Posts for April, 2003
Oh Daddy
Oh DaddyAdrian Belew
Mr. Music Head
Oh daddy, when you gonna write that big hit? Oh daddy, when you gonna hit it real big, real big? Well, now that's a tall request for such a small little girl but I'll try, try till I get it just right 'cause I'm gonna make it, maybe even twice Oh daddy, when you gonna make it to the big time gig? Oh daddy, when you gonna blow off the lid? Well, it's like a backstage pass into paradise there's a long lonely waiting list but I'm gonna give it everything I've got to give Oh daddy, when you gonna be a big star? I got the suit and a pink guitar Oh daddy, when you gonna break it wide open I don't know but I still keep hopin' Oh daddy, are you gonna make a million bucks? All it takes it a whole lotta luck Oh daddy, when you gonna have that fat Cadillac like you always said? Oh daddy, when you gonna put on some stretch pants, yeah? Well, don't hold your breath 'cause it'll make you blue but the whole opera's not over yet and I aim to make the fat lady sweat Oh daddy, how you gonna make it to the top? All I know is I'm not gonna stop Oh daddy, what are ya' gonna buy your little girl? Hey, I'm gonna getcha DisneyWorld Oh daddy, you could hit the jackpot yet Like I told now don't hold your breath Oh daddy daddy, Oh daddy daddy I'm gonna buy you DisneyWorld!read more
It's getting hot in here
On the way in to work today, the temp reading at the bank said 198o. I'm fairly sure that's not accurate. read moreWhere does the time go when it's not around here
Spafford's Axioms are as relevant today as they were a decade ago. Replace "Usenet" with "Internet" and it could've been written today.Axiom #1: "The Usenet is not the real world. The Usenet usually does not even resemble the real world." Corollary #1: "Attempts to change the real world by altering the structure of the Usenet is an attempt to work sympathetic magic -- electronic voodoo." Corollary #2: "Arguing about the significance of newsgroup names and their relation to the way people really think is equivalent to arguing whether it is better to read tea leaves or chicken entrails to divine the future." Axiom #2: "Ability to type on a computer terminal is no guarantee of sanity, intelligence, or common sense." Corollary #3: "An infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards could produce something like Usenet." Corollary #4: "They could do a better job of it." Axiom #3: "Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) applies to Usenet." Corollary #5: "In an unmoderated newsgroup, no one can agree on what constitutes the 10%." Corollary #6: "Nothing guarantees that the 10% isn't crap, too." Which of course ties in to the recent: "Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." --spaf (1992) "Don't sweat it -- it's not real life. It's only ones and zeroes." -- spaf (1988?) -- Gene Spafford, COAST Project Director Software Engineering Research Center & Dept. of Computer Sciences Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398read more
Revolution behind your eyes
No surprise that Apple is the first one to get digital music distribution right. 99 cents/song. Unlimited number of songs. You can burn them to CD. You can share them with up to 3 other macs (great for home networks...). I will be trying this out tonight and reporting back to the masses of your asses.On an unrelated note I'm looking at picking up Crossover Plugin (having Quicktime on Linux is very nice) and possibly trying to get the company to pick up a license for their Office plugin so I can run Photoshop on linux instead of having to boot into NT.
read moreFire in your eyes
Some randomness: I will second Jonathon's contention that we can't afford to lose BB, so help out if you can 
SciAm has probably the most interesting take yet on the fiasco that is our Patent Office here in the States. Is the USPTO being used to write legislation by of and for private companies (as opposed to Congress being used to write legislation by of and for private companies, which is the approved methodology). I think I should patent the process of the using the patent system to create new laws.
When I'm feeling overly cynical (e.g. when I'm awake), it is always heartening to see an enlightened capitalist like Tim O'Reilly going out of his way to help people help themselves. Isn't this what society is supposed to be for? To provide a means for those with to help those without? If not then it's all really pointless.
And what would the week be without the requisite story of a professional moralistic Clinton basher being nailed for child porn? And these people criticized Clinton? Sure he was a scumbag, but at least they were of legal age. Note, I have no problem with the vast majority of Clinton critics who stuck to issues that matter (environment, economy, foreign policy, etc), only the ones who focused on his sex life.
