Fair To Middlin'

Auto-tune the news

2010-07-07T09:02:00.000-05:00

Found this a couple of months ago, love it.
This is the most recent one, which came out mid June:

My favorites are this one, and numbers two, three, five, and ten.

Last week's Friday Funny

2010-07-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

Sent this around work last week ....

Holy Crap!

2010-07-07T08:43:00.002-05:00

I'm forty!

Half-way to eighty!

Old!

Well, middle aged at least!

I need a drink .....

Wow! a post

2010-06-17T21:05:00.003-05:00

Been a fan of this for a long time, just thought I'd add it to show th

Reboot?

2010-02-17T13:14:00.005-05:00

Hello, long time no post. I built a couple of test blogs last year, didn't follow up. I have moved the few semi-interesting posts back to here. I will spend the next week or so cleaning this thing up, removing things that no longer interest me (Mostly Harry Potter crud, for obvious reasons). I will then attempt to start posting again. Might update the blogs look, don't really know ....

UPDATE:
Beers I've had tonite:
Highland Gaelic Ale
Red Hook Tripel
Terrapin Rye Pale Ale

All excellent beers (ok, the tripel is kinda mediocre, but it's 10% at a decent price, which makes it worthy!!!!)

UPDATE:
Done for now. Trimmed from over 700 posts down to around 430. More to trim later, but those were most of the completely irrelevant, dead-link, etc.

Now maybe I'll blog.

Neat and strange

2008-11-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

My understanding is that the man here didn't actually do the vocals, just lip-synced something recorded previously:

Friday Funny

2008-08-29T12:51:00.000-05:00

Another oldy but goody.

Friday Funny

2008-08-15T11:59:00.001-05:00

I've linked this before, but not from Youtube....

I Like Andy Mckee

2008-08-14T16:22:00.001-05:00

I'm 38 ...

2008-07-07T15:23:00.001-05:00

... and I have nothing particularly interesting to say!

I'm 37!

2007-07-07T07:04:00.000-05:00

I'm not old!

Some Basic Perl Help

2007-03-01T16:04:00.000-05:00

This is for anyone attempting to script a perl program that can login to a website. I had to use something called 'AUTHORIZATION: BASIC '. This doesn't sound complicated, and it isn't, but it took me a fair time to find the proper method.

If you are logging into an https site, you'll need the Crypt::SSLeay module. This can be acquired via CPAN for the source or via the University of Winnipeg's ppd download site for the ActiveState package. You'll, also need LWP, which comes standard with ActiveState Perl.

Once you've got your functional Perl installation, you just need to be able to create the proper header to POST with. Here, I was stumped, and googled 'perl', 'authorization', and 'basic' all the live long day without finding an example. Finally, I trolled through the lwp cookbook in the ActiveState documentation, and I found this:

use LWP::UserAgent;
$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => 'http://www.linpro.no/secret/');
$req->authorization_basic('aas', 'mypassword');
print $ua->request($req)->as_string;

This was all I needed.

Haw!

2007-02-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

I found this quote from this article. I don't have any opinion on Sting or the article's content, I just laughed out loud at this though:

...Unyoked from Copeland, Sting was free to become what he is today:
one-third spirit in the material world, two-thirds scented candle...

Album wars

2007-02-15T12:20:00.000-05:00

Meant to link this ages ago.

perl/Tk vs wxperl vs Tkx/Tcl::Tk

2006-09-14T11:19:00.000-05:00

This post ported from a test blog called 'nodding off' that I deleted. The timestamp is from the original post.

I wanted to explore the differences between Perlls main(only?!) gui toolkits.

The first is perl/Tk. This was a port of the Tk libraries from Tcl/Tk to perl. It works fairly well, but hasn't been updated in some time (over two years ago, I believe). The effort to port over the code was apparently too great to deal with. I like this version myself, and I have to most experience with it, but I'm going to have to drop it due to lack of support. Which leads me to....

wxPerl. This is an up to date(ppm module dated late last year, source releases from last month available at CPAN) toolkit using the wxWidgets libraries. It seems to work smoothly and quickly(at least the demo/samples do) and looks attractive. However, the code is not that friendly. It looks as if this wrapper is too light, without any simplifications. I can imagine that the code is only slightly shorter than it would be if written in C. Even worse, the drawing/cavas modules are very raw. To move items I will have to code every event and redraw. I'm not saying I couldn't do it, I'm saying I'm far to lazy to unless there aren't any other options.

Which leads us to Tkx/Tcl::Tk. These appear to be cousins of a sort, with Tkx being the Activestate product. I have been unable to mess with this thoroughly, but I was initially turned off by it because you have to install a full Tcl/Tk installation alongside your perl one. Which makes me wonder, why don't I just learn Tcl/Tk and be done with it? Or, why don't I just give up Perl altogether and go with ruby(/tk)? Well, unfortunately I can't switch languages at work, and I really don't want to have to deal with two different languages. So, I'm guessing that I'll go with Tkx for now. I've read that the new Activestates(818+) will contain a *special* tcl-tk dll that will enable this functionality without loading tcl-tk. Here's hoping that it's true and easy to use.

Vim user tip

2006-08-30T09:15:00.000-05:00

This post ported from a test blog called 'nodding off' that I deleted. The timestamp is from the original post

Anyway, here's a little Perl hacker/vim user tip.

If you like using Perl's SelfLoader module, then you will need to have a defined __DATA__ marker in your file. This is what tells the Perl compiler to stop parsing, but allows the SelfLoader module to read in the rest for loading. When editing such a file(module) in vim, you will notice sadly that the code below the __DATA__ marker is all blue'd out, because typically this area doesn't have code in it. To fix this, you need to comment out the __DATA__ marker (like this #__DATA__), but you need to make sure you uncomment before you save. The following settings in your vimrc(gvimrc) file will do the trick:

au BufWritePre *.pm :%s/^#__DATA__ *$/__DATA__/e
au BufWritePost *.pm :%s/^__DATA__ *$/#__DATA__/e

The au(autocmd) verb assigns the actions (the substitutions: :%s....) to *.pm(module) files whenever the buffer is written. The BufWritePre occurs before the file is saved, the BufWritePost occurs after the file has been written. In this way, the __DATA__ marker is uncommented just before writing, and re-commented just after. The user doesn't even perceive that the buffer was changed, but the file ALWAYS is saved with the __DATA__ marker uncommented, making sure that SelfLoader works correctly.

Personal Airships

2006-08-21T11:09:00.000-05:00

Something I always thought would be a good idea, but after looking at this picture I'm having second thoughts. That's a mighty big piece of personal transportation.

A little perl

2006-08-17T11:29:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted any perl in a while(I haven't posted anything in a while).

I have an occasional need to reverse a file by lines. Usually, I would use tac, the gnu utility for that purpose, but I wanted to be able to do it with perl in a pinch. Then I found this one-liner:

perl -e 'print reverse <>' file1 file2 file3 ....

This is a *NIX style one-liner, for windows you would type:

perl -e "print reverse <>" file1 file2 file3 ....

I was suspicious of it, and didn't bother to try it for a while. The 'reverse' function is a list operator, and I thought it would load the file into memory to reverse it (for large files this is a big no-no). But, it turns out that reverse has a 'diamond-operator'(the <> above) context, and this contsruct will tell perl to zoom to the end of the file and start reading it in backwards. Very handy.

Outside of a 'one-liner' context, this construct can be used to perform operations on a file like this:

foreach (reverse(<>)) {
do some stuff to the line....
}

A little more video...

2006-08-17T11:24:00.000-05:00

I've had this one saved since June, and I never got around to posting it. The Jedi Breakfast. There are a few F-Bombs in it.

UPDATE: wrong link, now it's fixed.

New Software

2006-05-03T10:16:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I found anything new, but this encryption software is pretty cool. It allows you to create an encrypted container file which windows will see as a drive. If you want to keep some files private(at least when the file isn't mounted as a drive) this is a pretty good tool. Just don't forget the key, or you'll lose whatever you've placed there.

