dream last night but I cannot remember what it was.
I hate that.
It is one of those situations where I work up and thought "What a stupid dream."
I then went to sleep.
Woke normally, got ready, got to work and thought about it.
The memory is so degraded that it is just a tab on an empty file.
It reminds me of a receipt left in a pocket after laundry.
It is just a place where some information used to exist.
Tuesday
Tuesday is garbage day
Tuesdays are the average median day.
Tuesdays are the most normal every day.
Tuesdays make the perfect garbage day.
Today is election day, a Tuesday.
The schools are full of voters.
People work on Tuesdays.
Tuesdays are the longest day of the week for me.
Morning
Its cold outside.
It is raining to beet the band.
Its been dry for weeks now.
Its garbage day.
The power stayed on. The traffic lights were out.
The ride in was slippery for the grease on the road.
Forgotten dreams bugging me to be remembered.
Bin needing a rainy morning for a long time.
Remember all the complaining I did a while back about RAID? Well, I had the other side of RAID today. We had a drive die in one of our boxes. I swapped the drive and it rebuilt and went on it's merry way. That is how it should work.
I love the log file entries.
Disk 3 removed serial XXXXX
Disk 3 installed serial XXXXX
Disk 3 Rebuilding
Disk 3 Array rebuild complete.
That is it. This is how it should work. When I have to mess with Grub to get the system to boot up in order to force it to manually rebuild, it is a fail.
Will the bomb packages that started in Yemen affect the security around packages? Well, of course. We need higher taxes to pay for the additional scanners. I would really rather spend the money on identifying our enemies and killing them. My opinion.
I spent half my day hunting down USB drives. Okay, not half. Too much. Five minutes is too much.
"If you are not catching flack, you are not over the target." G. G. Liddy show via podcast.
I'm in the middle of a book called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is translated to English from some Scandinavian language. The translation is well done, but the flow is different than I'm used to. I like the female lead. She is a social outcast. She is mean and vengeful. The male lead is annoying. They end up meeting and hitting it off. I think the story would do better if they hated each other and were forced to work together. That is just me. Maybe that will happen yet. I still have a bit to go on the book.
I have to find some books to read. I hate this. It was so much more convenient before when the NLS (National Library Service) just randomly sent me a book every month or so of the Science Fiction genera. I got a book. Read the book. Sent the book back. Got another one. Piece of cake.
Now, I get to download books from the NLS page as quickly as I can read them. This sounds like a great thing, and it is, but I have to hold myself responsible for choosing the books. I've never been any good at it. I've never been any good at choosing a movie to watch. I am bad at judging a book by its cover, or author or title.
I'm keeping a spreadsheet that tells me what books I've read. This will be needed as I go forward making my own decisions on the spur of the moment. This will lead to duplicates if I don't stay on top of things. I have to get organized. This means I'm putting more effort in to deciding which book I will read next than I'm putting in to my retirement plan. This is sad and must be rectified.
Bitching aside, I love this mechanism! If only there were more books already on the system. That is coming. Every month more books tern up. It will qualify as a library at some point. More science fiction please.
The older I get the more precious my time is to me. I do not want more content, I want better content. I want content that teaches me something. I want content that gives me satisfaction. I need a book that keeps me reading and on track. I like LOST because it kept me thinking. It kept me watching.
Joe Miller. Ken Buck, John Racy. Demo Rossie. (forgive my misspellings)
Why do I know these names? They are Sennett prospects on the Conservative side. I listen to Mark Levin. He is going to have these folks on at some point Monday. By the time I get this up, it will already have happened. I'm listening more than one day behind.
I am beyond sick of hearing about this election.
"It's going to be a sweep for Conservatives." "... day of reckoning ..." I disagree. people are set in their ways. People are going to vote party tickets. I wish I could wave my hand and abolish party tickets.
That is not a quote from Levin's show. It is one I hear from liberals. It is like they are trying to set up the public for a softened blow. It doesn't matter if only one Democrat wins a job as dog catcher in Podunk U. S. A, it will be a win from their point of view. This is not a bad tactic. It is not a winning strategy.
At least Levin is all about telling people to get out and vote even if you don't think it matters.
One summer afternoon I noticed a young man rollerblading down the road in the heat of the afternoon. He was headed right down the middle of the road. He looked like he was headed somewhere and enjoying himself at the same time. For just that moment I envied him. It looked like fun. I was in the middle of something and didn't want to take the time for myself. I didn't have anywhere to go.
