Something Random

[Bozo]

I post from work and home. The huge amount of knowledge and talent here ( on all subjects) has helped me emensly.

Bozo :joker:

 

[LunarMist]

udaman is not consistently relevant; but such is the way of the "something random" thread

Yeah, that's about right.

 

[Bozo]

OK, weel I dont undersatnd the revelance of half of that.

You actually read his post????

Bozo :joker:

 

[timwhit]

Where is everyone today?

 

[LOST6200]

I'm here, surrojnded by the piles o hard drives./

 

[ddrueding]

working/eating

 

[Chewy509]

Where is everyone today?

Refreshing this page 40x times a minute.... :joker:

Sorry, building new servers... I've got 8x SBS boxes to build over the next week.

 

[Handruin]

Working late, and then building a new system all last night. Now I'm back at work waiting for something to install. Tonight I'll continue working on the new system after I check to see if prime95 ran ok since last night during the stress test.

I'm impressed with how quiet the machine is. I bought one of the newer AMD X2 5000+ 65watt chips with the sonata 3 case. The loudest thing in there is the 500GB Seagate drive, but that drive is pretty fast.

 

[Mercutio]

Where is everyone today?

I've had an uptick in how much teaching I've been having to do. Less time at desk.

Random thing:
I went to eat at the Chicken Wings place down the road from my apartment on Saturday, and there was a guy there who had a bear in a cage being towed behind his truck.

He wasn't quite a cub, but he was little, only 250lbs.

The bear acted like a big puppy. He had a 5 gallon bucket to play with and he liked having his back scratched. He made happy bear noises.

Unfortunately, the camera in my phone sucks, or I'd have pictures of the bear.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Refreshing this page 40x times a minute.... :joker:

Sorry, building new servers... I've got 8x SBS boxes to build over the next week.

Helping build a cluster of 30 machines. Red Hat makes it easy, have a kickstart image on the head node, just set each compute node to boot from network and it will build itself, then just have to set it back to boot from local disk when it reboots.

 

[mubs]

... and there was a guy there who had a bear in a cage being towed behind his truck.

Is that legal? Poor bear, being carted around like that.

 

[ddrueding]

Is that legal? Poor bear, being carted around like that.

It does require a permit, but it can be legal. And I wouldn't say "poor bear" until I knew more about the circumstances. There are a number of situations where the cub cannot be released back into the wild.

 

[Clocker]

http://www.baynhamtyers.com/contraptionII.html

 

[Bozo]

Cool.
Reminds me af game that was out years ago called Mouse Trap.

Bozo :joker:

 

[ddrueding]

Had to work at one of my old clients. They run the oldest hardware that I currently support. Pentium-S 120Mhz systems running a DOS version of Great Plains on Win95 networked with IPX/SPX. I just used my last ISA network card to replace a faulty one. Looks like I'll be installing Via EPIA boxes as replacement workstations.

 

[LOST6200]

http://www.baynhamtyers.com/contraptionII.html

Rube Goldboerg would be produ of theat one!1

 

[udaman]

Because my pecker is only yea big, because I earn more $$$...

So LA, so superficial/artificial/self-absorbed/shallow...I love these Vdub ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18Bpy4EvivI

hilarious parody of disclaimer note : "Closed course. Do not throw megaphones or metaphores out your window" lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asOFerBTIFI
"the world has lost it's mind"
"The Volkswagon Passat. Lowest Ego Emissions of any sedan"


(oops, on that other rant post, Rupert & Google/Utub = interchangeable ).

Does anyone understand this one though?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXOrbo6DX9U

 

[udaman]

Oops, I got the short version of the 2nd VW "low ego emission" ads by mistake. the full version here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kePNaRLTIvs


this one in the series is good too:
The Honk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNsdRDrZwBM

"Open your window stupid"...just like a woman to be impatient, and press the horn button; while the guy is the driver who will end up getting the blame .

 

[LOST6200]

So you reads adverts in spare time? I ususualy skip thourg them in fast playback.