C is for Cookie

2006-05-03T10:12:00.000-05:00

A great new movie here....

Not Dead.

2006-04-12T10:53:00.000-05:00

Hello, I'm not dead. I finally have something to post.

First, a practical item. How to make a wallet out of Duct tape.

Second, George Bush in free fall. Literally. Just go there.

Finally, I went with the usual crew(One brother-in-law, Two sister's-in-law, wife, son, 4 other nieces and nephews) to Callaway Gardens for a day last Friday. The last time I went was around thirty years ago. The Verdict? I may go back in 2036, but it will probably be under protest. I'm pretty sure everyone agrees. bleah.

A little humor...

2006-03-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

I don't think anyone should be educated sexually. There's far too many people on the planet. If we could hush it up for a few years, that would help. -- John Cleese

Drivin' in Atlanta

2006-03-01T10:24:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting video where some students decided to make a point about the speed limit on 285. I don't remember hearing anything on the news about this stunt. I generally agree with their point, but I would've probably been howling for blood had I been trapped behind them.

Note: It took a long while for the video to load. If you want to watch it, just be patient.

Link via Instapundit.

Steve Martin...

2006-02-16T12:35:00.000-05:00

...on Cheney.

Vice President Dick Cheney, while hunting wild geese in the Rose Garden,
accidentally shot President Bush twice, once in the heart and once in the head.
"I didn't really shoot the President twice," said Cheney. "The second time I
shot him, I was president. It wasn't until my third shot, where I accidentally
shot my own foot, that I had shot the president twice.
I was officially injured and unable to govern, when Dennis
Hastert came in, and stepped on the butt handle of the rifle causing it to swing
up like a rake and shoot his hair off. I guess I'm officially responsible for
that too, meaning I shot the acting president for a total of three occupants of
the oval office. I'm not proud, but it is a record."

Brokeback to the future

2006-02-04T08:18:00.000-05:00

Here.

Holiday summary and other miscellany

2006-01-11T08:23:00.000-05:00

Well, that's it. My big holiday trip. Overall, I have to say that I was pleased with it. While I didn't get to do everything I planned on, I did do more than I thought we would. Considering the number of people involved on this trip, I think we had about the best one we could expect.

However, I do think that there will be fewer vacations this year. There will be an anniversary trip of course(probably to D. C.), but other than that we have nothing planned. We did five last year: Chattanooga(April), Las Vegas(June), Panama City(July), Gatlinburg(October) and Disney(December). The Gatlinburg trip was originally going to be a trip to New Orleans, but was changed for obvious reasons. I'm now pretty much vacationed out.

My home computer decided to puke this morning. It was running fine last night, but this morning it booted into my user I.D., showed me my desktop for about a second, and then displayed a blue screen. After that it wouldn't boot at all. I haven't had time to investigate further, though I'm at a loss as of what to do except reload. I used a Linux live CD to browse the C: drive and make sure that files were still accessible. They seemed to be okay.

About two months ago, I bought a new camcorder. It's a Sony Handycam HC32. It uses mini-DV tapes, can take pictures to a memory stick(I haven't bought one yet), and comes with a base station for charging and downloading video to a P.C. It also does video pass-through so I can use it in lieu of my rather crappy Dell Video capture card. So far, I've used it to read in about 12 hours of analog tapes(Hi 8 and VHS) and the quality and sound synchronization are great. If you don't already have a functional video capture solution, I can't recommend this one enough.

Disney Trip: Day Five

2006-01-07T08:46:00.000-05:00

Disney-MGM Studios day. Another tightly planned day. Got there early, got in quick, headed for the Twilite Zone Tower of Terror and the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. We sent the kids over to Voyage of the Little Mermaid, got Fast Passes for the Tower of Terror(It was not operating when we arrived), and stood in line with just about everyone else in the park for the coaster. It took a while to finish this, but it was a fairly decent coaster. We went back to the Tower after this, and I was a little disappointed. I thought the thing rose and dropped a lot further than it did, I'd say that Six Flags' Freefall is more fun.

After this, we rejoined the kids and trundled up to the Backlot tour. This is mostly a snore, but the canyon set portion (lots of fire and water) is pretty fun. After this, we wandered up to Jim Henson's MuppetVision 3D. I enjoyed this show. Exiting this, we found Buzz and Woody doing photos, so we got pics with both of them. We then trundled down to the Lights! Motors! Action! car stunt show.

It was time to eat. While everyone else was eating, my Brother-in-law and I went over and got fast passes to Star Tours. We then got the kids together and herded them to Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage! The Adults caught Star Tours and rejoined the kids. We got in line, but barely made it into the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. We then walked down to Honey I shrunk the Kids playground. After the previous days scare, I followed my son like a shadow, which meant crawling around in a fake ant hill made for people 4 foot tall and shorter. Tore up my knees pretty well. We then went and saw the Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage! show.

It was late enough in the day now that I felt we had to get into Fantasmic early because of the huge crowd. Once we were in however, we found the place fairly empty, but the park personnel discouraged us leaving. So we waited almost two hours for the show to start. This was my fault, but I had gotten paranoid after we barely made it into the Indiana Jones show. This was the final thing we saw at Disney World. I thought it was a good show, though obviously not quite worth this wait.

The best thing about this day for me was the double(two-kid) stroller I rented. As I said earlier, my endurance was pretty much gone at this point, and I needed a way to transport my son around quickly. He was fairly well behaved in this thing. His cousin sat next to him much of the day as we travelled from attraction to attraction, and they managed to get along fairly well while doing it.

Ride Summary:
Rock'n' Roller Coaster
Twilite Zone Tower of Terror
Backlot Toure
Jim Henson's MuppetVision 3D
Buzz and Woody Photo Op.
Light! Motors! Action!
Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage!
Star Tours
Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular
Honey I shrunk the Kid's Playground
Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage!
Fantasmic!

Tomorrow: Roundup on Disney World, traveling, and what's next.

Disney Trip: Day Four

2006-01-06T09:57:00.000-05:00

Animal Kingdom day. This was probably the most heavily planned day we had. There really aren't that many attractions in this park, so we laid out a plan to see virtually everything(skipping the Kali River Rapids because no one wanted to get wet). This is definitely my least favorite park, but it's a good kid park.

So how did we start out? By scaring the hell out of the kids. I really wasn't sure what to expect on the DINOSAUR ride, but I wasn't expecting what it is: A big stupid noisy lurching bore. The ride is simply too dark and fast to follow the supposed plot(time travelling into the past to see dinosaurs just before a meteor caused extinction event), but it's definitely good at frightening small children. After about ten seconds I just put my hand over my kid's eyes and told him to wait it out.

After this we went up to catch the It's tough to be a Bug show. This is an okay 4-D show that I've seen three times. This was followed by the Kilimanjaro Safari. I actually like this one, though they still insist on throwing in the silly B.S. plot instead of just letting us look at the animals. Next, we moved down to Camp Minnie-Mickey.

Once there, we caught the Pocahontis and her Forest Friends show. Bring some insulin to see this. Fortunately, and I have to give the disney folks credit here, then end of this show was timed perfectly so that we walked out of it and right into the Festival of the Lion King. No waiting whatsoever. The Festival is about the best thing to see in this park, and if you want a copy I've got the whole thing on tape. It doesn't look that great from pictures, but it has a gymnist act, a polynesian fire-twirler act, and a trapeze artist act. It also doesn't have too much p.c. syrupy disney waffle in between these acts, though of course there is some.

It was time for lunch, so we wandered back to Dinoland U.S.A. so we could eat McDonalds' food(hoo-frikin'-ray). After this we had some time to kill before the Tarzan Rocks! show(warning! suckage ahead! warning!), so we took the kids to the boneyard playground. While there, my son got lost. This was totally my fault, and it still scares me to think of it. I was trying to get a stupid video shot of my son coming down a slide. I didn't follow him up to the top, and I didn't know there were four different directions he could turn once he got there. Needless to say, he didn't go where I was expecting, and I lost him. I got the whole family out to search, and we found him pretty quickly, but I shudder to think of what might have happened to him.