And yet more evidence of the "liberal press": SF Chronicle fires reporter for criticizing war. Those damned liberal SF papers.
And sadly, William Gibson has given up blogging.
read moreYou can read it in the Monday Papers
Interesting new entrant in the blogworld: Invisiblog. In the spirit of anonymous remailers (and using one) comes anonymous blogging. The FAQ includes some hot tips on retaining anonymity to the highest degree possible. Good stuff.What is scary about this is that it's not all that far fetched. I find it mildly disconcerting that the Onion and the Daily Show are more reliable and trustworthy than the news media. I'm reading The Press Effect and Jamieson and Waldman offer a highly critical overview of media coverage, focusing on the 2000 Presidential election, but also touching on historical issues such as the Nixon Presidency and the Gulf of Tonkin incident. They are equally critical of the coverage given to Bush and Gore, in an impressive display of non-partisanship that is lacking in our media today. They encourage reporters to research the statements by candidates and to not simply accept the frame given to them by interested parties but to investigate and to put a truly fair and balanced frame around it. One issue that they note but could have gone into more detail on is that the media almost universally present issues as a for/against disagreement, whereas in reality there are often (I might argue almost always) more than two points of view on a given issue and the press ignores all but the two that are most easily reduced to sound bites.
Fox News Network officially puts quotation marks around "News" and reporters will now do the finger-quoting gestures when saying the word. - Tatsuya Ishidaread more
Smoke on the water
Our status meetings are always so informativeMike1: When Pete hears from someone about that thing we talked about earlier you can start on it. But not whoever I told you this morning, someone else. And Pete wants you to do it in email so it's documented.This was preceded by:
Mike3: So I need to tell someone about something sometime. By email. Well, at least we cleared up one part of it.Mike1 The standing Tuesday Interface Meeting is at 8am. I don't know where. Or why. But if you need to know when it is, that's when.
(14:08:39) griz: mmmmm food coma + sugar coma + cold rainy day. I'm ready for my nap now.
(14:09:28) griz: i'd go home and make a fire, except my fire place is surrounded by packed boxes and I have no firewood
(14:11:24) rev: pour the contents of the boxes on the floor, and two problems are solved at once
(14:11:42) griz: I knew you were going to say that.
(14:12:11) griz: of course, the adhesives in cardboard, plust the stuff the treat the outer layer with plus the ink are all toxic when burned.
(14:12:42) rev: Yea, but what's life without some risks?
(14:13:02) griz: safer?
(14:13:06) griz: longer?
(14:13:18) griz: not death? read more
What the fuck do you think you're doing?
Mike3 notified me that Revolution is not an AOL keyword. Doc Searls also is hip to this groove. Equally as important is the realization that The television will not be revolutionized.Madonna, however, doesn't get it. For someone who was once a very astute and foresightful businesswoman, she's remarkably uninformed about the digital media world. Her website was hacked to allow anyone to download the whole album for free, and DCL has remixed her "what the fuck do you think you're doing" comment into a fairly drab techno track. I've heard the first single (American Life). It's possibly one of the worst songs I've ever heard from a professional. Ever.
If you're a Tivo fan, you can check out the mods they've made to the kernel. I respect tech companies who realize that people who buy their products might want to mess around with them and make them do things Tivo never thought of, and support them in doing so.
read more
If you tolerate this then your children will be next
If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Nextartist: Manic Street Preachers
album:This is my truth, tell me yours
The future teaches you to be alone
the present to be afraid and cold
so if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists
Bullets for your brain today
but we'll forget it all again
monuments put from pen to paper turns me into a gutless wonder
and if you tolerate this then your children will be next
Gravity keeps my head down
or is it maybe shame
at being so young and being so vain
Holes in your head today
but I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas but not with real intent
And on the streets tonight an old man plays
with newspaper cuttings of his glory days
And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this then your children will be next will be next will be next will be next
read moreWho are the ones that we kept in charge?