 

[jtr1962]

My uncle (my dad's brother) passed away October 4. I went to the funeral yesterday. He was only 69. Too many people dying young lately, and not just in the family. Ironic that the two brothers died only 18 months apart. Online obituary in case anyone is interested.

 

[ddrueding]

69 is young? That beats anyone in my family's history (both sides!).

A friend's mother died list week at 58.

My condolences to you and your family, but what exactly were you hoping for?

 

[jtr1962]

69 is young? That beats anyone in my family's history (both sides!).

A friend's mother died list week at 58.

My condolences to you and your family, but what exactly were you hoping for?

We were hoping the cancer would go into remission as it had a few years ago. No such luck. My uncle was a heavy smoker, so little doubt that was a strong contibuting factor.

My condolences to your friend. 58 is really, really way too young to die.

BTW, I said young because in my family, especially on my mom's side, the people who don't take particularly good care of themselves usually make it to their mid-70s to early 80s. Those who do live longer. One of my great-great grandmothers on my mother's side made it to 102 years, 8 months. My maternal grandfather's sister (I guess that would be my great aunt) was a few months short of 100. Lots of others making it into their 90s. In this context, 69 is still a relative youngster. On my father's side, it seems the men especially tend to not live long on account of abusing their bodies, not any other reason. My dad also smoked but quit when he had his first heart attack in 1989. However, he continued his poor eating habits. Still, given that his mother made it to 87 despite similar eating habits, and being morbidly obese since her 30s, we had hoped her two sons would at least make it into their 80s. I guess their bodies couldn't take the abuse as well as their mother's could.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it really bothers me when people die of something unrelated to aging, such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, drug abuse, alcoholism, car accident, whatever, rather than the multiple organ failure which typically occurs at 100 to 115 years of age. Death is tragic no matter when it occurs, but it really hurts when it happens to someone like my uncle or my dad who might have had another 20 or 30 years had they taken better care of themselves. Why the heck couldn't they listen to the advice everyone was giving them?

Too much death in the family lately, not just the people, either. My sister's cat Ringo died in July, our eldest cat Lucky died in June just a few months short of 20, and most tragically Cleo, my brother's cat and the cat in my avatar, died March 6, possibly of tainted cat food. She was only about 13, and she seemed perfectly healthy a week before. I was totally in shock when it happened.

 

[ddrueding]

I've never considered age a good metric for having a good life. When my grandfather was in his late fifties, he had a heart attack. The doctor told him to stop having his steak, eggs, and bacon for breakfast. He thanked the doctor for the advice and continued to do what he wanted. He wasn't fat, and he walked several miles each day (hiking in the hills). He did this for another 4 years before dying of something completely unrelated. I applaud him for living the life he wanted and not making it less fun while trying to eek out some more time. Make the most of what you have and go whenever.

What you've seen, what you've learned, and whom you've helped are the best measures, IMHO.

 

[LOST6200]

I've never considered age a good metric for having a good life.

Defintaivekly! Por examplar, if somone has a poor quality of life in teir 50s, what is the point of living all to way to sufeer in the 80s+? Espsicailly that may the effects epople with low financial and familial supprots.

 

[ddrueding]

Everyone in my family have already put on record a list of 10 things, where if we are unableto do half of them, we want to be put down. Mine includes recognizing family members, getting outside, using the bathroom unassisted, etc.

 

[jtr1962]

I've never considered age a good metric for having a good life.