Next was Tarzan Rocks! The gayest thing I've ever seen. I mean this in both the 'gay = lame' sense plus the 'I think there's several homosexuals in the cast' sense. It's mostly a show where a band sings Phil Collin's hugely overplayed Tarzan soundrack, while roller-skating acrobatic monkeys bounce around. My teenaged neices were laughing hysterically at it. I hope to never see it again.

We caught the bird show in the Asia section after this, and my boy fell asleep during it. I had to carry him from this show to the train(to go to Rafiki's planet watch), and it was during this hideous walk that I had an epiphany. I am going to rent a stroller tomorrow! I will not spend another day carrying my son around. I haven't detailed every instance I had this boy on my shoulders, but there were a lot of them. It was good for keeping the holiday weight off, but not so good for my back.

We finished Rafiki's planet watch and headed back once again to Dinoland U.S.A. The little kids rode the TricerTop Spin, while the adults rode the Primeval Whirl(not a bad little roller coaster, kind of a combination of the whirling tea-cups with a traditional coaster.). Left the park at around 5:30 or so. Shortest day at the parks.

Ride Summary:
DINOSAUR
It's tough to be a Bug!
Kilimanjaro Safari
Pacahontis and her Forest Friends
Festival of the Lion King
The Boneyard Playground
Tarzan Rocks!
Flights of Wonder
Rafiki's planet watch train
Primeval Whirl
Triceratops Spin

Tomorrow: Disney/MGM-Studios

Disney Trip: Day Three

2006-01-05T09:37:00.000-05:00

And on the third day, they rested. We originally were planning for this day to be the Universal Studios day, but wisely decided to take it easy instead. After two days of non-stop walking, it was time to relax.

What a place to relax! My wife and brother-in-law(who did most of the pre-trip planning) had decided to stay out of the park this time(on my previous two visits, we stayed at Disney resorts). I thought this was a big mistake, but after I saw this place I changed my mind. We had rented a full sized(>2000 sq feet) house. Five bedrooms, which was just enough for everybody. This house had a big TV(36" flat tube, not a flat panel or anything), small TVs in each bedroom, playstation(with a couple of games), VCR, DVD player, foosball table, pool table, and air hockey table. These last three were in the garage. The price was half of what I paid to stay last time(even less really when you consider that this bill was split into three pieces).

My wife, brother-in-law, and sisters-in-law went out to shop and otherwise busy themselves. The children and I bonded with the couch, TV, and games. This was acknowledged by all as the best day of the vacation. On our next vacation I'm thinking about just staying home and using the money to buy a bigger television.

Tomorrow: Animal Kingdom

Disney Trip: Day Two

2006-01-04T08:30:00.000-05:00

Magic Kingdom day. The big one. The problem with this park was that every day of the week Magic Kingdom opened an hour early for people staying in the park. Since we had chosen not to(both a good and bad decision which I will get into later), we were going to have a great disadvantage with this one no matter what day we went. We chose the other parks mostly to avoid these early entry days. We decided to go on this day because we had a planned rest day the next day and we figured this would be the latest we would stay at any park.

The day didn't start well. My son decided once again that he was just too tired to walk, and I carried him to the ferry(you know, the ferry that you can take to get to the park entrance instead of the monorail). About half-way down the dock I felt something in my back go 'snick'. It hurt a whole bunch. My son had to walk after that. Once we got into the park, we lost about a half hour while folks used the john, got lost, got separated, and finally got back together again. There were no smiles until we took a photo in front of the castle. A picture is worth a thousand lies.

We finally got going and made it into Tomorrowland. Despite the crowd, it appeared that most of the rides weren't being used yet. We hopped on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, a ride I actually enjoy a lot. We grabbed fast-passes for Space Mountain, and headed up to Mickey's Toontown.

We got a photo with Mickey, had one fit. Jumped on the The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre farm, and headed to Fantasyland. In Fantasyland, we rode the Dumbo the Flying Elephant and Cinderella's Golden Carrousel. Then we went to small world. We then headed back to ride Space Mountain. Adults rode this while kids rode the Tommorowland Transit Authority. The kids then caught a show in the pavilion. After this we all went to the carousel of progress. Then we ate lunch.

We caught the live show in front of the castle.

Next, Adventureland. The day was wearing on at this point, and the kids were tiring out. We got fast-passes for the Jungle Cruise, and went to wait in line for Pirates of the Caribbean. After pirates we took the Cruise, then caught the god-awful Enchanted Tiki Room show(no waiting, cause it sucks). From there it was up into Frontierland, where we all got separated in the crowds. After a couple of phone conversations, we managed to reassemble and move across to Tom Sawyer's island. After an hour or so of rambling around, we got off the island and headed back towards Fantasy land(No one seemed to care about the shows in Frontierland or Liberty Square, and the Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad were all backed up like a Stuckey's Toilet). We decided to get some eats and figure out how to finish the day.

It was decided that another trip to toontown was required so that some more pictures could be taken and also so that we could ride the train. After about an hour, all of this was accomplished and we resolved to leave, but foolishly decided to walk to the font entrance instead of taking the train. We got caught by the parade, and had to watch that, and decided since we had stayed that late we might as well catch the fireworks. We watched these from the front of the park, and viewed the last of them from the line to the monorail.

Approximate time at park: 14 and 1/2 hours (7:30 A.M. to 10:00 P.M.)

Ride Summary:
Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin
Mickey's Country House(photos)
The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm
Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Cinderella's Golden Carousel
it's a small world
Space mountain
Tomorrowland Transit Authority
Carousel of Progress
Play in front of Castle(I forget the name of it)
Pirates of the Caribbean
Jungle Cruise
The Enchanted Tiki Room(Fie upon thee, Fie!)
Tom Sawyer Island
Minnie's Country House (More Photos)
Walt Disney World Railroad
Donald's Boat(while waiting for others to finish photos).
Viewed part of parade.
Fireworks.

Tomorrow: The Day Off.

Disney Trip: Day One

2006-01-03T09:53:00.000-05:00

A week ago today was our first day 'at Disney'. Specifically, we were at Epcot. We bought 4 day passes to the parks(these are much cheaper on a 'per day' basis, I think). We got there before the park opened. We chose Epcot first because there weren't a lot if kid rides, and we wanted a test day to see how everyone was going to handle everything. We knew it was going to be crowded.

They let us in about 10 minutes before the official opening time, and I thought 'cool!'. Then, we stopped at a rope at the edge of all of the rides. Turns out they let people in but don't let them do anything until the 'official' opening time. Oh, well.

After they dropped the rope, we ran to get on the 'test track'. This was the only major ride in 'Epcot' I hadn't ridden(besides Soarin' which is brand new), and the only thing in this park resembling a roller coaster. I got to ride it twice, and it's pretty fun. After this, we rode Mission: Space while the kids-n-moms rode the Ellen's Energy Adventure(bleah!). By the time we were all done, the park was beginning to get busy. We trekked over to 'The Land' to ride the new Soarin' ride and found a huge wait. We got fast-passes, and rode the sleepy 'Living with the land' ride. We then hoofed it over to the imagination pavilion. The 'Honey, I shrunk...' ride was backed up, and we pretty much didn't care about it anyway. We rode the Journey Into Imagination(with Eric Idle, though not terribly entertaining) ride, and played in the follow-up playroom.

At lunch time we ate at 'The Land'. The Line for Soarin' was even longer then, but we had those fast-passes. Finally, our fast-pass time came, and we glided by the humongous line. We got a 'switch-off' pass for my brother-in-law because his kid was too young to ride. This pass was good for three riders. I experienced schadenfraude as we walked by a thousand people to get in line in front of them. Rode Soarin' (which is fun, but somewhat disappointing. It's essentially an Imax movie where they lift you up and put you so close to the screen that you feel as if you are flying, but I could see the little pattern lines of the screen in the image. No way it was worth the two-plus hours most folks were waiting to ride it). We came back out, and it was time to choose who would accompany my brother-in-law with the 'threefer' pass. Turned out to be me and my niece. So I got to experience schadenfraude again as I walked by all those folks for a second time. I successfully resisted the urge to go neener-neener as I stepped up again to ride.