Several incredibly stunning pieces around the web today:- Howard Zinn presents a People's History of Antiwar Protest
- Arianna Huffington talks about why the antiwar movement was right, and points out the eagerness with which the Administration is encouraging far right Christian missionaries to go into the land of Islam and seek out converts. I think that this is possibly the most damaging act thus far. The fear on the part of Muslims that this is simply a covert Holy War against Islam is starting to seem not so far fetched after all.
- Ted Rall on the faking of the infamous "tearing down the statue of Saddam".
- Tim Robbins explains quite plainly what is wrong with the state of our nation in regards to the war.
- slacktivist pipes in about the insanity of the administrations' foreign policy "rationales".
- Doug Ireland notes the failure of the US to follow the directives of the Geneva convention among others (though our government was always quick to criticize the USSR for similar failings).
- Why do people hate America?
- What about those Weapons of Mass Distraction?
- Indy Media just on general principle.
- Michael Tomasky on the attempts to silence the left.
- Brooke Biggs on the killing of peace activists
- Seumus Milne on the Fraudulent War
Eyes Wide Open
If you work with something often enough, you often develop an internal shorthand that you use in reference to various aspects of that thing that people who aren't as familiar with it won't understand. Whether you are talking about encryption, internal combustion engines, or gardening, the language of the veteran will often be inscrutable to the neophyte. It is incumbent on both to work to understand one another. Veterans should be more aware of their use of jargon and neophytes should work to learn the jargon. I suspect the neophytes generally do their part far more often than veterans do. I've updated the PABlog installation guide to be a bit less vague in order to rectify that situation. Thanks to all those who've asked for clarification for pointing this out to me ;) read moreI am nothing and should be everything
So we had our weekly meeting. After the travesty that was our last deployment, the Environmental group is thrilled with our work and is trying to get more funding to expand. The deployment resulted in their logo showing up on the portal page, and the ability to log in and get an error message. These people set the bar REAL low. It's kind of nice for a change. We deliver a completely broken application (not entirely our fault, more the result of the paranoid level of security in the webfarm and the inability of our system to connect to a remote db because of a firewall) and they want to give us more money. I feel like I'm working for a dotcom again.I got a great email today from corporate:
I have a compliment and a favor to ask you. We are doing a new proposal. They would like to incorporate your resume as an example of the GREAT TALENT we have here. I have been asked to forward your resume (attached) to you. Please add to your resume or other parts that were highlighted for your editing and email it back to me at your earliest convenience. I have been informed that this is of a timely nature and would appreciate your immediate response.My initial response was, of course, "Wow, that's the most ass kissing email I've ever gotten." I would've felt a little more special if a very similar email hadn't been sent to my cubemate last week. Sure, I did update the res and send it back, more business for them (particularly based on skills I have) means better choices for me when this project ends. This is called enlightened self interest.As you would know, you are not being submitted for anything, of course. You are a prime example of excellence!
As for my cynicism, I've learned that whenever I start feeling like perhaps I'm overly cynical, I can just listen to some of George Carlins recent material (anything post 1990) and realize that I'm an absolute beginner when it comes to bitter cynicism.
read moreShave and a haircut
I left work early today in the hopes of recuperating. Mae was rehearsing so I was told to make myself scarce. I decided to go for that long overdue haircut. Great Clips was packed, so I decided to try out this little place around the corner. A fairly nondescript little barber shop, and it had quite clearly been a barbershop for a LONG time. All the original chairs, and the barbers all working on their customers. This is a real old fashioned barbershop. Shave, beard trimming, scalp massage, and lots of old style aftershave and rubbing alcohol. Women would not enjoy getting their hair cut there. Men, on the other hand, likely would. That is where I'm going from now on... read moreDie For Oil Sucker, the remix
Yes, Faux News was right all along, it's not a war for oil at all. It's PURE COINCIDENCE that the military chose to protect the Ministry of Oil rather than the Antiquity Museum that housed millenia worth of artifacts from the birthplace of humanity. Certainly couldn't have anything to do with one of the REAL goals of the war, nope not at all, that would be a conspiracy theory, and we all know those are always wrong, don't we?Almost as sick is what seems to be the Administrations sudden realization that the war came and went too quickly to assure Bush's election in 2004 so they need to find a way to extend it. Hello Syria! And after that it will be "Oops, now the WMD are in Iran! Oops, now they're in Saudi Arabia looks like we'll have to invade them as well!" As we go down the list, when will people realize that the "enemy" is anyone and everyone not actually directly connected to the Bush Administration? That includes you and me, pal.