Half an our later came a down poor as thick as a shower curtain. The young man came roller blading back the same way he had come. He was drenched. That didn't stop him. Could he have found some cover and waited it out. I'm not sure if it entered his mind. He didn't look miserable. He looked exactly the same as he had before. For just that moment I envied him. The rain wasn't stopping his enjoyment.
This was in the era before mobile phones. So many of us have a phone in our pocket that if it so much as encounters a drop of sweat or one hint of fluid, it dies and must be replaced. If the U. S. government wants to do something constructive about the obesity problem, they would mandate water resistant phones.
A couple people looked at me funny on the bus this morning. I stopped to look in the mirror this morning. No new horns or anything. My fly was indeed zipped. Not sure what was going on.
Yes, I'm doing the notes thing again. It seems to help me Develop seeds for larger thoughts. The notes section provides pebbles for the middle of the snowball. Let's hope for that avalanche.
Some saint brought popcorn balls to work today. They had a full bowl so I doubt they had many kids trick or treating last night. We didn't get any, of course we had the lights turned off and no decorations. Nom nom nom. ... Okay, it was kind of nasty, but it was all I remember from my youth.
Jason wore a Captain Kirk (William Shatter) mask spray panted white. That idea is scarier than the movies.
I'm going to be an asshole and start flagging videos that use copyrighted music if they do not say that they have permission at some point. I have to go to the internet and figure out how to use public domain music. So should they.
I have 1300 words added to my aspell personal dictionary. Oops. 1301, 'aspell' wasn't there.
Let's see, I need to write something for Sunday evening. No idea what to put down. Boring topics falling out of my ears. no. NO!!! NOOOOOO!!!!
Corn dogs for dinner. Did a load of dishes. slept most of the day. Listened to a book for a while. Slept for most of it. Threw away four old shitty keyboards. They all kind of worked. Each had it's own problem.
The software uses a live video feed. After roughly selecting the object using a touch pad, the program reduces the quality of the frames coming from the camera. It then removes the object from the reduced quality version. Once this is done, it improves the quality of the result and blends it with the actual frame. This is then returned to the viewer in just 41ms. 41 ms is unbelievably quick. At that speed, the human brain doesn’t notice any delay. It is as if the object is not even there.
This technology could of been used in Live NEWS feeds removing UFO's, removing a missile fired at the Twin towers. Remove anything as it is fed direct to us on our TV's.
this piece of software was invented by Dr. Wolfgang Broll from the Department of Virtual Worlds and Digital Games at the Technische Universität in Ilmenau in Germany. He has aptly named it the Diminishing Reality System.
I've heard of this kind of thing. Never seen it in action. There is all kinds of cool applications. Reduce the size of a crowd when reporting a news story. Get rid of that shit head video bombing you while you are trying to talk on the video phone.
Who are they targeting? Ford has a new ad about a car that touts using the GPS to find the best fuel economy to your destination. This is not a bad ting. This is a bad way to advertise your vehicle in my opinion. They should sell the car based on what you can do with it, not what you can avoid doing with it. Tell people who they can have fun in the car. Tell people how they can take car of their families in the car. Point out the positive things that buying your car will buy the people who get one.
I would like to know how effective advertisements are on me. How well does the advertiser's message get through to me? What products have I been exposed to via what kind of advertisement and hen followed through to purchasing that or a related product? I feel like a victim when I stop and think about how I may have made purchase decisions based on what an advertisement. It makes me feel like I have been taken advantage of. This is not rational, but true.
YouTube allows it's members, people who post videos, to put up ads and make money on their effort. This works out well for most folks. I'm getting very tired of the same seven or eight commercials. I'm not going in to them because I just don't want to talk about them. I'm that tired of them.
I've thought of attempting to monetize my videos. However, I can't fathom putting up the same commercials as every one else. I don't even get some of the commercials. I'm just not in touch I suppose. That is a normal state for me. What does it take to make money at this sort of thing? Surely, I do not have enough hits to matter one way or the other. I earned a whopping $1.25 in two years on the blog. The videos must be about the same ratio of more effort to click the monetize button than it is worth.