It was getting later in the day now, and some of the kids were pooping out. I had to carry my kid from 'The Land' to the Mexican Pavilion in the 'World Showcase'. It would not be the last time I carried my child on this trip. We rode the trimmed down Mexican 'Small World' copycat ride. We then went and camped out in front of the Chinese pavilion. I had seen the acrobats there last time, and I thought this was something everyone would enjoy. We hit the Maelstrom('Norwegian') and Reflections of China (A 360 degree movie), and it was getting really late now. We took some pics and finished walking around the big circle. We caught 'Spaceship earth' on the way out.

Ride Summary:
Test Track
Mission: Space
Ellen's Energy Adventure
Living With the Land
Circle of Life Movie
Soarin'
Journey Into Imagination
El Rio Del Tiempo
Maelstrom
Reflections of China
Chinese Acrobat show
Spaceship earch

Tomorrow: Magic Kingdom.

Lileks on Astrology

2005-12-02T12:12:00.000-05:00

Here:

Can’t wait to have the astrology conversation with Gnat. “What’s astrology, daddy?” “It’s a system of belief for people who cannot handle the intellectual demands of Scientology.

A little code

2005-10-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

Discovered this just this week. It's very useful. If you want to keep your Perl program from overwhelming your machine when it runs(which it will do quite naturally if it runs a long time and is processing much data) you can enter the following into the start of the file:

1  use Win32::Process;
2  my $proc;
3  Win32::Process::Open($proc, $$, 0);
4  $proc->SetPriorityClass(IDLE_PRIORITY_CLASS);

This will force the program to use the lowest priority when executing. This only works on windows, but I'm sure there's an equivalent for *NIX. The code still executes fairly quickly, unless you are executing some other processor intensive program.

Apropo of nothing.

2005-10-03T16:21:00.000-05:00

I give you Grocery Store wars. I've watched this, but not heard it yet. I think it's been around for a while.

Mike Stipe. Gettin a sandwich.

2005-09-26T07:53:00.000-05:00

My brother was traveling through Toronto airport last week, and was running a little late. But he was also hungry, so he stopped to get a sandwich. The guy in front of him in the queue took a very long time to order. He began counting out his change very slowly. He asked things like “Is this a quarter?” My brother, increasingly impatient and not in a charitable mood, thought maybe it’s the guy’s first time in Canada, or maybe he’s just an idiot. The guy had an odd bag at his feet that was a mixture of leather panels and silver-lined parachute material. He wore an Irish flat-peaked farmer’s cap of the sort which, when seen on someone under the age of sixty, is guaranteed to annoy Irish people everywhere. These facts lent support to the second theory. Finally, the guy finished counting out his money, slowly gathered his food and his silly bag and turned around to leave.

It was Michael Stipe. My brother said hello. Stipe said hello. Off he went. My brother said the only other thing that it occurred to him to say at the time was “Hey, how’s Thom Yorke? When’s the next Radiohead album coming out?” But he felt this might not have been an appropriate question.

Lifted from Crooked Timber.

Lemony Snicket 12

2005-09-21T11:06:00.000-05:00

The snicket website has updated with the new book, but the title is lost or "art to awful to show." To join in the search, one can go here.

Sticks and Stones

2005-09-20T09:15:00.000-05:00

The Washington post has a hysterical article about racist incidents at the University of Virginia. The Post describes the events thusly:

Just a few weeks into the school year, U-Va. has had at least nine racist incidents -- slurs shouted from cars, ugly words written on message boards, a racist threat scrawled on a bathroom wall. And students, parents and alumni are demanding change.

Buried in the two pages of angst is this little gem of reality:

Some students said privately that the incidents had been overblown, that they were probably the work of a drunk townie, not someone on campus, and that it was better to ignore it than to give the perpetrators attention.

Let's assume it is a student. How serious is this? I'm not saying what's going on is nice, but the fact that after nine incidents no one has been identified as the culprit says to me that this person(these people?) are being fairly coy about it. The idea that this could become a campus wide social issue over the actions of a few idiots shows what an over-delicate hypersensitive society we live in.

The King, am I

2005-09-16T10:11:00.000-05:00

Link via Boortz.

Fun with Photoshop

2005-09-12T15:21:00.000-05:00

I'm just linking their photo:

Astounding

2005-08-09T11:03:00.000-05:00

Watch this. Just go. It's amazing.

"Rosebud....." --Citizen Kane

2005-08-05T12:41:00.000-05:00

"It's his sled. Okay? There, I just saved you two long boring boobless hours." -- The Family Guy

I Finally sat down and watched this the other day. I liked it, though I wasn't blown away. I think partially this was due to the fact that I knew the 'surprise' way before I ever saw it. The other reason was that this film has been referred to many times as 'the greatest film in history'. I just can't rate it that high. I do think Well's performance was amazing. Especially as he start's playing an older and older Kane.

Humor

2005-07-29T15:34:00.000-05:00

They're doing musician jokes at The Corner today. I liked the guitarist jokes:

How do you get a guitarist to stop playing? Put sheet music in front of him.
How do you get a guitarist evicted from his apartment?
Get his girlfriend fired.

How do you get a guitarist out of your apartment?
Run out of weed.

I also liked this:

Karl Rove engineered Bill Frist's reversal on stem cells to take the heat off of the John Roberts nomination which was timed to take the heat off of the Valerie Plame investigation which was timed to take the heat off of the John Bolton fight which was timed to take the heat off of the problems in Iraq which was timed to take the heat off of the fact...my head hurts.

I want a monkey

2005-07-19T15:31:00.000-05:00

I read this a couple of weeks ago, then lost the link. I found it, it's pretty funny. I'll steal the punch-line.

PS. The gays should be able to be married and stuff. And being mean to the environment is wrong too because of the greenhouses also. we should also get to have more pets. I want a monkey.

Happy Birthday to me.

2005-07-07T14:13:00.000-05:00

I'm 35 today. Half-way to seventy.

Bob the Builder

2005-06-21T15:05:00.000-05:00

Regarding this show. I'm not that fond of it, mostly because that song sticks in your head like glue(Bob the crackhead, CAN HE SMOKE IT!, Bob the crackhead, YES HE CAN!). I have one question, however. When are they going to kill Spud. I mean seriously, he's the cause of all the problems in Bob's little town. He's the snake in the Garden of Eden. I expect the 'Spud gets Lynched' episode to be a real hit.

Shut Up!...

2005-06-16T08:27:00.000-05:00

...stupid American:

"I can understand having a good wok, a rice cooker, a tea kettle, a hot plate, some utensils, good china, a teapot with a strainer, and maybe a thermos. But all these extra things—where do the Americans put them? How many times will you use a taco-shell holder?....

Vegas

2005-06-06T12:25:00.000-05:00

Just got back from a trip to Las Vegas. I enjoyed it very much. No gambling, of course, but there was still plenty to do. We took a day trip to the Grand Canyon, and otherwise just spent most of our time walking around the hotels.

If you haven't ever been, or if it's been a while since you've been there, then I will tell you that the Hotels are something to see. Some have themes, and most of them are very large. The MGM grand isn't so much a hotel as a Mall. The same goes for the Venetian, Caeser's Palace, the Parisian, etc. These places had shops, restaurants, arcades, etc. Also, the themed ones have a veneer of whatever it is they are imitating. The Venetian has a Canal where you could be gondola'd around.

There are also some outdoor attractions as well. There is a HUGE series of fountains in front of the Bellagio which are set to music. It was more like watching fireworks than a fountain. There is a fake volcano that erupts every fifteen minutes in front of the Mirage. The Parisian has a miniature version of the Eiffel tower.

The one thing we didn't do was go on the Stratosphere. This is a hotel that sits atop a very tall spire (it looks kind of like the space needle in Seattle). There is a roller coaster on top of this thing, and a couple of other rides. The idea is, I guess, to scare the holy crap out of yourself by zooming around with nothing but that track to hold you on. I'm sure many people have ridden it safely, but not me Bubba.

