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| Monday, June 29th, 2009 | | 5:23 pm |
Pavlov would be so proud
The nearest bathroom to my desk at work also doubles as the men's locker/shower room. For 8.5 years it had a badge reader to access the outer door (my work is more secure than Fort Knox; I'm not sure why...). Around the first of the year they removed the badge reader, so one no longer has to badge in to pee. I used to think these were to enforce gender access, but was able to let Zoe into the lady's locker room (to my great surprise!) shortly before they were removed. I was left stymied to their purpose in the first place after that. So tell me, when, when will the "must hear the beep before you get to pee" conditioning wear off? Each time I head for the head, I still reach for my badge... Stop brain, stop. | | Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | | 11:55 am |
Movie Recomendation - The King of Kong
We had some friends recommend this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923752/I never thought going in, that I would give a damn who had the high score at Donkey Kong, but by the end I really do care (and find the current high scorer to be a very special sort of asshat). Also gets bonus points for giving me warm fuzzy flashbacks of time spent at Funspot in NH. I had to chuckle thinking that back when I played these "Classic" arcade games, they were just "Arcade Games". Totally watch it, we got it on netflix. Could his wive's boobs be any faker? | | Monday, June 1st, 2009 | | 12:33 pm |
| | Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 | | 4:34 pm |
Why does the business world try to co-opt the acronym S&M (sales and marketing) and NOT expect me to chuckle under my breath when it's used in a meeting. That term is uhm... taken! Reminds me how in my storage world niche vendors started using DP (dual parity). I also don't think of disk drives when I hear DP. | | Monday, March 16th, 2009 | | 2:59 pm |
Local post office does good
While at the postoffice this morning I learned about a neat new thing. They now offer an "atm" style kiosk for sending packages and letters that is open 24/7. Need to send a package at 3AM (as freaks often do...)? Now you actually can. It allowed for packages, letters, return receipt etc. http://www.lunewsviews.com/apc.htmIt's a rare day when technology is actually used for something new and interesting. | | Sunday, March 15th, 2009 | | 7:10 pm |
doh!
I can't believe it. I just made the most rookie UNIX mistake ever. After 20+ odd years use of UNIX use, I did what any book will say on page one paragraph one, NOT to do: #rm -rf mv BUFFYS4D3.iso ../Buffy/ (translation: intended action, move my latest Buffy DVD ISO into my Buffy folder / actual action, try remove a non-existent file called mv [the move command] and remove my entire collection of Buffy DVDs) I'm mortified with shame, someone revoke my *NIX license... XFS seems particularly unforgiving in this situation. Current Music: Tool - Parabola | Powered by Last.fm | | Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 | | 6:17 pm |
I *Heart* luscious garage
I've been going to the same mechanic for years ( On Track Automotive - Burlingame, CA ; Still a great garage) but having adopted a hybrid, I needed / wanted a place that specializes in them. It turns out a really great one was started in SF. www.lusciousgarage.com/ I emailed them to say "Hey your prices seem similar to the dealer, why should I go with you?" unfortunately they did not get back to me (she apologized for that). We ended up taking the car to the dealer for regular major service. In addition to the routine stuff, the dealer found some additional things that required immediate attention, and recommended some things that sounded like dealer shenanigans to me (600 in valve inspection work when the car is running fine otherwise anyone?). This lead me back to LG, I called and got the owner on the phone (A woman!) and we were really impressed with the depth of her knowledge, and that she offered to do 15% or more better than the dealer on cost. It was a unique experience, the shop was very clean and modern, run all electronically on a mac (bonus points for custom opensource ruby on rails software), and as I mentioned, women, running a garage! They did a great job, and came in with 15%+ off. They also had an all electric conversion they were doing in the shop My initial impression was so great that I piped up that I had a beater pickup outside, that was also long overdue for some mechanical lovin. Most notablly one belt had chunks missing and threads comming out. I asked her if she would be interested in fixing that, or did they only work on hybrids? She responded that they primarilly work on hybrids, but in this economy "paying customers were gladly accepted". She checked out the belt, and said the belt would be 7, and labor would be around $30. I was again impressed that she calculated out how long it would really take and charged based on that, and not "well I have to do this 5 minute thing, and we charge $120 an hour, so $120.." I came back later and they were ready to change the belt. I asked if it was ok if I watched what they did, and he (she employs a guy, and the most sterotypical greasmonkey lesbian looking type ever) said sure. I'm more used to most