I have no moral objection with monetizing online content as long as it dose not get in the way of the content. Rolling ads, commercials that play before the video, get in the way in my book. Ads that pop up across the bottom of the video only get in the way if something is being said in that area in the video. As long as you can close those ads and get to the content, I'm OK with tat too. Ads that run along side or below the video are fine as long as they are quiet and don't distract me from the content.
2010-10-28
I have a couple readers from the National Library System. The old reader is really just a modified tape player. It has multiple tracks and speed controllers. It has simple pitch controllers and such. It is identical to the one I had when I was a kid. The technology has not changed in thirty years on this front.
Well, there is a new reader in town. It is a digital reader. It takes USB based cartridges and uses a modified m3u media file to play an audio book. You download the audio books from BARD. Google NLS BARD to find the sources and request a player if you qualify. The players will only play those books and the books will only play on the specific players. This is the most awesome thing that has happened for a long time on this subject.
This moves the books for the blind in to the 21st century. It means that I can search a web site for the book or magazine I want and download it instead of going through a request process and waiting for things to travel through the mail. Then, worrying about returning the book and waiting for the mail. If you use a Kindle, you have had this kind of support for a while. I'm just now getting on board.
This switch seems to have been rushed after the fact. The new readers appear to be so popular that the deadlines of killing the old system have been moved up a year or so. I'm not the only one who loves this new process compared to the old one.
Old Process
Read through the catalog for a book or magazine.
Send an email with the information to a human.
Wait for a week for the book to turn up in the mail.
Grab the first tape, flip the tape (3 times), second tape, ... fifteenth tape.
Make sure all the tames are rewound all the way.
Pack up the tames in order, flip the address label.
Mail.
Order something else.
Wait.
You could request multiple books in order to have something while you were waiting for a new book to turn up. You could also have automatic selection processes in action that would bounce another book to you when the old one was received. Dealing with snail mail was bad enough. I had a very bad habit of flipping the address label more than once and mailing the book back to myself. There were a couple of bad tapes. There were a couple of bad containers for the tapes. This is to expected. Still, limiting the mechanical factors makes for less chance of failure.
New Process
Log in to the BARD web site.
Search around for a book or magazine.
Download the file to the computer.
Uncompress the file to a USB drive.
Plug the USB drive in to the player
Press play.
Repeat as needed.
No late returns. You can store them on CD, though they only work on that reader.
The idea at first was to send out the USB based cartridges in the same way that the tapes were headed out. Someone was awake and said "What the hell are you people thinking?!?" Thank God. They made the web page and avoided half the troubles of the process. One side effect of this is the lack of a cartridge that fits in the digital reader. Now I have to use a USB drive which sticks out of the side of the device like a sore thumb just waiting to get knocked off, broken or lost. This makes portability a bit touchy. The digital reader does have a place to attach a strap on the back. Nice design.
Field
Data
Title
NLS BARD digital reader and the old school cassette reader
Description
I have a couple readers from the National Library System. The old reader is really just a modified tape player. It has multiple tracks and speed controllers. It has simple pitch controllers and such. It is identical to the one I had when I was a kid. The technology has not changed in thirty years on this front.
Well, there is a new reader in town. It is a digital reader. It takes USB based cartridges and uses a modified m3u media file to play an audio book. You download the audio books from BARD. Google NLS BARD to find the sources and request a player if you qualify. The players will only play those books and the books will only play on the specific players. This is the most awesome thing that has happened for a long time on this subject.
BARD Web site
http://nslbard.loc.gov
Tags
NLS BARD legally blind audio book reader audiobook tape player digital audio Houston Texas Harris County Canon 948IS
People love wireless networks. I hate them. The quality of the network connection is poor most of the time. Instead of making a good connection, wireless systems make a good enough connection. The numbers sell wireless. If you have a 11.x kilobit connection or a 56.x kilobit connection or a 300 kilobit connection is what rakes in the upgraders who have money for the bleeding edge.
The faster these things get, the more tricks they play to make the numbers work. You have dropped packets and flipped bits. There are recovery and survival mechanisms to keep things from getting hairy. If something breaks, the protocols and routers try to fix things as they go and keep the bits flowing.
When you are talking a wrong character on a web page or an off color pixel in a video or photo, the idea of keeping things going instead of keeping them accurate works pretty well. This is the surfing the net side of the equation. Surely you have noticed this kind of thing at some point. A page seems to be all messed up, tables are out of kilter, the design looks badly mutated. What do you do in this case? You hit refresh. Well, this happens in database communication too.