The only irritation was the hooker brochure guys. These guys(and a few women) were getting paid to hand out these little pamphlets that said you could get a private stripper(wink) to come to your room. They were everywhere on the strip. On virtually every corner there was one or more of these guys. There were also people there trying to sell me time-share property in some new hotel they were putting up. I'm thinking of opening business in Las Vegas selling T-shirts that say "No", or "No, I don't want any", or "No! Leave me alone you sorry MutherF******!!!". I'd have bought one those.

I'll have pictures up soon.

Still Killing...

2005-05-26T12:01:00.000-05:00

...Zombies. I'm afraid this little game has taken over my life, to the detriment of my work, marriage, etc. My current High score is 306.

Yalta Shmalta

2005-05-12T07:21:00.000-05:00

For those who know what I'm talkin' 'bout here, isn't it just possible that it was a throw-away line to please a crowd? Do you think the man was really trying to stir up this much sh*t? If you want to know what this is about(and I really don't recommend it), read here, here, and here. One day, George Bush will tell everyone which Beatle was his favorite, and the commentariat will never talk about anything else ever again.

Man reads....

2005-05-12T07:19:00.000-05:00

...big frickin' paper.

Found at top of today's Lileks.

"I felt like Don Knotts attempting to digest Orson Welles."

2005-04-28T10:01:00.000-05:00

from Lileks.

Compiling your own Perl - part 2: The Oracle Mod

2005-04-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

Perl has a very useful generic database module called DBI. This mod does not, by itself, allow you to connect to any specific database. However, with the proper DBD module driver(DBD::) you can use the same code with different databases(providing the SQL you are using isn't in any way customized for that database). In the case of an open-source database (PostGreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, etc.) you can obtain everything you need to build the DBD module from the web. In the case of Oracle, you will have to have a purchase copy, an active Oracle database, and the client software loaded on your machine.

Mod's you will need:
DBI
DBD::Oracle

DBI is required before any DBD mods can be added. If you followed yesterday's instructions, and didn't have any problems with it, you should have a functional perl and a solid compilation environment to make modules. Here are the instructions for compiling DBI.

Download DBI from CPAN and uncompress it in the same directory that the perl source code is in (C:\Dev\src\DBI-1.48 is mine for example).
chdir into that directory.
type: perl Makefile.PL
type: dmake
type: dmake test
type: dmake install
The above pattern is fairly standard for most perl mods. It's always a good idea to read the README and INSTALL files to make sure that some other step isn't required, but it is pretty unusual for anything else to be required. From this point on the above pattern will be referred to as the MAKE SEQUENCE.
Assuming no error outputs, you should now have a functional DBI mod.

The next stage is to compile the DBD::Oracle mod. It requires a few things.

An active oracle database.
You must have a login to that db.
You must install the Oracle client software, specifically you must install the C/C++ tools. In general you'll want to install anything that says 'C development' or header files. If I seem a little vague here, it's because I don't currently have to CD to see what components I installed.
If all of these exists you can start the MAKE SEQUENCE. Perl Makefile.PL will give some warnings and make some noise, and dmake should execute cleanly. Then, you are ready to test.
You need to type SET ORACLE_USERID=username/password@dbname on the command line. This will allow the tests to run. All tests should pass(some may be skipped). **WARNING** the extra tests run in test.pl will fail, due to the fact that it expects ORACLE_USERID to just equal username/password. So type SET ORACLE_USERID=username/password and then type the command perl test.pl dbname. You should look for the 'expected' results.
Assuming you've gotten this far with clean compiles and tests, it's time to dmake install
Finished.

Next installment: LWP and Crypt::SSLeay.

Making your own Perl - Part1

2005-04-25T07:06:00.000-05:00

I'm a Perl programmer. I've been working with the language for about five years now. The language is general purpose, but it has it's origins in sed, awk, and UNIX shell text processing. That is the purpose I use it for most of the time.

Anyway, My company was using(still is actually) an older version of Perl due to the fact that Activestate doesn't support the DBD::Oracle driver. I spent about four or five hours compiling a new Perl executable and Driver. I also added in a few other things. It was, for the most part, not too difficult, but I thought I'd share how I did it so that other's who are looking for solutions to the problems I encountered can solve them. Today I will cover the Perl executable.

To compile Perl, you need to do the following:

Download a stable Perl from CPAN.
Download the MinGW compiler from Here(You only need the MinGW install file. This is listed under Current/MinGW(and is currently MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe).
Download dmake from CPAN. It's a special version of make(that is somewhat old) that seems to be the only one that works to compile Perl with MinGW.
Uncompress/Install them(windows users will need a tool to decompress tar.gz files. WinZip handles it. IZarc, unfortunately, does not. I used the 7za.exe command line tool from 7-Zip).
place the uncompressed Perl directory somewhere on the C drive so that the full path to that directory has NO spaces in it(so don't try to compile under "My Documents" for example). For my part, I created a folder called "Dev" directly on the C drive, then I dropped the stable Perl source in a folder called "src". So the Perl source was in "C:\Dev\src\perl-5.8.6".
When MinGW installs, it should locate itself on the C Drive. From the dmake archive, lift the dmake.exe executable and the sub-folder "startup" and place them in "C:\MinGW\Bin".
Add "C:\MinGW\Bin" to your PATH directory.
Chdir to C:\Dev\src\perl-5.8.6.
chdir to "win32".
in the win32 directory, type dmake -f "makefile.mk". (That "-f" is really important. Without it, dmake will automatically try to use the "Makefile" file instead of "makefile.mk". The "Makefile" file is written for the Microsoft "nmake" utility and the VC++ compiler.)
If you are running Windows NT, 2000, or XP, then you should be seeing some successful compilation going on, this will take a while. (If the compile stops with an error, usually followed by the words "dmake exited with a status of 1" or something like that. Then you'll have to start doing your research. I haven't had any problems with compilation at this stage. So if you do, it's time to google.)
When the compilation finishes, assuming it didn't terminate with errors, it will be time to test. Type: dmake -f makefile.mk test.
This will, again, take some time. Some of the tests will be skipped, but for me all tests not skipped passed. Once again, failure will require research on your part.
Once you've reached all tests passed, it's time to install. Type: dmake -f makefile.mk install on the command line. install's are just files being copied, or documentation being made. Don't be surprised to see a lot of errors when the HTML files generate, usually the errors are not fatal, and the documentation will be created.
Now it's time to code some Perl. That's pretty much it. The perl executable will be located at C:\Perl\Bin(You can change this in the Makefile if you want, but you can't put Perl in a path without spaces so this one does just as well as any). Now it's time to learn how to use it.

That's all there is to it. If you have problems it sometimes helps to read README.Win32 in the main directory. Tomorrow I will start with the Oracle module, if I have time.

More Humor

2005-04-19T10:42:00.000-05:00

The author here is trying to make a point, but I'm just chortling over the phrase "Pope Bill Clinton the 1st."

Funny quotes...

2005-04-18T11:34:00.000-05:00

...my brother told me about this weekend. He said that he read them off of some discussion thread.

What is the purpose of Marriage? To provide an institution who's participants can engage in God approved sex.
On the subject of Peta and it's viewpoints: If God didn't intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of food?

Look into my....

2005-03-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Crystal Bald. Do I want to know what's going on here? Image and same basic sentiment from Kevin Drum.

Funny Novel Covers

2005-03-23T08:21:00.000-05:00

Here. More Here. Via Instapundit.

Office Stuff

2005-03-22T13:17:00.000-05:00

The final beta for Open Office 2.0 is out. My experience with the previous beta was mostly positive, but start-up was still slow. I'm going to test this one soon, and report back on how well it works. Otherwise, the software is excellent, and includes most of the functions of MS-Office.

I've also been playing with Abiword. A lighter word processor. It starts up very quickly, and has most of the modern features of any word processor.

