...since 1972!
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I'm with Rat on this topic.
However, my favourite underdo^Wunderpig has a point there, too.
(credits, as always to Stephan Pastis with a big thanks for the dark & nasty & great strip!)
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Spam is good for something, after all. Two things in my case: First it gives me a nice flow of test mails so that I can verify that my servers do work as intended. The second use is that every morning when I get my first cup of coffee, skimming the spam&trash mailbox reminds me of recording my weight, which I check every morning before showering. Usually I have forgotten to write it down by the time I've finished doing my teeth, inserting my eyes, getting the coffee etc.
Ten minutes ago \rho-bert and Anitta left Oz for the last time. "Back to Europe" for them, "back to work" for me. We'll see how soon I cease speaking German because of lack of exercise.
My life, boiled down to the minimum:
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Today I talked to my daughter on the phone. Conny complained about having read stuff on this here website, where I had put one of her recent photos and where I had said something about me hoping that she'd lose her extra weight so that she can enjoy her life (and adolescence) more.
She took exception to that (well-meant!) wish. :-) But, and that's the good news, she also got rid of some of the weight: $conny-=7kg;
Very well done, dear Conny! I'm proud of you (and hope you do enjoy your life...)
In other news, the weather sucks and timing sucks and all of that sucks (on my wallet): I had planned to go to Rainbow Beach from tomorrow until after Easter, for a bit of relaxing beach flying. The forecast says strong wind warnings, rain, and a completely wrong wind direction, so all my friends have bugged out, and I won't drive the 350km either. So far so good, but I'll lose the hefty deposit for the bloody apartment... it hurts to write off $300 in exchange for absolutely nothing. sigh
Brutish Airways recently had someone old kark it in the air. The cabin staff moved the ex-passenger to first class, propped her up in a seat and that's it. Move on, nothing to see.
The article in the Times is pretty hilarious, discussing the "disturbed" snobs in 1st. Come on, what else could they have done? Turn around just because of a stiff in cattle class? "Bomb's away"?
The part I liked best is this:
"After the plane landed, those in first class remained on board for
an hour before police and a coroner gave the all-clear."
Heavenly Justice rules! The rich snobs get to leave last for once!
hehe
As to BA, having body bags on board might have been a Good Idea. And I'd have plonked the dead in a toilet, and locked that, but of course 1st class is almost as good a place to dump a slowly rotting corpse in.
Link to the Times article
A useful maxim for computer stuff and Unix people.
But I can also apply this to wood and plastic! (Yes, I am that sick.)
The under-sink cabinet in my kitchen is cramped: a normal trashbin, a plastic bag dispenser and a bin for recyclables vie for space, not to speak of the water filters and all the other stuff in there.
I'm not just a packrat but also a perfectionist, and it annoys me greatly every time when I must move the recycling bin around so that neither the dispenser nor the other bin knock into it when the doors are closed.
But that's solved now: I've automated the bin adjustment process! And it's a super-low-tech solution too, no electronics required! hehe
The sign lay around left over from the abandoned reception office nearby. The bin is positioned strategically so that everybody entering my office can see it once they're close enough to communicate with me.
Just finished watching "Komm Süsser Tod" on SBS. Strange to see Austrian movies on Australian state television, the Viennese settings, the dialect etc. The subtitles were an especially funny bonus...but likely involuntarily. Some figures of speech are simply untranslatable, and it was very obvious that the subtitles were made by some non-Austrian...translating from one strange language into another very foreign one :-)
...of Things Going Wrong can be found at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's website. Somewhat morose at times, with titles like "Collision with terrain".
I find the investigation reports quite interesting, not just because of me flying paragliders but in general. But then I'm a nerd, always happy to learn something new.
Two weeks ago I refurbished an inherited PC (thanks Richard!) to become my desktop (1.6GHz P4, cd-burner, 64mb Geforce2 but only 256mb RAM). I bought 2x1gb DDR memory modules, with the rationale being that I'd better max the thing today, when this particular kind of memory is actually readily available. Did a quick bit of research as to compatibility, seemed fine. Thought I got a good deal at $170 for a new unopened HP-branded pack (when this seller's other items went for $200+). On insertion the box wouldn't even peep. Surprise, surprise.
I didn't realise at first that I had ordered buffered/registered+ecc rams. It turns out that most PC chipsets only deal with unbuffered/unregistered ram, and that I hadn't done my homework sufficiently well. Some Cursing ensued. The replacement pack cost me $270, because there's once again a shitload of fine print to consider when you buy large memory modules (this time it's "high-density"...I remember SIPP vs. SIMM and FPM vs. EDO, a nd single- vs. double-sided and...all this other PC crap).