garages being too paranoid at insurance risk to really allow you in the shop. He changed the belt, and was extemely patient in answering my questions and showing me what he was doing. We ended up going thru the underbody of the truck head to toe and comming up with a list of everything it needs. He also figured out that the long standing "mystery sound" the truck has is a bad speedometer cable. It felt really good to go thu that. The truck is a total beater, but they just don't make mini-trucks anymore. Ford sells a current 2.4L engine pickup, but it has one of those redicously short beds. If you want any sort of bed you have to get a much bigger engine, and fuel econmy goes out the window. Only the hybrids have an equal gas millage to this 89 (shame). After going thru it all, he said he would give me an estimate on all the things we went over on Tuesday, which he did. The prices seem very reasonabe to me. Which leads me to the best part. In my responce, I asked if it would be possible for me to do the work myself while being supervied / told what to do. He agreed to that. I've been wanting to find essentially high school autoshop for adults for years. I have a fair bit of mechanical ability, but not much practical experience working on cars. This combo leads me feeling frustrated at paying for car repair, b/c I feel alternatively like "I could do that" and "replacing the seals on my engine sounds scary". So if your car needs repair, I'd say go talk to them, and support a fledgeling local business run by cool freak/burner types. | | Friday, January 16th, 2009 | | 12:03 pm |
| | Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 | | 4:22 pm |
| | Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 | | 12:58 pm |
This story has been going around in geek circles. It's truly absurd. If you like monsters and don't think they should be limited to looking like overpriced cables; read on. http://monsterminigolf.com/bully.htmlThis of course assumes you won't confuse copper wire with playing mini golf without the Monster Cable corporation's help. | | Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | | 8:03 pm |
| | 3:16 pm |
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/04/financial/f141442S01.DTL&tsp=1Exciting! You know how wireless generally sucks? That's b/c we've had to use crazy schemes to battle the basic laws of physics that mean the frequencies wireless networks have been using thus far don't work well over varied terrain or thru common building materials, these frequencies do. Though I am sure some people will get plenty rich off this, it hopefully should mean greatly improve wireless internets. | | Monday, November 3rd, 2008 | | 11:49 am |
| | Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 | | 6:54 pm |
| | Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | | 10:39 am |
A new low in selling out - custom lyrics -
I was listening to the radio recently (country; I've been listening to more of that than anything else for the last year and a half or so). At one point in the song there is a lyric of "turn the KTOM uuuup." I was sort of surprised, as KTOM is a radio station that tends to cut out on the peninsula side when you go over 17. That said, this is a pretty typical country song who's lyrics are about life in the south. This left me confused. Come to find out, this song, and many others are being customized per station. If you listen to the same song on another station the lyric reflects THAT station. It's all just feelgood b/s to advertise the station and make you relate to it more. I wonder if it's even the original artist singing, if the station has legal permission, how much someone gets paid, etc. Any links on the topic would be interesting. | | Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 | | 3:19 pm |
| | Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 | | 12:59 pm |
for the record
Main St. was renamed Walmart Way a couple of years back, and if I hear that term once more I'm going postal. k, thx bye | | Friday, September 19th, 2008 | | 10:17 am |
A brilliant idea for $10
I did it! You should too! "And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in handing $10 to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin's name and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement." Stolen from various people: Instead of (in addition to?) us all sending around more emails about how horrible Palin is, let’s all make a donation to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin’s name. And here’s the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website: https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000_inhonorYou’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is: McCain for President 1235 S. Clark Street 1st Floor Arlington , VA 22202 PS make sure you use that link above or choose the pulldown of Donate--Honorary or Memorial Donations, not the regular “Donate Online” | | Thursday, September 18th, 2008 | | 11:10 am |
Job opening - Sr Windows SysAdmin
My team at work has had an opening come up (job hopper is leaving after only seven years): Sr. Windows SysAdmin ++ For Backup/Netbackup knowledge + For Storage System knowledge + For Linux knowledge Know Anyone? | | Friday, September 12th, 2008 | | 11:44 am |
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