Finally, I'd like to recommend Writer's Cafe, for those who want to make an attempt at writing. I haven't produced anything myself, but it seems like an intuitive interface for that kind of thing. The full version is kind of pricey, though.

The best thing about all of these apps is that they work on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

UPDATE: Open Office is better. Way better! I mean it opens in about 5 seconds. If this remains consistant, then nevermind about Abiword.

I got me....

2005-03-18T09:43:00.000-05:00

A Jay!-Oh!-Bee!

Ahem. A job that is. It is with a company called Navicure, and I start April 11th. Sssshhhh! I'm waiting until monday to tell my current company.

Genius explained.

2005-03-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

A very interesting article on a "savant" (rain man kind of guy) who can explain how he does what he does(instant math, and other things like that). Pretty cool.

A history of programming languages

2005-02-23T21:01:00.000-05:00

here. It's a neat timeline of each of the programming languages and which ones preceded them. Here's a similar chart.

Bonus!

2005-02-17T13:29:00.000-05:00

****First paragraph deleted for legal reasons****

And, believe it or not, I got a job offer today. It was a temp gig(just two months), though, and they wanted to start Monday, which is too soon. Plus, I had only the vaguest idea what they wanted me to do other than "Perl programming". I may regret turning it down, but I think it's important to give notice.

Finally, we have today's software. It took about two days for the software to index my machine, but after it was done I can, theoretically, search every document on my machine quickly. It's called Copernic, and it was the highest rated desktop search engine among the ones tested in this slate article. If someone has tried any of the others(like google's) and wants to recommend it let me know.

That's KMC. No, we don't sell chicken...

2005-02-14T10:52:00.000-05:00

I thought, seeing that I may or may not be working here much longer, that I'd post about my company and what's happened to us. I work for KMC Telecom, a CLEC(Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) that specialized in entering Tier 3 markets(Augusta, Chattanooga, Huntsville, etc.). I provision customer lines and trunks, as well as writing code to do this automatically. I've been doing this since September 2000.

On Feb 3rd, an announcement was made that TelCove and CenturyTel had purchased all of our Tier 3 assets. Basically they bought the switches and Fiber. KMC will still be doing business with their soft switches, something I was never involved with.

It has been suggested that some of us will have opportunities with the new companies, but no promises have been made. I am taking the wait and see approach for the moment. It looks as if we have a few months to go, no matter what the final decisions are.

Future Pundit says....

2005-01-28T16:59:00.000-05:00

"Pheromone Increases Sexual Attractiveness Of Postmenopausal Women"

Mike says...

"so does beer."

So true

2005-01-18T15:47:00.000-05:00

Kevin Drum says:

I would like lead a crusade to forever ban the phrase "speaking truth to power," especially in academic settings. It's always uttered in tones that imply vast moral courage for doing so, and in Stalinist Russia that would have been true. In the 21st century American university system, however, most academics do nothing but speak truth to power, as loudly and as frequently as they can. Their punishment? Tenure, usually.

Chortle.

Don't come around here no more

2005-01-14T14:21:00.000-05:00

I think I may be looking for another job soon. There have been more major rumors at work, and I just got an internal email announcing that pretty much all V.P.s in the company are being sacked. The rest of us will be reporting directly to the company's senior management. The rumors are that they have finally sold off our part of the business, or are going to shortly. Anyway, hopefully they will not touch the lower downs until the deal is announced. That way, I won't be leaving this place until after the director of I.T. has left, which will give me some satisfaction.

Funny

2005-01-13T09:37:00.000-05:00

From the LA Times...

But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc.

Link via Kevin Drum.

The thing is that this isn't the only thing many people are ignorant of. Every year they come out with surveys showing what people don't know about history, science, etc. I think that it's been this way pretty much forever. People knew more about the Bible in decades past, but they probably as a group knew even less about science, than they do now. I think that this puts the lie to the idea that a well rounded education is necessary for success. Either that, or they are interviewing the same ignorant folks for these surveys over and over.

Miscellany

2005-01-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

Just a few items for Friday.

On the software front, I wanted to call everyone's attention to Vi Improved, if I haven't already. If you're a programmer or scripter and need syntax highlighting, this editor has got it. Plus about a million functions and extensions. Also, I'm testing out Notepad++, an alternative to Notepad that also has syntax highlighting, open/close bracket/parenthesis highlighting, and several other features I haven't figured out to use yet. Plus, it has a tiny executable and very few supporting files so it opens super fast, just like notepad.
A little Harry Potter diversion. I think that this was inspired by this. But I found the Harry Potter version before I found the other.
You know, I was sure that processor speed improvements had stopped coming(or at least had slowed down). You still can't buy one that is twice as fast as mine(2.5 GHz) and this is almost two years after I bought mine. So what gives? Here's an explanation.

Not a good sign.

2005-01-04T08:32:00.000-05:00

Microsoft is working on it's own anit-virus software. It is code named 'Atlanta'. I'm thinking about Sherman, fires, etc....

More Software

2004-12-14T13:43:00.000-05:00

I've been aware of DOSbox for a while, but I hadn't really tested it out before. However, recently I've loaded several of my old DOS games into it. The more visually intense ones(like full throttle), are a little jumpy, but the older stuff is flawless(star trek 25th anniversary edition, Civilization I, Pool of Radiance, etc.) . The FAQ page explains how well the software works, and cautions that more intense games(especially Duke Nukem 3D) will work poorly. Still, I've got a lot of the old games, and it's nice to be able to use them without a dual-boot. Also, it's nice not to have to run to DOS mode(in win98). There is a supported games page to see if any of your old games will work.

Another cool aspect of this software is that it has been ported to Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, so if you want to keep you virtual DOS system but move to a new OS, it's a simple copy.

I'll be testing some other games soon.

Krugmania

2004-12-09T10:14:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman is supposed to be a good economist, but his desire to be a polemicist seems to get in the way. His recent diatribe against Social Security privatization(link via Scott) is a case in point.

Here is the meat of if(I've lifted this directly from this post)

...the politics of privatization depend crucially on convincing the public that the system is in imminent danger of collapse, that we must destroy Social Security in order to save it. I'll have a lot to say about all this when I return to my regular schedule in January. But right now it seems important to take a break from my break, and debunk the hype about a Social Security crisis. -- New York Times - Op Ed - December 7 2004

However, just a few years ago this was Paul's tune:

Social Security ... does not look like a redistributionist scheme. In practice it has turned out to be strongly redistributionist, but only because of its Ponzi game aspect, in which each generation takes more out than it put in.

Well, the Ponzi game will soon be over, thanks to changing demographics, so that the typical recipient henceforth will get only about as much as he or she put in (and today's young may well get less than they put in). -- The Boston Review, December/January, 1996-7

And this:

But aren't Social Security and Medicare basically pension funds, in which workers' contributions are invested to provide for their retirement? Hardly. A private pension fund that planned to pay the benefits these programs promise would be accumulating huge reserves. In fact, the so-called "trustfunds" are making barely any provisions for the future. .... the Federal Government... is in fact living utterly beyond its means. While the present generation of retirees is doing very nicely, the promises that are being made to those now working cannot be honored. ....to avert the crisis ahead.....slow the growth in benefit levels, gradually raise the retirement age, impose limits on expensive terminal medical care that prolongs life for only weeks or days and -- last but not least -- raise taxes moderately now, rather than massively later. ....Something is bound to give -- but what? Will retired boomers -- who will have even more political clout than today's smallish population of retired voters -- be willing to accept a sharply reduced standard of living? That is hard to imagine. Will younger voters be willing to accept huge increases in tax rates to support the boomers in the style they have been promised? That is equally hard to imagine. Or will the Government try to square the circle by simply printing the money it needs, creating runaway inflation? Surely that is inconceivable. Yet one or more of these unthinkable things will happen, because something must. New York Times book review (Oct. 20, 96)

Then there is this rhetorical gem from the Times article:

My favorite example of their three-card-monte logic goes like this: first, they insist that the Social Security system's current surplus and the trust fund it has been accumulating with that surplus are meaningless. Social Security, they say, isn't really an independent entity - it's just part of the federal government.