When working on databases, all the data has to match. What is coming off end A must be correct on end B and vise verse. Another packet travels beside the real data that exists only to back check the original data. If things do not match in the slightest, the whole transaction might just start over. This will happen as many times as it takes to not fail the back check. The client or server sits there and pumps the refresh key on multiple levels. This may only be one step in a tremendous burst of data that needs to go back and forth between the server and client.
If you can surf the net without noticing any degradation, it does not mean that you can do things that require database communication without trouble. The only analogy I can think of is the difference between trowing and juggling. Surfing the net is throwing a request out there and seeing what comes back. Microsoft Outlook and other database communication is like juggling communication between the client, server and CRM, while dancing with the server on the dance floor shared with the entire internet. There is a unicycle in there somewhere.
A couple of podcasts are looking in to have a day where you do not use electronic devices that provide any kind of mental stimulation. No computers, TV, stereo, music player, phone, game player or whatever. Nothing for an entire day. I've done this sort of thing at Fair in the past, but not recently. My phone did not work at Fair for the first couple of years. Not worth a damn any way.
Some studies say that young people who are cut off start to feel lonely and detached after one day. I believe it. I have a hard time getting away and staying away from the internet and such. I can't remember the last time I watched a TV for the sake of watching. At work, I have only limited internet. They watch us like a hawk. This is a good thing I suppose.
Perhaps, I will not participate in the log off day. Not sure yet. I can sleep an entire day. I'll stay up to midnight and then sleep to 15:00. Then I'll read a book for a couple hours. Then eat something and play tiddly-winks for a while. AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! I'll never make it. Bring on the assimilation tubes. I for one welcome our robot-zombie overloads.
Every one must be an optimist. No one is aloud to be a pessimist or say that anything is not working. Everything is working all the time. Nothing is broken, ever. Anyone who says anything bad is a bad person and you should not listen to them. Any one who points out flaws is a flawed person.
This is how China works. This is how the old Soviet Union worked. This is how big brother works.
Failure is the new success.
If you can't do, redefine what is as what you did.
Doing fifteen completely unrelated things to make a living over your lifetime is now defined as a career.
_________ studies is the new engineering.
What was once called a slum or a ghetto is now a diverse neighborhood.
The unemployed are potential workers.
High unemployment is a large employable pool.
Taxes don't take away from what you can spend, they add to services other people get.
The government doesn't hide facts and figures, they protect the public.
Sometimes things are broken and need to be fixed. Sometimes something is causing a problem and needs to be changed. If it were not for pessimism, no one would want change, no one would need hope. You shout from the roof tops "Change! Hope! Change!" Then you turn it off like a spigot. I think not. The world is what it is. People are people. Some will always be happy. Some will always be sad. Some will find their way and some will not. All are useful. All make the world what it is. Stop trying to change me. Stop trying to save me from myself. I'm here. I'm me. Deal with it.
I watch a vlog from a guy named Charles Trippy. Yup, that is his real name. His finance's name is Ally Speed. They get stopped at airports quite a bit. I know a lot more about these folks that I have a right.
They love their dogs. This is the real reason most people watch the vlog at all.
Charles recently had a run in with someone at a coffee shop. That is they ran in to him. He had to deal with their insurance company called USAA. He was not pleased with USAA, but this is kind of a good thing for USAA because I want my insurance company to be a dick to the people who are thinking of suing me. Anyway, he got the car fixed.
When Ally graduates with some kind of language degree next Summer, they will most likely move to Los Angeles because that is where the money for their chosen path is.
Charles has a communications degree. I have to say, he is using it to its fullest with his vlog. I'd higher him.
Charles recently launched a rocket with a key chain camera attached. Pretty cool footage. He then proceeds to attach his vlog camera, a Canon Elf like mine, to a remote control truck and drive around. The camera bites the dust. He must have just wanted a new camera. That camera bit the dust.
He killed another camera in a water slide incident. He had just gotten through traveling to Jamaica exclusively to show off some brand of waterproof cameras.
The man has access to waterproof rugged cameras and insists on using these Canon Elf cameras for camera unfriendly tasks. I don't get it myself. More power to him. Maybe he has stock in Canon.