I'll agree quality of life is more important than age but nothing worse than working your whole life, then not having much of a retirement because you die fairly young. My uncle was only retired a few years. Because he got sick, they weren't as good years as they could have been. Even my dad, who retired about 4 months short of 60, had less than 12 years of retirement. His quality of life wasn't that great on account of his weight and poor diet. IMHO the taste of food in your mouth isn't worth it if it kills you early. When you die young it's those you leave behind who suffer the most. If me or my brother ever got married our father wouldn't be there to see it. Considering that it was mostly crappy food like bacon, sausage, twinkies, hot dogs, etc. which ruined my father's health, I don't see how it was worth it. I'm personally going for quality and quantity of life. No matter how good my life might be, or what I do, I want to live to see all the fascinating advances which will occur in the coming years. I want to see us go to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, perhaps even the nearest stars. I want to see an end to war. I want to see us finally become good stewards of the earth. I'm aiming to make it at least to the 22 century. Hopefully taking care of myself combined with some advances in medicine will make this possible. I feel the day will come when people regularly live to 150 or beyond, perhaps even not die at all. I'd like to be around to see it.

Defintaivekly! Por examplar, if somone has a poor quality of life in teir 50s, what is the point of living all to way to sufeer in the 80s+? Espsicailly that may the effects epople with low financial and familial supprots.

Most of my family functions just fine until they're close to dying. My other uncle is 80. He still walks 3 miles a day. He had an operation for an aortal aneurism not long ago. That could have killed him prematurely but thankfully they picked it up. One of my great aunts (maternal grandmother's sister) was tending tomatoes in her garden at 90. Almost all these people had all their mental faculties right up to the end. I think my other great aunt (the one who made it to 99) was a little dotty the last few years but what do you expect? Given what we know about health, there's no reason most people can't lead healthy, productive lives well into their 80s at least, if not beyond.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm definatly not waiting until I'm older to "retire"; counting on a big payoff later sounds like a good way to get ripped off. I already take a 3-6 month vacation every 3-5 years, and try to take 4-10 day vacations every couple months. Seeing the world one bit at a time, and not being worried about when I go.

 

[mubs]

jtr, my condolences.

 

[mubs]

The more I hear him the more I like this rogue fella called DD and his ideas :-D

 

[jtr1962]

I'm definatly not waiting until I'm older to "retire"; counting on a big payoff later sounds like a good way to get ripped off. I already take a 3-6 month vacation every 3-5 years, and try to take 4-10 day vacations every couple months. Seeing the world one bit at a time, and not being worried about when I go.

You're lucky to have a lifestyle where you can do this. A lot of people are stuck in 9-to-5 jobs for whatever reason, and at most get a week or two off a year. The last time I worked for someone else we didn't even get vacations, either paid or unpaid. You got fired even if you were sick for more than a few days. I've known people like my mother's father who have worked 50+ years and never had anything except weekends off. He even worked 6 days a week for a good portion of his life.

Right now I occasionally have time in between projects to do stuff like you mentioned but no extra money. Trips to Manhattan or long bike rides will have to do for now. It'll probably take me until I'm 80 to accumulate enough money to both retire and have a little extra. That's why I hope I live long and have my health. It really pisses me off when I see people like Britney Spears who are set for life at 25, and all they can think to do is get high. If she doesn't know what to do with her money she should send it to me. At least it'll make a bunch of people, including myself, a whole lot happier.

 

[Fushigi]

(Late post. This is from Friday, 10/5)

On this day in 1991, the first official version of the Linux kernel, version 0.02, was released. In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. In 1973, the European Patent Convention was signed. In 1970, PBS became a television network. In 1969, Monty Python's Flying Circus aired its first episode on the BBC. Also in the UK, in 1962, this date saw the release of the first James Bond movie and first single by The Beatles. And in 1905, Wilbur Wright piloted Wright Flyer III 24 miles in 39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908. Happy Birthday Nicky Hilton (1983), Kate Winslet (1975), Mario Lemieux and Patrick Roy (1965), Michael Andretti (1962), Daniel Baldwin (1960), Bernie Mac (1958 ), Karen Allen (1951), Steve Miller (1943), Donald Pleasence (1919) and Ray Kroc (1902). RIP Rodney Dangerfield (d. 2004).

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
- Carl Sagan

 

[ddrueding]

My lifestyle is definatly a choice, my income is perhaps 25% of what it could be were I to "apply myself" as I used to. Many people may feel forced to work insane hours, but I suspect that most of it is self-imposed. These vacations I speak of are not granted; they are either endured by my employers/clients, or I quit. I consider them more mandatory than the job.