If the trust fund is meaningless, by the way, that Greenspan-sponsored tax increase in the 1980's was nothing but an exercise in class warfare: taxes on working-class Americans went up, taxes on the affluent went down, and the workers have nothing to show for their sacrifice.

But never mind: the same people who claim that Social Security isn't an independent entity when it runs surpluses also insist that late next decade, when the benefit payments start to exceed the payroll tax receipts, this will represent a crisis - you see, Social Security has its own dedicated financing, and therefore must stand on its own.

Ummm.... Paul. When benefit payments exceed payroll tax receipts where the hell do you think the money is going to come from. Assuming some reform isn't passed(I'm not talking about private accounts here. I'm talking about John's own solutions above, benefit cuts, higher payroll taxes, etc.) then the money will have to come from the general fund. Meaning that just as we've been using the SS surplus all these years to finance the rest of the government, from that tipping point on the reverse will be true. Meaning that for all practical purposes the payroll tax and income tax are both used to fund the entire government, and that their supposed separation is a fiction. As far as keeping Social Security separate, I've never read that from anyone but him. I personally endorse the idea of rolling it into the general fund now. Do you think Paul would support that?

This isn't to say that the recent article isn't right on a few points. Social Security is in much less trouble that Medicare, which is poised to explode exponentially in a few years. I have no idea whether private accounts are a good idea or not, and his point about the payroll tax weighing mostly on the poor and middle class is spot on(though I will also add that the income tax pretty much sits on the shoulders of the rich). Krugman is not wrong in all cases(at least not completely wrong), but in his editorials the opinions of other side are always wrong. They're wrong even if they coincide with something he's said earlier. This is not a way to solve problems or find the right public policy, it's just a way to prove you're a hack.

"Cracker" Culture.

2004-11-15T09:34:00.000-05:00

Heh:

"Until those damned Jesus bastards stole my little girl," interrupts her husband, barely containing his anger. Once a Freshman honors student in Lacanian Deconstruction Theory at NYU, their daughter is now better known as Lurleen McDaniel -- reigning Princess of the Tulsa Livestock Show and Rodeo.

"Smack who"

2004-11-12T14:10:00.001-05:00

I'm pretty sure I don't agree with what Fred says here, but you gotta love how he says it:

When you have seen a thousand impassioned sheep waving witless placards at a political rally, you realize that facts don’t matter. Look and feel are everything. Bush and Kerry are both pampered ineffectual rich brats, one a drunk, the other a gigolo. Kerry comes from Massachusetts, though, and you just know he eats curious salads with strange names. By contrast, Bush has a certain ferret-like pugnacity to him and a low-wattage mind that people between the coasts are comfortable with. He isn’t going to use any of them high-falutin’ words, because he honestly doesn’t know them. He won’t confuse anyone.
People in Kansas aren’t stupid--not given the admittedly sorry baseline for humanity. They are intensely local, though, and use their minds for practical things. When it comes to foreign policy they are better on principle than detail. I keep reading that sixty-some percent of Republicans believe that Iraq did New York. (Given what Republicans generally think of New York, I’m not sure why they aren’t grateful.) They know that somebody did something bad to us, and they want to smack the bejesus out of someone for it. That’s principle. “Smack who” is a detail.

Mmmm..... Lemony!

2004-11-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

Around about my birthday, Mike gave me copies of the first 9 Snicket books. I read the first one soon after, but couldn't seem to get started on the second. I finally finished the Reptile Room last week and started on the rest. At the moment, I'm up to the first chapter of Carnivorous Carnival. What I'm wondering is how many books are there supposed to be in the series. I can't really figure it out from the official site. I noticed that each alliterative title is a new letter:

The (B)ad (B)eginning
The (R)eptile (R)oom
The (W)ide (W)indow
The (M)iserable (M)ill
The (A)ustere (A)cadamy
The (E)rsatz (E)levator
The (V)ile (V)illage
The (H)ostile (H)ospital
The (C)arnivorous (C)arnival
The (S)lippery (S)lope
The (G)rim (G)rotto

So, does that mean there are going to be 26 books? Good luck with X!

Happy Belated Birthday...

2004-11-11T11:05:00.000-05:00

...cause I'm a slow jackass and forgot to post yesterday. Happy birthday to Mike and Emily.

Arafat...

2004-11-04T09:10:00.000-05:00

...is supposedly at deaths door. His rocket train to Hell is standing by.

I'm giggling

2004-11-04T08:52:00.000-05:00

This is... an oversimplification, but it's still pretty funny:

Pic from Matt Yglesias' Site.

More Humor

2004-10-25T06:57:00.000-05:00

Funny quote lifted from this post.

“I bet you’ll vote this time, Hippy.”

A tale of two Bushes

2004-10-07T09:09:00.000-05:00

Something that has intrigued me is how similar the two Bush presidencys have been, and yet how different their policies have been.

The Wars
Both bushes have gone to war in Iraq. With Bush I(from here forward referred to as HW), you had a war in Iraq over the invasion of Kuwait. It was a fairly clear territorial war, and you had pretty solid worldwide support for it. Though the U.S., as always, bore the bulk of the military burden, there was plenty of financial and political support from around the world. Also, the war was quick and decisive, though that was mostly because it was about removing Saddam from Kuwait and because there was no occupation of a hostile territory.

With W's Iraq war, you've had two major allies(Great Britain and Australia), and a collection of small supporters. Neither the U.N., nor any other great power has supported it. The U.S. has supported an even greater portion of the burden for this war, and has taken many more casualties. And, we're not getting out in the foreseeable future if the candidates stated positions can be taken at face value.

Foreign Policy
HW had to contend with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the re-unification of Germany, and, as mentioned above, the invasion of Kuwait. I've not read anything about HW screwing up the first two, and I haven't seen any international problems arise from the events. There was also Somalia, but the fit didn't hit the shan until after HW left.

W, doesn't seem to have made many friends out there.

The Economy
HW, faced with mounting deficits. passed a modest tax increase in 1990. Shortly after the war, the country entered a recessesion that lasted approximately 6 months. There was no serious stimulus tried(except, maybe, some interest rate cuts, I'm going from memory here). The economy had just begun to recover when Bush was defeated in 1992. On trade, HW was a fairly aggressive free-trader. He laid the framework for both NAFTA and GATT(Both of which were implemented by Clinton).

W, with a recession much earlier in his term, hit hard and quick with tax cuts. He also had several minor stimulus packages(I think I've gotten a check twice for having a kid, thanks ya'll!). He just recently extended(or made permanent) those same cuts. He has, on trade, been somewhat indifferent. Re-acquiring "Fast-Track" authority, he hasn't used it once that I can recall. He imposed tariffs on steel. I'm pretty sure there have been other small protectionist measures. The current economy continues in a sort of twilight zone where employment and growth look good, but the actual job market is rough, and the stock market is flat.

So....
my big stupid point is that wasn't one of them a good president. In each case, faced with vaguely similar circumstances, the two Bushes did different things. I understand that the circumstances weren't precisely the same, but I think this critique still holds. Is it possible for these two men to be a diametrically opposed in policy as they are, and still both be bad presidents?

One good thing

2004-10-07T09:04:00.000-05:00

One good thing that will come if we are bought out is that I'll no longer have to deal with our IT department. I've never met a group of people so afraid of losing power as these folks. I've also never encountered a company that kept the money-making portion of the business subserviant to it's IT department. Here's a relevant article.

Hello, still alive

2004-10-07T08:59:00.000-05:00

Been working like mad to finish the current program. It's a total rebuild of my LineTool program. It was originally implemented in VB, but I've migrated into VBA. The primary reason for this is that it works much more smoothely with the Excel spreadsheets my coworkers and I work with. Also, I discovered how to port in the various functions I had originally implemented in PERL. These include pinging a website for the user's current worklist, and creating telnet connection to the switch(though I haven't implemented the latter yet). I've got one more order type to port in, and then I've got to do a few days testing to work out the kinks, but I should soon be up and running.