So I put the Reg+ECC simms on ebay, hoping to recoup at least some of the loss.
Today the pack sold for $451, the money is already in my account and
the parcel is shipped. 8-]
Do not spray electrical contact cleaner into your T610 mobile, because
depending on where you point the bloody nozzle you will
fuck up the LCD.
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"It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're "NC2", programming subject for a respectable degree. You have a Bozo Code, pay your taxes, and you... help your students produce their garbage. The other life is lived in faculty computers, where you go by the hacker alias "INFT13-334" and are guilty of virtually every programming sin we have a commandment for. One of these subjects has a future, and one of them does not."
Tuesday last week I was told to teach a subject this semester. This semester as in "lectures start on Monday, 11.09."...a whopping four days to prep for a subject I haven't done before; it's also one where the available material is quite lousy. Two different lecturers have taught it before, and one of them...
Back to the trenches, then.
Some articles about an Auckland police woman who's been moonlighting as a prostitute. (Who will not lose her job or anything: prostitution is legal in NZ.) Pretty weird stuff.
but not out the other... Amazing how our brain stores stuff and associates emotions with triggers.
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What a lovely read:
"Emotional balance: The sniper must be able to calmly and deliberately kill targets that may not pose an immediate threat to him. It is much easier to kill in self-defense or in the defense of others than it is to kill without apparent provocation. The sniper must not be susceptible to emotions such as anxiety or remorse."
Source: FM 23-10, US Army Sniper Training Field Manual, page 1-4 on Personnel selection criteria (html or pdf).
An interesting read - if not exactly aligned with any career path ideas I might have...
Apropos big boys and their toys: I now have a new circular saw ($48 for this Chinese GMC-"brand" one) and a dishwasher. The dishwasher is boring but useful, while the saw is exciting and dangerous.
Looks like I won't update this blog anymore. The rest of the site might stay, don't know yet if I want to keep anything at all or not.
Yesterday the christmas gift from my family in .at arrived.
Christmas as in "Christmas 2005".
After a measly 6 months enroute and with the outside paper-and-plastic tube in a battered and fucked up state, but it arrived. From the looks of it, the postal idiots took the 'fragile!' note as an encouragement first to pack a few tons of junk on top of the tube and then to route it via Mars...
...but I make up for it with loads of stubbornness!
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These bastards and these crooks have no conscience, and I have learned a lesson.
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One up, one down, one up, one down. The weather cleared up by about 1530, but I was too busy then to rush to the hills.
Drove to the shops for some more wood, woodworking tools and beer and vodka; I noted some odd piece of bent broken metal lying on the car floor near the pedals. On further inspection it looks like a piece of spring steel belonging to a large-diameter bushing or something like that....Ha, I'm pretty sure that's the reason why the steering doesn't lock up anymore, very good...guess I drove about 2000km with the occasional Hhhummmph!-moment when you suddenly needed all your upper arm strenght to turn the fucking wheel, so knowing that the problem is...well, gone - counts as an up. (it's not just my car that's slightly bent.)
One the way back I noted that the odometer is frozen; must have been so at least since yesterday when I reset it after refuelling. Sweet! No more need for services and oil changes as it'll always be at 258504km! giggle (it's not just my car that's slightly bent.)
Time: Saturday. Weather: some drizzle, clouds, occasional patches of sun which
have increased over the last half an hour.
I didn't go flying; Rob and others had a quick wet sleddie last I heard.
Instead I rediscovered how sweet sounding (and full of grace) ancient analog
audio gear can be.
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How to make perfectionists like me happy: I found a sharpening stone in a thrift shop today ($2), and already happily honed all my dull kitchen knives to new sharp splendor.
Horracle buys Sleepycat.
"In fact, 100% of Sleepycat's employees are expected to transition to Oracle, so we retain all our deep technical expertise and community relationships."
Yeah, right. R.I.P., dear cat.
"Yet year after year, it's the same routine
And I grow so weary of the sound of screams"
says Jack Skellington in one of my most loved movies, The Nightmare before Christmas, but I don't.
This gal is soon to discover that it is not safe to inline-link to pictures on my server without asking me (as another spaced girlie had to learn recently). Maybe the same old same old will help...
To say it with Jack's words:
"That's all right. I have a special present for you anyway. There you go sonny. Hohohohehehe!"