 

[udaman]

(Late post. This is from Friday, 10/5)

On this day in 1991, the first official version of the Linux kernel, version 0.02, was released. In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. In 1973, the European Patent Convention was signed. In 1970, PBS became a television network. In 1969, Monty Python's Flying Circus aired its first episode on the BBC. Also in the UK, in 1962, this date saw the release of the first James Bond movie and first single by The Beatles. And in 1905, Wilbur Wright piloted Wright Flyer III 24 miles in 39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908. Happy Birthday Nicky Hilton (1983), Kate Winslet (1975), Mario Lemieux and Patrick Roy (1965), Michael Andretti (1962), Daniel Baldwin (1960), Bernie Mac (1958 ), Karen Allen (1951), Steve Miller (1943), Donald Pleasence (1919) and Ray Kroc (1902). RIP Rodney Dangerfield (d. 2004).

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
- Carl Sagan

You know, I just read about Sagan's daughter, and how she said he was a big time pot smoker....Hmmm?

My lifestyle is definatly a choice, my income is perhaps 25% of what it could be were I to "apply myself" as I used to. Many people may feel forced to work insane hours, but I suspect that most of it is self-imposed. These vacations I speak of are not granted; they are either endured by my employers/clients, or I quit. I consider them more mandatory than the job.

But DD is mainly a consultant in a independent contractor type of employment scenario, where this is much easier to be had. Those who are on steady jobs, or do not have the ease of finding more work in the same capacity (references will kill you unless you are friends with a contingency fee lawyer who will file lawsuits against your former employers for negative job references...scumbag lawyers for the most part), you can't get away with those kinds of demands, as jtr points out. Count yourself lucky to be able to be self-employed and have a desirable in demand skill.

 

[Mercutio]

It is October and my little part of the world just had four successive days of 90 degree temperatures.

Stupid weather.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, in the spirit of Halloween, Things to Do if I Ever Become a Vampire.

I like the parts about concubines.

 

[mubs]

It's hot in S. CA too.

 

[ddrueding]

A little cold here, actually. 9:30AM and 57F. Supposed to hit 70F, though.

 

[paugie]

More on the weather . . .

You may have heard of the recently concluded boxing match between our Manny 'Pacman' Pacquiao and the Mexican Barrera last Sunday. Sugar Ray Leonard was interviewed as part of the hype leading to the match. This is part of the article:

Anyway, Sugar Ray had to be warned, in return, that he might not find time to enjoy his projected trip to the Philippines.

“Look at these fans now all monkeying on your back?”

“What about?” he asked again.

“There would be millions of them all over there.”

“No problem, I’d love it that way, but did you say there’s no winter out there?”

“No, but we have the finest summers in the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have the greatest sea resorts, corals, unforgettable days in the sun, endless white-sand beaches, some smooth as talcum powder.”

“Oh, shucks. Forget it.”

End of conversation.

 

[Fushigi]

On this day in 2005, Shenzhou 6, the second Chinese human spaceflight, launched into a 5-day orbit. In 1999, the proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world was born. In 1988, NeXT launched its first public debut of the NeXT Computer at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California. In 1928, an iron lung respirator was used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston. And in 1823, Charles Macintosh of Scotland sold the first raincoat. Happy Birthday Kirk Cameron (1970), Adam Rich and Hugh Jackman (1968 ), Sally Ride (1951), Susan Anton (1950) and Luciano Pavarotti (1935). RIP Willie Shoemaker (d. 2003), Wilt Chamberlain (1999), John Denver (1997), Tom Mix (1940) and Robert E. Lee (1870).

"I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere."
- Unknown

 

[Mercutio]

My thought for the day:

I went to Walmart today, and I realized that I cannot in fact be a bad-looking guy, because I am positive I was the best looking person in the building for as long as I was there.