The most recent purchase that Charles talks about in his vlog is the Canon SD3500IS. It is much like my camera, the 940IS, but has a touch screen and some fancy crap. Charles seems taken with the wide angle lens. I have to say, that is great. The wider the better in my book when it comes to vlogging. The camera has several of the limitations as my camera.
Video Down Side on the Canon SD 3500 IS
Still has the 10 minute limit.
Still only does mono sound.
You still have to stop recording video to use the optical zoom.
You still have to stop recording video to switch to or from macro.
Definitely not the camera that I'm impressed with. I'm looking at other models.
Remember the death of Charles' last couple cameras? They had some form of watery death. Well, day one, Charles nearly dose in his new camera by vlogging in the rain. Charles, ... come on. You must have kept one of those weatherproof cameras. Keep it in the car or something.
My blog entries are too short. Over the last year or more my entries have gotten shorter and shorter. This is due not to the lack of thing to say, but the lack of willingness to sit down and think things out while putting them down. My attention span has shortened to about five minutes for the deepest of thoughts.
I watched a show on hulu last night about a collage class for anthropology. They had a running joke that watching YouTube videos was a good way to study current trends in civilization. In one of the podcasts I heard today, there was a joke about making class times as long as a YouTube video to keep people's attention. This is more true than any one in charge is willing to admit.
My job is not helping. I get torn from one project to another every five minutes. I'll be restaging three machines simultaneously while researching hard drives and laptop batteries online for replacing existing systems. It is just a normal thing.
I'm frighteningly bad at multitasking. I do not even believe that humans are capable of multitasking. They are only able to do one thing at a time. The illusion of multitasking comes from switching from one thing to another. This adds overhead to the process making things worse. Real art and true craftsmanship comes from someone doing one thing at a time. Doing it well. Then doing the next thing. This makes for quality.
I'll never have written anything longer than one of these blog entries without the ability to concentrate on one subject for longer than five or ten minutes. That is just not how writing is done. You write. You fix. You fix some more. You fix some more yet. You start over. Then, you get to go to the next paragraph. It is maddening and a tedious process. Not every one works that way. I'll have to.
Now, how do I fix this defect? Well, I need to exorcise the thinking muscle on long term projects. I have no ability to stick with things over the long haul. I need to fix this too. I may need to stop with the whole Notes crap that I put on this blog. Either expand on those entries or save them in a file somewhere for seed ideas.
How many times a year do I go through this same effort? I must have to kick my self in the pants three times a year. Yee-gads. I'm a mess.
I re watched Shawn of the Dead last night. I forgot how good that show is. It also reminded me that even British people should learn gun safety.
Spoiler Alert!
When the inevitable zombie apocalypse occurs, be armed with firearms. Killing zombies is more efficient with firearms. Do not get caught in Canada or Europe when the other shoe drops. No one in Shawn of the Dead can soot. They don't understand the concept of keep the ammunition on your person at all times either.
Bullets
Killing loved ones because they turned in to zombies.
Killing zombies with guns, vehicles, bits of wood.
Traveling to somewhere more safe avoiding zombies.
Acquiring a very nice car, because you can in a zombie apocalypse.
Survivors using zombies as slave labor.
Survivors falling in (back in) love.
Anti-Bullets
Killing someone who is not a zombie because, hey, when will you get a better chance?
Flamethrowers.
Modified zombie guzzling super vehicles.
It just might come to pass that both zombies and robots will rise and attempt to conquer humanity. I want to make the movie where both happen at the same time. Humans basically sit and watch the fun. Then, get back to their daily lives when it is all over. Then the zombiebots get a shot at it.
Shawn of the Dead might be the most accurate portrayal of what a real zombie apocalypse would look like. Some will be in denial. Some will take charge. some will stand there and be eaten. Some will prey. Some will just sit there and dye of thirst. In the end, either the military will come in and take care of things or the zombies will all run out of food and die off. Either way, the survivors get to repopulate the earth. That's what you should look forward to.
A couple of the moms here are work were having a chat in the hall, near the coffee machine this morning. They were reminiscing about kids. They were talking about husbands having different schedules than they have. They both had Husbands change jobs or at least schedules recently.
They spoke of scheduling conflicts. How one of their husbands get off at 15:00. Our work is very kid unfriendly. Not just this place, but the demands made on the employees make our lives extremely difficult when it comes to a family.
"I've asked [the boss] about putting in a kid's room up here." One of the moms said.
No one is going to hold their breaths on that one.