However, none of this may matter. The rumours are flying thick and fast around here that we are being bought out. There is a possibility that we will either be laid off as a group, or moved to some other state. Either which means I'll be out of a job. I'm not thrilled, but I swear I'll try my best to get out of telecom if it happens.

More News

2004-10-01T12:56:00.000-05:00

Sony is canning it's copy protected CDs.

John Lennon's secret FBI files are going to be revealed. Why the Hell did the FBI want to keep files on John Lennon?

Jave 1.5 has been released.

India is going to the moon. If they can really do it for 88 million dollars I'll be stunned

Bigger, Faster

2004-10-01T12:51:00.000-05:00

A new flash memory card has been released. It holds 8 Gigs, and costs a thousand dollars. I wonder when this stuff will get fast enough and cheap enough that we can replace hard disks with them.

Date's of Note

2004-09-27T07:23:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday was Scott's and my Grandmother's birthdays. It was also the 1 year aniversary of Mike discovering he had Type II diabetes.

Yesterday(the 26th) was my 1 year blogoversary.

When You Wish Upon A Star...

2004-09-27T06:59:00.000-05:00

...Put Your Money In Your Car,
Drive it, Drive it, Very Far,
And Give it to Us....</Jiminy Cricket Voice>

Well, we got back safe and sound. And just in time, from the looks of things. We left Friday morning, and it looks like 10 percent of Florida followed on the next day.

First, we have the good stuff. The weather was great. We had, maybe, a couple of small showers, but mostly it was just cloudy. Which means it was cool, which was good. The rooms were very nice(and very expensive) and quite comfortable. The buses to and from the parks came fairly often, and since everyone was afraid of Hurricanes, the parks were almost deserted. All-in-all, it was one of my best trips down there.

Now, we have the bad stuff. Our locks decided to stop working with our keys around Tuesday, and we had to scramble to get one of the custodian guys to get us in. My son got spooked somewhere on the first day, and now he pretty much hates loud noises(except the ones he makes) and all animatronic robots. This made picking attractions with him a pain in the arse, as most of the kiddy stuff still has things like this. We managed to keep him entertained though.

Finally, we have some recommendations. If you're going to go to Disney World, I definitely recommend staying inside the park. There are buses to and from each of the them parks and other attractions. However, try to stay in cheaper rooms than we did. If you go to Universal Studios, make sure you check out the "Spiderman" ride at the Islands of Adventure theme park. It was the only ride we went on there, because we only went in to find spiderman so my son could take a picture with him. However, I thought this ride was great. If you go to Epcot, try the new "Mission Space" ride. It was intense. I don't recommend either of these rides for your kids.

The drive down was uneventful, but the drive back involved major traffic in Valdosta and in Atlanta. In Valdosta, they were working on the roads or something, and they shut it down to one lane. In Atlanta, they apparently had a heck of a wreck somewhere around 400. Fortunately, we caught the news about it in time, and we went up 85 instead. The traffic this way wasn't great, but it wasn't stopped.

Command Line Stuff 1

2004-09-17T12:11:00.000-05:00

Here's a simple Batch file you can create. It will allow you to run excel from the command line if you want. Just type the filename after the command.

Filename:xl.bat
@echo off

rem execute excel
start "No Title" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" %*

The folder OFFICE11 may need to be changed to whatever version you have(or it could be in just plain OFFICE). The important point is to find the path to EXCEL.EXE. The "No Title" is necessary because start has that parameter in the first position, so that if what you call is a command window it can set it's title. Since excel requires no command window, this title will have no effect.

Obviously, you could do word(WINWORD.EXE), access(MSACCESS.EXE), or others.

Comics stuff

2004-09-13T08:21:00.000-05:00

The phrase in the first panel of this Dilbert strip is so true:

My daughter sneezed so the school is sending her home.

I've lost track of the number of colds that have required me to take my son home.

It appears that The Norm is pulling a Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, and ~~Bloom County/Outland~~(Nevermind, now it's Opus, and he's working again) and quitting. Michael Jantz, the Author, cites these reasons:

After eight years of battling the syndicate-newspaper corporations, he felt it was time to move on.

Seriously, Mike, I like the strip, but it isn't that great. I'd stick with making money.

If you're interested, he's asking for donations. If he gets enough money, he'll continue drawing the strip on the web. He ain't gettin' mine.

Finally, I'd like to open up the comments to statements about Opus. It's been out for close to ten months now, and I was wondering what people think of it. Personally, I think it's pretty weak. Not nearly as good as Bloom County or even Outland(which I liked less).

Lucent gets big refund.

2004-09-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

Lucent, my former company, is set to get an 800 million plus refund from the IRS. I'd imagine this will help some.

Carbon Sequestration

2004-09-03T12:53:00.000-05:00

It looks like there has been some development on sequestering CO2 at the power plant. The full story here. I've got Mike's song in my head:

Sequester Lo-ove,
Sequester Lo-ha-ha-ha-ha-hove,
Sequester Love,
I think I'll write a book.

Income Gap

2004-08-26T14:58:00.000-05:00

What do you think: The Widening Income Gap at the Onion:

"What does 'rich' or 'poor' even mean? And before you start, I don't want to hear any of that 'annual household income' nonsense."

"If this keeps up, I might finally be able to hire myself a white maid."

"I realize that, historically, phrases like 'massive redistribution of wealth' are usually accompanied by rivers of blood. That said, it's about time for a massive redistribution of wealth."

More on VOIP

2004-08-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

here. Via slashdot:
...I guess 10 years and all the old wires are gonna start to be taken down.
All I can say is: Thats my job yer talkin' about. So shut up! just shut up!

Possibly as misquote...

2004-08-26T14:00:00.000-05:00

...certainly a misstatement. A quote from Kerry in the Times:

"The truth, which is what elections are all about, is that the tax burden of the middle class has gone up while the tax burden of the middle class has gone down,"

More Solar

2004-08-26T13:58:00.000-05:00

Another promising Solar technology.

Health Care

2004-08-24T09:20:00.000-05:00

A couple of interesting articles on health care by Arnold Kling. He basically makes the point that even a libertarian has to see that a certain amount of insurance regulation is necessary. He advocates for mandatory catastrophic insurance.

Here they are

2004-08-23T19:41:00.000-05:00

I hope you haven't been holding your breath. Here are three photo's from my trip to Cozumel that I promised way back when.

This photo was taken during the ride back into Miami's port.

This is a coral formation on a beach on Cozumel

"When ya'll gonna let me outta here man?"

Bloggerrhea

2004-08-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty good morning for me here. I had a back-log of recent stuff to post on, so I just rammed it out all at once. Anyway, a few more updates, and I'm done for a while.

First, it was Matt's birthday yesterday. He turned five. We had a pretty good party, and I've got photo's that I'll enentually post.

Second, I finally have gotten the pics from the Cruise scanned in. So I'll be posting some of those as well.

Thirdly, I saw Secondhad Lions over the weekend. It was pretty good.

Finally, I fixed the "The Commons" link on my links page.

Adios.

Better Fuel Cells

2004-08-16T10:25:00.000-05:00

Futurepundit links to a report on some tiny fuel cells being developed at the University of Houston.

Compared to the macroscopic size of traditional fuel cells that can take up an entire room, thin film SOFCs are one micron thick – the equivalent of about one-hundredth of a human hair. Putting this into perspective, the size equivalent of four sugar cubes would produce 80 watts – more than enough to operate a laptop computer, eliminating clunky batteries and giving you hours more juice in your laptop. By the same token, approximately two cans' worth of soda would produce more than five kilowatts, enough to power a typical household.

If these fuel cells could be adapted to work with the somewhat impure hydrogen from this process, then you could see an end to fossil fuel use for power in this country. If, of course, all of this could be done cheaply enough.

A more efficient hydrogen producer.

2004-08-16T10:24:00.000-05:00

Here. I'm not a big proponent of hydrogen as a fuel, but any and all clean technologies are welcome.

Spray on Armor...

2004-08-16T10:04:00.000-05:00

...for military vehicles here.