read moreJumbo go away
From the Journal of the American Medical Association:The researchers' meta-analysis found that people on diets of 60 or fewer grams of carbohydrates a day (a threshold used in some of the popular low-carbohydrate diets) did lose weight. But the weight loss was associated with restriction of caloric intake and longer diet duration, not with reduced carbohydrate intake. It also found that the greatest weight loss occurred among those participants on diets with the highest baseline weight and lowest caloric content.This is from a Stanford research paper reviewing 107 low-carb diet studys over a 4 year period. They note that there is no conclusive evidence for or against such diets, but indicate that there are concerns about the potential for liver and kidney damage resulting from those diets over the long term."The greatest predictors of weight loss appear to be caloric intake and diet duration," she (Dena Bravata, MD) said. "The findings suggest that if you want to lose weight, you should eat fewer calories and do so over a long time period."
Up until I got a job in the computer industry, I was always quite skinny. My suddenly sedentary worklife altered that to the point where I was in pretty bad shape. Mae and I joined a gym shortly after moving to St. Louis, and we've moderately altered our eating habits (e.g. we eat fast foood less frequently). Mae has lost quite a bit (and would likely have lost more were it not for hormones interfering). I've dropped almost three inches off my waist. While I plan to drop at least another inch, I'm pleased with the progress I've made with very little effort. I don't worry much about carbs/fats/etc, I look at how many calories I take in and if they're useful calories. I work out several times each week, and enjoy doing so, and simply make the effort to expend more calories than I consume. Do so over a long period and you will not only lose weight, but you will keep it off.
read moreAm I the only one who needs you to go, go on without me
Bright and far too early this morning we trecked out to the doctor's office to see what we would see. Well, we had a more specific purpose in mind actually. We were the first to arrive for our IUI. As we sat waiting for my gametes to be processed about a half dozen women came in (not all at once, but you get the idea) with little brown bags presumably containing similar specimens. Not a single husband accompanied his spouse. Mae said "They probably have better things to do on a Saturday morning." Better than being there for your wife and participating in resolving infertility? I find that difficult to conceive of (no pun intended). But perhaps that's just me. read moreWe're only in it for the money
Nice overview of the RIAA's current suits against four students, including a simple explanation of file sharing.This brings to mind something I've been thinking of lately. I've been a music fan for about 20 years now. I have spent a LOT of money over the years, though less now than I did when I lived with my parents ;) I have no problem spending money on music. However, I'm not interested in about 90% of what the music industry puts all their efforts into promoting. Of this weeks Billboard to 50 chart, I have 4 and there's one other that interests me. Just because I don't run out and buy the White Stripes "Elephant" doesn't mean I don't like music, it means that I don't like what's being marketed at me. There's at least a dozen albums that have come out this year or are due out soon that I have on my list to get, none of which will ever get any marketing dollars from the labels.
Now that we've established that I like music a lot, and am always interested in new music, let's look at the problem with the current approach to delivery. Physical delivery is passe. Frank Zappa was pushing this idea back in 1987 (as usual, way ahead of his time), and even outlined how Digital Restriction Management would work. If the labels would offer me the ability to download songs and to listen to them on whatever device I choose (the system I download it on, another computer in my house, portable MP3 player, burn to cd so I can listen in the car or at work, etc) then I'd sign up and spend even more of my money on music, quite likely. Elminate physical delivery completely and your costs drop significantly as well.