"I thought I would be the stay at home mom." One mom said. This didn't work out. She mentioned having to let that thought go to survive.
I feel for these two women. However, I don't feel that much for them. They made their choices. If they want a more favorable work life, it is out there. They have to get away from this company. This company is not parent friendly. This company is not alone. I've been at a company that was much more parent friendly. The mentality of this company will simply not allow it.
We have computers in the lab of many vintages. We need to diversify because of customer support. They all have one thing in common. Drive failure. There is not one kind of drive that is infallible. They all fall apart after enough use. Some do not need much use. Typically, the third time I have to mess with a drive beyond mount or plugging something in, I replace it. One of the boxes today might have survived the check disk for the third round, but I do not want to deal with that exact same drive again next week or month.
Recently we had a system board (formerly known as a motherboard) loose the two Ethernet connectors. They showed up in the BIOS. They showed up on an lspci. No software could communicate with them. We had to purchase a $10 NIC and plug it in to the board. This doesn't sound like a hassle, but it is a bench system. It is just a system board, drives and power supply screwed to a bit of plywood. The card gets in the way and I fear it will be ripped out when someone trips over the network cable. The system is in a spot where people have to get behind the rack to do things. The potential of someone (me) tripping over the cord is relatively high.
Tripping over the wire is probably how the original Ethernet ports died in my opinion. What is an IT Tasmanian Devil to do?
Example: I was working on one of the machines in the server room. Someone came in and says "The network is down." I get a few more details and figure out that the problem is with the server right below the one I have been working on for two hours. I ping around and verify that it is indeed that server. What to do? Well, I giggled the network cables. Fixed. I am a miracle worker. "That was quick. Good job Kelly."
This is just a taste of Camping at Texas Renaissance Festival 2010.
There are so many clips that I cannot show. There are so many funny things that I cannot video. One of these days I'll make a documentary about camping at TRF with all the extra footage. I need to wait for people to get old and forgetful.
This group calls itself Safe Haven. There is some Yahoo group for the family of folks, but I forget what it is. We come together as much as possible. We share shelter and food. Sounds like a village to me. Yes, people bring their kids out to camping. We do it. People should do it. It is an experience that should be required of all young people to have to deal with adults who have no respect for them.
Field
Data
Title
TRF Camping 2010
Description
This is just a taist of Camping at Texas Renaissance Festival 2010.
Tags
Texas Renaissance Festival TRF camping dressing family fun Safe Haven canon 940is
Wonderful time at Faire this weekend. I left this video very long for the heck of it. It is the full 10 minutes aloud by YouTube. Well, They supposedly allow 15 minute videos now, but I haven't figured it out yet.
This is the Texas Renaissance Festival. The Enchanted Forest walk is free. I should have know better. If you get in the place right after cannon (opening) and run to the the back, you can have the place to yourself for a bit. Maybe next time.
I will have some more videos coming from this weekend's trip. I'm destroyed this evening. This video is basically uncut so the editing consists of shooting the intro and dropping it in place. Then click the render button. I suppose it could have used some editing, but I'm just way too out of it.
Some of the footage I shot was me basically vlogging in the Faire. This is a big step for me. I've done like two shots of me talking to a camera in public with the camera aimed at my face. There is something worth noting about this experience. I feel more comfortable doing it inside Faire than in the realm of the mundanes. This means I do not feel the fourth wall stress as badly while in garb in Faire.
Field
Data
Title
Enchanted Forest Texas Renaissance Festival.
Description
This is the Texas Renaissance Festival. The Enchanted Forest walk is free. I should have know better. If you get in the place right after cannon (opening) and run to the the back, you can have the place to yourself for a bit. Maybe next time.
http://www.texrenfest.com/
Tags
TRF Texas Renaissance Festival Enchanted Forest Faire fare Houston nature walk Canon 940IS
I like the advice of an artist being interviewed on NPR. She said "Don't be afraid ti fail." "Don't be afraid to write a song that sucks." Very good advice. This is a huge problem for people raised to always think they deserve praise for every little thing. These folks are learning the hard way that they were set up for failure. No one cared what happened to them after they graduated.
I need some more fictional and light listening podcasts. Something has to give. The political news is so bad that I just can't take it any more.
I still dislike Phil Collins. He always seemed like the kind of music old people liked. I'm old now and still despise most of his work.
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