FZ noted that there will always be a need for record stores because music shopping is a social activity. So have bins full of display cards with the album cover and info and then have people go up to a machine at the front, punch in the album they want, and it burns them a copy with a nice label on it and they can print out the cover/liner notes/etc as well. Charge them a lower price than current retail (since you didn't have to manufacture/distribute and buy your CD blanks and cardstock in bulk still). Labels continue to make money (possibly more than before), people get their music (cheaper and easier) and record stores stay in business (though chains probably will suffer, since all stores will be able to access the same inventory at the same price, the higher quality of service and value adds you get at indy stores make them a more attractive destination). The only people getting hosed in this scenario (aside from the artists, who get screwed no matter what happens) are the distributors, but they can simply move into distributing other things that aren't being supplanted by digital versions.
read moreMoney Don't Matter 2Night
(09:53:13) griz: it's just annoying because I had it under control until someone with a badly patched mail client got klez and signed me up for the shit.(09:53:50) rev: wonderful
(09:54:10) rev: I love how someone else's screwup becomes your problem. Thank you, spamfuckers.
(09:54:29) griz: KILL KILL KILL
(09:55:43) rev: I'm personally partial to the term "fucktard" right now.
(09:55:56) rev: Though assclown is a close second
(09:56:07) griz: lol
(09:57:14) rev: This one time, at band camp ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H commercialware, D was out in Boston doing a presentation for the executive board and who should log on to Hotline? M under the name....
(09:57:23) rev: ratfucker
(09:57:57) rev: Apparently it looked real nice up on the projector.
(10:01:53) griz: LOL
(10:02:19) griz: important note - whenever making a presentation TURN OFF ALL IM CLIENTS
(10:02:50) rev: It was a presentation OF the IM client ;) He was promoting the usefullness
(10:03:07) griz: ROTFLMA
Other randomness: those 5000 users I was cramming into LDAP most of last week were finally trimmed by the manager. To 136. Your taxes paid four days of billable hours for that. Isn't that nice?
Griz also points out that most of the travel industry apparently no longer takes debit cards, only credit cards. I don't do credit cards, so I guess they don't want my money. I don't understand a business that says "Oh no, we don't want you as a customer." Mobility is only for people who are willing to pay exorbitant interest rates to financial services companies that do everything they can to avoid paying taxes...
Thanks to Micha for this:
"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.' Need I say more?"
- Chris Rock
read more3 is the magic number
Wow, thrice in one day. This may be a record, but I doubt it. Dropped the 1.3 of PABlog on the server. If you haven't experienced the joy that is Zope, you really should. read morereviews
New reviews:- Marilyn Manson - Golden Age of the Grotesque
- Radiohead - Hail To The Thief read more
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal
Grabbed my little voter card and headed out the door, straight up the street to the polling place. As I walked up the pathway, operatives with flyers accosted me. The Dem said "so and so would really appreciate your support", and the Rep jumped in and said "so and so2 would also". I'm reasonably sure I can't vote for both of them.They seem to have redrawn the district boundaries since Nov. I didn't exist in any of their voter rolls. Hmmm. Odd. I conveniently had left the voter card in the car, so I went back out to double check it. My new polling place is a different address on the same street. Wonderful. So I headed to the elementary school as indicated by the card. Some of those kids are almost as tall as I am (granted, it's not as though I were extraordinarily tall, but these are still 6th graders that are almost as tall as I).
As noted above, I couldn't vote for both the Dem and the Rep, and I wasn't given any other choices for several of the offices. I held my nose and voted for the arguably lesser of two evils each time. I voted in favor of the schools and the purchasing amount limit, both of which seem eminently reasonable to me. We shall see.
Addendum: several coworkers have noted that since I live in the city I probably could vote for both, or for one of them more than once. Even by my standards this is overly cynical. Not that it's necessarily false.
read moreRock the casbah
I'm sure we will do a wonderful job liberating Iraq from the vicious dicatatorship of the Baathist regime. After all, less than two years after our sweeping invasion and ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Taliban is BACK IN POWER. Yes, the Taliban is retaking Afghanistan town by town, executing foreigners and Afghani aid workers, threatening those they don't kill and once again violentlyh enforcing their code of conduct upon the populace. Shocked, I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked and awed that it didn't happen sooner. Just as there was never any real interest in liberating the people of Afghanistan, there is no real interest in liberating the people of Iraq. I tell you now: Within two years of "victory" in Iraq the life of the average person will be just as bad as it was under Saddam, perhaps worse. However, it may still acheive it's real goal, which is to ensure the election of Bush as President so that Halliburton et al can continue the transfer of wealth from poor countries into their bank accounts. read moreJust eat it
When I was a kid, I ate a lot of strange things. I would make sandwiches out of everything in the fridge, trying to imitate the Dagwood approach. These were generally inedible. I also was known for always having food with me, generally in a little sandwich baggie. Usually Oreo's. This afternoon, I remembered my favorite dessert. I would take a bowl of ice cream (any flavor), break up several cookies into it, pour in some milk, and stir it up into a soupy mess. As usual, everyone thought it was gross and that I was nuts. They now sell these for $3.50 each at Dairy Queen and call them Blizzards. I always knew I was ahead of my time, I just didn't realize it was in the field of desserts. read moreParliament's a fake life saver, you better wake up and smell the real flavour
Um, please tell me this is meant to be a parody? Or post-ironic? Or ANYTHING but fo' real. It is so astoundingly painful that I think it may be in earnest. read moreThem Or Us
The most insightful comment I've ever seen on slashdot:I have never seen evidence that giving up privacy actually worked effectively against terrorism. Yes, but you miss the point. That point is BOO! TERRORISTS! Ahhhh, booga booga booga! The terrorist are coming and they'll eat your babies! Ahhhh! Terrorists! Won't sombody think of the children! I think you'll find it is an effective argument!Sums up our administration's approach to debate pretty nicely. And our "liberal" media laps it up and begs for more. Yes, I'm feeling more than usually cynical today. As Keith, Mike3, and I strolled to Starbucks (mmmm vanilla creme frapuccino) today ranting and raving about [fill in the blank], Mike3 said "I don't know which is better, the coffee or the heavy shot of cynicism that accompanies it". I did note that the cynicism is quite flavorful and full bodied. read more
I slipped on a little white lie
pre·mier ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-mîr, -myîr, prmîr)adj.
- First in status or importance; principal or chief: an architect of premier rank.
- First to occur or exist; earliest.
"We have the premier [x] for doing [y]" is a tad suspicious when the product was only released today and there are popular competing products that have been around for months/years. That would be like Microsoft touting .Net as the leading development platform when they haven't even released it yet and it's market share (of beta developers) is measured in single digits. Oh wait, they are already doing that.
On a happier note:
QA: just got your e-mail on LDAP. Hooray! You are the smartest ever!
rev: True
Dream a little dream
Much as I love linux, I think that Larry Ellison (as usual) living in a different reality when he says things like this It's always a toss up as to who is more insane, Larry or Scott McNealy. Apache is by far the dominant web server, but IIS is gaining ground. I don't seriously think it will ever displace Apache, but to say that it is irrelevant is absurd. With the launch of .Net, expect IIS to pick up an even greater percentage. Apache will hold the majority until something better comes along, and that will never be IIS because a functional definition of better in server space must include the ability to run on unix. No two ways about it, as unix as a whole has and will for the forseeable future continue to have the majority share of internet servers. Now, hi specific point that linux will dominate the data center I think is accurate. And I agree with the point that Office is MSFT's real strength. I think if MS were to drop the OS or open it or license the core for other companies to build their own OSs on top and focus on server software, development tools, and Office they would see much better long term growth.Of course, Microsoft isn't any better in thinking they can offer a better service than google. They're also in their own little world, where paid placement search results are better than google's popularity algorithms. Whenever I"m at the point where I'm thinking people bash MSFT too much, they come out with something moronic that cures me of any such thought.
read moreI'll meet you halfway
Today's scheduled deployment did not happen, in spite of the fact that the DBA came in at 5am to move the data to production. It has been rescheduled for next week. This is our January deployment. Once we get this out the door, we will schedule our February deployment. Should I point out to anyone that it is now April? Perhaps not.We learned from the people in DC that making a change to an online form from 3 characters to 4 characters would require 80 days of training for the users. Yes, making it so the users can enter four characters instead of three involves 3 months of training. Please, stop the insanity!
Watched AmIdol last night. So sue me. Ruben has an astounding voice. If he ever does get a CD out, I'm buying it. Clay would be great on Broadway, as would the blonde Kimberly. The other Kimberly is pretty good as well. The rest are forgetable.
GEEK SPEAK AHEAD
LDIF files are plaintext. An LDIF file of usernames shouldn't be 1.2M. Seriously. Half the users in the list are retired (and/or dead) and of those remaining half will never use the system. But we're loading them in anyway.
I'd also like to note that if your networking problem is happening at the physical layer, changing the transport layer won't help. If the problem is with a firewall configuration, changing your application isn't going to help. But what the hell do I know.
read moreWon't get fooled again
(11:55:46) griz: has IM shorthand gotten out of hand?(11:56:10) griz: I mean "OK" an arbitrary short-hand to start with has been shortened to "k"
(11:56:15) griz: one letter, no caps.
(11:56:20) rev: +
(11:56:42) griz: lol
(11:56:50) rev: I figured you'd get that ;)
(11:57:14) griz: of course, what I miss most from the mud days was all the short-hand "emotions" that were so much more.
(11:57:35) griz: emoticons are somewhat limited but, everybody could make macros that expresed a feeling like
(11:57:56) griz: //sashays away
(11:57:59) rev: **waits with trepidation**
(11:58:03) rev: LOL
(11:58:06) griz: or //jingles keys
(11:58:18) griz: ROFLMA
(11:58:34) rev: Say, why might you be jingling keys (he asks knowingly)
(11:58:47) griz: reference to earlier today - new house keys
(11:59:08) rev: <-- was being facetious
(11:59:13) griz: but those sort of expressions were SO flexible & they seem to be gone
(11:59:22) rev: I sitll see them on everything2
(11:59:25) griz: yes - I figured that out just a bit too late to avoid munching on my foot
....snip....
(12:03:16) griz: best part - I forgot what day it was until you sent that link/
(12:03:28) griz: I'd have been easy buzzard bait today...
(12:04:02) rev: http://www.cybrpunk.com/
(12:04:29) griz: hmm. now I need to come up with something good to foist off on the department...
(12:05:03) griz: oh - I *like* that one
(12:05:13) griz: I should probably have started planning earlier...
(12:05:23) rev: You could announce that you're a Republican
(12:06:07) griz: heh
(12:06:25) griz: I was thinking more of faking an all-department email from the VP
(12:08:06) rev: spoofing sendmail for fun and profit
(12:08:39) griz: pretty easy to do when all of our web servers allow full access for developers to the mail queue...
(12:09:01) griz: well - not the production ones - but the dev & qa ones dump to the main mail server anyway...
(12:11:13) rev: good enough for a good prank
(12:12:40) griz: yeah - I'm just having trouble coming up with the right subject on the spur of the moment.
(12:14:04) rev: How about the whole department is being invited to an "informational seminar" with the Chuch of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints?
(12:14:25) griz: I was trying to come up with a variant on the whole off-shore development
(12:15:07) griz: I was thinking that something about keeping all developers together while cutting costs by moving the current staff someplace where the cost of living is lower so they can pay us less.
(12:15:18) griz: moving costs at our own expense ...
Only fools rush in
Happy April Fool's Day. Of course, I'd say number 101 would have to be Sugar. I tend to avoid sites like slashdot today and am even skeptical of regular news sites (ok, more skeptical than usual) on this day. I did like the George Foreman USB iGrill @ thinkgeek.com, however. One of my oldest friends chimes in from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia:
Georgia is going into Spring. The normal criminal situaion exists but they are nicer about it. Now when they steal, they say 'please' and 'thank you'. Ahhhhhh. Spring has pacified even the unpacifieable who wouldn't normally be pacified by even a high-tech microsoft XP pacifier.
